Belle Isle to start 2024

Bird of the morning:  Hooded Merganser.  I think I eBirded 78, and that may be a slight undercount.

A walk around the nature trail, now called the the Iron Belle (?) trail, was eerily quiet.  I saw one American goldfinch and a pair of mallards and heard one downy woodpecker.  This means no seen woodpeckers, no blue jays, no cardinals and no robins.  

I put a (?) following Iron Belle because I have absolutely no idea where that name comes from.  Maybe it has to do with being an industrial city park?

These signposts are new since my last visit and are spread all along the trail.  The red one on the bottom - No Bikes.  I couldn't believe, but was so happy, to see it.  Long overdue.  I'm sure people will still sneak their bikes on, but at least now something can be said.  I have had so many close shaves with cyclists on the trail.  Looking up with bins and suddenly hear, "ON YOUR LEFT; ON YOUR LEFT".  That kind of shouting really startles.  All those bike lanes all around the park and they had to ride on the nature trail.  No more - at least not legally.

Belle Isle has been under construction since at least 2017.  As I watched the birds and other wildlife disappear, I was highly critical.  However, it appears that they have enlarged wildlife habitat and it seems that much of it will be inaccessible to the casual visitor.  That's a good change.  Hopefully the birds and other wildlife will return. 

During my last visit the muddy area beyond the yellow pole (another addition to the entrances of the nature trail) was full of construction debris.  It has all been removed and is now neatly plowed over.

This piece remained behind hidden in the grass at the edge of the trail.  I thought there could be a good chance it would remain there for the rest of its natural life.  I tested the weight and found that it was not too heavy.  So I pulled it out of the grass and dragged it to lean against a nearby utility pole.  Will see if it's still there when I next visit.  I think it will be.

Mallards

This might be the beaver den.  I have never seen it look like this but I can't think what else it could be.

The second bridge is gone.

The main bridge is unchanged.

Blue Jay

Canada Geese in the softball fields.

Hooded merganser is such an attractive bird.

The starlings were driving into the trash can and popping out again.

Above and below: Ring-billed gull

Female hooded merg.

The botanical gardens glasshouse is completely covered with some kind of protective scaffolding.  It appears to be more for protection - perhaps for cleaning and repair.  This will be beautiful when completed.

I drove all around the park and, for the first time since 2017, I did not see one piece of earth-moving or other construction machinery.  With the car race now run elsewhere for the first time is so many years we may finally have our jewel of a park returned to visitors.  On this cold January morning there were quite a few visitors.  A great place to get outdoors on New Year's Day.

$20 bucks, two birds

I had to really talk myself into going.  The birds were being reported daily on the eBird alerts.  Then, last Wednesday, the morning came bright and sunny and I didn't have anything pressing to do.  Okay, this is the day.

The first problem, even on a quiet Wednesday morning with not much going on - no easily found parking.  The Zone parking can be tricky because of the machines.  I found a spot in Zone 106, but the machine didn't work.  I had already paid one parking ticket this past summer because I operated the machine incorrectly.  Every structure was un-manned with a giant QR code to scan.  Really?  I don't know about anyone else, but I've seen enough QR codes to last me the rest of my life.

Finally, I found a lot on Layafette Street with a real live man operating it and to whom I could pay $20 for a full day - even though I didn't need a full day.  But that allowed me to relax and even have lunch afterwards.  

I did a quick loop around Campus Martius.  Nothing.  The ovenbird had also been reported at Cadillac Square park so I walked across the street. Almost immediately, I found the tiny Lincoln's Sparrow (Melospiza lincolnii), hanging out with house sparrows along Cadillac Square St. It was so much smaller than the house sparrows, it would have been hard to miss.  It was chasing the house sparrows around trying to steal the bread they found.  I wish the photo above was in focus.   

Here it is in the middle of the road where it found its own crumbs to nibble.

With the house sparrow hoarding its bread.

The Lincoln Sparrow appeared to be a plump little thing, especially considering how out of habitat it was and the time of year - not many seeds or bugs on those wood chips.

Along the curbside.

Next came the Ovenbird.  I carefully walked around Campus Martius again seeing only house sparrows and not even many of those.  I noticed a grassy and weedy boulevard just south of Campus Martius.  I crossed the street at a zebra crossing and slowly walked the path through the middle of the green space.  I wasn't seeing any birds.  Then, suddenly, I saw a small bird with tail cocked move into a clump of bushes.  The Ovenbird (Seiurus aurocapilla)!  

All of my photos from the morning were poor.  I deleted well over half of those I took of each bird.  I wasn't expecting to take beautiful photos.  Neither bird was in that kind of habitat.  Mostly the photos were for documentation.  Lincoln's Sparrow is one of my favorite migrant sparrows; so elegant appearing with its dainty streaking.  Ovenbirds are always special.  A birding acquaintance from many years ago used to give a talk on urban birding.  Not uncommonly an Overbird becomes stranded in downtown Detroit each autumn.     

I stopped for lunch at Layafette Coney Island and when I got back to the parking lot, I told the attendant that my $20 was well worth it.  He looked at me a little weirdly and seemed amused; of course he did, a lady carrying a clunky camera and binoculars.  Please.

Hoping to see a murmuration

My cousin sent me this video.  This autumn I seem to be seeing a larger number of European Starlings amassing that I recall seeing in recent prior autumns.  Of course, I am hoping that a murmuration occurs.  So far, no luck. 

“It’s the season I often mistake / Birds for leaves, and leaves for birds,” the U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón writes of autumn. In fall, a flocking movement in the sky, or in the trees, can mean either kind of marvelous flying thing.

From Love Letter to a Season I Never Loved When I Was Young, Margaret Renkl, New York Times, December 4, 2023.

Least Bittern in November

I took my first series of photos of the well-seen November Least Bittern that were marginally better, but the date was wrong on my camera (defaults to January 1, 2017).  Fixed that and took these marginal second series of photos.  

I don't know the best explanation for why a Least Bittern would be on the edges of Lake Erie in November.  Delayed?  Misdirected during southward migration?  Lost?  

I sort of like the delayed cause since we have had, by and large, a very mild autumnal season and Least Bittern is a nesting bird in the area.   Secondary to climate charge, we know that some bird species are moving northward slowly; why not the corollary explanation for autumnal movement southward?

Random additional photos from Maryland's Eastern Shore

I've am working on some other projects and keep coming across photos that I did not add earlier.  My visit was in the beginning of October so this is much overdue.

Now that the weather has become cold, rainy and even snowy where I live, it is really nice to remember the fabulous weather on the Eastern Shore during the first week in October.  Just a week prior to my visit Hurricane Ophelia had passed right over Ocean City.  

 

There were many, many large flocks of Sanderlings (Calidris alba).

But I saw only one Semipalmated Sandpiper (Calidris pusilla).

I had forgotten about Black Skimmers (Rynchops niger) being on the Eastern Shore.  From the Ocean City boardwalk I noticed a cluster of funny shaped black birds and am glad I trudged over the sand to see them.  

For sure, the birds out on this spit of sand were far away.  The photos are heavily cropped.  Still, I am going to go out on a limb and guess that the tern in the left of the photo is a Royal Tern (Thalasseus maximus).

A distant, and only slightly better, photo of a different Royal Tern.  Here with Laughing Gull and a shadowy gull, possibly Herring.

One of my target birds for the trip was American Oystercatcher (Haematopus palliatus).  Far away, but I still saw them.  There were four.

Wild pony of Assateague

Northern Mockingbird (Mimus polygottos) - this is a bird name that will never require changing.  The one above was in the dunes on Assateague Island, the one below was on a treetop in an Ocean City residential neighborhood.  

I would say that Great Black-backed Gulls (Larus marinus) above, along with Laughing Gulls (Leucophaeus atricilla) below, were the most common gulls in this part of the Eastern Shore. 

Which gull is this?

Where is Amar Ayyash when I need him?  The only identification that makes sense to me is Lesser Black-backed Gull (Larus fuscus).  The bright yellow legs and the large, orange gonydeal spot make it my best guess.