Get your own Free Home PageDuring the Thanksgiving holidays, Tom and I were able to enjoy a
little birding, though not as much as we would have liked!
On the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, we traveled out to the Dahlem
Environmental Center in Jackson. Dahlem is a great educational
environmental place with over 300 acres and hiking trails to enjoy.
There is a gift shop with an observation room that we particularly
like to frequent. The observation room has various displays of the
different wildlife one might see on the acreage during the
particular season, as well as a large observation area that allows
one to view the birds, squirrels, chipmunks, etc. On that
particular Tuesday, we were able to finally see the dark eyed junco,
as well as our favorite bird species, the woodpecker, which in this
case was a downy woodpecker, as well as nuthatches and chickadees.
The dark eyed junco are abundant winter visitors to the Michigan
region, and have typically been called "snowbirds". Their departure
in the spring goes virtually unnoticed, because of the excitement of
newly arriving migrants. I found them exciting because they seem to
be a "friendly" addition to the backyard feeder. After spending
some time in the observation room, Tom and I trekked out to the
stream that runs through the center property, thinking that it was
late in the afternoon, perhaps we would see some birds making ready
for nightfall. At one of the feeding stations along the trail, we
stopped and heard some birding activity, though we weren't able to
identify the birds. However, Tom very quickly and with much
authority and certainty, looked above and stated, Evening
Grosbeak!! I guess he thought I was still falling for the "Common
Loon" comment from our earlier birding adventure. Uh huh!! As we
were standing on the bridge near the pond, we did see a large bird
in flight, and though we weren't able to identify it exactly, both
of us feel like it was a ring necked pheasant. On the return to the
parking lot, we did hear and see quite a few canada geese.
During the holiday visit, we were greeted daily with woodpeckers at
Tom's backyard feeder, seeing the downy, the hairy and the red-
bellied. One day, we were able to view all three! His backyard
feeder also brought plenty of squirrels, the darn little pests!!
We took Lindsay to the Detroit Science Center one day and on our way
back stopped in Dearborn at the River Rouge Bird Observatory. The
River Rouge Bird Observatory is a donor funded program operated at
the University of Michigan at Dearborn. Their primary focus is to
better understand migratory stopover sites. A very interesting
place, and though we got there just minutes before they closed, we
knew that we had to add it to our list of places we must visit.
They have a large observation room....and I think that's my idea of
birding during the winter in Michigan!!!
The last day of my holiday visit, we made our way out to Lake Erie
Metropark, located obviously, on Lake Erie. It was a very quiet
day, snow everywhere, and very few people in the park (which is what
we have come to really enjoy!!). This park is one of the premier
hawk watching sites in North America...which I find very exciting!
I have always been amazed and intrigued by hawks and their strength
and splendor, and next to woodpeckers, they are my very favorites.
We sat in the car and watched hundreds, if not thousands of birds in
flight across the water...which were later identified to us by one
of the naturalists as probably some type of merganser duck. We saw
many tundra swans, which were quite beautiful and stately. In the
area where we parked, there were some starlings that were singing up
a storm! It was interesting watching them and listening to their
various calls, which seem to mimic other birds.
As we were driving into the park, I noticed nests in many of the
trees, and at one point, I noticed at the top of one tree, something
that appeared to be a very large bird. As we stopped and looked
closer at it, we were certain it was a type of hawk. We continued
to drive through the park, but still we were determined to identify
this hawk. I hurredly scanned the bird guides, trying to find a
hawk with the colors that we had noticed. Once again we stopped and
studied the hawk. Though we weren't able to see the face, Tom
thought he was looking at the back of the hawk, and I felt that it
was sleeping and it's face was under it's wings. We again looked at
the colors and the the shape and length of it's tail feathers, and
still we were perplexed as to what type of hawk we were viewing. We
finally parked and went back to look at the hawk, and coming from
another direction, looked up....and realized that our "hawk" was no
more than a webworm nest!!!! Oh well...it was good while it lasted!!
Though we didn't see tons of new birds on this holiday trip, we did
enjoy our birding adventure, got alot of good fresh air, a ton of
laughs, a very wonderful time together and found some really great
places that we know we must return to.
I can't wait for our next adventure!!
NEW SPECIES TO ADD TO OUR LIST: Dark-eyed Junco, Tundra Swan
Thank You Leta for wonderful report!
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