Author Archives: makielb

Spending an overcast and misty day visiting the Upper Falls on the Tahquamenon River. This was the perfect way to spend the day. Lots of warblers and the Falls themselves. The distant view is just a quiet tease for getting close to them and their roar. Each viewing site as you approach the falls getsContinue reading “Tahquamenon Falls”

It’s always fun finding caterpillars, but frustrating trying to get them identified properly. This caterpillar is a great example of an unidentified beauty. But we’ll keep working on it. A spider on the side of the cabin, searching for breakfast. Another species of sand-loving tiger beetle. This one shouldn’t be “to hard” to identify. AContinue reading “Birds and bugs”

We spent yesterday looking for several orchids that are difficult to find since they are small and live in wet cedar woods. Just getting to them required over and hour of walking. But on the way to finding them we found may other interesting plants, such as the above Indian paintbrush. Close to the IndianContinue reading “Searching for orchids”

Leaving the heat for the cooler north. We’re heading to Whitefish Point, but will be stopping south of Grayling to try to find some Kirtland’s Warblers. Of course, along I-75 the orange barrels and arrows have popped up like mushrooms after a rain. But we finally got to our destination after lunch in Roscommon. ItContinue reading “Heading north to Kirtland’s Warbler country”

Don and I spent the morning at Magee Marsh today where we got to see friends and lots of birds. Nice numbers and diversity of warblers. We had some 20 species. Chestnut-sided Warblers were common as were Magnolia, Bay-breasted, Palm and others. We heard Blackpoll Warblers and Northern Waterthrushes. We must have had 7-8 Black-throatedContinue reading “Magee Marsh on a May morning”

Today we drove from Whitefish Point to Ann Arbor. It was hard to leave as the morning was filled with birds. But we have to get the garden planted. On the way I was thinking about my cousin Carol who had wanted some information on our family in Teramo, Italy. So I thought why notContinue reading “Traveling and thinking about family”

What better way to start the day while it was still dark this morning than with Snoopy writing to his mom. Last night we had a “Whip-poor-will” calling close to the cabin. I took this photo in 2016 on this day in 2016. As soon as there was enough light I checked at the lightsContinue reading “Mother’s Day – 2022”

Today is the third day running with large raptor flights. Still a lot of Broad-winged Hawks. Another Golden Eagle. But what is surprising is the huge influx of Black-capped Chickadees. Our day started, as we usually do here, with a few new moths at the lights. The left photo is a “Speckled green fruitworm” andContinue reading “The birds keep coming”

The day started with a couple of species of moths on the deck. The Large gray pinion (Lithophane georgii) on the left is rather unusual here as is the darker Acadian swordgrass moth (Xylena phoracica) on the right. This spring is quite different from last year when we were having many more moths at theContinue reading “An early May morning at Whitefish Point”

I love scouring the sand dunes and old logs for lichens. A particular group that are both interesting and fun are those in the genus Cladonia. Many of them are what people know as “British soldiers caps.” These are small rarely more than 20-25mm tall and capped with red. Sometimes the British soldiers caps areContinue reading “Whitefish Point lichens”