In Like a Lamb, Out Like a Lion

Well, March has been an interesting month.  Somewhere around the second week, it seemed like spring had arrived.  Temperatures got into the upper 50s!  Everything started to melt.  I hung up my skis (sadly).

The end-of-season ski party was held at Right Brain Brewery on Tuesday, March 22.  Wednesday, March 23, we had a blizzard with a foot of snow.

The wind was incredible!  Birds alighted on the feeder, then were blown off like a rocket when leaving.  The feeder itself was swinging wildly back and forth.  Huge flakes of heavy, wet snow blew past in a horizontal stream.  You can kind of see it in the first picture of the cardinals.

The good news: temperatures have stayed in the 20s since then!  The bad news: I only got in one more day of skiing, because somehow I have hurt my foot.  BUT WHAT A DAY IT WAS...glorious and sunny and perfect.

Here are a few more pictures of the lamb and lion month we are having.  On the lamb side:

Out cruisin'...

Hot pursuit!

Downy woodpecker at the suet feeder.

And then the lion:

Iceberg cruising

Downy male hanging onto tree for dear life...look at his little feathers being blown all over!

Riding the storm out.

The wind reveals that he is gray underneath.

Last but not least, a new bird has discovered the feeder, and I've seen her hanging around quite a lot.  Here she is, the song sparrow!

In the morning, fluffed up in the tree.

Sweet!

The Local Scene

So last Saturday, I went to a "Beginning Birder's Workshop" here in Traverse City, at the Boardman River Nature Center.  It was my first time at the Nature Center, which was lovely, and also a morning of discovery for me.  The presenter kept talking about "the club," as in, "Would anyone from the club like to comment about purchasing binoculars?" and "Members of our club have some photos in the back if you'd like to look at them."

Club?  What club?

It turns out there is a local birding club here (duh)...the Grand Traverse Audubon Club!  So I promptly signed Mark and I up as members, and now I have more activities to attend.  I will have to miss the next regular meeting, which will be a "Bird ID Challenge" (probably wouldn't do too well with that, anyway) due to a prior commitment, but will try to make the "Dance of the Woodcock" field trip on April 13.

We took a little walk after the workshop, and I got to see a new bird out on the lake, a redhead duck.  I don't have a picture of that one, but I do have a couple of new arrivals to the bird feeder at our house.  One is the house finch, and the other I'm not sure of.  Another yellowy-brown bird with black and white wings...bay-breasted warbler? pine warbler?  Have only seen this bird once.

Here is the finch:

And here is the mystery bird:

Arizona Update

Well, as Randy correctly surmised, I was in Arizona for a few weeks in February...Sun City, to be precise. Mark's mom lives there, and it was a very interesting visit, coming from snowy northern Michigan to a cactus-filled desert environment.  I saw SO MANY interesting birds and critters!  I had to buy a new book to try and figure out what they all were:

Lovely flicker on the cover!

This helped a lot, but didn't cover everything.  Following are some more birds that I saw in Arizona, with a few that have yet to be identified.

So this is some kind of hummingbird, but I'll be darned if I know which one.  It does not seem to be either of the ones listed in 50 Common Birds of the Southwest.  It was quite exciting to see it, though, and several times I was buzzed by hummingbirds while sitting on the back patio.  Hummingbirds all year round in Arizona!

Here are a few that I do know, from a walk in the White Tank Mountains wilderness area:

canyon towhee

black-throated sparrow

gila woodpecker

Also seen on the walk...

If this is my competition, I think I might have it beat.

Here's one (not from the walk) that remains to be identified:

Moving on to something that I definitely know what it is...

Can you spot the three nests?

great blue heron!

posing nicely

lots of nest-building activity

There was a park about a mile away from Mark's mom's house, where I frequently walked to observe the wild(ish) life.  It was a rather manicured place, but provided habitat for a community of great blue herons, which, I learned, like to nest communally high up in trees.  I think these great blue herons might be directly responsible for a terrible neck-ache I got, but that's another story.

Could this park be a little neater?

There was a man-made lake as well, where many interesting waterfowl could be seen.

buffleheads

Canada geese

Beware the Canada geese!  They must have had a nest nearby, as I got honked and flown at (and I was on the path).  A fellow park-goer told me that last year, a man was knocked down by a Canada goose and had to go to the hospital!  I decided to give them a wide berth.

pied-billed grebe!

ring-necked duck...just figured this one out (thank you, Sibley)

the male ring-necked duck

biggest mute swan ever!

Near the lake was a tree with this little yellow bird:

Is it some kind of oriole?  That's my best guess at the moment.  It was pretty small, though, like titmouse-size.  But then again, it was high up in a tree.  It also flitted about quite a bit.

**New idea:  On the way to showing Mark a picture of the starling in Sibley's Guide, I happened upon the warbler section.  Now I think it must be some kind of warbler.  But which one?  There are a million!

***Newest idea: Audubon's yellow-rumped warbler.  After looking through all the warblers in Sibley's, this seems to be the most likely.  

On the way to and from the park, I would also see interesting birds.  Here are a few of those:

northern mockingbird

has to be the European starling

an interesting fellow!

happened to fly off just when I pressed the shutter button!

Now here are a few nicely lined up on a lamppost that I have yet to identify:

I think they're quite lovely!  If I'm not mistaken, here's another in a tree:

Is it some kind of thrasher?  Kind of looks like the great-tailed grackle, though, only brown.  

grackle, singing?

Let's end back at the park, where I had quite a nice time observing a pair of mallards...yes, good old mallards...sitting under a waterfall.  The male was pecking around a little bit, but the female was just sitting there under the pounding water.  I thought now why on Earth would she just be sitting under that pounding water...unless she just enjoys it?  She could have moved one way or the other to get out of the way, and she didn't seem to be doing anything else but sitting there.  So I thought huh, it's not just about the necessities of life...it's about the pleasures of life, too, even for mallards.  So we all sat there for awhile, just enjoying a nice day at the park in Arizona.  :-)