An Exploration of Nature
After a rather overcast morning filled with yardwork, the sun came out in the afternoon so I grabbed my camera and looked for something to photograph. Birds were scarce, but insects were plentiful, with several species I had not seen before.
Tanacetum Coccineum a.k.a. the Painted Daisy, is native to Asia but looks great in our backyard.
An outing to Chippewa Inlet Trail produced several new “life birds” for North America, which is rewarding and also a bit of a challenge now that I’m at 176 unique species. (At least, a challenge as long as I’m only birding in Ohio.)
There was a group of shorebirds on a mud flat, and at first I didn’t realize there was anything new because the Semipalmated Plover (the new life-bird) look similar to Killdeer, especially if you are not paying attention. And also especially if they are mixed in with real Killdeer! It was the wife who first noticed that not all of the birds looked quite right for Killdeer.
The second new bird was the Least Sandpiper. As implied by the name, they are the smallest of sandpipers, not much larger than a sparrow. The key to correct identification is leg-color (which should be yellow-green) and I struggled for a long time to get a good picture where that detail was visible. The lighting conditions were terrible, with very overcast skies and quite a bit of glare off the water, not to mention that the birds were running around in mud, which can cover and obscure their legs.
My plant-lore is not nearly as developed as my bird-lore or butterfly-lore. This wildflower was seen at Schoepfle Garden along the banks of the Vermilion River, and I had no idea what it was. So I put some observational skills to work and did a web search for “light blue spring wildflower with six petals with a yellow stamen.” (I should have added “and a green center” but I did not notice it until afterwards.) This led me in the right general direction with a near-miss, the Great Camas. However, the Great Camas is only found on the West Coast, so a further refinement of the search for “Eastern United States” turned up the likely winner, “Atlantic Camas a.k.a. Wild Hyacinth.”
It’s very pretty, and it had filled up the river valley around Schoepfle with waves of azure.
The Bobolink is not the most beautiful bird to look at. But he makes up for it with his wonderful song. There were two Bobolinks singing to each other in Bath Nature Preserve this morning, and I made a recording which you can listen to below.
On my previous visit to Kopf Family Reservation, I noticed a lot of Mallards along Gable Creek. So when I made the sales-pitch to my wife to join me on this birding trip, I told her “You should come, there will be lots of ducklings, I promise!”
Well, that’s a lot to live up too. Fortunately the Mallards came through.
So I made a second trip to Kopf Family Reservation over the weekend. Last visit, a Red-shouldered Hawk provided a great photo op when it landed in a tree only forty feet away from me. This time, a Cooper’s Hawk dropped in. This hawk was so close that he would not fit into my lens frame at full zoom. I highly recommend Kopf (Avon Lake) for a raptor experience.
The Scarlet Tanager is not your typical backyard bird, unless you live next to a large forest. Tanagers are not attracted to bird feeders, but might show up to raid your mulberry tree. My yard is heavily forested, but even so I was extremely fortunate to have this Tanager land in a tree right next to me. I was even more fortunate to already have my camera in my hands. As for the annoying twig, what can I say? Take a deep breath, and accept it.
In the bird world, the male is more likely to have showy colors. Perhaps this is the reason why I’ve seen (and photographed) many more male Common Yellowthroats than female: his bright colors and black mask help him stand out from the shrubs and briars he is normally known to skulk in. So I was pleased to finally get a photograph of the female, who is an attractive bird in her own right.
Lake Medina is a man-made reservoir that was once the primary water source for the city of Medina. Those days are past, and now the lake is a great place to see migratory waterfowl like this Spotted Sandpiper, Blue-winged Teal, and Bonaparte’s Gull.
