Wind! - 08 Apr 2009


Wind! It can sometimes be your enemy, and it can sometimes work to your advantage! My first afternoon of sunlight in over a week prompted a quick trip to Lake Erie Metropark in S. Wayne Co. to check on the baby Great Horned Owls. I had hoped to get some digiscoping in, as well. But the wind was going to make it dern-near-impossible once again.

I arrived at the Marshland Museum at LEMP and walked the trail behind the eagle house. A Northern Flicker greeted me, and posed long enough for a few digiscoped images from about 150 feet away. The wind did a nice job of ruffling its feathers, and prompted it to switch postures several times so that I could capture its yellow tail feathers.


I continued along the trail to look for the Great Horned Owlets, but found one of the parents roosting in the opening of the tree cavity. Luckily the wind was blowing enough to sweep away the phragmites long enough to get a few pics from trail. BTW, the two owlets at the entrance to the park were barely visible in their nest.


As I walked around the perimeter of the woods I couldn't help but notice the numbers of trees downed by wind (and clear-cutting?). I'm assuming that some of this is to promote openings for icreased species diversity.

Lake Erie Metropark, Wayne, Michigan, US
Apr 8, 2009 3:00 PM - 3:40 PM
Protocol: Traveling
1.0 mile(s)
Checklist Comments:     Windy, cool
2 species

Great Horned Owl (Bubo virginianus)  3     adult and 2 chicks in nest
Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus)  1

View this checklist online at https://ebird.org/checklist/S166193071

This report was generated automatically by eBird v3 (https://ebird.org/home)

With nothing else visible on my walk, I headed over to Pt. Mouillee for a quick walk along the North Causeway (Siegler Rd.). The winds coming off the lake, however, made for a difficult (and short) walk. The Nelson Unit was void of birds, but a pair of Caspian Terns hunted along the channels at the west end of the Long Pond Unit. I managed a few flight pics as one bird hovered in the strong head winds, and dove for prey in the shallow waters. Out in the Huron River I saw a pair of Bonaparte's Gulls flying along the far shoreline.



The only consequence of strong head winds is that it tends to slow bird flight. I managed a few flight shots of a Common Grackle fighting the wind as it followed several Red-winged Blackbirds in to the Nelson Unit from the shoreline phragmites.


Pte. Mouillee SGA--HQ, Wayne, Michigan, US
Apr 8, 2009 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Protocol: Traveling
1.0 mile(s)
Checklist Comments:     Windy. North Causeway only
4 species

Bonaparte's Gull (Chroicocephalus philadelphia)  2
Caspian Tern (Hydroprogne caspia)  2
Red-winged Blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus)  3
Common Grackle (Quiscalus quiscula)  1

View this checklist online at https://ebird.org/checklist/S166193321

This report was generated automatically by eBird v3 (https://ebird.org/home)