Well this is going to be interesting.

Sorry if I am making your head explode. Who could have thought that I would be able to put out 3 blogs in such a short time?

Welcome to July. My work contract ended at the end of June and I am re-retired, which has actually freed up a bit of time.

Considering that the birds are; A) not in the area right now, B) trying to not move around too much in this summer heat, C) hiding in the trees and keeping quiet, or D) any other reason, we haven’t been seeing too many things.

Sure we could try to figure out moths and butterflies, but that particular “bug” hasn’t really hit us yet.

So as it is, if something gets put out on our birding group that we want to see, we’ll go, but in the meantime it’s pretty slim pickings.

One bird that did show up on our radar and was being seen just around the corner from us, was a Neotropic Cormorant. We went out to try to find it and hope that I got a picture of it. The problem is trying to identify special markings on a black bird, from a good distance away. Binoculars couldn’t figure it out, but a heavy crop on a long lens does show what we hope is the differentiator. In the photo you can barely see a white line on its cheek, and the yellow patch under the eye stops there. In the Double Crested Cormorant which is the most common seen around here, they don’t have the white line that goes up the same way, and the yellow on the face goes further back.

There is a small airport on one of the US islands just west of here and we often get different planes flying by. We were lucky to hear this one as it flew overhead and straight towards the moon. Then one day I was sitting by the river and saw the Goodyear Blimp making its way downriver and watched as it went below the treeline for a landing.

In the middle of the month My Lady and I went to Point Pelee, and as soon as we started walking on the trail I heard a distinctive call of a Cuckoo. Unfortunately it stopped before My Lady could recognize it. As we continued on the trail I heard it again, but again it stopped before she heard it. She thought I was hearing things and complained that I can hear a bird but I can’t always hear her. Sorry, I must be a typical male. As we finished the trail and was about to get back in the car, I saw a bird fly into a nearby tree. Of course I had to check it, and wouldn’t you know, it was a Yellow Billed Cuckoo. Fortunately My Lady was eventually able to see it and we watched it as it hunted for butterflies before moving deeper into the shadows. It poked out for the briefest of moments into the sunshine so I was able to get a picture. Let it be known that My Lady apologized for doubting me.

We finally made it over to Pelee Island for a day. We got down to the most Southern point of populated Canada (Middle Island is the furthest island, but is not populated). Wandered down to Fish Point and got as close to the tip as we dared without disturbing the wildlife there. Fish Point tip is similar to Point Pelee tip and is constantly changing with the waves and the sand. As it turned out there were a couple other small sand points beyond, but we couldn’t get there. The furthest one was well populated with Gulls, Cormorants and a very large number of Pelicans.

There are times when the Detroit River is very busy with freighters, and we happened to be at the Navy Yard one evening when 3 freighters made their way up, one after another. Then a few days later I watched as a Tall Ship worked its way up river.

Wildlife is often very close by our little town. We have a local Beaver spending time just on the south edge of town, and has been seen as far up as the Navy Yard. We got to see a little Mink swim in the river and run onto the rocks right in front of us. Deer and Coyote have been hanging around just a few fields away from our house, while Rabbits, Raccoons and Possum often give up their life on the main road just beyond our little subdivision.

As we are entering the Dog Days of Summer, we expect the birding to be a bit slow until September so we will continue to find things to go out and see, and if possible, to photograph.

One thing that I have been trying out lately is photographing the Sun. I figure it doesn’t move as quickly as birds, and you can see it almost every day.

ALERT ALERT ALERT – Do NOT just take a camera, point it at the sun and look through the viewfinder. You can cause blindness. There are special filters that you can put on your lens that will block a ton of the light and radiation that will not only burn out portions of your camera sensor, but can also burn out portions of your optical sensor (aka your eyes).

The sun is currently coming into a high sunspot period over the next couple of years, and I am trying to learn how to get the best photos before the next big eclipse in 2024. Maybe I can eventually even learn how to get some of the coronal ejections on camera.

Other than that we’ll keep our fingers crossed for anything new through August.

Thanks for hanging on through all these starts and stops. With any luck I can be a bit more consistent.

Keep cool, stay safe and we will talk again soon.

Till next time.