New park, new bird, but terrible weather

I’m starting this post on Monday, May 7th. It’s been almost a full week since I’ve had enough time off from work to go out with my camera, part of that is because of the change in my work schedule. I should mention that it’s going very well so far, one of the many things that I like about this new schedule is that my start times each day are closer to being the same, rather than having me bounce all over the place as my last schedule had me doing. Once I’ve adapted to this new schedule, I would be able to make it out on a day like today, when there’s good light and very little wind, to shoot macro images.

I will have Thursday and Friday off from work this week, however, the weather is looking iffy for both days. That’s subject to change at the current time though.

I may be crazy, since it’s the best time of year to catch migrating birds, but I’m thinking of taking at least a one day road trip to shoot mainly landscapes. This will be my first two-day weekend in almost seven months, since I began working for my present employer. I’d like to celebrate in a way, by doing something that I really haven’t had time for in those months. We’ll see, it will depend on the weather forecast as the time approaches.

Well, the first of my two days in a row off from work has come and is almost gone, but I’m going to begin this post with an image from an earlier outing.

 

Starling

I would write that my day began at dawn at Harbor Island in Grand Haven, Michigan, but there was no dawn. We had storms roll through the area the night before, and we were still socked in under clouds that were too stubborn to leave, along with mist and fog, absolutely horrible conditions for bird photography. Maybe I should have gone on a landscape expedition instead, but then I would have missed seeing and photographing another lifer for me, which I will get to shortly.

The weather forecast was for improving conditions, but they didn’t improve as quickly as the forecast led me to believe that they would. I fooled around at Harbor Island, struggling to get enough light for any photos at all.

Northern flicker

There were birds everywhere, but no light to photograph them in, I even tried using the flash, trying to get the ISO settings low enough to get at least a poor photo…

Warbling vireo

…but even then, I couldn’t get a shutter speed fast enough so that the birds weren’t blurred a bit in most of the photos that I shot.

Warbling vireo

And, the dull overcast sky was a very poor background whenever a bird was perched overhead…

Male brown thrasher singing

…the only reason that I’m posting these photos is that I love listening to the brown thrashers singing…

Male brown thrasher singing

…along with their cousins, the grey catbirds as well.

Grey catbird

Both of those species are related to mockingbirds, and all of them use snippets of other birds’ songs as part of the symphonies that they create as they sing their own songs.

I saw more signs of spring, both young mallards…

Mallard duckling

 

Mallard duckling

…and an occasional flower.

Daffodil

Almost two hours after the supposed sunrise, I was still struggling when photographing most of the few birds that I could even get a photo of.

Male American redstart

Not only did the poor light mean that I had to shoot at ISO settings much higher than I wanted, the light was so poor that my camera and lens had trouble auto-focusing on these small birds.

Blue-headed vireo

This chickadee was kind enough to pose long enough for me to dial in the flash settings for a fair shot of it.

Black-capped chickadee

It was very frustrating to have so many returning birds so close to me, and not be able to get photos of them. It was also quite chilly, so rather than walk the entire Harbor Island area at one time as I normally do, I walked part of it, returned to my vehicle, parked in another part of the park, and then would take another short walk. The time spent moving my vehicle gave me time to warm back up between the very short walks.

It finally warmed up enough so that I didn’t need to return to my vehicle, at least not as often, so I decided to move to another park very close to Harbor Island, the East Grand River Park, which is also in Grand Haven, Michigan.

I’ve seen bird reports from this park before, but when I looked at the park on a map, it looked too small to hold very many birds. Boy, was I wrong about that! The park is small, less than 5 acres total, and that includes a playground area and a fenced in dog park, along with a boat launch. I’d estimate that the best birding portion of the park is less than two acres in size, but it’s a birding cornucopia! By the way, the Eat Grand River Park is also right next to the Grand Haven Municipal wastewater facility, wouldn’t you know?

I was still struggling against not enough light to work with…

Black and white warbler

…but the variety of species of birds there…

Northern parula, a species of warbler

…including this hard to find northern parula…

Northern parula, a species of warbler

…was something that I had to see with my own eyes to believe.

Northern parole in flight

I missed more species than I was able to capture…

Male scarlet tanager

…but as small as the park is…

Male scarlet tanager

…and as thick as the brush is…

Cape May warbler

…meant that I could get close to the birds, even if I had to shoot at a bad angle.

Cape May warbler

In fact, I zoomed out a little for this image, to show more of the environment that this kinglet was in at the time.

Ruby-crowned kinglet

Also, because the park is so small, I had several opportunities to photograph this lifer for me…

Bay-breasted warbler

…which was a good thing, because the first series of photos that I shot of it were so poor that I couldn’t use them.

He must have needed a break, because he sat there long enough for me to get a little closer, and to find a better hole in the brush to shoot through.

Bay-breasted warbler

He also did some preening, but as slow as my shutter speeds were, most of the photos I shot while he was preening are junk, but here’s a wing stretch.

Bay-breasted warbler

With so many small birds around…

Black and white warbler

…if there had been better light, I would have gotten better shots of them taking off…

Black and white warbler in flight

…but the very poor light was against me. That, and the park is as bad as the Muskegon Lake Nature Preserve as far as trying to find holes through the vegetation to shoot through.

Male Baltimore oriole

As I looked for birds to shoot, I also tried to figure out why such a small park would attract so many birds, and other than it’s where the Grand River narrows which shortens the birds’ flight across open water, I couldn’t see that much different about East River Park than many other areas of the region. But then, I’m not a bird, so maybe there’s more to it than that.

By then, I needed a break, as I was getting arm weary from moving the camera and 100-400 mm lens around as I tried to get photos of the birds so far that morning. So, I headed north to Muskegon, with the intention of stopping at the Muskegon Lake Nature Preserve. However, the parking lot there was full, including several school busses, and I didn’t want to deal with any crowds as I attempted to shoot photos.

Instead, I went to Muskegon State Park, where I did something dumb. As I said, my arms were tired from horsing the 100-400 mm lens around all morning as I tried to keep up with the small birds that I’d been chasing, so I took the 400 mm prime lens with me as I walked the Lost Lake trail and Snug Harbor portions of Muskegon State Park.

While the 400 mm lens is lighter, and I believe that it’s also slightly sharper than the 100-400 mm lens, it won’t focus any closer than 11 feet from me. I missed a few small birds because I was too close to them for that lens to focus on the birds. The shots that I missed were no big deal, but it was still something that I needed to try for future reference. The 100-400 mm lens has to be my walking around lens. Fortunately, I had also taken a 60D body and 100 mm macro lens with me.

I’ve never been able to figure the Lost Lake Trail out, it looks good for birding, yet I seldom see any birds when I walk it. I hear birds in the distance, but I seldom see any. But, I wanted to walk that trail because I read that it had been improved, which it hasn’t been that I could see. Also, I often find subjects for macro and close-up photography along that trail, and it’s just a pleasant walk on top of that.

So, without any birds to photograph, the only photos from the Lost Lake Trail portion of the day are these photos shot with the macro set-up.

May apples sprouting and sedges blooming

It was nice to see green again after the long, cold winter. I used the swiveling screen of the 60D body to shoot this image…

Unidentified sedge flowers

…as well as these ferns emerging from the ground…

Unidentified fern

…I got a little too close to that one, I did better with this one…

Unidentified fern

…and I didn’t have to lay in the mud to get the close-ups as I would have if I’d been looking through the viewfinder when I shot those.

My only photos from the Snug Harbor portion of Muskegon State Park are these…

Canada goose drying its wings

…I had seen the goose bathing, and I tried to get into the perfect position for this series…

Canada goose drying its wings

…but I was still so close that I cut the goose’s wings off…

Canada goose drying its wings

…still, I’m impressed with what my 7D camera with the 400 mm prime lens can do when it comes to shooting action photos.

I could do a little bragging at this point, but I won’t. The light had improved, as you can see in the images of the goose, but it still wasn’t that great. I took a drive the last few miles from Snug Harbor to Lake Michigan, so I could look out over the lake to see if the promised clear skies were on their way. There were a few breaks in the clouds, and wanting to feed my hunger to shoot more landscape photos, I shot this with the newer 16-35 mm lens.

Muskegon State Park sand dunes

I wanted something more interesting than the dead tree in the foreground, but that was the best thing that I could come up with that also allowed me to show the curves and lines of the dunes the way that I wanted in the image that I had in mind. I did try to work the scene a little, I set-up in several spots, and even took other photos, but that’s the best I could come up with.

By now, it was mid-afternoon, and Lake Michigan was still completely clouded over, so I started for home. But, as I was driving past the Muskegon Lake Nature Preserve, I saw that the parking lot had emptied, and the skies had cleared up, it had finally become the nice day that the weather forecast had promised.

yellow warbler enjoying the sunshine

I missed a rose-breasted grosbeak which I saw in the parking lot, and was my reason for walking the MLNP, but I found a few other birds to photograph.

Palm warbler

 

First year white-throated sparrow with a snack

 

Eastern wood pewee

And, to wrap up the photos for this post…

White-crowned sparrow

…and ask why I couldn’t have light like that for the entire day?

You may be asking why I’m blogging on the second of my two days off instead of being out with my camera, and the reason is the weather. As bad as it was for most of the day yesterday, it’s even worse today. It’s raining, the temperature has dropped 20 degrees Fahrenheit from yesterday, and there’s a stiff wind out of the east making it feel even colder than what it actually is according to the thermometer. It’s the middle of May, but it feels as raw as an early March day. That’s something that I’d rather not deal with, so I ran some errands that I’ve been putting off, and I’ve done a few things around home.

So, to sum this post up, most of the photos are very poor, but it may well be another year before I see some of the species of birds in this post again. It is the middle of May, and many species are already behind their normal schedule on their migration to the north. The number of migrating birds that I saw on this one day was astounding, which means that most of the birds are in a hurry to make up for the time that they’ve lost waiting for warmer weather. I hope to run into a few stragglers next week, but I can’t count on that, or that the weather will be that much better. So. I’ve had to make do with the photos that I was able to get, no matter how poor they are.

That’s it for this one, thanks for stopping by!