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ALLAN BOVEE - PHOTOGRAPHY
ADVENTURES IN NATURE PHOTOGRAPHY
MAY - DECEMBER 2003 MAY, 2003
I spent three days on the trail and befriended a merlin, a small falcon that is quite rarely seen in the wild. This bird had evidently decided to spend the winter there. I know we are not supposed to be anthropomorphic in dealing with animals, but I honestly felt the falcon learned to recognize and acknowledge me. I never got closer than 30 or 40 feet to the bird but when I walked along the trail with all my camera gear and stopped in an area for awhile, the merlin would appear and land in a tree near me. It was interesting watching a bird of prey at work. First it would land on an exposed branch, and then after a minute or so, fly up into the foliage of the tree which was usually a pitch pine, so common in Florida. There it would be hidden from view and soon some birds in the area such as mockingbirds and red-bellied woodpeckers began to forage in the open again. I watched for hours, sometimes sitting in the grass of the trail. When the merlin figured an area was unproductive it would move
to another area a few hundred yards away and I would go join it. I saw the
falcon make a kill but it was so quick that I missed a couple of One time when I was walking out to my van for lunch, I spotted a bobcat walking down the trail towards me. It never saw me as I quickly set up my tripod and 500mm lens and began to shoot. It even sat down on its hind quarters like a house cat and sniffed the air. When it finally saw me it nonchalantly walked back into the brush and disappeared. I once saw a bobcat in Texas, but this is my first wild bobcat I got a photo of.
Meanwhile, locally I am waiting for the hepatica and bloodroot to emerge in Highland Recreational Area, which should be any day now. I will continue to hike in Highland until I can start bringing a camera. Bye for now. Date this page was edited: May 12, 2003
JUNE, 2003
WASSUP? Part of the reason for this rush is the plants are trying to get up and flowered before the leaves appear on the trees of the forest. In a few weeks the towering trees will keep the under story in shade for the rest of the summer and most of the sun will be lost for these plants. Other wildflowers just take longer to grow and bloom such as the orchids and the beautiful Michigan lily.
Although I did time it right, it was more complicated than I thought. I like to
photograph wildflowers in the early morning light. The light has the best
quality then and there usually is no wind. This works great for
In the meantime, I will keep looking about for "what's up". Date this page was edited: June 1, 2003
JULY 2003 When I first moved to where I now live twenty years ago, I heard my first wood thrush singing in the woods behind me. I didn't know what bird it was but suspected a thrush by its flute-like voice which I had read about. I searched about in the trees with my binoculars for the bird and after some time I finally found it. From the fair view I got I could identify it from the books as a wood thrush. The song of the wood thrush has been a subject of writers and poets for many years. It is an incredibly beautiful sound that is fairly loud so it can carry well throughout the woods and always causes me to pause and listen whenever I hear it.
Later, I watched a pair gathering grasses in my yard to build a nest and I found
it in the vacant area next to my house. The nest had been built
precariously on a broken branch leaning against a small tree and later high
winds destroyed it. That was the only nest I had ever found of these birds until
this year. The birds have become scarce, I rarely see them like I used to in my
travels. I usually find one or two pairs a season not near the numbers before. I
have read where the species has become one of special concern and it is not
known if it is a cyclic population problem, problems in its wintering grounds in
Central America, or problems here such as the cowbird.
When I found this nest there was three wood thrush eggs and four cowbird eggs. Brown-headed cowbirds lay their eggs in the nests of other birds and the host birds then raise their young. The cowbird eggs hatch quicker and the young nestlings are larger and crowd out the host bird's young to keep them from being fed and they usually starve. The cowbird will even kick out the nestlings in its attempt to usurp the nest. The parent birds haven't had time to evolve new defenses against this threat since cowbirds are very new to them, it wasn't until man destroyed all the forests in the East that the cowbirds, a Great Plains species originally, could move into this area. Essentially the Eastern U.S. was made into an extension of the Western Plains and the cowbirds readily moved in. Just one cowbird egg will usually mean none of the host birds will make it, but four eggs would have made it impossible. When I find a cowbird egg in a nest I usually remove it. But with four eggs I didn't want to do anything very radical because the wood thrushes might abandon the nest if they saw most of the eggs missing. So I took two eggs my first visit and watched that the birds accepted this. Then I took one more on another visit two days later leaving the birds with three wood thrush eggs and one cowbird. When the eggs hatched I was going to remove the last cowbird nestling but the egg never hatched, it was probably infertile. So, I now had a nest with three wood thrush young.
The wood thrush is a beautiful bird with its reddish-brown plumage and boldly patterned breast and large dark eyes to see in the dark forest. Often while I was in the blind the male would sing his wonderful song while the female brooded her young. Also singing in the area were two male hooded warblers, apparently I was located on the intersection of their two territories as they "dueled" with the songs throughout the day. I ended up finding two different hooded warbler nests but one was abandoned after a cowbird laid an egg in it and the other with three eggs was gotten by a predator. I left the nest to go up North to the U.P. for ten days. When I came back to remove my blind from the area I saw a wood thrush feeding a fledged young near the nest area. I hoped this was my nesting pair and that the nest had been successful, I have no way of knowing. I am thankful I got the opportunity to photograph this wonderful bird. Date this page was edited: July 9, 2003.
AUGUST 2003 SOUTHERN ACQUAINTANCES I have set up my backyard to be as wild as I can get away with here in Oakland County, Michigan. I live at the edge of a woods and get a variety of birds passing through during migration, visiting my feeders, or flying overhead. I have recorded over one hundred different species and try to photograph them whenever possible. One year I had two species in my backyard that I had never seen before. On a rainy May morning, I noticed a bird that was red with green blotches foraging beneath my feeders on the ground. It was eating bits of suet chipped off by woodpeckers and appeared exhausted and slow moving. I thought that it looked like a tanager, but one that was molting. I knew that our resident tanager, the scarlet tanager, changed color in the fall but was always changed back to the red and black plumage when I saw them in the spring. I crept outside with my camera and began taking photographs. The light was very poor and I had to leave to go to work, but I wanted some shots in case I didn't see the bird again. It was very tame, exhausted from its migration flight, and I could get quite close. After work that day I looked up the bird in the field guide and discovered that it was a summer tanager. The male in its first year doesn't turn to the completely red plumage until later in the summer. These birds are not common in Michigan but do show up occasionally in what is called a migration "overshoot". They nest regularly south of us, from central Ohio and Indiana down to the Gulf Coast. Once the birds get their orientation or find the area lacking in females, they reverse their paths and go south again.
I became very nervous in trying to photograph the summer tanager. Every day I was afraid it would be gone and the weather was very gloomy and rainy making me concerned that my photos would not turn out in the dim lighting conditions. Finally, on the sixth day, the sun came out and for a few minutes I was able to take photos in good conditions. Then, the next day, the summer tanager left and I haven't seen it since. During the previous winter, I began to see a Carolina wren at my feeders. What made me aware of this bird was its loud and clear song, even in February when most birds are quiet. The Carolina wren, unlike the summer tanager, is known to nest in the southern part of Michigan although they are not common. They are residents of the southern states and the Michigan border is the northern limit of their range. These birds do not migrate and a severe Michigan winter can take its toll on any birds present.
Once the eggs hatched, I began to photograph the wrens bringing food to their young. The birds would scour my yard for insects and spiders and fly up to the nest cavity with their catches. They didn't seem bothered by me as I set up in my garage window. The male would sing off and on all day long. The song had a loud and liquid tone and I saw neighbors who know nothing about birds look about to find the source of such a beautiful sound. When the young fledged, the wrens wasted no time in building a second nest, this time in the front of my house in a flower box under a window. This nest also had five eggs and, after hatching, I photographed them from a bedroom window. If I sat very still the birds would occasionally fly into the house through the open window and forage around my furniture for food before quickly darting back outside. Each trip inside went further and one time a wren made it to the kitchen where I heard it scratching on the floor. However, there was slim pickings in the house and it soon flew back out again. The wren and tanager visits were enjoyable. I feel blessed that I was able to see and photograph these normally southern species. It is possible the Carolina wren will drop by my feeders this winter to sustain themselves and maybe the summer tanager will come north to my yard next spring, but seriously, I probably will never see either species in my yard again. Date this page was edited: August 14. 2003 SEPTEMBER 2003
All the signs of a retreating summer are appearing. My backyard no longer gets
sunshine in the morning, the sun is lower in the sky and the trees shield it
from the yard and so there are shadows all over the area where there has been
intense sunlight for the last several months.
Out in the swampy meadows I find two more of my favorite wildflowers. The first
is the lavender colored Joe-Pye weed. Evidently, a native American named Joe Pye
used this herb for
This month is good for chasing dragonflies. When we have cool nights (50 degrees
or cooler) after a warm day, the dragonflies become chilled and cannot fly in
the early morning. I look in the meadows for them where they are covered in dew
and are often on the flowers I mentioned above. Photos can be taken easily until
the sun rises when they warm up and fly off. It is great to be out in the
extreme stillness of the early morning twilight with all the fragrant flowers
around photographing the insects with their dew. Date this page was edited: September 15, 2003.
OCTOBER 2003 Now that summer has passed, I wanted to assess my nest work this year. In the spring and summer of this year, I found the following bird nests.
Red-tailed Hawk (2)
Lincoln's Sparrow
I found one hairy woodpecker nest in a swamp in Highland but the nest was gotten
by a predator at a very early stage. The other hairy nested in my backyard and I
found it by following the raspy, begging calls of the young. The nest was sixty
feet up in an oak tree where the birds bored a hole through a large, living
branch on the steepest side. The birds had to enter at a very sharp angle almost
90 degrees which probably kept the blue jays from landing and robbing the nest.
The
A Baltimore oriole nest I found on one of my hikes was too high and far out in
the branches of a tree in Highland to consider for photography. I watched the
female building the nest near Haven Hill but after the trees leafed out I could
no longer find it.
I always find several yellow warbler nests each year and use this bird as a
guide to when the nesting season has begun. Some birds nest earlier or later,
but when the yellow warblers nest the mainstream nesting has begun. They always
seem to be in a hurry, and in a sense they are, for mid-May through July is
their season here in Michigan and
I found my second scarlet tanager nest in Highland by following a female giving
the "chip-burr" call which seems to indicate anxiety.
The wood thrush nest I found in Proud Lake was a surprise as I rarely see any wood thrushes anymore. I wrote about this nest in my July journal. The most heart-breaking nests I found were two hooded warblers in Proud Lake. I had never even seen this bird before two or three years ago and now I find them nesting in three different areas. There were at least three pair in Proud Lake, several different birds in Highland and one pair I spent a whole rainy day looking for their nest in Pontiac Lake Recreational Area with no success. The first nest I found in Proud Lake was abandoned after a cowbird laid an egg in it. The second nest which I spent several evenings till dark trying to locate, I finally found with three eggs but after about a week a predator found the eggs and ate them.
I found an Eastern towhee nest in Proud Lake with four eggs but a predator got
that one as well.
In the Upper Peninsula of Michigan a Lincoln's sparrow nest with three young I found had to be abandoned after I set up for photography because the female wouldn't come to feed her young. Her mate had been lost to some predator and she had the job of trying to raise her young by herself, usually it is the male that is bolder at a nest and this probably encourages the female to come when I am set up in my blind next to the nest. I pulled out before the young became too hungry and she returned to actively feeding the young. I had the same problem with a cardinal nest a few years ago and had to quickly remove my photo equipment or the birds weren't going to the nest. Other cardinals however don't show this fear. The welfare of the birds is always my first consideration and photography plans can wait.
A good find was a Cooper's hawk nest in Highland which I located by the
screaming female chasing after me while I was hiking in Highland. When I
discovered the nest it was well advanced with the three young I very much enjoy finding and photographing the birds at their nests and am very thankful for my limited success this year. From my chair here looking to the future as well as looking at one of the hooded warbler's nests I have collected and have displayed on my desk, I can see my number one bird to look for next year will be that hooded warbler. My second pick would be the cerulean warbler which I find rather commonly in Pontiac and Highland but have never located a nest. And then there is the always the elusive Northern waterthrush in which I found three different males as well as one pair of the birds in Highland but no nest. I wish all the birds a safe and successful winter in their neotropical homes and look forward to seeing them again in the Spring. Date this page was edited: October 19, 2003.
NOVEMBER 2003 I just recorded a flurry of activity in my published photos page, please see Published Photos of my new work.
One of my favorite photo sets I've ever done was to photograph a Louisiana waterthrush in the Jordan River area of northern Michigan. I found the nest in
the road bank where the two parent birds were
Many consider this thrush to have the most beautiful song of all or if not the
best it is second only to the wood thrush I talked about in my
July journal
entry. Although the wood thrush nests in rural areas sometimes near people, the
hermit thrush only nests in the remote wilderness areas and hence is a symbol to
me of the wild like the loon or winter wren. The birds I was photographing, the
Louisiana waterthrush, is not related, they are in the wood warbler family. One of the best descriptions of the hermit thrush I have ever read was written by John Burroughs. This man was a famous writer and naturalist of early twentieth century and recommended the bird when asked by Walt Whitman as to a subject he could use in his poem "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" a tribute to the recently slain Abraham Lincoln. It was the perfect symbol of the loneliness and wild spirit that Whitman was looking for. John Burroughs used to hang around with Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, and Harvey Firestone, and the four were the original RVers, pulling tent trailers around the country in their Fords and earning the nickname "The Four Vagabonds". John Burroughs wrote of the hermit thrush in his book Wake Robin: "...a strain has reached my ears from out of the depths of the forest that to me is the finest sound in nature - the song of the hermit thrush. I often hear him a long way off, sometimes over a quarter of a mile away, when only the stronger and more perfect parts of his music reach me; and through the general chorus of wrens and warblers I detect this sound pure and serene, as if a spirit from some remote height were slowly chanting a divine accompaniment. This song appeals to the sentiment of the beautiful in me, and suggests a serene religious beatitude as no other sound in nature does. ... It is not a proud, gorgeous strain, like the tanager's or the grosbeak's; suggests no passion or emotion - nothing personal, but seems to be the voice of that calm, sweet solemnity one attains to in his best moments. It realizes peace and a deep, solemn joy that only the finest souls may know. A few nights ago I ascended a mountain to see the world by moonlight, and when near the summit the hermit commenced his evening hymn a few rods from me. Listening to this strain on the lone mountain with the full moon just rounded from the horizon, the pomp of your cities and the pride of your civilization seemed trivial and cheap." I really just got into John Burroughs this year. His books are hard to find but an excellent web site for him is www.catskillarchive.com and follow the links to JB. Here you can download some of his essays and books or read them on line.
This was certainly a second nesting for the birds as the thrushes nest a little earlier then the mainstream nesting species, the birds had probably lost their first brood to predators. The nest was about a foot off the ground in an eight foot black spruce in a wet boggy area. The nest contained two blue eggs and when I returned the next day a third had been laid. From this, I could calculate the incubation period to come back and photograph the nest if it was still there.
When I came back eighteen days later, I was filled with apprehension wondering if
the nest was still there. But there is was, and I set up my blind and flashes to
photograph it. It took four hours to set up and during this time I would go back
to the van to wait so the parents could feed their young. When I was finally all
set up I moved into the blind and closed it up. The birds immediately began to
feed their three young with no apparent concern about me twelve feet away. I
spent the next four hours getting all the photos I could want of a very
cooperative couple of hermit thrushes. I then left with everything but my blind
which I would return to pick up in two weeks after the young had fledged the
nest. All the time I was at the nest the hermit thrushes never sang. Apparently they are silent while nesting. I have seen hermit thrushes many times in the woods around my home in Oakland County and even in my back yard. These are migrating birds as they never nest anywhere near there. But they never sing there either. They are silent while migrating. To hear this thrush sing, you must go to its summer home in the wilderness up North near the cascading creeks and spruce bogs and listen for the bird in the early morning or late evening. Then you too will have heard this hauntingly beautiful song as John Burroughs and I have. n to talk about next month. Although I found an indigo bunting nest in Proud Lake, I didn't photograph it because I have found that the brightly colored males don't come to the nest to feed but the brownish females do. I have lots of pictures of female indigo buntings. My usual other nests were Eastern bluebirds and tree swallows in my bluebird nest boxes.
A good find was a Cooper's hawk nest in Highland which I located by the
screaming female chasing after me while I was hiking in Highland. When I
discovered the nest it was well advanced with the three young I very much enjoy finding and photographing the birds at their nests and am very thankful for my limited success this year. From my chair here looking to the future as well as looking at one of the hooded warbler's nests I have collected and have displayed on my desk, I can see my number one bird to look for next year will be that hooded warbler. My second pick would be the cerulean warbler which I find rather commonly in Pontiac and Highland but have never located a nest. And then there is the always the elusive Northern waterthrush in which I found three different males as well as one pair of the birds in Highland but no nest. I wish all the birds a safe and successful winter in their neotropical homes and look forward to seeing them again in the Spring. Date this page was edited: November 21, 2003.
DECEMBER 2003 My Florida schedule is in, please see my Art Show Schedule
Cuckoos are not songbirds but are placed in the taxonomy between the parrots and
the owls. The roadrunner of the southwest is a member of the cuckoo family.
I found my first cuckoo nest in Highland Recreational Area when I was searching through some shrubs for a grosbeak nest. I was crawling on my hands and knees when I spotted a robin-sized bird in a nest about three feet off the ground. Through my sweaty eyes I could see the red orbital ring around the bird's eye and I knew I had a cuckoo nest. The bird was incubating two eggs but unfortunately a predator found the nest before I could photograph it. I was so disappointed that I set out to do a thorough search in an area of Proud Lake Recreational Area where I had heard a cuckoo. After two days of looking I did find a second cuckoo nest, also with two eggs. But this nest was taken by a predator as well. The next year I decided to do a systematic search for a cuckoo nest starting at one end of a dried up lake and walk around the entire shore covering every square inch of habitat. I spent the entire day doing this until, when I had almost completed my circle, I found a cuckoo nest. If I had only started my search going the other way, I would have found the nest in the first five minutes. But this nest was gotten by a predator.
I didn't want to become possessed by this bird, but kept searching. In the Bass Lake Road Thicket, the thickest most tangled area I've ever been in, I spent a couple of weeks looking for yellow-breasted chats which are rare in Michigan and I had been seeing and hearing them. During this search I found an active black-billed cuckoo nest but it was too advanced to photograph, the young kept climbing out of the nest into the surrounding vegetation, and as often as I put them back in the nest they would leave again. I knew if I dragged a blind and all my equipment back there the young would be gone and I wouldn't get any photos.
Finally I was rewarded. One y
Last Spring I watched a black-billed cuckoo in the canopy of some tall beech trees in Pontiac Lake Recreational Area. I had been searching very intensely for a hooded warbler I had been hearing and was worn out with the cuckoo being a nice diversion. Although my neck ached staring straight up with my binoculars it was worth it to see this elusive resident hunting for caterpillars among the leaves. I thought just how difficult it would be to get a photograph of such a rarity and felt a gratitude that I had accomplished the photography already. Date this page was edited: December 18, 2003. Return to PHOTOGRAPHY JOURNAL main page.
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Last winter I enjoyed a visit to Merritt Island National
Wildlife Refuge in Florida, a place where I have been taking photographs for
close to 20 years. This year I photographed on a trail recently built through
the scrub and titled, appropriately enough, the Florida Scrub Jay Trail. Here I
found and photographed the endangered Florida Scrub Jay, birds that are well
known for their tameness. Once spotted, they could be drawn closer by whistling.
others. It would
land on a snag of a tree and begin to pluck the feathers which floated
down to me below. It looked like it was mostly eating pine warblers which are
common there. 
I
recently purchased a Mamiya RZ 67 medium format camera and two lenses. I have
had a lot of requests at art shows for larger scenic photos and my biggest size is 16
X 24 which seems to be the maximum size for a 35mm. I'm looking forward to trying the RZ
which produces a transparency of 60mm by 70mm compared to the 24mm X 36mm of the
35mm so I can do greater enlarging. I am thinking about some Jordan River
scenics in Northern Michigan this Spring with this rig and am excited about what
I may be able to do. 
wildflowers are so quick to emerge and
flower you must repeat walks in the different areas twice a week to stay on top
of the parade.
One particular flower I have been working on for the last few years is
bloodroot. This flower is in the poppy family and produces a reddish liquid in
its roots reportedly used for war paint by Native Americans. The flower emerges
as a rolled up leaf on the forest floor and slowly unfurls to a pure white
blossom which only lasts a short time until the petals fall off. Bloodroot
is among the first to appear in Spring right along with the hepatica and
skunk cabbage. When I found a good group of them just recently bloomed in
northern Michigan, I made a note to come back the next year and photograph them.
But, the next year I was too early and didn't get back later to see them. Then,
I found some in Highland Recreational Area near my home here last year, again
too late to photograph. This year I figured I would go out every evening if
necessary until I had the timing down perfect. 
marsh marigold
or trilliums for example, and I find great specimens the night before and return
before dawn to shoot them. The bloodroot however folds up at night and won't
open until the sun is up and bright. Even if open the flowers may close if the
sun goes behind a cloud. Also, the wind is howling by then so photos won't work.
What I did this year was get out an old "diffusion tent" I used with hepatica
flowers years ago. This tent is composed of a cloudy plastic that lays
over two tent poles and is staked to the ground. When I find a bloodroot flower
that is open, I set up my tent over it. The plastic diffuses the harsh sunlight
and softens it to imitate the dawn daylight I so desire, as well as stops the
perpetual wind which would blur my photos. Its hot inside and you have to hurry
as the flowers think a cloud has passed overhead and start to fold up, but I got
the results I wanted.
I went up to the Jordan River Wilderness Area and photographed some marsh
marigold and river scenics with my medium format RZ. I also found a lot of
Dutchman's breeches, a wildflower named for its looking like a bunch of pairs of
pants hanging on a clothes line. This is a wildflower that stays open all night,
so I could photograph it in the morning with my 35mm.
I moved my blind in over three days making sure each stage was accepted by the
birds. On my first day of shooting, I went in early and set up my flashes and
camera about fourteen feet away. When I was ready and in the blind, I was
surprised at how quickly the birds returned to the nest. Although the nest was
in a wild area of Proud Lake Recreational Area, wood thrushes have been known to
nest near houses in the past and apparently accept people more than other birds
might. I spent most of one day and half of the next getting good photographs of
the birds. If it is possible, I always try to do two sets with a bird switching
my main and fill flashes so I cover all lighting possibilities. 
My bird took up residence in my backyard
relishing suet at my feeders as well as insects around my yard. It reminded me
of a bluebird when it perched in a shrub or low branch of a tree and watched the
area for insects. When one was spotted, it would sail out and grab it. It became
dominant around the feeders, driving off the smaller chickadees and woodpeckers.
However, in a contest with a cardinal, a bird about his size, it usually ended
in a draw with whichever bird was at the feeder first, staying there. 
By the middle of May I began to see two
wrens and much more often. They were catching insects and gathering sticks for
nest-building. Although they started nests in several places around my yard
including two nests in my photography blind, they ended up completing one in a
piece of dead tree I use as a photo prop. In a hollowed out cavity the wrens
laid five eggs. I spend a lot of time looking for bird's nests and setting up
blinds for photography and this was a great opportunity. 
The late summer wildflowers are some of my favorites.
In my yard by the woods the asters are in full bloom. The earliest asters I find
each year are in the woods and are called large-leaved aster. They are easy to
identify by their large heart-shaped leaves, all other asters have the thin
lance-like leaves. The
other species I
have never been able to identify but merely call them "asters" and are numerous
along roadsides and fields as I drive about. The color of the flowers range from
white to dark purple.
different forms.
These flowers have been wrongly accused by hay fever sufferers as the source of
their problem but it simply is not so. Goldenrod pollinate by insects which is
why they are bright yellow while another common flower, ragweed, a plant that is
all green and no other color, pollinates by the wind and this is what gives the
allergy sufferers the fits. 
medicinal purposes and the name stuck.
Closely related is boneset, a plant with clusters of white flowers that
similarly was used to set broken bones.
I have gathered a huge bouquet
of Joe-Pye weed, boneset, goldenrod, and asters and put them in my studio where
it makes the whole room smell wonderful. 
The two red-tail nests I found while hiking in Highland Recreational Area. The
first was near my bloodroot area and the second across Duck Lake Road about 1/2
a mile away. I am sure these two birds were next door neighbors, that is, this
is as close as two red-tails would nest to each other. 
birds would hit my suet feeder for a mouthful and at first didn't fly
directly up to the nest but made a circuitous route evidently to fool the birds
in the area. Later, however, the young's calls became incessant and the parents
flew right to the nest in an attempt to quiet the young and keep the nest from
being found. When the young fledged they all would fly to my feeder with the
parents still feeding the young despite the food being right in front of them.
I have never found a yellow warbler in August,
they have left for Central and South America. Two and a half months in Michigan,
are they really a Michigan resident? One can certainly see the need for saving
habitat not just in the bird's breeding grounds.
While I watched her build
her nest in a tamarack I found a spectacular showy lady's slipper in bloom at my
feet. I returned several times and watched the male and female feed their young,
but have photographed the birds before in Proud Lake Recreational Area.
A great deal of work led me to a yellow-throated vireo nest. I watched a female
gathering spider web silk to use in her nest while her male was constantly
singing. But she flew off with material across the large lake in Highland and by
the time I got over there I couldn't find her. After several trips back and
forth I finally located the nest construction site mostly by following the
singing male. The nest was eighty feet up a in a choke cherry over a soggy
marsh. I had to abandon any serious photo plans. 
I found a hermit thrush nest near the Lincoln's sparrow nest and did get to
photograph that bird which I plan to talk about next month. Although I found an
indigo bunting nest in Proud Lake, I didn't photograph it because I have found
that the brightly colored males don't come to the nest to feed but the brownish
females do. I have lots of pictures of female indigo buntings. My usual other
nests were Eastern bluebirds and tree swallows in my bluebird nest boxes. 
ready to fly, but
the birds are supposed to re-use old nests and so I will be watching next year.
actively feeding the young. I set
up my blind and flashes the next morning right in the road and spent the day in
an exquisitely beautiful setting. All the time the Jordan River cascaded by
right next to me and only two cars came by all day. The spruce and hemlock woods
whistled in the wind and sent nice fragrances my way. Occasionally, a hermit
thrush would sing its wonderful song which I thought was the best part of all.
This summer while I was working birds in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan I came
across a thrush nest in which I spotted the bird sneaking off at my approach.
Quickly I focused my binoculars on the retreating bird but wasn't sure with the
distance if it was a veery, a hermit thrush, or a Swainson's thrush, all of which
could be found in the area. But as I picked up the bird in the lenses I watched
it slowly raise and then drop its tail - it was a hermit thrush! This clue to its identity I have seen many
times before during migration
near my home in lower Michigan. 
One of our less familiar but most interesting birds is the cuckoo. This is a
bird far more often heard then seen. In fact, if you see a cuckoo it is a fairly
rare sighting and consider it a good day. The bird's call is a mechanical
"cuck-cuck-cuck-cuck-cuck" most often heard on cloudy days just before a rain. In
Scotland, the species is the common cuckoo and is more commonly seen and sounds just like the
cuckoo clock. Here, we have two species, the yellow-billed and the black-billed
while the black-billed cuckoo seems more common. 
While driving along a back road in Highland, I spotted a cuckoo flying across
the road in front of my van. I immediately stopped and began searching for a
nest but didn't find one. However, I did find a great song sparrow nest with
five young and got some good pictures of it. 
ear I found a nest in the area of Highland where I
had been finding the depredated nests. The nest was low, about two feet off the
ground and I moved my blind in over three days so as not to frighten the birds.
The pair had three young and I was able to get many photos. The young have
suction discs in their mouths which allows them to clamp tightly onto their
parents beaks (see the photo at right). 
Cuckoos are unique in their ability to eat hairy caterpillars. Most birds that
eat them get a stomach ache from all the indigestible hair and this stops the
birds from eating them again. But the cuckoo can eat a bunch of these
caterpillars and leave them in their stomach to digest as much of the food as
possible. Then, they cough up the hair much like owls or cats do in a hairball.
Tent caterpillars build their spider-like nests out in the open in
defiance of birds since most birds don't eat them, and these larva do great damage to trees
especially fruit trees, every year. Also in my area, gypsy moths, another
hairy caterpillar, have been a big
problem in some years eating all the foliage off trees many times killing the
tree. Most birds leave them alone but cuckoos love these caterpillars and also
feed them to their young (see photo below, right). 