Easter Morning, Afternoon and Evening

This morning Carol and I drove up to Loda Lake (near Brohman), first time there for both of us.  Not much bird life today but the area looked like it might attract some good species in the next few weeks.

The creatures above were crossing the field directly across the road from the Loda Lake Wildlife Sanctuary.  I think that's an adult Bigfoot (Sasquatch mythatorius) followed by two juvenile Black Bears (Ursa cardboardius).  They were moving so slowly that you might still be able to see them if you get up there sometime this year.

This afternoon Ruth Achterhoff-Aust emailed the following information and photos of American White Pelicans at Muskegon on April 18.  These may be of the same flock seen at Grand Haven (see April 14 post below).

Ric,

Ruth Achterhoff-Aust here.  You may/may not have heard of my recent sighting of a large flock of American White Pelicans on 4/18/19.  I posted it to my Facebook page as well as sharing it with other misc. bird and wildlife FB pages and photographic pages.  Wasn’t sure how to let you know about it, so ...

Here are a few images I snagged of the flock as they passed over Harbour Towne on Thursday.  The flock was really something to see.  Initially I thought I was simply watching the gulls from across the harbor, but something was ‘striking’ about this group!  They were doing murmurations, and the black/white flashes of their wings was truly something to behold.  I took pictures with an equivalent of a 600mm lens with a 1.4 teleconverter.  With that, it was difficult to get the whole flock in the same shot.  There were definitely at least 30 of them.  In some images I took, I count less than 30, and in some, more than 30.  That’s more of a lens issue.   

I hope they might still be somewhere in the area….Hoping to see them again.  Thought you’d be interested to know!

Thanks, Ruth!  Yes, I'm very interested to know.  At our club meeting on Thursday some of our members said they'd seen over 40 pelicans at Grand Haven on April 17.  There's a chance that some of these birds will stick around the area all summer, but who knows?  - Ric

This evening Carol noticed some Cedar Waxwings among the House Finches in our front yard dogwood tree.  (If I were counting, I'd have 90 Year Birds now.)

- Ric