There's Wildlife in Michigan Too!

(August 2nd) While it is hard to compete with what I saw in Alberta, Michigan gets some pretty good wildlife too if you visit the right spots. It's the start of August, but for some species, fall migration has been going on for a while now. Many of these early migrants are shorebirds, so I headed to my favorite shorebird location. I was in for a big treat - one of my favorite shorebirds, a solitary American Avocet was there feeding.

The avocet has a very unusual beak which is strongly upcurved - a rarity among birds. This individual also had smost of the reddish tint of its breeding plumage yet. These birds are pretty uncommon in Michigan, and this one even gave me some amazing poses.

After giving quite a bit of enjoyment, the avocet decided to fly off and I was able to snap a couple of takeoff shots as it left. To get these kind of pictures, I had been lying down belly in mud for hours to get these photos. But hey, it's fun to lie in mud if you have an excuse.

Going through shorebird pictures is always a bit nerve-wracking. For me, it is not easy to tell a Western Sandpiper from a Semi-palmated Sandpiper, so it takes a while to identify all the shots. So it's always a welcome relief to come to an instantly identified bird like this Caspian Tern who flew over looking for fish.