July 2024
July is filled with hope
July is the quiet month. Birds are sitting on nests, wanting to be as stealth as possible. I should, perhaps, be like the birds and hunker down on my own nest, clean out a closet or rearrange a room, but my instinct runs more to wandering. So wander I did, in this case to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
The UP, as we say, reminded me a lot of Alaska: dense often boreal forests, narrow roads snaking through where people drive too fast, gas stations spaced far apart. People were friendly. The birds were few but beautiful, a surprise.
The first surprise was a Black Crowned Night heron (or rather a few) on a lagoon at Bay City State Park (before the UP for those who are geographically up to date). When I heard the purr of Sandhill Cranes, I thought I was hallucinating. But there they were, two adults with their long-legged young, which looks like a colt in its ungainly way (which is why they are called colts).
Now these first unexpected birds—had I done my research I would have known I was going to see them. But I didn’t. And I did not because for me the joy of birding, the joy of a road trip, is the unexpected, the surprise. I’m sure I miss a few things as a result, but I will trade that for the joy of rounding a corner and seeing Sandhill Cranes tiptoeing about. It felt like a true discovery.
The highlights of my journey were driving Seney National Wildlife Refuge (took me three hours to drive seven miles) water and sedge coming together, hearing Sedge Wren, seeing loons, and Trumper Swans; the Porcupine Wilderness State Park where baby Merlins screamed from the treetops; families of red-breasted Mergansers camped on a rock in Lake Superior. And—I got to swim in three great lakes: Huron, Michigan and Superior.
Home and the katydids were katie-diding and everything seemed over green. I had to head out right away to check on what was happening. The osprey nest off of the Saugerties lighthouse has two young, not sure yet what to do with their wings. The osprey nest off of Cruger Island looked abandoned, the pathetic pile of sticks hardly a nest and no babies to be seen. So, nature at it again: hope, no hope, like a steady heartbeat. Mostly these days, I’m ending on hope.