October 11, 2008
Sam and Bruce Bojack, Shirley and John Mesch, and Bill VanPatten accompanied Larry and Cindee DuBey on the Second Annual Fall Color excursion into the Jordan River Valley. The weather was perfect, almost too perfect. The color was excellent and the birds were a little hard to find.
We left McDonalds and headed for Landslide, just west of Alba. The color there was probably the best of the day and we enjoyed the panoramic view of the valley. From there we drove up to Deadman’s Hill. Again the color was gorgeous and we hiked as small portion of the Jordan River Pathway looking for birds. We did find a Brown Creeper, Black-capped Chickadees, a couple of Red-winged blackbirds, a White-breasted Nuthatch, a White-crowned Sparrow and a Common Grackle. Bruce and Bill lingered long enough to find 2 Swainson’s Thrushes that the rest of us missed.
From there we moved on to the National Fish Hatchery. After wandering around enjoying the “fingerling” Lake Trout rearing operation (and using the restrooms) we decided to have lunch in the picnic pavilion. As it turns out, we must have been the very first group to use this new facility because a group of the “Friends of the Hatchery” asked if they could take our picture. It turns out that the building (under construction last fall) had just been finished (well almost finished) this week. They plan to screen it in, which is a great idea because when the wind slowed down, the flies became a bit vicious.
We then headed west along the Jordan River and enjoyed watching the tiny stream become a river, stopping if we heard birds or saw a pretty place to explore. We added Swamp Sparrows and a Hairy Woodpecker to our list. A Pinney Bridge we watched several King Salmon swimming up stream. Boy are they big!
We then headed into East Jordan and checked out the mouth of the river. We were rewarded there with Many Coots, a female Common Merganser, a Mute Swan family, Canada Geese, a Red-eyed Vireo, Yellow-rumped Warblers, and Cormorants. We then checked behind the bank and hit the “mother lode”. Besides the huge flock of Starlings and the lone House Sparrow, we found our Kingfisher sitting very still on a post and all got great looks at him. We decided to scope the back of the area after Shirley found a Great Blue Heron and were happily surprised to find another heron and a Wood Duck, tucked back into the cattails. Our last stop was another overlook on Kidder Road where, again, the color was superb and we sighted Mourning Doves and Goldfinches. By now our list was 29 and we really wanted 30. After parting with Bojacks and Meschs, we headed back to Alba and lo and behold, we had a Rough-legged Hawk fly over us just as we reached Harvey Road (leading in to Landslide Overlook), right where we started our excursion.
It was a glorious day with great color, great fellowship and great pictures (I hope). If the birding was a little slow, it was still a great day. Complete list to follow.
Ring-billed Gull
Starling
Blue Jay
Common Raven
Northern Flicker
American Robin
American Crow
Brown Creeper
Swainson’s Thrush
Black-capped Chickadee
CFW (confusing fall warbler that we never did decide what it was)
White-Breasted Nuthatch
Red-wing Blackbird
Common Grackle
White-crowned Sparrow
Swamp Sparrow
Hairy Woodpecker
Mourning Dove
Mallard
Canada Goose
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Red-eyed Vireo (we think, hard to tell for sure on the underside)
Common Merganser
Coot
Mute Swan
Belted Kingfisher
Great Blue Heron
Double-crested Cormorant
Wood Duck
House Sparrow
American Goldfinch
Rough-legged Hawk
Wild Turkey (seen by Bojacks on the way to Mancelona)
O.K. I guess we did see 30 before the Hawk because I left the Cormorant off my list. (No not intentionally. I listed the Starlings and House Sparrow didn’t I?)