Tag Archives: Birds

Rumrunners and Revenuers

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Mom, You Didn’t Need to Callout the Coast Guard!

Gone to town. Recycling, laundry, a little shopping – Bugs & Horsey

This was the note written for Anne, that I eventually found. Anne managed to catch the laundry bus, just in the nick of time. Dan and I got a pass on laundry this week. I guess we are too transient. Dan and I eventually caught up with them at Penny’s Kitchen for lunch. On the way back, on 6 Mile, we encountered a Sandhill Crane in the middle of the road. I pulled over, fumbled with the camera and missed the shot. Too bad, because I really need a Sandhill, to complete this summer’s birding catalog.

When we got back to the beach, it was all about boating. Bill, my Anne and I kayaked over to Birch Point to see the Ospreys, but they had flown the coop and were there no more. I’m so pleased that I cataloged them two weeks ago. Dan, after much cajoling on his part, got the adults, also-known-as the new old people, to help him launch the Whaler. He got underway, with a bike lock cable as substitute for broken marine hardware. We helicoptered parent his launched. Not really, we had our back to him all the way out. When we turned around, it was a good thing that he was doing fine, because we were way too far away to intervene. We all made it safely into shore.

Dan launched again and this time safely sailed around Round Island. Mom and I were worried about Dan, but did not call the Coast Guard. While he was gone, a Canadian Grandma and her two grandchildren washed up on our shore. The Sea-Doo they were riding had ingested rocks and fouled itself off Round Island, what they call Seagull Island across the bay.

Dan landed again and then recovered his sails. The Canadian grandma eventually contacted her husband, who had been denied crossing by the US Coast Guard. In addition to the pictured cutter, there was a zodiac cruising up and down the channel. It stopped both Michigan and Canadian boaters. She pointed out her cabin across the way, which is only a mile away. Her husband and son arrived and eventually fixed the Sea-Doo and they traveled home. All the while, they never left the water. It must be a rumrunner & revenuer thing.

Banned Banded Birds

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Immature Bald Eagle

The picture with this post is an immature bald eagle. That is my opinion and it is very true. There is a story going around that some expert birders asked permission to walk the beach, walked the beach, went over to Cedar point and banded some birds. These experts claimed that they had banded four golden eagles on the point. It is hard to dispute some unnamed expert, just as it is impossible to prove a negative. All I can say is that adult bald eagles have been seen nesting on this point for the last few years. An adult bald eagle cannot be confused with a golden eagle by any ‘expert’ that I can think of. Besides, bald eagles are endemic to this area, while golden eagles only migrate through the region. As I said, this is all my opinion and of course it is very true.

At the Cabin – Again

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Mergansers – Mom and the Kids

Dan blew into town on Sunday and I picked him up at the airport. It was amazingly only 75 °F at one in the afternoon. He had already scheduled luncheon and dinner dates with friends, so I didn’t spend too much time with him after I brought him home. As he pointed out though, “Dad, we’ll have plenty of time together tomorrow”, tomorrow being today, Monday. We’re driving to Michigan today, just like those prominent Saint Louis families of yesterday’s post or 1901, depending on where you are on your relativistic spot on the space-time continuum.

Driving straight through to the cabin is a grueling drive, thirteen hours. But when I think about it this drive is no worse than the drive we use to make to Dallas, when my folks lived there. As I was driving north through central Illinois, Anne texted me. Since I was driving, I handed the phone to Dan, so that he could answer. She wanted to know where we were, so Dan told her, “On the 57 just south of Chicago”. Because he used the LA-ism of referring to the highway as “the 57”, as in “the 405” or “the 5”. Anne guessed that he had answered and not me. When I told Dan that she had identified him, he was a little self-conscious about it. Then he retorted that his native LA friends always find it humorous when they leave LA and see minimum speed limit signs, because there aren’t any of those in LA.

Passing along the southeast edge of Chicago-land, we ran into a little traffic. I noticed that the west-bound lanes were empty and thought that they had been detoured for construction. Then I thought with dread that I would have to navigate this detour on my way back home. I had just gotten my head wrapped around that thought when a brace of police cars came swooping by me, west-bound. I then had thoughts of the “405”. Finally, a motorcade cruised by, with every light flashing. After a Google search, Dan determined that it was Joe Biden going to lunch.

Back in the day, during the Clinton – Bush campaign, my office had a ringside seat of the passing motorcades. We were on the road that connected the highway and the airport. Back then, Missouri was still a battleground state, so there was quite a bit of politicking going on that year. We use to count the vehicles in the motorcades. Clinton always had fifty-some, while Bush’s was in the seventies. Today’s Biden motorcade only had about twenty-something cars. Anyway, we made it and we’re at the cabin again.