Here is a nice example of cased caddis from last Saturday's lab analysis of the Boyne River aquatic invertebrate sampling:

Several decent sized stone fly nymphs downstream from Dam Road:

Here's a pregnant doe looking around the house on May 22.  Judging from the grunting and size of her middle section she was close to the happy day when I saw her and may even have been looking for a nice spot to give birth.

She was strangely curious of me as I quietly took her picture.

Six days later, this deer was looking up at me through the deck rails first thing in the morning.  I'd like to think it was the same deer but I'm not sure.

She had a small companion

Trout Unlimited will be assigning an intern to the Miller Van Winkle chapter shortly to study the water flow of the South Branch of the Boyne.













Here are some images of the spillways currently in place under M75 at Boyne Falls and the pond created upstream:

Slowly adding to my life list.  Yesterday in Young State Park identified 16 species including a Black and White Warbler and a Yellow-rumped Warbler.  These are not my images. Heard many unidentified species and need to work on the audible identification although I'm not a subscriber to the hear it, list it school of thought.






Photographing these guys is proving tough and I'm greatly looking forward to spending some time with bird photographer Paul Rossi up in the Eastern UP on May 27.  He says, "We will drive to certain locations and walk to explore each area.  We will start right after sunrise (which is 5:54 a.m.) by birding some open grassland and ponds: LeConte's sparrows, Upland sandpipers, Sharp-tailed grouse, Snipe, American Bittern, Sora, Bobolink, Northern Harriers, etc.  We will also go to the coastal marsh.

After that we will go to locations based on what I find in various locations this year.  There is quite a bit of logging going on up here this year and I must visit certain areas of Hiawatha National Forest and Lake Superior State Forest to see if they are still there.  Rest assured that there are many options.  I will make sure that we will visit a productive inland swamp, mature hardwoods, coniferous woods, etc.  There are many beautiful areas loaded with birds at that time.  I will see what is 

out there and make a plan, making sure that we do not drive too far between walks.  This is the best time of the year for the most variety and visibility of birds in this area."

Northern Michigan Padding Club's recent "Spring Whitewater Rendezvous" at the Bear River Whitewater Park. The river through the park has a 75 foot drop over one mile. 

A great Northern Michigan resource for the paddlers but I think I'll stick to fishing.

Chironomidae Chironomus sp.

Great clouds of midges coming off Lake C. all day today.  I know midges make up a huge portion of a trout's diet but what about the other fish in our lake?

Spent early yesterday afternoon exploring the beautiful braided channels of the Jordon headwaters. Perfect weather, perfect scenery, perfect river. One small brookie came out of this nice deep pool. Butterflies rejoicing that spring has finally reached north of the 45th parallel.

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (Papilio glaucus)

Michigan Fly Fishing Club held it's traditional opening day celebration in the board room at Gates Lodge fueled by the usual Bloody Mary's and doughnuts.  What a fun crowd!  

Not much serious fishing was done that day although the bamboo rod mutual admiration society hit the water pretty hard. I slipped away early to play with the brookies in the solitude of the Manistee.

Here are a couple of sunset views from the Headlands in early April. The night of the owl banding.

Encountered three red fox kits while motoring around Walloon Lake this afternoon. They were walking down the side of the road and showed no fear of the car.   Two of them hung around the roadside long enough for me to grab some quick pics with the point and shoot from the driver's seat.  I wish I'd had the Canon handy.

Spent this morning with the TU guys cleaning the Maple River downstream of Woodland Road. I floated down with fly-fishing guide Phil Croff.  A self-taught boat designer, Phil builds his drift boats with characteristics that suit the rivers of the Tip - the Maple, Sturgeon, Pigeon, Bear, Black, etc..


Very little trash was found but there were many downed trees across the river as a result of the monster early-March snow storm.  Phil came well prepared with a chain saw and hatchet and he created a narrow passage down this fine stretch of trout stream whilst leaving as much deadfall as possible for improved fish cover.

Later in the afternoon I met an angler with Indiana plates about to fish the TU section. Earlier in the day he had caught a nice Rainbow on a Hendrickson dry.  Interesting since Phil and I saw very few rises during our three hour float. Even more interesting was the astonishing coincidence that that this man's wife's maiden name was Miller and his name was Van Winkle.  He said, no connection whatsoever with the originators of the host TU chapter.  Almost unbelievable but he seemed to be an honest man.  And he was fly fisherman so he was probably being truthful.

Back to the Straits from 3:00 - 4:00pm for more hawk watching.  Steve reported it had been a very big day for eagles.  Sure enough, we saw several immature Golden Eagles and at one point saw a group of four Bald Eagles mixing it up as they prepared for the crossing.
Plenty of other hawks came through plus several Turkey Vultures and one American Kestrel that sat in the trees near by. (Not my Kestrel image.)

Great article in this month's Guitar Player magazine about Peter Green, one of my all time favorite Brit-Blues guitarists.
http://www.guitarplayer.com/article/148104

The print edition article is full of insights into Peter Green's note selection and more.  This inspired me to begin transcribing some of Greeny's early work on Someday After a While (You'll be Sorry) off A Hard Road by John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers.  Really great stuff.  Of course, playing it convincingly is another matter and I'm still struggling to approach the guitar tone on the recording with the Epiphone Les Paul, Fender Blues Junior and various pedals.  Yes, these licks had been played earlier by many of the blues greats in America but why did the same exact notes not have the coolness factor subsequently generated by Green and Clapton?

Spent some time with Boyne City's bamboo rod builder Alex Wulff today.  We reviewed some old cane rods of mine, the only one of real interest being the 11 foot Sealy Octopus split cane rod that I used for course fishing back in the UK when I was a youngster.  That would make it about 50 years old!  It just needs the stripping guide re-soldering and it's good to go.  Alex suggested using it for Spey casting and recommended that I seek out the Spey teacher John Breslin who could be participating at the FFF Great Lakes Council School and Fair June 15-17 which I will attend:
http://www.fffglc.org/

We discussed potentially re-furbishing the split bamboo rod that Donna picked up at a garage sale.  Boyd King (Beulah, Michigan 1903 to 1978) seems to have been the owner, not the rod builder. Boyd was obviously proud enough of the rod to put his name on it so it was probably a decent rod when it was new.  Much work would be needed starting with re-wrapping the cork handle.  Not worth the effort per Alex.

Next week I'm going to observe Alex working on tip sections to go with the three five weight butt sections already completed. Alex typically uses the (Jim) Payne 101 taper which he believes is as fast as you will get in bamboo.  Alex offered to lend me some of his books to learn the fundamentals but these well-thumbed volumes were obviously highly valued by Alex and in frequent use so I declined. Asked which one book he would  recommend for beginners Alex suggested Handcrafting Bamboo Fly Rods by Wayne Cattanach.  Another recommendation was to attend the bamboo rod conclave but it seems this is not happening this year.  Grayling public library has a good collection of books addressing all aspects of fly fishing and would be an interesting place to spend a cold, stormy day sometime.

Hiked a new section of the North Country Trail in the afternoon through the upper Jordon valley.  Did not see another soul for three hours. The Trillium is coming into bloom.  My image but I needn't have bothered with 4,750,000 images of Trillium on Google Images. Seems like people are interested in Trillium until you realize there are 94,800,000 images (non-offensive mind you) of boobs. Does this mean that people are twenty times more interested in Trillium than (non-offensive) boobs.  What if we included "offensive" boobs I wonder.

Managed a (just-about!) dry stream crossing at the old lumbering-era bridge ruin adjacent to the Fish Hatchery to save myself about an hour on the return leg.

Sat in on the Miller Van Winkle TU chapter board meeting yesterday evening at City Park Grill in Petoskey. Such an enthusiastic and knowledgable group; I'm looking forward to getting to know them better and maybe fishing with them.  Incredible stars as I drove into Boyne after the meeting but I still can't rationalize getting more involved with NOMAC in view of everything else that's going on and the images beamed to my lap-top courtesy of Hubble.
Link to clear sky chart: http://cleardarksky.com/c/RvnHllMIkey.html
Link to NOMAC: http://www.nomac.net/

We still have some Steelhead in the Boyne and I managed to land another really nice fish this afternoon after earlier losing one in the same spot and then catching a sucker (minus two points!). As I was walking downstream to the car after the sucker I saw two big male Steelhead cruising upstream; I was able to follow them and as luck would have it they rested in the water I'd just fished!  The rig was still set up to give me a really great drift through the slot and so without wasting any time, in went the fly.  I was pretty confident I'd hook one and sure enough I did.  A big fight ensued and I was pleased to net the fish on 3x fluorocarbon. No camera unfortunately.  Air temperature 50F, water 41F, overcast, light rain, falling barometer.

Impressive performance by singer/songwriter/guitarist Willy Porter at Freshwater on Saturday evening.  This guy has been around having opened for Jeff Beck, Jethro Tull and other big names.  Watching Willy play his guitar was almost enough to make me give up trying.  A highly entertaining act.  Great songs with plenty of humor tailored to BC thrown in.  Too bad the venue is so claustrophobic which spoiled it for some people.
http://willyporter.com/

Back up to the Straits for a couple of hours on Friday afternoon for some more raptor watching. Unfortunately, the wind had not shifted to the south as forecast so I did not see the large numbers of last week. I think I've now got the differences between a Buteo and an Accipiter, Red-tailed Hawks are pretty obvious from below if the light is right. We had one red tail fly low and slow right over our heads. The official six hour count for the day by Steve Baker was 174 birds heading north across the Straits (as compared with 602 for the previous Friday):
59 Turkey Vultures
2 Bald Eagles
4 Golden Eagles
1 Northern Harrier
26 Sharp-shinned Hawks
1 Cooper's Hawk
1 Red-shouldered Hawk
6 Rough-legged Hawks
71 Red-tailed Hawks
2 American Kestrels
1 Peregrine Falcon
For access to the North American Hawk Count database go to http://www.hawkcount.org/
Tried a bit more digiscoping on the using my Alpen 20-60x80 spotting scope, Alpen's (well made) bracket adapter and my little point and shoot camera but the results were not encouraging even for close, static and therefore very easy subjects like this Morning Dove:

This Northern Flicker was about 100 yards away and relatively well lit and static. Even with a stack of post image enhancement, a very poor result:

There's no getting around the fact that for serious bird photography I'll need a serious big lens for the Canon which will have to wait.

Alex Wulff discussed bamboo rod building at a Friends of the Boyne River meeting yesterday evening and has invited me to see the process at his shop here in BC.  From what  he said, the process is not so much difficult as it is tedious. I'd like to build a rod under his guidance if he will take me on.

Interesting presentation last night at Petoskey Audubon by Vern Stephens of MDNR discussing the restoration of Michigan's grassland ecosystems and specifically the work at Arcadia Dunes near Frankfurt.  Grasslands are immensely diverse and beautiful ecosystems.   Prior to European settlement Michigan had approximately 2 million acres of grassland and now, according to the Michigan Natural Features Inventory, less than 1% of the original prairies remain. 
Apparently, restoration is worth considering for parcels as small as half an acre.
http://www.gtrlc.org/land-stewardship-project/grassland-restoration/
If you don't go that far, there's much that can be done with garden plants to attract wildlife to the yard and this book is recommended:
http://www.amazon.com/Bringing-Nature-Home-Wildlife-Expanded/dp/0881929921/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1334160126&sr=1-2

The spring migration of raptors is in full swing as I witnessed up in Mackinaw City yesterday afternoon.  Saw dozens of birds high up in large kettles staging for the flight north across the straits. I was told they were mostly Buteos with a few Bald Eagles and a couple of immature Golden Eagles. With a forecast southerly component to the wind, today should be even better. Working on my hawk identification skills so that I can begin to tell one from another up high.  Also saw two large flocks of Sandhill Cranes passing through.  I'll be back in Mackinaw City on Tuesday with the Petoskey Audubon outing. Followed yesterday's hawk watch with a pot-luck at the Headlands Beach House; then nets and audio lures were set up for (Northern Saw-whet) Owl capture and banding followed by star gazing.

The Headlands is one of only six dark sky parks in the USA as designated by the International Dark Sky Association. Another fabulous Northern Michigan resource:

http://www.emmetcounty.org/darkskypark/

If you prefer to look at stars from the comfort of home:
http://skysurvey.org/

Although there was a full moon, on this night we saw a great many more planets (three) and stars (millions, who knows) than owls (zero as of 10:45pm when I left).  Here's somebody else's image of a full grown Northern Saw-whet Owl.  And here's a link to hear what they sound like.  Big noise for a little bird!

http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Northern_Saw-whet_Owl/sounds

Continued my hill training this morning with an eight miler including the challenging "Ridge Run" up the back side of Avalanche Preserve and now recovering watching opening day from Comerica Park. Tigers look poised for victory but wait...now Boston just tied it up at the top of the ninth!
Avalanche is another great Boyne City resource.
http://gov.boynecity.com/uploads/1215019708Avalanche_map_062708.pdf
Wondering about creating the Boyne Trail Challenge, a run linking the trails on Avalanche Preserve, Young State Park and The Hill Preserve.  Perhaps include the swamp section and beach in Young and the broken bridge crossing of the Boyne River to spice things up.  Start and finish in downtown. Maybe 20 miles, not marathon distance. The hills and rough going would be challenge enough.

Hiked up "The Hill" yesterday.  100+ wild acres on the other side of Lake C. from the house. Thank you Messrs. Herzog, Mrstik and Herzog. The trail we created last fall seems to be getting plenty of use.
http://landtrust.org/Newsletters/Fall2011.pdf

Looking south from "The Hill"

Not much wild-life to be seen - just a few deer and the usual escorting group of Chickadees. But the views made up for it.

Looking north at "The Hill"

After preaching to Meg about the training value of hill running, self-motivated myself into running some hills this morning. Great to be back on the "Wilson-Marsall Loop".  Then, this afternoon, hiked, birded photographed my way around the Dead Man Hill Trail. Stacks of trillium pushing through but no blooms yet.  And no morels that I could see. Great view of the Jordan Valley with two hawks flying closely together and later a bald eagle gaining altitude using the updraft. When it was almost at the limit of the range of my binoculars it suddenly stopped circling and headed off dead straight to the north-west possibly for it's summer rendezvous with its better half. I did not know until today that raptors are monogamous, but the male and female winter in different areas, so they re-establish their pair bond each spring. http://www.wingsofwonder.org/

Portland, Oregon - August 2011

Tigers Spring Training
 Lakeland, Florida - March 2012

In cricket this would be a "No Ball!" but I can't say about baseball.

Invested in some new bins today. Got some Nikon Monarch 5 8x42's which are a real step up from the binoculars I've been using up until now.  However, I did not need to use binoculars to see the Bald Eagle circling over the lake this morning. Very cool. Planning a trip to the UP soon to learn about bird photography from one of the best, Paul Rossi. Take a look at his work:

DIRECT LINKS TO GALLERIES:

COLORFUL FAVORITES

http://pwaynerossi.jalbum.net/COLORFUL%20FAVORITES/

SCENERY, ANIMALS, FLOWERS, ETC

http://pwaynerossi.jalbum.net/SCENERY,%20ANIMALS,%20FLOWERS,%20ETC/

VARIED FAVORITES

http://pwaynerossi.jalbum.net/VARIED%20FAVORITES/

SPRING SONG BIRDS

http://pwaynerossi.jalbum.net/SPRING%20SONG%20BIRDS/

MALE WARBLERS

http://pwaynerossi.jalbum.net/SPRING%20/

FLIGHT FAVORITES

http://pwaynerossi.jalbum.net/FLIGHT%20FAVORITES/

BIRDS HUNTING

http://pwaynerossi.jalbum.net/BIRDS%20HUNTING/

HAWKS IN FLIGHT

http://pwaynerossi.jalbum.net/HAWKS%20IN%20FLIGHT/

COMMON LOON

http://pwaynerossi.jalbum.net/COMMON%20LOON/

BIRDS IN SNOW

http://pwaynerossi.jalbum.net/BIRDS%20IN%20SNOW/

FALL WARBLERS

http://pwaynerossi.jalbum.net/FALL%20WARBLERS/

BIRDS FEEDING

http://pwaynerossi.jalbum.net/BIRDS%20FEEDING/

BIRDS WITH YOUNG

http://pwaynerossi.jalbum.net/BIRDS%20WITH%20YOUNG/

BIRDS IN ACTION

http://pwaynerossi.jalbum.net/BIRDS%20IN%20ACTION/

SHOREBIRDS

http://pwaynerossi.jalbum.net/SHOREBIRDS/

OWLS

http://pwaynerossi.jalbum.net/OWLS/

SHARP-SHINNED HAWK

http://pwaynerossi.jalbum.net/SHARP-SHINNED%20HAWK/

ECUADOR BIRDS ONLINE GALLERY 1 

http://jalbum.net/a/1067078/

Just the small matter of how to come up with a 600mm lens on the cheap.

Attended an interesting concert last night in Charlevoix put on by Boyne City's own master guitar builder Bob Howard.  Bob has a small shop here in town and makes beautiful acoustic instruments from scratch. http://www.howardguitars.com/
Bob told me he has two guitars in production at any given time and construction time is three to four months.  He invited me to go over and talk some more which I will certainly do. It seems that most of Bob's instruments are built with sides and back of African mahogany and tops of sitka spruce although other materials are available. The star of the show for me was J B Davies whose guitar "Dreamcatcher" is a small jumbo with cutaway using red cedar for the top and (really beautiful) padauk for the back and sides. This guitar was made to JB's highly exacting specifications to suit his (for me at least) highly unique fingerstyle/tapping playing.

According to Taylor Guitars "Cedar is less dense than spruce, and that softness typically translates into a sense of sonic warmth. If Sitka has a full dynamic range, cedar makes quieter tones louder, but it also imposes more of a ceiling on high volume levels driven by an aggressive attack. If one tries to drive a cedar top hard, at a certain point it will reach a volume limit. Typically, players with a lighter touch sound wonderful on a cedar-top guitar, fingerstyle players especially — that lighter touch will be amplified a little more, and one's attack never reaches the ceiling. Flatpickers are likely to hit the ceiling fast, and might be frustrated by an inability to get the tonal output to match their attack."  

In my opinion, the tone of JB's guitar was head and shoulders above the other three and seemed ideally suited to his aggressive tapping/hammering/pull-off/drumming style.
JB told me he he has been playing on and off for about 25 years; he divides his time between Detroit and a place on Walloon Lake.  His  style was quite intriguing and I shall dig deeper into his work and that of his Canadian guitar hero Don Ross.

JB http://jbdavies.com/cgi-bin/p/awtp-home.cgi?d=jbdaviescom
Don Ross http://www.gobyfish.com/Home.html

Other musicians playing were Bill Wilson, traditional finger-stylist on a small jumbo with rosewood and Sitca spruce top; Darrin Brown with a 00 size guitar suited to his eclectic, bluesy style - narrow body, short scale with larger fret wire making for easier hammer-ons and pull-offs; Michael Arp gospel/bluegrass singer/songwriter.

Today we finally had some rain and much cooler temperatures driving the crowds off the river and bringing the Steelhead in.  I went one for two landing this nice fish after it put up a monumental struggle.  It took an egg fly and the fight was much, much too long on the seven weight with 6 pound Maxima.  After such a fish drought I didn't want to lose such a good fish but going forward I'll be much more aggressive about landing fish quickly even at the risk of breaking off.  As it was, this fish couldn't be properly revived and so for the first time in my life I "harvested" a Steelhead.  This will never happen again. Hated myself for causing the courageous fish's death although "Robert" sitting fish-less, cold and soaking wet in jeans and hoody on the bank at the river mouth downtown was so very appreciative of a nice dinner ahead it almost (almost!) offset the guilt. He simply couldn't believe such generosity.  As it was I just wanted to be rid of the evidence of my crime. Strange how some of us eat meat and fish bought from the grocery store all the time without giving it a second thought.  If we had to personally kill the cow, pig, chicken, duck, salmon or whatever it might be different.

Great Blue Heron - Florida - February 2012