Last weekend

Well Hello everyone,

Last weekend we were at the cabin together, a rarity. It was our 16Th wedding anniversary. I got there on Friday evening. Denise was already up. She had gone to the morel mushroom festival with her Mom, Uncle and Aunt. No luck looking for mushrooms.

Saturday morning we went to the Kirkland's Warbler Festival. A little history on the Kirkland's Warbler. It is very rare birds who only nest in Jack Pine trees in the a very small area of the northern lower peninsula. The birds have become endangered due to loss of habitat and the Brown headed Cowbird. The cowbird is invasive birds that lays it eggs in the nest of other birds and then those birds than end up raising the cowbirds and there own chicks end up not making because the cowbird chick out competes the other chicks. For more information go to this website,http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,1607,7-153-10370_12145_12202-32591--,00.html

A pic of a Kirkland's Warbler

A pic of the Brown headed Cowbird

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife service, U.S. Forest Service and the Michigan DNR work together to create habitat for the Kirkland's. They set up traps, catch the cowbirds and than they are euthanized.

Pic of the Cowbird trap used by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

We took a field trip out to the Kirkland's nesting area. You could hear the birds singing but they are hard to see. When they do the bird count they count the numbers of Kirkland's heard singing. This is made easier with the fact that the female Kirkland's do not sing

A pic of a Kirkland's Warbler roosting in a tree. (so they told me anyway)

After arriving back at the festival site we took some classes on Michigan Mammals, Butterflies, Dragonflies, Sharp tailed Grouse and Bats. All the classes were informative. During the lunch break they had a silent auction. Denise bid on a wood duck house. So while she was getting our food I hovered near the wood duck house to make sure we ended up with the highest bid, which we did. We won it for 25$. We are going to put it on a little outcrop area on our property.

We attempted meet up with Shelly and her husband but were unable to because I had no cell service in this area. In fact we had to put minutes on Denise's On Star account so we could try to get a hold of Shelley. Sorry Shelley, I am looking forward to meeting you and the Hubby.

So after the festival we went out for our anniversary dinner. The restaurant was in a bed and breakfast and oh my goodness was the food out of this world. Denise had a Kobe prime rib and I had New York Steak. This absolutely the best meal I have had in years. Than it was back to the cabin to wind down. All in all a very good day.