Photo of the Week: Shorebird Migration Begins

A Solitary Sandpiper, a medium-sized brown shorebird with white belly, and white-dotted brown back looks up briefly as it forages in shallow waters on the mudflat.

It’s that time of year when shorebirds migrate south from their breeding grounds. The first shorebirds began arriving in southeast Michigan over the past couple weeks.

While it’s exciting to see shorebirds return to our area after several months up north, their return is also the beginning of my grumbling, ranting season.

Shorebirds are hard enough to identify when they’re in breeding plumage, with bright colors that make it a bit easier to distinguish what they are.

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Photo of the Week: Michigan Jazz Festival 2024

Brass musicians of the Mark Braun and B10 Band perform on stage under the outside white tent. The first row of audience can be seen in the foreground looking on.

One of my favorite events in summer is attending the Michigan Jazz Festival (Wayback Machine archive) at Schoolcraft College in Livonia, Michigan.

Launched in 1995, the free festival has been held at Schoolcraft College since 1999.

Showcasing local jazz musicians, including high school and college jazz musicians, the festival is a wonderful event for jazz fans throughout the area.

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Photo of the Week: Buck Moon

Yellow-tinged full moon with crater shadows against a slate gray sky with blurred dark tree leaves in the foreground.

A relatively cool summer evening and clear skies had me out birding late Friday night, in search of birds feeding from flowering native plants along the Rouge River near Dearborn, Michigan.

While I saw and heard American Goldfinches, Red-winged Blackbirds, and Killdeer, it was a pretty quiet night for birding.

But the full moon made up for a lackluster birding adventure as the golden sphere rose in the southeast sky at dusk.

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