photo of the week

Photo of the Week: Harlequin Duck

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A small dark brown and blue duck with white bill, white spot behind the eye, and vertical white band along the back of the head swims slowly in the river, near the shoreline with tangled branches in the background.

What a surprise my friends Donna and Bill had when they learned the small dark duck they saw at a nearby inland lake was a Harlequin Duck.

A sea duck typically seen in northwest North America, Greenland, and eastern Canada, the Harlequin Duck winters along the coast of Atlantic Canada and New England as well as the Pacific Northwest coast.

The Harlequin Duck my friends found is a rare bird for southeast Michigan and the first time the bird was sighted in Washtenaw County.

Continue reading Photo of the Week: Harlequin Duck

Photo of the Week: Ice Storm in Southern Michigan

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Red maple branch with clusters of red buds completely encased in clear ice. One to two-inch icicles hang from the bottom of the branch, blurred green grass in the background.

While ice-covered branches look pretty, last week’s ice storm in southern Michigan resulted in downed power lines, fallen tree limbs, and widespread power outages.

The combination of snow, rain, accumulating ice, and strong winds caused wires to come down across roads, blew transformers, and broke tree branches which landed on streets, houses, and vehicles.

Over 750,000 electric customers in Michigan were initially without power, many customers for more than two days.

At a time when temperatures were below freezing; the wind chill on one day brought the temperature to 10 degrees Farenheit.

Continue reading Photo of the Week: Ice Storm in Southern Michigan

Photo of the Week: Juvenile Red-tailed Hawk

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Large dark-brown hawk with white specking on back and dark banded tail perched on the crossbar of a wooden utility pole looks over its shoulder and down at the trail below.

On this morning’s Washtenaw Audubon birding hike through Nichols Arboretum in Ann Arbor, Michigan, we had an interesting encounter with a young Red-tailed Hawk.

One of our group of 20+ folks spotted the hawk from a good distance away, perched on the crossbow of a utility pole adjacent to the trail.

We carefully watched from afar as one of the more advanced birders in the group quickly identified it as a juvenile Red-tailed Hawk.

How could they tell so quickly it was a juvenile? And a Red-tailed Hawk?

Continue reading Photo of the Week: Juvenile Red-tailed Hawk

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