The Days of Summer - Day Forty-five through Day Fifty-one

This is part seven of my Days of Summer photography project.   Beginning with the Summer Solstice (21 June 2018) and ending with the Fall Equinox (22 September 2018), I am making it a point to get outdoors and photograph something every single day.  One photograph from each day is being selected for this project and shared here.

The previous installments of this project can be found at the links below:

Part Six
Part Five
Part Four
Part Three
Part Two
Part One

I hope you enjoy the photos from this past week - one of them might be quite a surprise.

Day 45 (04 August 2018) - A Banded Bird

The first image of the week was taken at Forest Hill Nature Area.  If you look closely at This female Common Yellowthroat (Geothlypis trichas) you might notice that her left leg sports a band.  Between this picture and several others of this bird I was able to make out a couple numbers on the band.  With that information, I contacted Mike Bishop at Alma College - he is running a banding project at Forest Hill.  With the numbers I gave him, Mike was able to narrow it down to one of two birds that he banded on June 28th of this year.  We both thought this was pretty cool.

This photograph has been cropped into a landscape format - taking some off the top and bottom of the image.  I just thought it was the most appealing of all the different crops that I tried.  I like how the bird looks like she is about the launch herself at the goldenrod to the left of the image.

Sunburst and Lighthouse - A Photo from Northeast Michigan

Just a photograph for today. 

This picture of the Old Presque Isle Lighthouse was taken in 2009.  Old Presque Isle Light is located in Presque Isle Township in Presque Isle County.  Presque Isle County is located along the northern Lake Huron shoreline of Michigan's Lower Peninsula.  This light was originally constructed in 1840.  It was replaced in 1870 by the New Presque Isle Lighthouse. 

The words presque isle originally come from the French language and translate to "almost an island".  They are used to describe a peninsula that is connected to the mainland by a very narrow neck of land and is therefore "almost an island".  Presque Isle is one of many French place names in Michigan.  For approximately 150 years, Michigan was part of New France (Nouvelle-France).  Although Michigan was lightly settled by the French, it very important for control of the Great Lakes fur trade and fur trading posts/forts were established at strategic locations such as Detroit, Sault Sainte Marie, and the Straits of Mackinac.  Although the French ceded control of Michigan (and the rest of Nouvelle-France) to Great Britain in the 1760s, many of the place names have passed down to us today.

To learn more about these lighthouses visit the Presque Isle Township Museum Society website.

Old Presque Isle Lighthouse (July 2009)

 

Back to work...

I have been on vacation for parts of the past two weeks with no internet access.  As a consequence I have written nothing for this blog.  As a first post back I thought I would share just a few photos from my trip.  We spent our vacation driving around Michigan's Lower Peninsula and visited several lighthouses on both the Lake Huron and Lake Michigan shoreline.  Regular blog posts will return next week.

Ludington North Breakwater Light

S.S. Badger car ferry passing the Ludington North Breakwater Light bound for Manitowoc, WI

Grand Haven South Pierhead Lights - the iron walkway allowed lightkeepers access to the lights in rough weather

Boat passing Holland Lighthouse - this light is known as "Big Red"

Early Spring in Northwest Michigan

Here in Mid-Michigan most of the local schools have been on Spring Break this week including my wife's school.  Since she had the week off we decided to go away for a couple of days.  While most people head south for Spring Break we headed north to our favorite area of the Michigan (Leelanau and Grand Traverse Counties).  Here in Mid-Michigan, much of the snow has melted away, buds are swelling on trees, and plants are starting to green up - we even have a few flowers (crocuses)  blooming in our yard.  As we traveled north, we kept seeing more and more snow on the ground.  Winter still seems to be  trying to hold on in the northern part of the Lower Peninsula.

The first set of photos was taken along the shoreline of Grand Traverse Bay just outside Traverse City.  The bay is mostly frozen over but is thawing along the shoreline.

The East Arm of Grand Traverse Bay - Old Mission Point on the horizon

Open water along the shoreline.

Cracks in the ice looking out toward Old Mission Point

I hadn't noticed when I took this photo, but my wife pointed out that this hole in the ice looks like a squirrel.

Ice pushed up on the shoreline

The remaining photos were taken at Mission Point Lighthouse on the Old Mission Peninsula.  We have visited this lighthouse in every season of the year with the exception of Winter.  This was the first time I had been there when there was a significant amount of snow on the ground.

The snow is still several feet deep in the woods around the lighthouse.  It looks solid on the surface, and mostly is, but there are spots where the crust is thin.  It is always fun to be walking along the surface of the snow and suddenly have one foot break through - until you have one leg buried in the snow up to the crotch and the other foot is still on top of the snow.  In the picture below you can see a sign barely sticking up out of the snow and a buried staircase.

Looking out from Mission Point toward Lake Michigan