Long Lake Yarns

It’s been a strange, very cold, very wet Spring in Michigan. On the last day of April, we saw what I thought was our first Common Redpoll ever at our feeder. I’m referring to the chubby one on the left seeming to give the cold shoulder to the leaner male Purple Finch. He hung around [...]

For the first time in five years of winters, we were at the lake for ice-out day. This photo was taken April 15th and you can still see an icy patch. Ice-out was April 16. We saw it. So did this loon pair.

The weekend brought wonderful bird watching to our Long Lake feeders. We had red-bellied woodpeckers, downy woodpeckers, hairy woodpeckers, chickadees, titmice, nuthatches and mourning doves galore at the feeder. And, hoards of finches. At the sunflower seed feeder above there are three goldfinches, one male purple finch (that’s the red guy) and three female purple [...]

Steve scattered some extra sunflower seeds under the feeder. Look who arrived to check it out. I’m fairly certain this little guy is Michigan’s most common shrew: the Northern Short Tail Shrew a/k/a Blarina Brevicauda. We watched for about half an hour while he ducked in and out of a hole burrowed through the snow, [...]

Our young neighbor Zach says the walleyes on Hillman’s Long Lake bite most frequently through the ice at twilight.  They are probably so distracted by the beautiful sunsets that they lose their sense of self-preservation and just decide to nibble those tasty minnows after all. Steve caught this nineteen-incher a little before sunset, on a [...]