Michigan Birds

Michigan Birds

Michigan Birds  –  Many Shapes, sizes, colors and groups. 

Many Coats of Colors

Michigan Birds; there are Michigan reds, blues and white birds of color. Grey birds, green birds and orange ones too. Yellow birds, yellow and black, yellow birds with blue. There are blue birds with blue wings, some others with blue caps and other Michigan birds are blue all over. Beige, with black tips, brown with black strips, and multicolored like the rainbow, big and small, mean and timid. Birds painted in a variety of colors from the tip of their beak to the end of their tail, nails and toe.

 

 

Michigan Birds

Michigan Birds – Photo by Ike Austin

 

Shapes and Sizes

There are tall Michigan Birds, tall and skinny, big and fat. There are a plenty of small birds, tiny birds and minauture birds a squring about. Michigan has birds with giant wing spans over six feet wide, others with small spans only inches in length.  Some birds are fast, others slow, still some are swift can turn on a dime.

 

Michigan Bird

Michigan Bird

 

Michigan Birds   – Some Fly High, Others Low

Some Michigan Birds fly high others fly low. Some glide, others dive below.  Some ride the thermal waves others ride the wind. Some Michigan birds flap with a rapid motion while other birds clap as they flap.

 

Michigan Birds

Michigan Birds

 

Is it a Kettle of Hawks or a Rafter of Turkeys? 

Some Michigan birds stay alone, while others live in groups, called gaggles, brewds, flocks and fleets. Some birds travel in congregations, pods, volery or bevy of a crowd. A cast of Michigan hawks, a charm of darting finches, a cover of angling coot. A bevy of surfing quail,  siege of hunting herons, a clattering of chattering ravens, a party of noisy blue jays. Who have not seen a darting of dabbling ducks bobbing and waving, diving and dunking, and the gulp of cormorants atop the trees. A colony of gulls, a drum of gold finches, a loft of pigeons huddled close. Michigan hosts groups of swallows, and herds of swans or are swans called a bevy or bank? Let’s not forget a Michigan all time favorite; the geese.  Are they called a group of gaggle or plump? classification of Michigan birds groups goes on and on.

 

 

 

 

Michigan Birds - Dabble of Ducks

Michigan Birds – Dabble of Ducks

There’s a Michigan Bird shape and sized to fit every camera lens.

nature photography - michigan

Nature Photography by Ike Austin – Michigan
Photography that is Therapy for the Soul 

Michigan Birds

 

National Geographic

2011 Editors Choice Winning Photo

Nature Photography by Ike Austin – Michigan
Photography that is Therapy for the Soul 

Birds Photography Night Heron

National Geographic 2011
View Entry on NG website… NG Contest Winners

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Green Heron – Michigan Bird

 

Green Heron, Nature Photography of Michigan Birds

What a wonderful opportunity for nature photography – I happened upon a group Green Herons (technically referred to as a hedge, scattering, or battery) of overly spirited Herons moving frantically about a hidden wetland one early afternoon. This particular wetland accommondates a variety of Michigan Birds.

Michigan Birds

Green Heron Michigan Birds

The battery of Green Herons were flying from branch to branch, low branches, high branches, with some of the birds sitting motionless, single and pairs.  Another pair of herons was perched together (one slightly behind the other) appeared as though they were in deep meditation, contemplating Michigan wetland secrets or something. Or, maybe like me, they were just enjoying the spectacle of quick flight aerobics that filled the wetland air space as each these green birds of Michigan darted about.

Birds of Michigan Wetlands

Birds of Michigan Wetlands

One of the Green Herons was perched in full predator pose, standing like a statue staring intently, downward at the surface of the water, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.  With it’s head hunched, neck elongated; stretched to a length twice it’s body length, and with feet that curled around the branch looking more like alien tendacles than typical bird feet.

This Michigan bird is one of the strangest looking creatures in all the bird inhabitants of the wetlands and can provides some of the most interesting nature photography of this peculiar elastic neck bird.

Green Heron Half head, half mouth

Green Heron Half head, half mouth

Butorides Verescens

Nature Photography – Michigan Bird Identification

Photo Taken: Kensington Metro Park, Michigan

About the Green Heron

Appearance: The Green Heron is a elastic bird. At times the Green Heron is hunched in and appears short and stubby, long yellow legs, and long black beak with yellow eyes. Other times the Green Heron can stretch twicce its length. The Green Heron can swivel his head 180 degrees. Wing span can can extend to 3.5 feet.

Adult: Color is Dark forest green with aztec like designs on it’s covert and wing bars plumage.

Flight Characteristics: Swift and quick wings in flight and typically flapping their wings as they jump from tree. Green Herons prefer open wooded marshes, wetlands and forests.

Mating Habits: The Great Heron start courtship as early as April, listenf for their mating skreeching calls. The Green Heron will choose one mate for the entire year.

Migration: Traveling mostly during the night, the Green Heron returns from wammer climates in early spring.

Nesting: The Green Heron will construct a nest 10-12 inches in diameter in low growing shrubs or as high as twenty feet up in trees. Incubates 3-5 pale blue eggs for appx 19-21 days. Young are feed by regergitation and independence is gained in as little as 30-35 days.

Off Spring: (Called Chicks)

Feeding: Day hunter. Small amphibians(frogs), earth worms, dragon flies and fish.

Call: Very loud and skretchee sound.

About the Photography

nature photography - michigan

Nature Photography by Ike Austin – Birds of Michigan Series
Photography that is Therapy for the Soul 

For some interesting and imaginative, new awareness reading… read the book below.

ThirdSon and the River’s Sky
images of birdsThirdSon and the River’s Sky

 

  • As a kid, I spent an enormous amount of time down by the river. I was drawn like a magnet to the many sounds of nature that filled the air-the tides rumbling ashore, the faint call of seagulls echoing in the distant background. I would remain there all day under the pretense that I was fishing. I would walk the shores for miles, moving from one spot to the next. I later discovered that the sky above this river was alive. 
    Read More Here

Michigan Birds Photos by Ike Austin

Michigan Birds  – Nature Photography by Ike Austin

Enjoy the many photography nature and wildlife shots, listen to the thoughts and feelings that these images place in your heart. In my personal walk with nature it has been truly therapy to my soul.  These nature photography and bird pictures will help relieve stress and help you clear your mind from the noise of everyday life that prevents us all from hearing and seeing the pure sounds and images of nature which has the capacity to benefit and alter the soul in a positive manner.

Michigan Birds

Michigan Birds

Nature Photograpy That Brings Therapy to the Soul – I hope these photos serve your health the same.

Nature speaks a silent language all of it’s own. Walk, then wait for those precious and rare moments when nature will reveal itself to you, a personal message crafted for your own benefit.  It may be communicated by a bird, insect or larger four legged mammal. It might be passed to you from the ripples on the surface of a lake or arrive to your soul upon distant low and muffled thundering emulating over the horizon.

Michigan birds are also messengers of nature.  I have been the recipient of nature’s many lessons and accumulated, time ripened wisdom. Kensington Metro Park – Jimme’ section. 

 

 

nature photography - michigan

Nature Photography by Ike Austin – Michigan
Photography that is Therapy for the Soul 

Birds Photography Night Heron

Visit the photo gallery to request prints, photos or screen savers you feel you particularly enjoy.
Nature Photography By Ike Austin

Michigan Birds Dialogue with Nature

The decisions of one, affects all—ThirdSon and the River’s Sky