When you think of “bird watching”, you might be picturing small birds that visit your feeders, but today’s birding is of a bigger nature. Starting out in 2004, with a photo Tom Cook snapped of a ruffled up Ruffed Grouse or what we typically call this bird here in the Keweenaw, a Partridge. You know this bird is nearby, when you hear the “drumming” sound it makes by the rapid flapping of its wings. Quite the distinct sound in the woods.

Our next feathered friend comes to us from Fred Koski back in 2009. We have two shots from that day, of a Northern Harrier Hawk as it was hunting for its dinner, flying slow and low to the ground. Amazing closeup in the second of Fred’s shots...makes it look like he’s looking right through the camera lens at Fred and us!

The fourth shot was snapped last week at the Harbor Haus in Copper Harbor. Joe Kirkish was there with friends, celebrating his 93rd birthday, when the skies all of a sudden darkened, the waves picked up and the clouds whipped by. Joe captured the scene with a Harbor Haus “shoreline bird”, which he said gave the feeling that it was responding to the pending storm, the same way the patrons at the restaurant were, all gathered at the windows to watch the weather developing. Quite the interesting concept!

Since we’re birding today, we have a video from July, 2017 about the return of the Peregrine Falcons to the Portage Lake Lift Bridge nesting boxes and also boxes in the Sault Ste. Marie area. Pasty.com is one of the sponsors for the “Falcon Cam” on the Lift Bridge here in the Houghton/Hancock area. You can find that feed here: Portage Lift Bridge Falcon Cam. The feed for the “Falcon Cam” on the Sault Ste. Marie International Bridge can be found here: Sault Falcon Cam.

Yes, nice mention of Past Cam on the video!

Wonder if the peregrines have territories which
would
allow nesting in both boxes? Or is that too close
together?

Also, want to give a shout out to my friends in
Antrim and Charlevoix Counties today! Good luck
morel hunting now that the rain provided much
needed moisture!

the camera to the liftbridge falcon cam is not working....just a still picture.

mickill,

Click on the picture to start it up.

D.A. (Midwested) I tried that and it still does not work. I even right clicked, if you will, the mouse and pushed play. Nothing.

Oh Well.....I had fun looking at falcons from PA. site. Besides, with the nest on the lift bridge, you can not really see them when the sun is shining on them. They sure are cute none the less.

D.A.- Thank You, for telling me that. ;O), to try that....

mcckill,

Try a different web browser. I am using Chrome successfully.

When live, the word "LIVE" in the upper left corner turns blue.

I tried MS Internet Explorer and it does not work (just a still picture). It also returns an error message that the video is not supported.

Today's video seems to work well with the Firefox browser, at least Firefox v. 60.0.1 84 bit). Most of them do.

I have found that on a few occasions some Pasty videos don't work so well, or at least not at full screen. If/when that occurs, a reliable fix for that is as follows:

• Right click on the video.
• Select Copy video URL.
• Paste the video URL in a new tab (or Paste & Go).
• If the video starts immediately, you can pause it (I wish it didn't do that!), and you can zoom to full screen.

Crazy pix...2004 looks like a Word (wolf-bird) howling at the moon and a "Shout-Out" to Pasty Central on the video...nice collaboration.

About that Portage Lift Bridge Falcon Cam:
Who would have guessed that to get a full screen image, you have to click on the nest icon:

in the lower right corner of the image?!

And that camera was a rockin' in the breeze this evening, seems it needs to be anchored more securely!

The falcon cam was working great til the camera 'went missing', then when it came back on....it does not work. All my other cams I view work well. Oh Well....

I thank everybody for the suggestions to try.

I just checked that Falcon Cam. It's 6:30 central time on Wednesday
and it is working fine. I hope all y'all can see it too.