• Monday-What'sUP July 26 - 02:44 am

These lush, green leaves seem to be holding on to the droplets of water with the fuzziness you see skirting around the perimeter of each one. That in itself is worthy of snapping a photo, but it looks like Erik Riutta may have spotted the reflection of the blue sky and was capturing that in each drop or maybe…there could be any number of reasons for taking a shot such as this, too many to list here for sure. Amazing how simple things like leaves and drips of water can be so fascinating.

Neil Harri captured the second fascinating shot... Not so unusual if you were at Bete Gris or Lac La Belle, but these cranes were doing the bird walk out by the Houghton County Airport, where Neil works. Maybe they were helping to locate that cable break near Boston Location, which brought communications to a standstill on Friday.

Let me apologize to the folks who have emailed us for assistance with the registration process here on the Pasty Cam. Because of that break in our connectivity last Friday, we are a little backed up in responding to your notes.

Just a reminder, it is not required to register in order to read these pages, but you will notice the paragraph below the "Add a Message" box, you need to register if you would like to leave a comment. (Also the "Click Here" link enables you to edit your I.D. profile). In case you hadn't heard, this was made necessary by a runaway spam engine process which we were unable to block, as we have in the past. Smarter spammers required more drastic measures. So far, nearly a thousand regular visitors have claimed their own Pasty Cam I.D. since we opened registration last Thursday.

Beautiful shots! The cranes are near and dear to my heart. They provide hours of company as we harvest our blueberries yearly. Starting the harvest this week here in SW MI. (Wonder if they have developed a taste for the fruit and are just waiting for our evening departures from the fields?) :o)

NICE SHOT OF SOME RUSTY CRANES!!

Eric, great pic and wonderful detail.
Neil's pic of the cranes reminds me of a time that I crossed the Mighty Mac. When I approached the toll booth, the attendant was laughing. He proceeded to tell me, that a little boy, in the car ahead of me, was all excited about the 'flamingos'he spotted on the shore, by the bridge. He had to explain to the little boy that what he saw were cranes...and that flamingos didn't migrate all the way up to the UP. ;)

Looks like the pair of cranes that have been spending the summer in our feild for the last three years. This year they have a little one and walked it down to the backyard for a visit. Looked like they just wanted us to see their baby.

Great waay to start the day!
Yooper Blueberries make my mouth water.

What beautiful creatures! :)

Sandhill cranes are an important part of the ecosystem, as well as being fun to watch and hear (they have very cool-sounding calls), according to the guy in the next office, here at work. He coordinates volunteer crane counts in Baraga County, part of a larger, nation-wide effort that takes place every spring.

One problem with cranes are they can be aggresive. While hanging out at the barn in Brighton we often saw them go after grazing horses and some riders that were minding their own business and in no way were threatening them. Can anyone tell me why they would do that? It got so bad at the stable we had to chase them away.

Are sandhill cranes always that color, or is the reddish back their mating plumage. I have seen what I thought were sandhills every spring stop in a flooded field near me, but they were all grey and white with a red cap.

By the way, that first picture is beautiful, Erik! I placed it on the desktop of a computer in my very busy and stressed-out Microbiology lab, and am enjoying a moment of peace every time I look at it.

news flash---thimbleberries are ripe & plentiful-
enjoy.

Nice Pictures:)