Well it will be sad to sign off. While I have been bombarding you with photos of our nearctic adventure, I have really enjoyed reliving the experience. It was really fantastic you know. I've never been to the states before, so you can imagine how good it would be.
On the 18th we had a long drive back south as far as the Allegan Dam on the Kalamazoo river. Our target here was quite easy to locate -
Cerulean Warbler. We soon found a singing male and female that showed well eventually but very briefly and I was too slow for a decent pic, but what a bird.
 |
| Allegan Dam |
 |
| Allegan Dam with hundreds of Cliff Swallows flying around. |
 |
| Male Cerulean Warbler |
 |
| Nesting Yellow throated Vireo. |
 |
| Cliff Swallow |
 |
| Spicebush Swallowtail |
 |
| Eastern Tiger Swallowtail |
Also here were a pair of Yellow throated Vireo nest building and 350+ Cliff Swallows nests on the dam itself.
Before calling it a day we checked in to our hotel then came back out to have a look at a parkland and wooded area called Al Sabo Park. We found 1 male House Finch, 1 male Pine Warbler, 2 White breasted Nuthatch amongst the more usual garden species.
Our final day was the 19th. We managed to get in a couple of hours at a place called the Kleinstuck Preserve. A mature wood surrounding a marshy area. Even at the final whistle we still found several new species -
Barred Owl seen well high up, 2
Wood Thrush with their haunting song and a male
Pileated Woodpecker seen several times, my biggest woodpecker to date, even bigger than Black. A good selection of other species here included Great Horned Owl, Swainsons Thrush, Rose breasted Grosbeak, Green Heron, Magnolia, Chestnut sided, Tenesee warblers, Downy, Hairy and Red bellied Woodpeckers plus a few mammals - Fox, abundant Chipminks, Fox Squirrel, Red Squirrel and Grey Squirrel and 5 White tailed Deer.
 |
| Kleinstuck Preserve, Kalamazoo |
 |
| American Red Squirrel |
 |
| Pileated Woodpecker |
 |
| Red bellied Woodpecker raiding a chickadees nest by making its own back door. |
An Eastern Kingbird was waiting for us back at the hotel as we packed ready for home, This concludes a superb trip. We saw 31 Warblers ( I saw 29 of them), 13 Sparrows, 8 Woodpeckers, 3 Owls and 2 Grouse to name a few with over 130 lifers for me.
So its back to blighty and the real world...
 |
| Great Horned Owl chick. |
