Seney National Wildlife Refuge

One thing we've noticed while in the U.P. is the lack of wildlife. The occasional squirrel or chipmunk, a grouse, and on Grand Island I saw a few of the predatory birds, but that is all we've seen. For all our walks in the woods and walks along the shore we sure haven't seen what you'd expect. I see more wildlife in our subdivision back home, I think! We only saw deer once, and haven't even seen hoofprints very often. So, today we headed out to Seney National Wildlife Refuge so I could see a little nature in action.

The refuge had a nice visitor center with a spotting scope that was pointing at an osprey nest, and they even had binoculars to loan out at no charge! So we grabbed a pair and got in the truck to take the 7 mile loop tour. I stopped on the first mile to take some photos, and in that first mile or two we saw dragonflies, hummingbirds, chipmunks, a woodpecker, canada geese and Wayne even watched a bald eagle catching a fish! On the next segment we spotted a couple of muskrats, some wood ducks, a loon (very far away!), a few scoters, eastern kingbirds and trumpeter swans. We were out on the loop a total of 2.5 hours, which apparently isn't common because the ranger was surprised how long we had been gone when we returned our binoculars. The wildlife was a bit spotty except for the trumpeter swans, but it was probably the wrong time of year. It was almost an hour drive to get there from Munising, but worth the trip!

We came home and Wayne fried up some bluegill from the freezer and I used the blackberries I bought at the farmer's market on Tuesday to make a blackberry apple crisp. The blackberries were bitter, so I thought that might fix the problem. It turned out okay. For those making the trip, the farmer's market here was pretty scarce on the "farm", which was a disappointment.