The Bat Farm

Derrick and I are always looking for random things to do and this weekend we went to The Bat Farm in Auburn Township for a fundraiser for a new Bat Condo. We were able to see the mother bats and their babies sleeping in a shed. I didn't want to blind them with the flash on my camera so I don't have any close-up pictures of the bats but if you want you can google "Little Brown Bats" and see what I saw.

I learned the female bats mate on their way down to the caves to hibernate for the Winter but don't actually become fertilized until they wake up in the Spring. Then they fly to this barn to give birth and raise their babies. Totally interesting. We arrived at the barn a little before 7:00pm, saw the sleeping bats, roasted marshmallows and watched the birds until sunset. The bats flew out from all sides of the barn a few at a time and flew right over our heads. We were really entertained watching them eat the fireflies. The most exciting part of the night was when I woke up the next morning and realized I didn't have a single mosquito bite!

Duct Tape Festival

After over a year of waiting I finally went to the Duct Tape Festival! It really is amazing what you can do with duct tape. On my way to the parade in the morning the police had blocked off the street you need to drive down to access the park where you park your car for the festival. I wasn't sure what I should do so I went up to one of the officers and asked him where should I park since the parking lot was blocked off. He looked at me like the answer was obvious, just drive around the police barricade and drive into the park. Duh. Apparently I take police barricades too seriously. The Duck Brand Duct Tape employees did a great job with the duct tape part of the festival. There was a craft tent with different colors of duct tape and Duck employees teaching kids how to make wallets and roses. They had photos of duct tape prom outfits (go to www.stuckatprom.com to vote for your favorite) and a guy that makes duct tape art. They had a guy demonstrating Frog Tape, duct tape for painters which was pretty cool stuff. Throughout the festival there were duct tape art pieces that were part of a scavenger hunt. Everything was covered in duct tape! I feel like I've typed "duct" and "duck" way too many times for one blog entry so I'll let the photos do the rest of the talking.

New Bird Feeder

I bought a new bird feeder a week ago that is especially made for finches. It's one of those weird looking sock ones that is supposed to be easy for finches to cling on to. It took less than 24 hours for the goldfinches to figure it out. Today I sat at the living room window for an hour and photographed Señor Gato (our regular goldfinch who thinks he owns the whole tree), and one of our 2 doves that do a great job at picking up the mess the other birds leave behind. All I need now is a birdbath and some more plants and my little bird sanctuary will be complete!

Magee Marsh

It wouldn't make sense to blog about Magee Marsh without posting pictures of birds. So here is a follow-up post to my previous one. What was really cool about Magee Marsh is they have a wooden observation tower you can climb and watch for birds on the tops of the trees. I was told May is the peak of migratory season when the marsh is full of tropical birds flying to Canada to breed for the summer. In Fall, they fly back down to South America but they're not as vibrant as they are when they come up in the Spring. Even though I missed the migration by one month there are still lots of cool birds in the area. Next time I go I'll have to wear bug repellent because I was so busy trying to keep the bugs out of my face I couldn't really enjoy watching the birds.

Why Did the Snapping Turtle Cross the Road?

Derrick and I had Sunday off together so we took a drive along Lake Erie towards Toledo. On the way we stopped at Magee Marsh which is one of the top 10 birding sites in North America. It was awesome! While we were driving through the marsh this snapping turtle started to cross the road. I jumped out of the car to take a picture while Derrick warned me to stay away from it. Apparently they can be pretty aggressive and can easily remove fingers and toes. It looked so prehistoric to me. I felt like I was watching The Land Before Time in real life!