If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Peninsula is such a big park, so it sort of cracks me up how I end up focused on the smallest details. I drove out the other night thinking, “dang! I just spent the last hour looking at pinhead-sized flowers!” LOL! :D OK, they were a little bigger than pinheads, but not a lot.

My favorite moments are where I’m just chugging along and I glimpse something out the corner of my eye. My breath catches – I stop – and I carefully, quietly creeeeeeeeeeep backwards.

Such was the case with the mated pair of Common Mergansers on May 14th. I was tooling down Shore Rd. just below Eagle Bluff Lighthouse when I spied them near shore. They don’t like people, so I had to grab the shot quickly before they rushed off.

The mergies have been paired off since mid-April. In fact they arrived to Door County already paired up this year. In years past they have arrived in mixed flocks, but not in 2007. This year they were already cruising along two by two.

Anything purple catches my eye ;) and I was just tickled to catch these **EDIT** Dame’s Rocket (Hesperis matronalis) … see, I’d always thought these were phlox, but no! Turns out phlox has 5 petals, but Rocket spp. have only 4 petals on each flower. Rocket it is. Found these near the park superintendent’s house.

Filed under: Birds • Flowers • Sightings

Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!