Today was our annual [more or less] junket down to Lake Erie Metropark (LEMP) for Hawkfest. (I wrote more about LEMP a few years ago.) My favorite time to be at LEMP is before the sun comes up and we made it there just in time for sunrise this morning.

Can I just say that I loooooove this polartech jacket? It fits me perfectly and the raspberry color is right square in my wheelhouse. I bought it at one of those camping outfitters downtown one Friday night. Moosejaw maybe? We had just eaten at the Old Town Barroooomm and I was taarrrred. The GG wanted to go into the camping outfitter. I did not. I grudgingly accompanied him. And bought this looooverly jacket. Funny, we haven’t been back there since. Since when? Since I told him how much I spent! It was worth it. I need to buy another one a few more.

Early morning light makes such interesting shadows.

Not the best photoooo but I had to include some lotus. There are huge fields of these at LEMP.

190,142 broadwing hawks flew south over LEMP yesterday along with a smattering of other raptors. Yes, people really do count them. Many of yesterday’s hawks were flying at 2000 feet or thereabouts. They are not individually counted. The folks who count are trained to “estimate” based on the density of birds in a “field” of view. Or something like that. I am not a birder, therefore I am less than knowledgeable about this but I am enough of a mathematician that I get the concept. Anyway, some boy scouts spotted the hawk in the photoooo below in a tree off in the distance. We got close up and after some wandering off in the “weeds”, i.e., this is some rarely seen species of hawk, the GG decided it was probably “just” a redtail. Gorgeous whatever it is.

We are on the border here… The island in the sunrise photoooo belongs to Cananananada.

So watch out for birders like this, with bulls-eyes on their hats…

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