We kept an eye on the sky and weather app to see what was coming our way. Needless to say there was some bad storms coming with strong winds, heavy rain and maybe hail. We ran into a bit of heavy rain just before getting into Stevens Point. We seen that we might have a "window" of calm weather and looked for someplace to hang for an hour or so. We decided to go to Stevens Point. The rain stopped for a few minutes as we ran from the car to the Stevens Point Brewery.
they are celebrating 160 years of operation, the second oldest continuous operating brewery in North America.
Made me think of Laverne and Shirley!
For $5 we got a wonderful tour, 3 samplings and a pint glass. I tried handles #2, #8, #9. an amber, a lavender and honey experiment. hope to find it in the stores some day, and a Pilsner. Eric sampled #4, #5, #7. very hoppy, session and grapefruit. The tour took about an hour, by then the rain had stopped. We headed to Buena Vista Grasslands to look for the Greater Prairie Chicken.
no luck but did find some Bobolinks
and a yellow warbler just singing his heart out
After checking into the hotel we went "downtown" for a wonderful meal at Jennings.
Thurs: we left the hotel by 7:30, it was a bit foggy and humid. We made a few stops to look for the Greater Prairie Chicken and the Henslows sparrow. Again we did not find the Prairie Chicken but did hear a few of the Henslows sparrows. A new life bird! But no pictures....
we found this beautiful Lark Sparrow
another stop was at
not sure where the Rabbit is...
another hiking trail we stopped at along our route to the hotel
Beautiful wild flowers, thinking this is an Iris??
beaver...
and juvenile Canada Geese
It took us about 8 hours to get to our final destination, 125 miles, it was a wonderful day, 88 deg and sunny once the fog burned off. We are staying in Mayville near Horicon Wi. We went downtown for dinner at Gingers, great food.
Friday June 16: Another hot day in Wis.. The temp got to 90 and sunny with a little wind. Great day for hiking.
Black Tern
Forester's Tern
We finally met up with Carolyn and Wallace Sternberg for lunch. We have been trying to meet up with them since last summer. Persistence pays off. We had a lovely lunch and great conservations.
Saturday: time to head home. We did stop on Hwy 49 to look for the White Rumped Sandpiper, as we thought we seen them yesterday. Sure enough we got really good views and Carolyn and Wally showed up to verify the sighting.. New bird for us.
practicing my bird in flight pictures.. Killdeer
And a Trumpeter Swan
We went looking for Kirtlands warbler after we left Horicon but no luck... We made a few more stops before getting to our hotel in Marshfield. A wonderful walk around the free zoo closed out our day. Dinner at a local Mexican restaurant right near our hotel.
Sunday: 150 miles to home.. The past few days have been warm 90 deg but today the high will be 66! wow what a difference.. It rained off and on throughout the day but we managed to stop at a few places. Still did not find the Greater Prairie Chicken!! But we got 2 new life birds, 11 new year birds and 34 month birds on this trip. Glad to be home but lots of work, mowing, weeding, laundry, cleaning and chopping wood!
We have been having a bit of rain all month and lower than normal temps. The lettuce and radish like the cool weather but the tomatoes and peppers need heat to grow. I prefer to have some rain vs drought but that means mowing every 4 days instead of 7 days. Hopefully summer will begin and stay in July.
June bird count: 572 is +2 new birds for life, 16 new year birds brings us to 286 and a whopping 155 month birds.
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