Wonderland, photo by SpringChick.
SpringChick (Deb) says that she works at Camp Miniwanca, located on Lake Michigan and also on Stony Lake near Shelby, MI. She has a great set of photos from Miniwanca (slideshow) and you can learn more about the camp at the American Youth Foundation’s Miniwanca pages.
Sometimes when I’m not sure what Michigan in Pictures will be about, I look at my Michigan events calendar for inspiration. There were no events, but the calendar also shows hunting information. I saw that on Monday, Bobcat Trapping Season opened in northern Michigan. That jarred me enough to go looking for stuff about bobcats in Michigan.
In this closer view of the cat, BJ says that she photographed this bobcat the Blandford Nature Center in Grand Rapids, that he was taken in from Tennessee as an injured animal and that his name is BOB.
The very excellent University of Michigan Museum of Zoology’s Animal Diversity Web has information & photos about bobcat (Lynx rufus). You can find a lot more in the Wikipedia entry for Bobcat, which says that these cats are phenomenal climbers that are crepuscular (most active at twilight and dawn) and found all over North America. As to their size:
The adult male Bobcat is 28 to 47 inches long, averaging 36 inches; this includes a stubby 4 to 7 inch (10–18 cm) tail, which has a “bobbed” appearance and gives the species its name. An adult stands about 14 or 15 inches (36–38 cm) at the shoulders. Adult males usually range from 16 to 30 pounds (7–14 kg); females average about 20 pounds (9 kg). The Bobcat is muscular, and its hind legs are longer than its front legs, giving it a bobbing gait. At birth it weighs 0.6 to 0.75 pounds (280–340 g) and is about 10 inches (25 cm) in length. By its first year it will reach about 10 pounds (4.5 kg)
Don Harrison has several photos of a bobcat by the side of the road and also old postcards of a bobcat crossing the Military Rd near Stateline, MI and a bobcat at Lake Baldwin. Here’s a video of a bobcat crossing a bridge that gives you an idea of how these animals move.
Finally, any of you who were hoping for bobcat trapping are out of luck as the season is (permanently?) closed south of the bridge according to the DNR’s bobcat trapping page. Here’s the link to report bobcat, cougar and lynx to the Michigan DNR.
A Herd of Turkeys, photo by curlyson.
The thought of two guys in the woods chasing turkeys around for a photo is pretty funny.
You can learn more about Michigan turkeys (both wild & plattered) at Absolute Michigan.
Happy Thanksgiving folks.
maplepath, photo by Aunt Owwee
Our next fall color tour from Travel Michigan, Lansing – Grand Ledge – Hastings – Battle Creek – Eaton Rapids, starts where the above photo was taken: at the Fenner Nature Center in Lansing (once known as the Fenner Arboretum). The park is named after biologist Carl G. Fenner and has 130 acres with 4 miles of trails winding through maple groves, pine forests, swamp forests, old fields and 3 different ponds. This weekend (Oct 20 & 21) they’re having an Apple Butter Festival. Aunt Owwee (Shirl) has a cool four seasons view from here and lot more great shots of autumn in Michigan.
If you’ve got the nature center bug, you can stop at the Woldumar Nature Center, located along the Grand River not far southwest of Lansing. From there, head out M-43 to Grand Ledge. Fitzgerald Park aka “The Ledges” are absolutely gorgeous in the fall, as evidenced by this photo from Rein Nomm of Fall at the Ledges that appeared last year on Michigan in Pictures. Not convinced? Search fall at Grand Ledge on Flickr. Last weekend, the city of Grand Ledge held their annual Color Cruise, but there’s still plenty of color to be found.
Then it’s on to Hastings and Historic Charlton Park, a re-creation of a 19th century town. The structures are open only Memorial Day to Labor Day but you can certainly enjoy strolling along the river. For a little more exercise, jump on the non-motorized vehicle only Paul Henry – Thornapple Trail (see photos of the trail on Flickr). When complete, the trail will be a 42-mile route from Grand Rapids to Vermontville. The photo to the right of the Thornapple River was taken by hansendm.
The it’s on to Gull Lake and the W.K. Kellogg Bird Sanctuary. The sanctuary is one of the North America’s pioneer wildlife conservation centers and offers a chance to see birds in the wild, bird displays and birds of prey enclosures featuring rare and common raptors including a bald eagle, red-tailed hawks and eastern screech owl.
Travel Michigan suggests a possible detour to the Fort Custer Recreation Area, located between Battle Creek and Kalamazoo. It features three lakes, the Kalamazoo River and an excellent trail system that includes 16 miles of mountain bike trails. The 3000+ acre area was farmland that was acquired by the federal government to establish Camp Custer, an induction and military training center for the US Army during WWII.
If it’s raining or all this outdoor stuff doesn’t sound fun, consider stopping at the Gilmore Car Museum in Hickory Corners which features almost 200 vehicles spanning over 100 years of automotive heritage from a 1899 Locomobile to the muscle cars of the 60s and 70s.
Continuing south, we come to the city of Battle Creek where recommended stops include the Sojourner Truth Monument (check out this set of photos of the Monument), Binder Park Zoo, the Leila Arboretum and Children’s Garden and the Battle Creek Linear Park. The park is a walkable, bikeable and billed as “the world’s largest classroom,” featuring signs that tell about plant, animal, cultural and historical points-of-interest along the park.
If you’re hungry as you head out on Old 27, consider Cornwell’s Turkey House aka Turkeyville USA. A bit further south is the town of Marshall. In addition to being a shopping mecca, Marshall’s downtown is designated as a National Historic Landmark District and features a wealth of historic attractions including the American Museum of Magic.
The photo to the right is of the Kalamazoo river from the Nature Center bridge by cathie and it’s just one of the places you can stop as you ease on down the road back to Lansing through the towns of Albion, Springport & Eaton Rapids. They recommend a stop at The English Inn of Eaton Rapids for dinner. Having eaten there before, I can only say “got room for another?”
Just so it’s clear, these fall color tour entries are produced by Absolute Michigan & Michigan in Pictures using the great information compiled in Travel Michigan’s Fall Color Tours as a starting point. We’re trying to add to what they’ve put together – not rip them off! As always, if you have links to information or photos that we missed, comments or reports, post them in the comments below!
Don’t miss our Michigan Fall Wallpaper series and see more of Travel Michigan’s Fall Color Tours.
Miners Castle – October 2006, photo by Lars Jensen
Let’s jump over to the eastern side of the UP for the next color tour of Munising – Newberry – Grand Marais … and the Pictured Rocks.
The highlight of this tour is of course the stunning Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore., (be sure to check out Lars Jensen’s other Pictured Rocks galleries). Travel Michigan starts you heading east from the town of Munising (Munising.com has the best links, but you can also see the Munising Visitors Bureau). 
Be sure to check out Munising area waterfalls including Horseshoe Falls (photographed so well by Amy Kilroy – see her Pictured Rocks set for more!). Regarding Munising, Michigan.org says:
This harbor town of about 2,500 is the departure point for regularly scheduled, 2-1/2 hour, narrated Pictured Rocks Boat Cruises as well as chartered Skylane Air Tours that offer a birds-eye view of the scenery. Hikers can tackle all or a portion of the 43 mile Pictured Rocks segment of The North Country Trail (NCT), a national scenic hiking route from North Dakota to New York.
I’ve never done the Air Tour (check that link above and scroll down for the video!), but the boat cruise offers an amazing look at the Pictured Rocks that’s well worth the time and cost! The Pictured Rocks is my favorite place in Michigan, and I’ve covered it pretty well on Michigan in Pictures and on Absolute Michigan. The same is true of Tahquamenon Falls, so let’s say that Grand Marais is a cool little harbor town with its own brewery and a great little diner car diner and skip over to the Tahquamenon Logging Museum which features all kinds of logging era memorabilia and special events including Lumberjack Breakfasts and a Harvest Fest the 3rd weekend of October.
They don’t stop at the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum at Whitefish Point (’cause that’s another tour), but you can definitely make the short detour to check this very cool museum out. Then it’s back south to Newberry (recent photos at visitnewberry.com) and then west to the Seney National Wildlife Refuge (Wikipedia entry) and the gorgeous Seney Stretch of M-28. Although this highway has been called “mind-numbingly monotonous” and “the state’s most boring route“, it’s actually pretty beautiful in the fall! (photo to the right is H-58 in Fall Color by James Phelps – part of his great Pictured Rocks set).
Here’s a link to a map of photos from the Munising / Pictured Rocks area in the Absolute Michigan pool!
Just so it’s clear, these fall color tour entries are produced by Absolute Michigan & Michigan in Pictures using the great information compiled in Travel Michigan’s Fall Color Tours as a starting point. We’re trying to add to what they’ve put together – not rip them off! As always, if you have links to information or photos that we missed, comments or reports, post them in the comments below!
Don’t miss our Michigan Fall Wallpaper series and see more of Travel Michigan’s Fall Color Tours.
up_hunter_point_026_m1_screen, photo by pntphoto.
This photo is part of a set of photos from Hunter’s Point Park near Copper Harbor, Michigan that I think is best viewed as a slideshow (you can also see where it is on a map).
The web site for Hunter’s Point has a neat aerial photo in which you can see the Isle Royale Queen ferry which was captured along with fireworks & northern lights in this photo.
2007_0703July40155, photo by JJ Murletti.
I don’t know the name of this lake but was struck by just how peaceful it looks.
There’s a campground in the Pigeon River State Forest and lots and lots of trails. The DNR says that the Pigeon River Pine area has over 100 acres of white pine (most about 100 years old) and that the Dog Lake area is considered to be one of the most remote and wild areas in the region. Nesting loons, bald eagles, and osprey are a few of the many animals using the lakes.
The International Mountain Biking Association is quite taken with:
An awesome ribbon of trail looping through the heart of elk country, the High Country Pathway (HCP) embodies the classic definition of an IMBA Epic Ride. The first IMBA Epic Ride in Michigan will take you far into the backcountry with beautiful lowlands and panoramas in the highlands.
Be sure to outfit for self-support, as you may not see another human on this 80-mile soul searcher. The trail passes through a variety of woodlands and wetlands containing massive groves of silver beech, tamarack swamp and leather leaf bogs. The area is home to beaver, black bear, bobcat, pine martin, snowshoe hare, wood ducks, bald eagles, deer, wild turkey and the largest elk herd east of the Mississippi River.
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Grandfather Beech (4 photos), by Eye See 360
I am pretty sure that the above photos are by Betsy Lewis , whose work is featured at the Tahquamenon Area Library in Newberry. The Mining Journal has an article on the exhibit. They had planned around an arts grant from the state (which was cut), but they are still holding an amateur photo contest. It’s the 4th annual and the theme is Trees. You can get more information about the contest right here, but even if you don’t enter, consider what Betsy has to say about trees:
Our economy, our recreation, our lives are dependent on trees. They build our homes, provide fuel, jobs, clean the air, provide respite for us and are home to many creatures besides us. They provide roots, they are flexible, they bend, they break, they change. They surround us and uplift us and inspire us to reach for the sky.
Little Foxes, photo by curlyson.
Red fox cubs exploring the world near their den.
The Michigan DNR’s red fox (Vulpes vulpes fulva) page says that a large fox (14 inches high) will weigh only 12-15 pounds and be able to easily pass through a four inch hole.
The Red fox pages at the UM Animal Diversity web are sleeping late this morning but doubtless have great info, photos and fox barks. Wikipedia’s red fox entry has a lot more about foxes and shows their range as covering most of the northern hemisphere.
After 17 years?, photo by mfophotos.
The Magicicada are the genus of the 13- and 17- year periodical cicadas of eastern North America who display a unique combination of long life cycles, periodicity, and mass emergences. They are classified according to “Brood” and 2007 is the year of Brood XIII, on a 17-year cycle and also known as the Northern Illinois Brood. Wikipedia’s Brood XIII page has a nice picture of the cicadas of this brood.
While Wikipedia and the U-M’s Museum of Zoology cicada page say that Brood XIII has a presence in southwest Michigan, retired University of Michigan entomologist and cicada expert Thomas Moore says (Freep article) that overeager graduate students and sloppy work by a 19th-Century government scientist and irresponsible replication are responsible for the erroneous perception that Brood XIII may make an appearance in Michigan.
Mark O’Brien comments that it’s unfortunate that Tom Moore was quoted as dismissing the work by former UMMZ graduate students John Cooley and David Marshall (who created the useful pages and did state that the maps are “approximate”). On his blog, Six-legged Wonders, Mark has a post about Brood XIII in Michigan where he says:
What needs to be done is to get modern records. Researchers tend to go to where previous records show emergences. So, if you know that Lake County, Illinois has 17-yr cicadas, that’s where you go if you have limited time to do experiments, etc. I don’t doubt that there may have been 17-yr cicadas at some point in SW Michigan — especially inland away from the sand dunes. However, the area has been heavily agriculturized over the past 100 years, and some areas have also gone back to woods. Have small pockets of Magicicada survived? The only way to know is to go and traverse the area and listen. Lacking that… if you live in that area of the state, tell me that you have them and show me the specimens. It would be nice to know, either way. The next emergence would be in 2024. I’m going to be an old man by then.
You can get a ton more information about the cicadas of Brood XIII (and others) including lots of photos and video and all your Brood XIII gear at Cicada Mania.
Michigan in Pictures 