Feels like folks are starting to open up their summer cottages & rentals for the season, so it’s a good time for this picture of mailboxes on Bois Blanc Island. James it shared back on April 23, 2020, and it remains one of my all time favorite pics I’ve shared on Michigan in Pictures. I’ll probably have to have some kind of bracket challenge one of these days to figure out what the audience thinks one of these days 😉
Who needs a happy Earth Day? All of us really. 2023 was the warmest year since global records began nearly 200 years ago. The global temperature beat the previous high from 2016 & the 10 warmest years have ALL been from the last 10 years. If you know anything at all about math, 10 out of 10 is 100% and we are 100% in trouble because we seem unable as a species to process what actual danger is when it is this big. There’s probably nothing I can say if you don’t believe in science, so here is a link to a story about Earth Day’s Michigan roots & here is EarthDay.org where they are trying to raise awareness about microplastics, which many scientists believe are behind the explosion of Alzheimers.
James is an Empire-based photographer who shared this barred owl – based in parts unknown – along with some other great pics to wish everyone a happy Earth Day! See more by clicking the picture & on his website.
I know I already posted today, but I just got an email alert from the NOAA NWS Space Weather Prediction Center (yes – that is a thing) that we have a kP of SEVEN right now so (theoretically) if that holds until dark, the entire state could see them!!
This is one of many photos in MaryBeth’s Labor Day Aurora Show gallery. She shares that this was in 2019 when G1 and G2 level geomagnetic storms triggered all kinds of activity. Due to weather, she started her chase in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore (where she took this photo), but due to weather, she packed up and decided to head another 6 hours north to Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.
William shared this pic to our Michigan in Pictures Group on Facebook back in April of 2021, writing Dicentra cucullaria, or Dutchman’s breeches, is a perennial herbaceous plant, native to rich woods of eastern North America, with a disjunct population in the Columbia Basin. The common name Dutchman’s breeches derives from their white flowers that look like white breeches.
He is one of the leading participants in the group, sharing great updates from Kalamazoo & southwest Michigan. He has also been featured lots through the years on Michigan in Pictures – check him out and for sure share your photos with us there or to the Michigan in Pictures Facebook (where we just added one of his new pics as the cover!)
Longtime skywatchers know that April’s Lyrid meteor shower is the kickoff to meteor season. Earthsky shares the best time to see the Lyrids:
Late evening April 21 until dawn April 22 is the shower’s likely peak. The predicted** peak is 9:23 UTC on April 22. The peak of the Lyrids is narrow (no weeks-long stretches of meteor-watching, as with some showers). And, in 2024, the full moon will fall at 23:49 UTC on April 23. So your Lyrid meteor watching will be in moonlight this year. Tip: Go to a country location where the skies are as dark and clear as possible. Observe under a wide-open sky. But try to place yourself in a moon shadow. If you can block out the sight of the moon, yet still have some sky left for seeing meteors, you might see some of the brightest Lyrids blaze past in the bright moonlight. Remember, even one bright meteor can make your night!
I’ve shared this photo that Ken shot back in April of 2016 before, and I’ll probably share it again! He shared that he shot over a 3 hour period in hopes to catch the meteor ‘shower’ and only caught this one streaker. See more in his Skies Above album on Flickr and for sure visit Ken Scott Photography to view & purchase his work!
Meet Rocky the Raccoon. He was waiting by the door to the fuel dock, likely to reserve a slip for his boat. Little did he know we don’t open until May 1st. After feasting on crackers, scampering around the side of the dock office and dangling over the water, DNR Harbormaster Travas was able to safely remove him from the premises and told him to come back when we’re open.
This morning I saw this fantastic pic shared without attribution for probably the 100th time. I knew the attribution because I had shared it from Instagram back in 2017.
I know that a million bots building social media using AI will only make things worse, so I really (really) want to make a plea to all of you to FOLLOW THE PHOTOGRAPHER. Every time you do, even if you don’t purchase their work, you build their following which makes it more likely that their work is credited and profitable because making pretty pictures is hard and takes lots of glass & gas!!
As you can see from the photo above, the 2024 Michigan Morel Season is now underway! Every year I try & kick off Michigan morel season by sharing some tips so here goes:
Make your first several mushroom hunts, whether for morels or other edible mushroom species, with someone who knows mushrooms.
Buy or download a mushroom guide. A good guidebook is “The Mushroom Hunter’s Field Guide” by Alexander H. Smith, recognized as America’s foremost authority on mushroom identification, and Nancy Smith Weber.
Be prepared to cover a lot of ground and to experience disappointments when searching for morels. Some spots yield mushrooms year after year, while others skip several seasons between crops.
Don’t expect to find morels easily if you are new to the pastime. Because they blend into their background of last fall’s leaves and dead grass, they are hard to see even if you are looking right at them. Your “eye” for morels will sharpen with practice, and you will need to retrain it every spring.
Most important of all – know what you are eating! You will need to know the difference between a “true” morel and the “false morels,” such as beefsteak mushrooms, which are poisonous. (See morel identification information.)
My friend Rick lives in Southwest Michigan and shared this last week. If you’re a fan of cannabis & golf, check out the Cannabis Golfers Association which is getting ready to host the Hazy Holes Classic!
17 years ago today, one of Michigan’s most notable rock formations became less notable when the northeast tower of this distinctive formation collapsed. The day after, the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore reported:
On Thursday morning, April 13, 2006, the northeast turret of Miners Castle collapsed. One turret remains on Miners Castle, the best-known feature of Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. The collapse was reported via cell phone by fisherman in the area, according to chief ranger Larry Hach.
Most of the rock fell north and into Lake Superior, and there were no injuries. The lower overlook platform near Miners Castle appears to be unaffected.
While the rockfall at Miners Castle on April 13 was startling, such events are not rare along the Pictured Rocks escarpment. At least five major falls have occurred over the past dozen years … Rockfalls along the cliffs typically occur in the spring and fall due to freezing and thawing action of Mother Nature.
You can read more & see more photos in this Absolute Michigan article on the collapse of a turret at Miner’s Castle. While the collapse of Miners Castle wasn’t recorded, here’s a video from 2021 showing the collapse of a section of cliff face near Mosquito Beach.
Let’s stay up on the Keweenaw Peninsula today with a look at the crystal clear waters of Lake Superior as seen from under the surface of Copper Harbor! For almost all my life, Lake Superior has been the cleanest & clearest of the five Great Lakes. Imagine my surprise to learn that in 2017, Lake Michigan & Lake Huron were found to be more clear than Lake Superior:
While Lake Superior has not gotten any dirtier, lakes Huron and Michigan have gotten significantly clearer in the past 20 years or so, a study published earlier this year in the Journal of Great Lakes Research found.
Anecdotally, scientists knew water clarity was improving in those lakes. But it hadn’t been quantified.
“What surprised us was the magnitude of the change,” said Robert Shuchman, a study co-author and co-director of the Michigan Tech Research Institute. “We had no idea the data was going to tell us that Huron and Michigan have surpassed the water clarity in Lake Superior. That was the startling piece.”
Scientists analyzed satellite images of the lakes captured between 1998 and 2012. Over that period, they found, the depth that light could penetrate down into the water — known as the photic zone — increased by about 20 percent in lakes Michigan and Huron.
They attribute part of that change to less phosphorous runoff. Climate change also likely plays a role. But the dominant factor is the explosion of invasive zebra and quagga mussels in the lakes since the late 1990s, researchers concluded.
Some of the highest abundances of quagga mussels in the world are found in Lake Michigan, said Gary Fahnenstiel, a senior research scientist at Michigan Tech and study co-author.
So in the end, not great that Michigan & Huron passed Superior in this. I looked to see if anything had changed in that regard, but it appears not.
Michigan in Pictures 