July 9, 2019
At the very end of the day yesterday, I wandered over the Wolf Lake State Fish Hatchery in Mattawan, Michigan. I hadn’t been there in quite awhile and I wondered what I might find.


Not long into my walk, I saw (and heard!) a couple of Eastern Kingbirds flying overhead. They were squawking pretty insistently and hanging out near a tree where I had frequently seen them last year. With all the squawking and hovering, I figured there must be babies nearby, so I decided to stick around for awhile, but not too close. Once I stood still, the birds did too. They found branches to sit on and, except for a few forays into the air to catch bugs, they stood guard– or at least that’s what I assumed they were doing.

Several times during my bird ‘vigil’, I attempted to pull myself away. But I just couldn’t. There’s something about a beautiful bird sitting cooperatively in a tree on a clear, sunny afternoon, that makes it hard for me to leave. So I didn’t.


frequently compared to an electric fence!
My patience eventually paid off! Hidden deep in the leafy branches of the tree were the two little birds that mama and papa had been squawking about earlier. The two ‘babies’ were sitting quietly on a branch tucked away safely in the middle of the tree. Fortunately, there was a rather large opening in the branches which gave me a pretty clear view of the babies (once I noticed them!) and I proceeded to take an excessive number of pictures. But, if I hadn’t been obsessed with taking so many pictures, I never would have seen the Third Bird! Three baby Kingbirds! What a treat!



It’s easy for me to stop taking pictures of something when the lighting isn’t just right, or the subject is moving too fast, or I can’t quite get the right angle for a good picture, but when everything is ‘just right’, like it was for these little birds and their parents, I find it nearly impossible to pull myself away.


Eventually, though, I just had to move on so that I could enjoy the rest of my walk through the hatchery before the late afternoon shadows grew too long and too dark for any more pictures.




Love your story and your pictures!
I am just struck with how many different species there are! Crazy!!
It is amazing, isn’t it? 😀