Michigan is famous for many different things including the auto-industry, the assembly line, and post-manufacturing blight in places like Detroit. However, Michigan’s landscape is best characterized by Great Lakes, rivers, and forests. It was these that brought the French to our region using waterways to skirt the edges of the vast woodland to trade for… Read more

When a pine needle falls in the forest: the eagle sees it, the deer hears it, and the bear smells it. –Saying commonly attributed to Native Americans The American black bear is probably the second most widely distributed large mammal in North America behind the white-tailed deer. This is especially true when one considers the… Read more

“So you get what we had here last week — which is the way he wants it. Well, he gets it. And I don’t like it anymore than you men.” –Cool Hand Luke This post concerns the adversarial relationship created by wildlife and natural resource law enforcement with outdoor recreationists. While natural resource law enforcement… Read more

A while ago, I made a blogpost entitled “An Odd Bird” where I wrote about the characteristics, habitat, and habits of the American Woodcock: https://dataandoutdoors.com/an-odd-bird/ In that post, I had a few pictures of woodcock habitat but no pictures of woodcock. As I described in the post, woodcock are well camouflaged and remain well hidden… Read more

Ever since the days of old Men would search for wealth untold They’d dig for silver and for gold And leave the empty holes –John Anderson The United States is gifted with more public lands, open spaces, wilderness, and clear waters than most developed nations. Our decisions regarding this gift comprise a long history and… Read more

The American woodcock is a migratory upland bird that resides in Northern forests and swamps during the summer. Woodcock are plentiful but their population is declining with the habitat they call home. While a common find for those that look for them, all but the frequent woodsman might go their entire lives without seeing this… Read more

“Burn the land, boil the sea”“You can’t take the sky from me” Firefly Series Theme Song (Ballad of Serenity, Sonny Rhodes) I’ll start by mentioning that I don’t know much about fireflies, neither their biology, behavior, nor habitat. Like most, I know that fireflies are known for their glowing abdomens that are used in their… Read more

Back in the 1890s, some loggers were felling virgin forests north of Grayling, Michigan. As the 1890s were well past the peak of the Michigan logging boom, this couldn’t have been the choice patch of forest for lumber in the first place. Then disaster struck in the form a stock market crash and the company… Read more

Ruffed grouse are a large, non-migratory bird of the northern forests. They are northerners especially these days as they’re in short supply in areas like the Appalachian Mountains where they were once plentiful. In Indiana, they have been on the state endangered list since 2020. Nonetheless, they are plentiful in the northern portions of Michigan,… Read more

Humans find beauty in order, even in our natural environment. Consider the cookie cutter yards of suburban America. These are neatly mowed and landscaped with clean lines. Brush piles that are hiding places for small animals are removed. Even the forbs (weeds), which are choice wildlife food sources, are tediously killed leaving the non-nutritious grass.… Read more