And a Hawk

 One more thing that was keeping me from leaving the island.

As I was leaving the island, I saw this guy perched on a pole.  I ended up going around in the hopes that I could catch him.

Happily, that ended up being  the case.

I think this was a  red-tailed hawk.

One more picture before he took off.

Some Eagles

 I will have to say that one of the most amazing things of recent years is the return of the bald eagle.

It seemed like the bald eagle was on the verge of extinction.  The only places you might see them is in the extreme wilds.  Now they are getting more and more common.  I caught this one flying over the Detroit River as I was taking pictures of my ships.

One more shot of that one.

As I was leaving Belle Isle, I saw a bunch of people gathered in front of a tree.  I assumed that they were taking a picture of something.

I ended up walking around that tree to get a better angle.  Unfortunately I think the eagle was too far up.

But he did seem to be posing for us.

One more picutre.

The Mighty Paul Tregurtha

 This is a ship that I was not expecting to see.

Usually when I see the Paul R. Tregurtha on AIS, she is usually heading to or from St. Clair.

She delivers coal to the St. Clair Power Plant.  So I don't usually expect to see her.

Lately, she has been doing a split load between St. Clair and Monrone.  Not only does Monroe have a nuclear plant but they also have a coal plant.

So the Paul Tregurtha was taking a split load of coal down to Monroe.

So it was pretty cool to see her.

One more picture with my normal camera.

I had to take to the air for this one.  I am still amazed by the blueness of the Detroit River.

The red of the Tregurtha's hull makes for a good contrast.

She will be at her destination in about three hours.

The beam shot.

And one more shot.  I love these shots from the air and I'm not normally a fan of the stern shot.

Belle Isle from the Air

 One of the things that I like about my drone is that it enables me to get other angles that I couldn't otherwise get.

If I have some battery left in my drone, I hate to put it back because I don't want the battery to get a memory.  Sometimes I will take some messing around photos.  This is looking towards downtown Detroit.

Looking at the other end of the island.  If you look closely, you can see the next ship.

My Happy Place Bird

 I love these birds.

I love it when it I see one.  I love it even more when I get a decent picture of one.

Some Flying Things Over Belle Isle

 As I was waiting for my next ship, I saw these aircraft flying by.

These are a pair of Vans aircraft.  Vans airplanes are kit aircraft.  Both of these are Vans RV-6 and RV-7.  The kits are produced in Oregon and the planes are built wherever.  Both of these were built in Canada.

This is a Robinson helicopter.  I think it was flying out of City Airport in Detroit.

And Then There Was the Federal Bering

 It turns out that I have a new visitor to my blog.

The Federal Bering was built in 2015 for the Federal Navigation Company which is headquartered in Montreal.

She is like her Federal Navigation cousins in that she is 656 feet long and 77 feet wide.  She can carry 34,564 tons of cargo.

It seems like these ships normally look better but then again, they go through quite a bit in the season.

She was on her way to Chicago.

I'll have to say she looked pretty cool.

She continues on her way.

One more shot.

And the Lovely Kaye E. Barker

 And next up is the ever lovely Kaye Barker.

Amazingly, she is not heading to Dearborn this time.  She is heading down to Toledo.

I think she might actually be carrying iron though because there is an ore processing facility in Toledo.

Anyway, it is always nice to see the Kaye Barker.

One more shot with my normal camera.

And then I switched to my drone.  It's amazing how blue the Detroit River looks from the air.  It almost looks like a pool.

I think I am getting the hang of this.

And she passes.

She passes the subject of the next post.

And Then There Was the H. Lee White

 Again, it wasn't long for the next ship to pass.

The H. Lee White was heading up to Marquette.  I forget where she was coming from.

This is another ship that I haven't seen in a while.

Recently American Steamship was acquired by the company that owns Lower Lakes.  They have been in the process of repainting the stacks of the river ships.

I think these ships are going to be operated by the folks that run the American side of Lower Lakes.

I'm not sure about all the details but it is pretty contentious on the boards.  They think they are trying to break the union.

They also think they may get into a bidding war to drive down shipping prices and that might have an impact on some of the other companies.

I guess we'll see.

As you can see, her stack is now gray.

She continues on her way up.

One more shot.