The Mackinac Bridge

 

As always, click the photo to enlarge

The Mackinac Bridge, as seen the night of July 8, 2026, from the Upper Peninsula. The famous Michigan bridge is a marvel of human engineering. It spans the Straits of Mackinac (mak-in-aw) which separate lakes Michigan and Huron and connects the Upper and Lower peninsulas.

Opened on November 1, 1957, the bridge is five miles long, and those twin towers are 552 feet tall. The straits regularly experience gale force winds, and the center lanes are an open grid of steel mesh to allow air flow through and minimize lift of the deck during gales. The center span can laterally shift a remarkable 35 feet during high winds.

The Mackinac Bridge Authority offers a driver's assistance program, as some drivers are too frightened to drive across (motorcycles, too). I do not know what the drivers do - hide in the trunk? 

Looking for an exciting job? All of those lights on the cables (42 thousand miles of wire in the main cables) are replaced by hand. Workers (steeplejacks) climb the cables to reach the fixtures.

I've been across this bridge many times, and it never grows old. If you want to walk across, the bridge is closed every Labor Day, and anyone that wants to walk across can do so.

PHOTO NOTE: I think the bridge photographs better at night, and not just because the lights are visible and create a cool effect. During the day, big as it is, the bridge can get a bit lost in the mass of water around it. Probably, with certain early morning or late day lighting it could look great, but I've not yet had the fortune to be there at such times. But the Big Mac certainly pops at night.

A wide-angle, such as my go-to Canon 16-35mm f/4, is too wide in my opinion. Even at full zoom, it leaves too much blank water space around the bridge. This is a case where a moderate-range zoom lens is great, and I used my 70-200mm f/2.8 for this shot. I zoomed a bit - to 145mm - to cut off much of the long approach on the left that is on a built-up earthen berm rather than a proper bridge (even though it counts as part of the bridge). Once the camera rig is set up, it is just a matter of zooming and composing to position the bridge so that it looks good to you.

A tripod is an absolute must in order to photograph the Mackinac Bridge properly, in my view. Especially at night, due to the long exposure that will be required. I made this photo at f/22 (lots of depth of field), and ISO 400 (a low ISO is always desirable for clean files, and I could have gone even lower. But the R5 handles higher ISO's very well, and 400 is hardly a high ISO). The shutter speed was a turtle-like VERY slow 4 seconds. But who cares about that - shutter speed is essentially irrelevant if your camera is on a stable platform (tripod) and the subject is not moving.

As almost always when making such long exposure images, I use the two-second timer delay that is built into the camera's drive mode menu. Once I activate the shutter button, I move away from the rig while the camera beep beep beeps... and two seconds later the shot is fired. That ensures that the operator can't accidentally wiggle the rig while depressing the shutter.

Northern Cardinals feeding their offspring

I've been remiss in posting this video I made of the Northern Cardinals that had a nest less than three feet from my kitchen window. I could peek around the blind and watch activities - and make photos and videos - at close range without the birds knowing that I was there. 

While the female did all of the nest construction work, and egg incubation, the male was very supportive and an active participant. He would bring her food when she was on the eggs and constantly sing to her. Female cardinals sing very well, and she would frequently duet with him.

When the chick hatched - there was only one - he would help feed it, as the following video shows. This would certainly be a second nesting, given the lateness of the season, and second broods can be smaller than the preceding brood. But a Brown-headed Cowbird laid an egg in this nest shortly after the first cardinal egg appeared. The cowbird egg somehow disappeared, but that may have dissuaded the female cardinal from laying more.

I had to leave for a trip to northern Michigan about 5-6 days before the young cardinal would be due to leave the nest, and it was gone by the time that I returned. Hopefully the little fellow/girl is doing well. I will keep my eyes open for it.

UPDATE: The little fellow is doing fine. I glanced out the window a bit ago, to see the adult female cardinal with a big beetle in her bill. I knew she'd lead me to the little guy, and she did. He's in the same trumpet-creeper liana where the nest is, well concealed in its foliage. Both adults are delivering food to him, and all looks good!

Anyway, enjoy the video (sorry for the mediocre quality, the uploaded version is fairly low-resolution).

COPYRIGHT ©Jim McCormac. Shot on June 29, 2026, with my iPhone 14. Worthington, Ohio.

 

A northern bog

As always, click the photo to enlarge

We just got back from an epic week-long trip through northern Michigan, from the jack pine plains of between Grayling and Mio to the tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula. Lots of interesting stuff and I'll probably be sharing some more of it here.

Here's a few photos of a gorgeous tamarack bog near Grayling in Oscoda County, from this morning. This one is far along in ecological succession and no longer has open water. The pale whitish (glaucous) plants in the foreground of the first image are Bog Rosemary (Andromeda glaucophylla). It was once found in five NE counties in Ohio but is now considered extirpated. The leafy green shrublet with it is Leatherleaf (Chamaedaphne calyculata). 

This scene is dominated by Virginia Chain Fern (Woodwardia virginica [perhaps now best placed in the genus Anchistea]). The robust fern is common in such places.

More to follow...