If only my own mother were so tender . . .
Just about 45 miles away from where we were staying on Michigan’s Garden Peninsula is the gargantuan Seney National Wildlife Refuge. I’ve been wanting to go there for some time, but since it’s only open from May 15th to October 15th, I’ve always just missed that small window of visiting opportunity. But not today, Seney will not be missed, no sir, Seney will not be missed.
The official Edmund Fitzgerald puzzle — a lifer for us both
Today we were finally on our way to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Our stated objective was the Whitefish Point Bird Observatory to try to pick up some late migrants, but the unstated real objective was the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum, which is located at the exact same place.
Watching for the MacGillivray's maybe
Back to the Magic Hedge today to see if we could find the female MacGillivray’s Warbler that’s been reported there. It’s a western bird, a rarity that would be very far from home. As soon as we arrived, we saw a group of about 10 people watching the hole on the north side of the hedge. That’s where they’d been seeing the MacGillivray’s. A few warblers were darting in and out of the bushes, and the first one we saw was a BLACK-AND-WHITE WARBLER.
Soft focus makes the Kirtland's sexy
After a long drive north, we made it to Gaylord, Michigan this morning at 1 am. We came to see the endangered Kirtland’s Warbler, one of the rarest birds in the States. It only breeds in a small area in northern Michigan, so if you want to see it, this is where you come. You can only view its breeding grounds on official tours run by rangers, and we met ours this morning at 11 am at a hotel in Grayling, a little south of Gaylord. We had two guides, the master (Chris) and the apprentice (Sean). The viewing season started today, so Sean was just learning the ropes. There was just one other birder on the tour, so we made a three-car convoy to the site.
Pole in Pelee, seeing no lifers
Today commemorates the First Little Year International Birding Expedition. We went to Point Pelee, Ontario, which is about an hour south of Detroit. We plan on going to northern Michigan tomorrow to see the rare Kirtland’s Warbler, so this trip is truly global in scope. We left yesterday and stayed overnight in Motown at my sister’s house. Even though we left Chicago kind of late, we couldn’t resist stopping at the Indiana Dunes. We drove around for about an hour, and all we got out of it was a CHIPPING SPARROW.
It was raining on and off as we drove to Pelee. It’s a spit of land that points south into Lake Erie and is reputed to be one of the best migrant traps on the continent. So we were pretty excited. It was crowded when we got there, and we saw dozens of crazy-looking people with dopey Tilley hats, expensive bins, and repulsive birding vests bulging with God-knows-what useless crap. We, on the other hand, travel pretty light. Or at least Pole does. Because of some vestigial sexism in her chromosomes, I have to carry the scope, the field guide, the notes, and the camera. Not a lot, really, but still more than nothing, which is what she carries. Today, though, I didn’t carry the scope because we were looking for warblers.