Greetings! This is the Whitefish Point sightings summary for May 13-21st. It’s safe to say that the weather has not been our friend this month. Primarily north winds have continued until the 18th, and last weekend had some snow every day! Migration for most species has been slow, certainly slower that what should be expected [...]
Young, dark Red-tailed Hawk. photo by Ted Keyel Hello Everyone! Things have been going pretty well from the hawkdeck. On May 19th, we witnessed our largest Broad-winged Hawk kettle so far this season, with 440 birds. We have still been seeing a lot of Red-tailed Hawks and the majority are young birds. There [...]
White-winged and Surf Scoters, May 19, 2016. Photo by Ted Keyel. After many days of north winds, a break in the weather a few days ago gave us a big push of migrating waterbirds, most notably scoters. On May 19, there were 254 White-winged Scoters counted during the morning, almost all before 10 a.m. There [...]
Well, it looks like the push of Long-eared Owls that we have experienced over the last month has come to an end. The main push started on April 12 and ended on May 11. During that 30 night period a total of 295 Long-eareds were banded. Additionally, we caught the two that were banded at [...]
Greetings! This is the weekly summary of Whitefish Point sightings for May 6-7th. Again (and again and again….) the winds haven’t been exactly favorable for migration, but the birds still continue to arrive. While the waterbirds and the hawks haven’t been exactly gangbusters, we all have been pleased by the return of neotropical migrants to [...]
Shorebird diversity at the point has been on the upswing the last few days, with Black-bellied Plover and Short-billed Dowitcher seen flying past the tip on Wednesday, May 11, and Semipalmated Plover and Dunlin spotted on May 12. While these species have already been seen in numbers downstate, it is always special to see them [...]
Sharp-shinned Hawk, photo by Ted Keyel Hello everyone, We have been having some great days at the hawkwatch, despite still not having a single day with southwest winds. While the winds may not be perfect, we have still been seeing some great overall diversity, with 16 species of raptors passing by in the [...]
Eurasian Tree Sparrow by Skye Haas While not completely unexpected, the manner in which Whitefish Point gained it's 8th record of Eurasian Tree Sparrow was a bit of a surprise. This afternoon when out at the waterbird count with Louie Dombroski, I heard an odd nasal chirping from overhead, and upon seeing the [...]
May 8 was a great day to experience Red-throated Loon migration at Whitefish Point. Flocks of as many as 12 birds flew by several times, and were observed not only from the waterbird count site, but from the parking lot and the hawk deck! One flock of four that flew over the lakeshore by the [...]
The first Piping Plover sighting of 2016 took place on May 6 when visiting Traverse City birder Pat O'Connor found one while walking the beach. I saw what I presumed was the same bird on the beach the following morning. I was a bit concerned when I saw it in flight later in the afternoon [...]