This past week has been quite interesting. Visitors to the Point, including Michigan Audubon's September tour participants, were treated to incredibly good weather for the last week of September. While the weather and temperatures have been unseasonably pleasant, this prolonged stretch of east-southeasterly breeze has essentially stalled much of the major pushes of waterbird [...]
The first Long-eared Owl of the fall season. Photo by Sarah Montalvo Howdy! Since our last update, we've banded 50 more Northern Saw-whet Owls, with our best night of the season being 22 in one night. There's been a late flight with northern saw-whets that still have juvenile plumage the past couple [...]
This past week featured the most exciting and dynamic migration activity so far this season at Whitefish Point! Pileated Woodpecker in active migration passing by the Waterbird Shack. Photo by Mike McBrien. The dabbling duck diversity is coming into full swing, with some nice flights of wigeon and pintails. This past week [...]
Greetings from the WPBO banding station! We’ve just wrapped up our first week of the 2023 fall owl banding season, and our first night (September 14/15) yielded nine Northern Saw-whet Owls, the season high so far. Our next three nights were a bit slower — we banded three Northern Saw-whet Owls on Friday night, [...]
The week started with one of the largest pushes of waterbirds so far this fall. A strong northeasterly breeze blowing down from the southern Hudson Bay brought an enormous flight of Canada Geese on Sept. 7. A few flocks were evident in the early morning. However, once 10 o'clock came around, migrant groups began [...]
This past week has been highlighted by an early fall heat wave that stretched across much of the Midwest, bringing balmy temperatures reaching almost 80 degrees on at least four days. On multiple days, the strong southerly breeze accompanying this heat wave had thwarted southbound migration, with waterbirds reluctant to spend excess energy fighting [...]
