The feel of the season has shifted at the Point as the remnants of early-season migrants are quickly moving on. The diverse flocks of warblers and vireos, with a sprinkling of flycatchers, have largely passed. While the weather is still surprisingly warm and sunny at times, the bird life is more representative of mid-fall. [...]
Another week has passed at Whitefish Point, and we’re drawing closer to the peak season for waterbird movement. We had almost every kind of weather this week with still, sunny days full of heat shimmer to gusting SE winds with driving rain. We are waiting patiently for another cold front to bring us some ducks, [...]
Another week is in the books at Whitefish Point and it’s really starting to feel like fall. The leaves are beginning to transition from vivid green to yellow, orange, and red, heralding the departure of summer. The leaves aren’t the only thing that’s changing; the birds are too! An adult Bald Eagle right [...]
This week on the waterbird count there were lots of South and East winds that kept waterbird numbers fairly low, with one exception. The big story for the week was the arrival of our migrant Canada Goose flocks. Before this week, we’d seen only 14 individuals. The floodgates opened just after sunrise on the [...]
Since the last blog post, we’ve had quite the assortment of unusual birds show up at the Point, so there’s plenty to talk about! Last week’s blog wrapped up by covering the fabulous songbird influx we had on September 8, and I was hopeful that some of those birds might stick around. Fortunately, that [...]
Fall is picking up speed at Whitefish Point. It rained every day of the count this week, but always briefly enough that it didn’t slow the birds down! We enjoyed our first mixed dabbler flocks of the season, along with some other first-of-season birds. The dabbling duck flocks this week were dominated by American [...]
Since the last post, we’ve been experiencing some tumultuous weather here at the Point, at least for early September. There’s been a lot of cold and strong winds out of the north, with the Saturday (Sept. 6th) winds gusting up to 35+ miles per hour. Scattered storms have also coincided with much of the [...]
This week the fall waterbird count was full of highs and lows. On the slowest day, we tallied only 16 species of birds. Later in the week, we were surrounded by hundreds of terns and flights of songbirds, recording 53 species on August 31st. This sense of never knowing what a day will hold [...]
Another week has passed here at Whitefish Point and migration has been picking up across the board, with abundant waterbirds, songbirds, and raptors throughout the week. While we haven’t had the numbers to rival last week’s Red-necked Grebe count, we’ve had plenty of new arrivals at the Point, several species moving through in high [...]
