Fall Waterbird Count- Wind, Rain, and Ducks (9/3-9/9)

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 Wigeon with smaller numbers of Northern Pintail, Northern Shoveler, and Green-winged Teal. These species are not usually the main targets for visiting birders to the point since it’s easier to see them sitting in marshes throughout the Midwest than some other Whitefish specialities (jaegers, Red-throated Loons, scoters, etc). However, seeing them in flight over the big lake does provide a foreign environment to try out new field marks. It’s often a rush to pick through flocks these flocks with 5 or 6 different species in them before they disappear forever.

Clay leading his group at the waterbird count. Photo by Lynn Miller

A few early diving ducks are also starting to move, but will not reach a peak until much later in the fall. We observed our first Surf Scoter of the count on 9/6 and most days we are seeing just a couple of White-winged Scoters moving past. More unexpectedly, we had a beautiful breeding plumage male Long-tailed Duck fly by and land on the water in front of us on 9/5. The easiest diving duck to see at the point lately are the local Common Mergansers as they feed on fish right next to the beach for most of the day. While we do record these birds on the count, they are not counted as migrants. Recently, a few Red-breasted Mergansers have joined the Common Merganser flock providing a fun comparison of the two species. 

Common Merganser (left) with bright white throat patch and clean definition between the chestnut brown head and gray neck; Red-breasted Merganser (right) with a reddish brown head blending into the gray neck and a long slim bill. Photo by Frank Fabbro

And it wouldn’t be a blog post if I didn’t at least mention the Red-necked Grebes. They continue to push through in good numbers with three impressive day totals of 389, 502, and 522 birds this week. These triple-digit flights should start to wind down as we get further into September.

We had a good week for shorebird diversity at the point with 14 species being recorded on the count. While Global Shorebird Day was September 6th, our busiest day was a few days prior on September 3rd. The rainy weather seemed to ground lots of migrating birds and rainwater filled in some shallow pools near the tip of the point. The new habitat combined with low beachgoer disturbance in the poor weather resulted in an ever-changing mix of birds in front of the waterbird station on an otherwise slow day. The highlight for me was a molting adult White-rumped Sandpiper. These remarkable long-distance migrants are uncommon in the Midwest during fall migration, with many birds leaping across most of the Atlantic enroute to wintering grounds in Patagonia. Other shorebird highlights include our first of the season Wilson’s Snipe in the dunes behind the waterbird station on 9/4 and our first of the season Greater Yellowlegs on 9/7. 

White-rumped Sandpiper. Photo by Frank Fabbro

Pectoral Sandpiper. Photo by Frank Fabbro

Moving on to other Charadriiformes (shorebirds, gulls, jaegers, terns), we had 10 more unidentified jaegers and 4 Parasitic Jaegers fly past the count this week. It’s been a good year for jaegers, as we’re quickly approaching last year’s tally with lots of time left in the fall. One Lesser Black-backed Gull was observed roosting on the beach in the evening of 9/3. This species was once a rare bird that has rapidly increased across much of North America in recent years. In other gull news, the first (and hopefully not the last) Sabine’s Gull of the season was enjoyed by a group of birders at the count on 9/6. These tern-like gulls of the high Arctic typically winter far out in the open ocean but, similar to jaegers, a handful of mostly young birds move through the Great Lakes every fall.

Lesser Black-backed Gull (center) roosting with Herring and Ring-billed Gulls. Photo by Frank Fabbro

Songbirds at the point have hit a bit of a lull lately, but a lone early Lapland Longspur kept me company during the count for a few days as it picked through driftwood on the beach. Some sparrows are also moving in, but Clay and I keep waiting to see when the Horned Lark flocks might arrive in the dunes. The South West winds on 9/8 did bring an impressive warbler wave to us, but I’ll leave that to Clay to discuss more thoroughly in his blog.

~Frank Fabbro, 2025 Fall Waterbird Counter

Featured Photo: Semipalmated Plover by Frank Fabbro