With less than two weeks left in the season here at Whitefish Point, the fall has started to take on a different feel. While we still have some leaves on a few plants in the understory, the vibrant foliage on our deciduous trees has mostly fallen, so things are feeling a little more barren. [...]
We only have about three weeks left of the fall season at Whitefish Point, but the bird activity here has yet to slow down. While just about all the warblers and other early to mid-fall migrants are gone (even Yellow-rumped Warblers!), we continue to have large quantities of sparrows and winter finches. Not to [...]
We’re well into the second half of the fall season at Whitefish Point, and we’ve seen most of the songbird, raptor, and waterbird migrants that we’ve been expecting. The winter finches are abundant on most days, and there have been some Evening Grosbeaks, White-winged Crossbills, and Common Redpolls among their numbers. We are also [...]
The birding at Whitefish Point has been magnificent over the past week! We've had several expected bird species finally arrive at the Point for the first time this fall (mainly on the waterbird count), but we had quite a few surprises as well. The most exciting of these surprises was on 10/8. I was [...]
While the Burrowing Owl seems to have vanished from Whitefish Point (last seen on 10/1), it was still a fun week of birding here! The number of early-season migrants, such as warblers, continues to dwindle, but the sparrow numbers have picked up tremendously over the last week. The sparrow influx has been headlined by [...]
This past week at Whitefish Point has been the most exciting stretch of the season thus far, thanks in no small part to the celebrity Burrowing Owl that turned up here this past Friday (9/27). Since being discovered early that morning by birders Paul and Catherine, visiting from New Zealand, the owl has captivated [...]
The fourth week of fall waterbird counting at Whitefish Point has wrapped up, and we’re starting to see some changes in the abundance of several waterbird migrants. While we’re still seeing a considerable amount of Red-necked Grebes moving along Lake Superior (288 this week), they are no longer the most numerous species on the [...]
While it was mostly quiet in terms of songbirds and raptors, it was an exciting week for waterbird counting at Whitefish Point! Due to passing storm fronts and winds shifting to the NW, we had some favorable conditions for migration over the weekend. The birds did not disappoint, with our highest two waterbird counts [...]
Things started to heat up during the second week of the fall waterbird count at Whitefish Point. While some species from the first week, such as Piping Plover, have already departed, the influx of several new species kept things interesting. We had 32 waterbird species pass by the Point over the past week: three [...]
The first week of the fall count at Whitefish Point has officially wrapped up, and the waterbirds are starting to move. We had 29 species of waterbird pass by the Point during our counts this week, with the most numerous being Red-necked Grebes. Our peak day for them was 8/18, when the winds started [...]
