Michigan Audubon Office: (517) 580-7364|birds@michiganaudubon.org

Migration Counts

Seasonal staff at WPBO conduct waterbird counts in the spring and fall and a spring raptor count. During the seasons, counts are conducted daily. Raptor counts run March 15-May 31 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Waterbird counts run April 15-May 31 and August 15-November 15, 8 hours starting at dawn daily during each season. The Hawk Deck and Waterbird Shack are accessible to the public, and you can follow this blog to get regular updates during the counting seasons!

Season Wrap-Up

November 15 was the final day of the 2020 fall waterbird count; 744 hours, 93 days, 103,216 birds over 221 species, and countless experiences have made it a memorable season. While we’re working on getting all the data cleaned up and reports written, I wanted to share a few reflections on a great season. We [...]

2020-11-21T09:43:57-05:00November 21st, 2020|Migration Counts|Comments Off on Season Wrap-Up
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A Nod To Raptors

Birds of prey are charismatic. With their interesting behavior and captivating presence, it’s easy to understand how they attract this attention. Though Whitefish Point is not known for large numbers of migrating fall raptors, we see our share of them pass through. If a sweep of the horizon turns up empty, we often start looking [...]

2020-11-13T15:19:33-05:00November 13th, 2020|Migration Counts|Comments Off on A Nod To Raptors
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Birds of Winter

Seasons are marked by change. Be it fall colors, winter snow, or spring blossoms, we anticipate the treasures they bring into our lives. The wildlife around us is constantly in motion as their lives are dictated by these annual cycles. For birds, we associate every season with a behavior. Spring means northbound migration, summer means breeding, [...]

2020-11-06T12:55:48-05:00November 6th, 2020|Migration Counts|Comments Off on Birds of Winter
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The Beauty of Common Birds

One of the most overlooked families of birds is Laridae, the gulls. Many times I’ve heard, “There’s more than one kind of seagull?” Common birds are often overlooked; their presence is taken for granted, and not much attention is given to them. Think of the European Starling, a widespread, common bird (which, unfortunately, is also [...]

2020-11-02T12:16:59-05:00October 30th, 2020|Migration Counts|Comments Off on The Beauty of Common Birds
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One Month To Go!

In the past month, we’ve seen a lot of changes at the fall waterbird count. While getting snowed on, it’s hard to imagine that, just a month prior, there was a suite of shorebirds working the shoreline, that we had a tropical visitor in the form of a frigatebird, and that the dabblers outnumbered the [...]

2020-10-23T12:56:18-04:00October 23rd, 2020|Migration Counts|Comments Off on One Month To Go!
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October Big Day Is Saturday!

This coming Saturday, Oct. 17, is October Big Day! This is an annual project from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology to celebrate birds and birding. Participation is simple: see birds and record them in eBird. A goal of October Big Day is to have 25,000 participants. With interest in birds and birding quickly growing worldwide, this seems like [...]

2020-10-16T12:40:02-04:00October 16th, 2020|Migration Counts|Comments Off on October Big Day Is Saturday!
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Lake-Watching 101

A surprise for many visitors to the waterbird count is how distant the birds are. While the handful of loons that pass overhead and chickadees that venture inside the waterbird shack defy this statement, they are few compared to the thousands of birds flying a quarter mile or more from the shoreline. How we identify [...]

2020-10-09T12:06:52-04:00October 9th, 2020|Migration Counts|Comments Off on Lake-Watching 101
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The Commotion Around Rare Birds

The term “rare bird” transcends the birding community. Defined as “An unusual or exceptional person or thing,” we refer to a wide array of the unexpected with this wordage. As far as we’re concerned here at the fall waterbird count, the rare birds we’re looking for are those birds who we don’t regularly expect to [...]

2020-10-02T09:51:49-04:00October 2nd, 2020|Migration Counts|Comments Off on The Commotion Around Rare Birds
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Why Whitefish Point?

It’s abundantly clear that Whitefish Point is a great spot for birds. While the geography is the central factor which steers the diversity we experience at the fall waterbird count, the habitats offered by the point play a significant role. Many birds are specialists. With roughly 10,000 known species on the planet, it’s of obvious [...]

2020-09-25T21:29:33-04:00September 26th, 2020|Migration Counts|Comments Off on Why Whitefish Point?
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One Month In!

September 15 marked one month since we started the waterbird count this fall. If you look at the data we’ve collected thus far, you might see some trends emerge. Some species have largely departed, some are beginning to show up in numbers. While a few of these changes happened quickly, like the gigantic flight days [...]

2020-09-19T10:12:58-04:00September 19th, 2020|Migration Counts|Comments Off on One Month In!
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