Migration Counts

As the season slowly tapers down, this past week was highlighted by classic late-season waterbirds, several interesting rarities, and two strong storms over the past two days. The week started fairly slow on Nov. 2 and 3, with Common Goldeneye, Bufflehead, Long-tailed Ducks, and Red-breasted Mergansers being the primary movers. A great highlight was [...]

This past week featured the first signs of the winter to come, with the first day of snow flurries on Oct. 28 and accumulating snow each day since Oct. 30. This made for some beautiful late fall scenes while walking through the pine woods out to the waterbird shack each morning. This week also [...]

This past week was quite interesting and fun at the waterbird shack; it featured two heavy waterbird flights on Oct. 20 and Oct. 25, with lighter days of waterfowl migration in between. However, among those lighter days, the Point experienced two potentially record-breaking days for passerine migration. The forecast for Oct. 20 looked good [...]

It was a fairly slow start to the week, with waterbirds continuing to trickle through the area following the strong front on Oct. 8. The weekend forecast looked quite interesting, with a strong north-northeasterly flow across the region wrapping back around behind a low-pressure system and cold front passing well to our south. The [...]

This past week featured the strongest week of migration so far, and each day brought a different mix of waterbirds. On Oct. 5, a weak rain front passed over the region in the predawn hours. This was the same morning as the historic fallout across Chicago and the southern Lake Michigan area, widely broadcast [...]

The week got off to a slow start on Sept. 28 and 29 with a continuing, unfavorable, southeasterly breeze. Luckily, this was followed by the three most productive days of the season so far! The forecast for Sept. 30 through Oct. 2 did not seem very optimistic, with high pressure, pleasant temperatures, and a [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]