Field Notes

Greetings from Whitefish Point! Pine Grosbeak by Skye Haas We are excited to be kicking off WPBO's 38th year of spring migration research! Of course, it doesn't feel too much like spring just yet with several feet of snow on the ground, lake ice as far as the eye can see, and temperatures [...]

Highlights: Pacific Wren, Green-tailed Towhee (photo above), Purple Sandpiper, Sabine's Gull & Long-tailed Jaeger         Things have really picked up at the Point and we've been spending a lot of time in the field. While the Pacific Wren is the most interesting sighting, it is also the most complicated. Identifying Winter/Pacific Wrens by plumage is very difficult, if [...]

Highlights: Pacific Loon, Sabine's Gull,  Red & Red-necked Phalaropes and Grasshopper Sparrow        After an extended period of easterly and southerly winds, a short period of west and north winds finally stirred things up a bit bringing some excitement to the Point. As per usual, many of the recent highlights came from the waterbird [...]

Highlights: Lesser Black-backed Gull & Northern Goshawk         Well, we had to work a few things out to get the blog going again, so thank you for your patience. Before getting to the more recent sightings I should mention two of the highlights so far this season. A Townsend's Solitaire was found [...]

Photo by Sara Harrington Over the fourth of July weekend, the Piping Plover chicks at Whitefish Point hatched! Sara Harrington is providing short presentations on the life history and recovery efforts of this endangered species. The presentations will be followed by a walk out to the beach to try to spot Whitefish Point’s own [...]

Greetings! This is the Whitefish Point sightings summary for May 13-21st. It’s safe to say that the weather has not been our friend this month.  Primarily north winds have continued until the 18th, and last weekend had some snow every day! Migration for most species has been slow, certainly slower that what should be expected [...]

Greetings! This is the weekly summary of Whitefish Point sightings for May 6-7th. Again (and again and again….) the winds haven’t been exactly favorable for migration, but the birds still continue to arrive. While the waterbirds and the hawks haven’t been exactly gangbusters, we all have been pleased by the return of neotropical migrants to [...]

Eurasian Tree Sparrow by Skye Haas While not completely unexpected, the manner in which Whitefish Point gained it's 8th record of Eurasian Tree Sparrow was a bit of a surprise. This afternoon when out at the waterbird count with Louie Dombroski, I heard an odd nasal chirping from overhead, and upon seeing the [...]

Greetings, this is the Whitefish Point Sightings Report for the week of April 29th-May 5th. Well another Spring Fling has come and gone, and the birding did not disappoint! Very educational for all was the presence of expert birders Jerry Liguori (raptors), and Cameron Cox (waterbirds) out birding the point as well as giving excellent [...]