2019

Ice Out, Birds In: Waterbird Count Week 2
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Ice Out, Birds In: Waterbird Count Week 2

Migration Counts

Ice Out, Birds In: Waterbird Count Week 2

Eight hours most days, I stand on Whitefish Point’s cobbled beach. There, from whichever side of the waterbird shack is the lee side du jour, I make sweeping scans with binoculars and spotting scope. To the west is a stand of scrappy jack pines where, this week, a shrike has (albeit with different, more murderous [...]

WPBO Waterbird Counter2019-05-01T16:05:55-04:00May 1st, 2019|Migration Counts|Comments Off

The Crossing: First Week of the Waterbird Count
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The Crossing: First Week of the Waterbird Count

Migration Counts

The Crossing: First Week of the Waterbird Count

A woodcock twitters overhead, squeezing one last display flight into a sky just beginning to color. You do claim this bird as your spring harbinger, I remind myself. It bears repeating--the morning’s commute starts as a cautious traverse across frozen melt puddles, then transitions to a postholing of sorts through still-deep snow. During the first [...]