Hey there everybody! My name is Rich Couse, and I will be your friendly neighborhood hawk counter at the Whitefish Point Bird Observatory this spring. I'm back for my second spring hawk count for Michigan Audubon, and you can find me in the shack on the Hawk Deck way atop the sandy lakeshore dunes. [...]
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 [...]
...sailors take warning.” This saying tells us that under a red morning sky you can expect weather coming your way. Today couldn’t have been a better affirmation of this thousands of years old saying. A beautiful morning sky foretold the gale that came in the afternoon, shaking the waterbird shack and observers(read here for an [...]
Today was an astounding day at Whitefish Point. We had a nice variety of species, some high counts, and a few surprises. 1,413 Red-necked Grebe, 569 Blue-winged Teal, a Black Scoter, two jaegers, and a Whimbrel were some notable sightings. Looking at the forecast, today looked like it was going to be a day with [...]
Seasons take on their own forms at Whitefish Point, but in the current progression of summer and advance of fall, the wild blueberries are coming on amidst the jack pines, mushrooms are beginning to push up from the lichens, and warblers, subdued in song and plumage, mill around the point while the new wave of [...]
Here are three bits of exciting news from WPBO this past week: 1. We received three juvenile Piping Plovers from the Great Lakes Piping Plover captive rearing program! Since 1992, eggs from nests compromised by storm surge, parent plover mortality, or “side chick” situations (yes, that’s exactly what you think it is!) have been salvaged, [...]
The ephemerality of the shoreline at Whitefish Point is subtle, except to those who spend significant time there. Every windy day takes away some beach in exchange for new driftwood deposits--but if you did not walk here regularly, this would be difficult to discern. The passage of shorebirds contributes a further element to the changeability [...]
There’s this word, zugunruhe. It means migratory restlessness, and it looks like dozens of Common Nighthawks streaming north across Lake Superior at dusk. It sounds like the wild cries of the Whimbrel flocks that raced north over the Point this week. It feels like the predictable late-season wanderings my brain embarks on. Food and shelter [...]
Ahhh, the end of May — the mornings get earlier, and the nights get later; the sleep deprivation builds like the crescendoing peeper chorus back in the woods. One of the wonderful trials towards the end of the spring waterbird count is the phenomena of the evening waterbird flight. Though the end-of-season weariness is settling [...]
Something truly wonderful happened this past week. For the first time in what seemed like ages, I stepped out my door in the morning, and I heard birds singing. If I wasn't loaded down with a backpack full of hawk watching gear, I would have jumped for joy! It was the moment I had been [...]
