Typically, my spirits are quite light when I walk down the boardwalk toward the waterbird shack. However, when I headed that way a little before sunrise on April 15 — opening day for this count — I felt especially light: I was wearing only merino leggings, down pants, a fleece, a felted wool vest, [...]
With almost 350 visitors to the Hawk Deck over the holiday weekend, the last few days of the season felt like one big parade with humans far outnumbering all the hawks I counted over the same period. Many of the visitors who come to Whitefish Point are birders who understand the concept of migration [...]
With one week of the spring raptor count left, Mother Nature decided she wanted to remind me of those wonderful April days where fog engulfs the hawk deck while the north winds blow off the lake and birds are practically nowhere to be seen or heard. I looked at empty skies as raptor migration [...]
Tuesday, May 9, the big Sharp-shinned Hawk push happened. That day, your friendly neighborhood raptor counter tallied 1,443 sharpies. I believe it is safe to say that I look forward to the big sharpie day more than any other day during migration; it is simply chaos on wings. The counting is continuous, complex, and [...]
This past week at the waterbird count has represented the longest stretch of favorable migration conditions I’ve ever experienced at WPBO: there have been no sustained periods of strong north winds; no lasting fog. Not surprisingly, the birding has been favorable, too! It feels like we’re on the cusp of the peak scoter, Long-tailed [...]
Oh, what a sight to behold! On unseen currents they spin, flashing like silversides in the sun, Broad-winged Hawks numbering in the thousands. Twisting, turning, gliding, and churning, higher and higher, they rise and blossom into a great mushroom cloud at an unimaginable altitude. They fill the sky as they funnel out to find [...]
I woke up this morning and brewed my coffee extra strong. My head was still reeling from a whirlwind weekend of raptors and visitors brought up to Whitefish Point by sunny skies, favorable winds, and warmer temperatures that reached way up into the 40s! Yet, before I even opened my eyes, I was seeing [...]
At WPBO, we measure things less by day or date than we do by seasonal happenings. See, for example: “The day the snow slid off the roof;” “The night the spring peepers began to sing;” “The day the sky was full of cranes and their voices.” Instead of observing Daylight Savings Time, the owl [...]
The snow falls sideways here at Whitefish Point. Two miles down the road, I can look out my bedroom window and see a light snowfall drifting out of the sky, and it's the kind of snowfall that makes me think I am living inside the idyllic world of a snow globe. However, when I [...]
This morning is different. Somehow my senses seem sharper, the world around me is magnified, and I am able to take in everything at once. Yes, the snow has stopped. Yes, it is warmer; the mercury in the thermometer has risen to 34 degrees Fahrenheit. Fog filters through the spruce forest, shrouding the snow-covered [...]
