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. [...]
November 15 was the final day of the 2020 fall waterbird count; 744 hours, 93 days, 103,216 birds over 221 species, and countless experiences have made it a memorable season. While we’re working on getting all the data cleaned up and reports written, I wanted to share a few reflections on a great season. We [...]
Birds of prey are charismatic. With their interesting behavior and captivating presence, it’s easy to understand how they attract this attention. Though Whitefish Point is not known for large numbers of migrating fall raptors, we see our share of them pass through. If a sweep of the horizon turns up empty, we often start looking [...]
Seasons are marked by change. Be it fall colors, winter snow, or spring blossoms, we anticipate the treasures they bring into our lives. The wildlife around us is constantly in motion as their lives are dictated by these annual cycles. For birds, we associate every season with a behavior. Spring means northbound migration, summer means breeding, [...]
One of the most overlooked families of birds is Laridae, the gulls. Many times I’ve heard, “There’s more than one kind of seagull?” Common birds are often overlooked; their presence is taken for granted, and not much attention is given to them. Think of the European Starling, a widespread, common bird (which, unfortunately, is also [...]
In the past month, we’ve seen a lot of changes at the fall waterbird count. While getting snowed on, it’s hard to imagine that, just a month prior, there was a suite of shorebirds working the shoreline, that we had a tropical visitor in the form of a frigatebird, and that the dabblers outnumbered the [...]
The term “rare bird” transcends the birding community. Defined as “An unusual or exceptional person or thing,” we refer to a wide array of the unexpected with this wordage. As far as we’re concerned here at the fall waterbird count, the rare birds we’re looking for are those birds who we don’t regularly expect to [...]
It’s abundantly clear that Whitefish Point is a great spot for birds. While the geography is the central factor which steers the diversity we experience at the fall waterbird count, the habitats offered by the point play a significant role. Many birds are specialists. With roughly 10,000 known species on the planet, it’s of obvious [...]
Pomarine Jaeger by cotinis on Flickr There are few words that can bring immediate focus to a group of avid birders. Typically we’re occupied with scanning the horizon, looking in every direction, actively listening for chips and chirps and in general trying to take in everything from every angle. The more eyes and [...]
...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 [...]
