I'm Just Here for the Bird: 2014 Spring Migration, Part 3: Migrating to Michigan

There are several reasons to travel to Michigan during Spring migration, the Kirtland's Warbler in Grayling, the Piping Plovers in Whitefish Point and plenty of National Wildlife Preserves to both walk and drive through. We also had plans to go Mackinac Island to both bird and ride horses, but an "emergency" work trip to Boston had us change plans midstream, so we only had time to do a few of our planned trips.

As was he case last year, we started at Shiawassee National Wildlife Refuge, but it was much quieter there than last year and pretty chilly too. However there were reports of. Yellow-headed Blackbirds,(my favorite of all the Blackbirds, baked in a pie or otherwise), Nayancuing Point SWA,(not sure what an SWA is-State Wildlife Area, perhaps), so we headed over there and enjoyed watching the Yellow-headed Blackbirds along with a nice variety of other birds, including a Swamp Sparrow, along with the calls of American Bitterns.

We were up early the next morning in Grayling to join the tour, with about 15 other birders to see the Kirtland's Warbler. Last year we were on a tour with a record 40 birders, so 15 on a weekend seemed like a small group. Sue and I were the only ones present for whom the Kirtland's wasn't a Lifer. Last year we never got very close looks at a male, but this year the birds were singing and providing incredible looks and photo opportunities. We even got our "year" Ruffed Grouse on the way there and a Vesper Sparrow upon our arrival.

Our next stop was Whitefish point, where I was treated to a juvenile Bald Eagle flyover before Sue and I were treated to a little warbler-fest in the woods, near where they do the owl banding. The first night we attended the banding they did not catch any owls, but the following night we were treated to a Northern Saw-whet Owl banding. That day we took a drive to Seney National Wildlife Preserve and drove the wildlife route, and visited the largest waterfall east of the Mississippi and second only to Niagara Falls, along the Mighty Tahquamenon River.

On our final morning we were treated to close looks at both Semipalmated and Piping Plover, along with a Horned Lark on the beach. Afterwards we sat at the feeders where for the previous two days we were treated to hundreds, if not thousands of migrating Blue Jays, who were not quite ready to face the trek across the lake to Ontario. I was hoping we would see the Lincoln's Sparrow that had been reported the previous day, and we did, but not before a strange brown-headed bird popped into my binocular view. I had been thinking, the entire time we were in Whitefish Point that it would be cool if a Boreal Chickadee made an appearance. Except this bird had a black spot on its cheek, and Sue said, it was no chickadee, but a sparrow. I was trying to place it, when another birder asked if we had found the Eurasian Tree Sparrow.

Now I knew what I was looking at. I had seen them at dusk in St. Louis during my Big Year, and just the day before I had asked Sue if she ever wanted to go there to see it and was having no part of taking a trip to St. Louis to see a sparrow. Well, the birding gods were smiling upon us this morning, as we had a Eurasian Tree Sparrow just come to us. It was a Lifer for Sue and species number 454 for my year.

Afterwards we had to face the long drive home, but did stop at Point Pelee for a couple of hours of birding on the final day of the Festival of Birds. In fact, by that time we had the entire Woodland Trail to ourselves. Sue was lucky enough to return the next day, while I headed I off to Boston, where I was 5 days late for a reported Fork-tailed Flycatcher. I did enjoy morning birding in the Boston Victory Gardens, where in 2012 I was able to see a MacGilvary's Warbler.