Meeting for May 11 Cancelled due to Deluge

The meeting originally scheduled for tonight at the Spirit of the Woods Conservation Club headquarters has been cancelled due to floods, hail, bridge washouts and other various disasters this afternoon and evening.

Arcadia Dunes Bird Blitz – June 4, 2011

A 4^th Bird Blitz is being planned to bring area birders together on Saturday, June 4th to count birds in the Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy’s Arcadia Dunes Nature Preserve and in portions of nearby Arcadia Marsh.

What is a Bird Blitz?

A Bird Blitz combines a good morning’s birding with the fun of providing population data on birds that use a property during the breeding season. The survey uses volunteer birders, and is similar to a Christmas Bird Count.

How is the data being used?

Arcadia Dunes Nature Preserve is a 3,800 acre preserve in southwestern Benzie and northwestern Manistee counties owned by the Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy. The conservancy is restoring nearby Arcadia Marsh. The data from the previous three years Bird Blitz’s has already been used by conservancy staff. Arcadia Marsh bird count data was used extensively in a restoration grant application. In the long term, Bird Blitz data from the marsh will measure whether the restoration work is affecting bird populations. At Arcadia Dunes, conservancy staff has already used the data to make management decisions.

Who can participate?

A Bird Blitz is a simple survey method because it can be done by individuals or small groups and does not require complex training. All it requires is that at least one observer in each group can identify birds in the territory by sight and sound.

Date and time

Saturday, June 4^th from 5 or 6 to 10 am with refreshments served afterwards. Participants will be asked to be on their birding area sometime between 5 am and 6 am. We are allowing a flexible start time to accommodate both those who want to get out early when the birds start singing and those who drive a further distance and want to start later. If June 4^th turns out to be a stormy bad-weather day, participants can go out on their own some morning the week after June 4^th and count their assigned area.

Territories

Each individual or group is given a map of a territory to cover and it is up to the team to scour their territories as thoroughly as possible, counting every bird they see or hear. Territory size ranges from 100 to 250 acres and habitats include northern hardwood forest, old fields, grassland, and marsh.

After Birding

At 10 am, a light brunch (muffins, juice, and tea & coffee) will be provided where participants can turn in count sheets and share highlights of the day. Everyone will be sent a summary of the Blitz after the counts are tallied.

Want to participate?

Please sign up ahead of time so that you can be matched up with a territory and group. Maps, data sheets, and complete instructions will be mailed or emailed out on June 1st.

Please RSVP by May 31^st by sending the following information:

 your name

 mailing address

 email address

 phone number

 habitat preferences (forest, old field, grassland, marsh)

 group preference (Do you have someone you’d like to bird with? Would you like to be paired with a more experienced birder or be willing to take beginning a birder along? Would you prefer to bird alone?)

Please RSVP to: Paula Dreeszen

dreeszen@centurytel.net

(231) 275-7199

Spend a Fun Morning Helping our Birds!

Arcadia Field Trip

Saturday April 16 8:00AM. Meet at the parking lot on Lake Michigan at the end of Lake St. in Arcadia (west of M-22).

Members of the Manistee, Benzie and Grand Traverse Audubon clubs are holding their joint field trip to Arcadia Marsh and environs this Saturday. Check the weather report, get your binoculars, field guide and prepare for lots of ducks, Sandhill Cranes, early spring songbirds and if we are lucky some migrating hawks and possible exiting rarities. We always seem to find something good with so many birders on the lookout. The groups will break up after meeting into smaller groups to help everyone get a good look at the birds and to have a chance to ask questions of the field trip leaders.

For anyone that wants to carpool from Manistee call the Lake Bluff Audubon center at 723-4042.

BA

Arcadia Marsh causeway birders photo by John Ester

Out like a Lion

This was the scene in one of my only flowering crabs that still had a bit of fruit last Wednesday.

Two dominant robins fed off the last few fruits and fought off all comers until the fruit was gone as well as their reason to fight. As soon as they settled down about 20 robins landed in the tree and 15 more on the ground pictured here. They all seemed to be pondering "what now" as the blizzard continued.

This cold spell has lasted a full week and seems to have killed off some early spring arrivals such as Woodcock, Tree Swallows, and Eastern Phoebes. The weather is looking better for the end of the week with highs returning to the 40's and hopefully better conditions for the birds.

One of "Our" tropical preforest preserves expands

Manistee and Benzie Audubon have teamed up in the past during the spring bird count to raise funds for the American Bird Conservancy and projects protecting forests both here in the US and in the tropics of Central and South America. One of the preserves that we helped add a significant amount of acreage to has increased again recently protecting more habitat.

See: http://www.abcbirds.org/newsandreports/releases/110110.html

Birds and Nature Photography Workshop

Nine fortunate people signed up and attended Bob Paetchows's Birds and Nature photography workshop this last Saturday at the Lake Bluff Audubon Center. This was during a very snowy day and some of us had to plow through deep drifts to make it but it was worth it.

In addition to learning about all the settings on the digital cameras and techniques to get great bird shots we had a practice session taking advantage of the audubon center's excellent feeders to get photos like the Carolina Wren pictured here. The birds were cooperative and we were able to photograph Cardinals, Hairy and Downy Woodpecker, Tufted Titmouse, Chickadee, Tree Sparrow, Junco, and Blue Jays in addition to the Wren. Thanks for the great program Bob. Stay tuned here for the next workshop.

We Survived. That was the consensus for the field counters on Manistee's Christmas Bird Count. With temperatures in the teens and winds at 30mph along with snow squalls it was much more pleasant for those that sat inside and watched their feeders. No wonder the feeder counters did so well seeing a total of 31 of our 66 species. Good birds at the feeders were Carol Pasco's White-throated Sparrow Gloria Savory's Eastern Towhee
along with Rich Krieger's Carolina Wren at the Lake Bluff Audubon Center and Sharon Taylor's Evening Grosbeak, a bird that used to be common here but has declined supposably due to spruce budworm spraying control in the Canadian boreal forests.

Highlights for field counters were newcomer Chris Lipps's Lesser Black-backed Gull
Don Stroup and Kurt Schindler'sRed-headed Woodpecker and Tim Granger's Northern Harrier. Common Snipe is now almost an annual bird on the count but Brian Allen now greatly appreciates the effort Carl Freeman goes to to find them in the marshes at the east end of Portage Lake.

This was a down year for Red-breasted Nuthatch (4) and most ducks as we only had 10 species due to the complete freeze of Portage Lake and Manistee Lake. Barred Owl was the only owl out, as we could not do effective owling in the gale force winds.

See the link on the National Christmas Bird Counts on the right side of this blog to see our 2011 results.

Next year can only be better, thanks again to all that helped!