Next Meeting Wed. April 10th 7PM at the Lake Bluff Audubon Center

Julie Hirshfeld studied beavers and beaver ponds in Vermont for seven years and will present a program on these interesting animals and their habitats.

Apologies to all that attended the program in March and missed Ed Kaminiski's program.  He will return for a program later this year so stay tuned to this website.
 

Meeting tonight at 7:00PM Lake Bluff Audubon Center featuring Ed Kaminski and photos of the birds of NW Michigan.  Ed spends a lot of time in the field getting great photos (I saw him in action checking the Varied Thrush in Benzie County this December) so it will be a great view on our birding world.

Red-headed Woodpeckers in January! and other good birds.  Above is the bird that was on our Christmas Bird Count and was still present January 20th. at the Jados feeder and woods.  A big surprise was after seeing this bird my brother-in-law and I found another (or 2?) at Suicide Bend along the Big Manistee River near the Tippy Dam.  Other good birds found lately are a lingering Merlin (also seen on the CBC) at both Bar Lake and at the Audubon Center by Shelly Green and Rich Kreiger.  Linda Scribner had a one day wonder Red Crossbill at her feeders and the Lesser Black-backed Gull has been making sporadic appearances at the boat ramp at First St.  Occasional small flocks of Pine Grosbeaks and Bohemian Waxwings are still being found at areas with viburnum fruits (all the other fruits are gone) most recently on Cedar Rd. and at the end of Merkey Rd.  The best bird of which I had the pleasure of missing again was the Short-eared Owl found by Carl Freeman at the conservancy grassland on Keilor Rd. north of Bear Lake on January 20th.  Good birding despite the weather!

Adult Lesser Black-backed Gull First St.

Manistee Audubon Meeting Nov. 14th 2012

Join us on Wednesday evening at 6:30PM for our annual potluck dinner and a program on the Piping Plover in Michigan by Alice Van Zoeren.  In addition to her great knowledge of Piping Plovers Alice has been a long time volunteer on the Lake Michigan shoreline count and is famously known now as the finder of Michigan's first ever Great Shearwater (photo above) from this September's count.

Alice has a great program on the Piping Plover and (I've seen it and am looking forward to seeing it again).
Hope to see a good turnout for our club that evening at the Lake Bluff Audubon Center.

Good Birding downstate this weekend

What's that?  A couple of White-faced Ibis at Point Mouillee State Game Area in Monroe County in SE Michigan just south of Detroit.  I was able to bird there this weekend and also saw a Marbled Godwit and a Western Sandpiper two birds I have only seen a few times before in the state.

We had a Plegadis sp., a probable White-faced Ibis in Manistee County near Penny Park in East Lake several years ago.  Marbled Godwits have shown up rarely at the Manistee State Game Area visible from Solberg's boatyard and at Arcadia Marsh.  I have only seen Western Sandpiper once in Manistee at the SGA.  Also this weekend there was great habitat at the Shiawasee National Wildlife Refuge in Saginaw County along the Auto Wildlife Tour Route.  Check it out if you get downstate!

Mudflats visible from the Wildlife Auto Tour Rd. at Shiawasee National Wildlife Refuge.

Tough miss on a "great" bird:

After my shorebird survey at Manistee on Saturday morning my wife Maripat and I went up to Elberta for the outdoor "Taste of Benzie" food fair and saw Doug and Sally Cook.  Carl Freeman called at noon and said Alice VanZoren had seen a jaeger sp. at the Platte River Outlet and since Doug was keen to see it too we headed up there.

Doug and I searched the lakeshore for over an hour without luck and returned to Frankfort.  I had promised an errand trip with Maripat to go up to Traverse City so we headed up there.  At 5:00PM when in Traverse City I had a call again from Carl that the bird at the Platte River Outlet was a Great Shearwater, a first record for Michigan!  In agony over the now more distressing miss I called all the local birders and tried to finish the errands as quick as possible.

Both Keith Westphal and Doug returned to the area and searched for two hours without luck.  Maripat was game to try with me and we tried a new spot at Boekolo Rd (sp.?) hiking nearly a mile out to the beach and then again about a quarter mile south before it got dark without seeing the bird.  The next day a group of birders from down state came up and methodically covered the beachfront as I checked harbors to the south.  I received a sad call from Adam Byrne that Caleb Putnam had found the dead bird about 1/4 of a mile south of the area I had checked the night before.  If only I had found it and had carried a bucket of anchovies with me!

  more here:   http://aviantendencies.blogspot.com/2012/09/a-lake-michigan-shear.html

Shorebird Field Trip

 photo by Alice Van Zoeren, Lake Michigan beach in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore

Saturday Sept. 1.  Meet at Lake Bluff Audubon at 8:00am.  We will travel to First St. Pier, the Manistee State Game Area (on Manistee Lake) and if time permits the Onekama Sewage Ponds a restricted area that often has good numbers of shorebirds and we have permission to visit.