May 16, 2024 to May 24, 2024
Guided by Cory Gregory
There is no better time to go birding in Michigan than during the spring migration. Besides the many breeding species, Michigan boasts an impressive collection of migrants and vagrants. Our tour, which fell right in the peak migration window, tallied an impressive 200+ species! From the southern songbirds, like Yellow-throated Warbler, Cerulean Warbler, Louisiana Waterthrush, and Summer Tanager, to the northern boreal species like Spruce Grouse, our tour sampled it all!
Starting our trip together in the southwestern part of the Great Lakes State gave us the opportunity to see some species rarely seen in Michigan by other birders. From the Summer Tanager and Acadian Flycatcher singing at Warren Dunes, the very vociferous Prairie Warbler in the dune clearings, the Louisiana Waterthrush singing at Lakeside Road, to even a Prothonotary Warbler showing nicely by the Galien River. The tour even started out with a rare species for Michigan, the Eurasian Collared-Dove, as well as a great show by the American Woodcocks right at our hotel! A Connecticut Warbler dropped in while we were looking for Henslow's Sparrows, a nearby Willow Flycatcher gave a great show as it sang from a fence, and Hooded Warblers, Canada Warblers, and White-eyed Vireos sang at Floral Lane. All in all, we had a great start to the trip after tallying more than 100 species in the first day or two!
We birded our way around the Allegan State Game Area and Muskegon Wastewater, which was another species-rich day. The Allegan SGA netted us all sorts of grassland species like Grasshopper Sparrow, Vesper Sparrow, Eastern Meadowlark, Sandhill Crane, Orchard Oriole, and lots of Eastern Kingbirds. The wooded portion had a different mix of new species for us including Veery, Scarlet Tanager, Blue-winged Warbler, Cerulean Warbler, and Yellow-billed Cuckoo. To the north, in Muskegon, we birded around the huge lagoons at the treatment plant. The 40-50 species there included 10+ species of waterfowl, hundreds of gulls, and even some very rare Fish Crows! Farther north we encountered our first of many Upland Sandpipers and Brewer's Blackbirds.
The Jack Pine forests around Grayling were the main destination for one of the most important key targets on the entire trip, the one and only Kirtland's Warbler. No sooner than we got out of our comfortable van did we start hearing them singing. Not just one or two, but heaps and heaps of them, all around us! We ended up getting such good looks, including a male singing point blank, that we were rather speechless. In fact, we even watched as one of these ground-nesters creeped along the ground, feeding. Seeing such intimate behavior was really a highlight! In the nearby mixed forests we connected with another suite of interesting species; a pair of Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers showed nicely, a couple of Great Crested Flycatchers called from above, a Pine Warbler danced above us, a couple of Ovenbirds rocketed back and forth over the road, and even a sneaky Brown Creeper joined the party. We visited some wetlands near Houghton Lake which gave us the chance to watch nesting Ospreys before enjoying lunch at a little local cafe (but the pancakes weren't little!). Later in the day we connected with a couple more target species like Alder Flycatcher, Golden-winged Warbler, a whopping 33 Black Terns, and we even chanced into a pair of Black-billed Cuckoos that flew right in front of the van!
One of the highlights of this trip was getting to see, and then cross, the famed Mackinac Bridge. First, we checked the beach for new things and found a couple of Long-tailed Ducks, and a few warblers bopped through the trees including Yellow, Nashville, Orange-crowned, and Tennessee. Before we crossed the bridge though, we checked out the stale report of a Harlequin Duck. To my surprise, it was still there! We hopped out and enjoyed quick looks at this stunning species which is rare anywhere in Michigan! After we crossed the Mighty Mac, we drove north until we entered open country where our target was hopefully at a grouse lek. We drove up quietly and sure enough, about 20 Sharp-tailed Grouse were still using the lek. They even got excited a few times and did some dancing! Nearby, the Munuscong Potholes gave us more views of Sharp-tailed Grouse but also of a singing Clay-colored Sparrow. An Alder Flycatcher sang, nearly half a dozen Upland Sandpipers kept an eye on us, and a Wilson's Snipe was displaying overhead. Shortly after, the walk out along the river gave us a nice chance to stretch our legs and enjoy birding on foot. We found several Virginia Rails which were seen completely in the open! A number of Marsh Wrens were clinging and singing in the cattails, Swamp Sparrows trilled nearby, and even a few Sedge Wrens also joined in.
Our time in the Upper Peninsula was spent at a number of good birding spots including Whitefish Point, Point Iroquois, the Tahquamenon River Mouth, Shelldrake Lake, Farm Truck Trail, and Tahquamenon Falls State Park. Lake Superior was kind to us, thankfully. We encountered several diverse migrant flocks which really filled in our our warbler list; we saw Ovenbird, Black-and-white, Nashville, Magnolia, Blackburnian, Chestnut-sided, Pine, Black-throated Green, Cape May, Bay-breasted, and Wilson's warblers, to name a few. Migration was really interesting to watch at Whitefish Point where hundreds of Blue Jays swirled overhead, sparrows worked the feeders, Red Crossbills flew over, Broad-winged Hawks gathered and circled, and even the nesting Piping Plovers put on a good show. One of my favorite aspects of birding in the UP is the chance to look for Spruce Grouse in the deep and dark spruce bogs. And yes, we found one! At night, the owl researchers at Whitefish Point were able to show us a Northern Saw-whet Owl that they had caught. Adorable to us, but probably not to its tiny prey! As we said goodbye to the UP, we stopped at Point LaBarbe for one final stop. It's a good thing we did, because migration was hopping; we laid eyes on Black-throated Green, Black-throated Blue, Canada, Yellow, Blackburnian, Nashville, Tennessee, and Black-and-white warblers.
Back in the Lower Peninsula, we continued to bird our way down along the shoreline of Lake Huron. We added a singing Northern Waterthrush, a handsome Chestnut-sided Warbler, Alder Flycatcher, Least Flycatcher, and a couple of singing Blue-headed Vireos. As we approached Tawas City, we checked out Tuttle Marsh which was another very birdy spot. We added 14+ Trumpeter Swans, Pied-billed Grebe, and a stoic Bald Eagle. Returning at night was a blast; we saw Eastern Whip-poor-wills, Eastern Screech-Owls, and a Barred Owl! The main attraction on that side of the state in the spring is the famous Tawas Point. Known for its migration-condensing geography, it was a great place to be based for a couple of nights. For example, one morning we spent about 4 hours birding up-and-down the many paths and we tallied a very impressive 74 species! The highlights were many; we tallied 8 species of shorebirds including Piping Plover and Whimbrel, 3 vireo species, a scattering of flycatchers, a very uncommon Northern Mockingbird at the tip, a number of Orchard Orioles, and 14 species of warblers (including a singing Mourning Warbler!). Whether it was the chance to see a flock of 80+ Whimbrel swirling over the beach, watching an impressive array of migrating raptors, or watching the dozens of tanagers, grosbeaks, and buntings, this place really was special.
In the end, with a triplist loaded with more than 200 species, our trip was a really successful one, perhaps my biggest tally for this route! I hope everyone enjoyed themselves and I want to thank each of you for joining me on this Field Guides tour. Michigan means a lot to me and I hope you can now say you too have experienced a good chunk of the Great Lakes State. Of course, a big "thank you" to Karen for managing this trip and I speak for all of us in saying thank you again for choosing Field Guides for this adventure. Until we see you on another of our trips somewhere else in the world, stay safe and good birding!
You can see my complete trip report on eBird at this link: https://ebird.org/tripreport/247051
You can download a combined PDF of this page and the eBird report at this link: https://fieldguides.com/triplists/mic24bTRIPLIST.pdf
--Cory Gregory (Curlew)