May 13-21, 2026 with Cory Gregory
The Great Lakes State means a lot to me as a birder, but also as a person who spent a lot of time growing up there. In fact, returning to my former haunts is always a highlight of my year. With such a wide array of unique habitats, Michigan is an exceptional place to visit for birding, both to witness the spectacle of migration as well as see all the breeding species as well. From the hardwood swamps, deciduous forests, grasslands, sand dunes, beaches, Jack Pine forests, boreal forests, to the northern bogs, you can start to see the potential Michigan has! Our trip together visited all of these habitats and we came away with an equally impressive collection of birds. It's not every day that you can top 200 species in the Midwest (including a whopping 33 species of warblers!).
Switching gears, the next morning we birded in some open country around the Allegan State Game Area. We watched some neat shorebirds, including a Wilson's Phalarope, in a roadside pond, listened to the Soras calling, watched the Bobolinks singing overhead, and even got great views of a Grasshopper Sparrow. The Orchard and Baltimore orioles were giving great side-by-side views and the nearby Eastern Meadowlarks sang from the fields. We went back to some lowland forest at that point to check off another several key warblers, the beautiful Prothonotary Warbler and the light-blue Cerulean Warbler! We had just about reached 30 warbler species and it was only our second day! Next on our agenda was birding the vast Muskegon Wastewater Facility. These were no joke, they're huge! We added heaps of new trip birds including a variety of ducks and shorebirds. A beautiful breeding-plumaged Bonaparte's Gull was a nice surprise, as were more Wilson's Phalaropes, and even some out-of-season ducks like Canvasback. The rest of that day we spent making our way north to the city of Gaylord.
We woke up in our rooms that faced Whitefish Bay... but it was pretty foggy and chilly out. We bundled up but didn't get far before we ended up with some nice birds, a flock of Evening Grosbeaks were essentially in the parking lot! We then drove up to the tip of the famed Whitefish Point where we spent most of the morning. We started by visiting the feeders where dozens of sparrows and others mobbed for the food. That Snowshoe Hare was pretty cool too! We then walked out to the waterbird shack and then the beach to enjoy an adorable pair of Piping Plovers. Back inland, up at the hawk platform, the fog was starting to burn off and the migrating raptors started to lift off. What a show unfolded in front of us! Dozens (hundreds?) of raptors started to swirl around, all different sorts too, Bald Eagle, Northern Harrier, Merlin, American Kestrel, Sharp-shinned, Red-tailed, Broad-winged, even a Swainson's Hawk made an appearance. We can't forget the Blue Jays though; huge flocks of these started to swarm and pondered crossing over to Canada. Later that afternoon, we visited Tahquamenon Falls during the day and enjoyed a lovely stroll to the Upper Falls. The Northern Parula gave quite a show as did the feisty Black-throated Green Warblers. After dinner, we needed to try for Spruce Grouse just one more time. And, wouldn't you know it, there it was on the shoulder of the road, a male Spruce Grouse! Whew! Very happy with completing the trifecta, the drive back to town was a happy one... but then it just turned to dumbfounded... Black Bear on the right! Not only did we get to see this full-size predator, we even watched as it stood on its hind legs and scratched on a pole. We couldn't believe our eyes! Could the night get any better? As it happens, it could. We went up to the Friends of Whitefish Point banding station late that night and got to watch researchers with a Northern Saw-whet Owl. A huge thanks to Chris and Nova for letting us watch them do their thing and to answer all our questions.
Sadly, we had to pack up and depart our beachside hotel that next day and leave the Upper Peninsula altogether. However, we had one last birding stop, right before the bridge, at Pointe LaBarbe. And wow, things were going off. Warblers being seen left and right, all sorts, probably close to 20 species! The most exciting among them was a beautiful Mourning Warbler that actually afforded views. But we still needed Orange-crowned Warbler... and then an Orange-crowned showed up. Even some Black-throated Blue Warblers got in on the action. Eventually, the fog started to clear and we got a view of the Mighty Mac just before we had to load up and cross over it, back to the Lower Peninsula. Nearby, we enjoyed an Olive-sided Flycatcher and gorgeous Golden-winged Warbler as it sang over its territory, what a spiffy bird! We drove our way down to Tawas Point where we'd spend the next two nights. A little intro outing at the state park was enough to whet our appetite.
We had this full day to explore Tawas Point State Park and the surrounding habitats. We started by walking out to the point early that morning and it didn't take long for us to realize there were loads of migrant warblers around! A Golden-winged Warbler sang from a thicket before we could even start down the trail! Over the course of the next several hours, we explored the point on foot, seeing what migrant birds might drop in. We started to amass a pretty nice warbler list including Blackburnian, Tennessee, Nashville, Cape May, Magnolia, Chestnut-sided, Black-throated Blue, Pine, Palm, and Canada. Vireos were in top form too and we added the tricky Philadelphia Vireo in addition to Eastern Warbling, Red-eyed, and Blue-headed vireos. We watched as a Common Nighthawk took a snooze on a branch (and a North American Porcupine almost in the same tree!), watched overhead as Purple Martins and various raptors flew over, checked the beach and tallied shorebirds like Sanderling, Dunlin, Black-bellied Plover, Semipalmated Plover, and a flock of Hudsonian Whimbrels. After 3-4 hours of Tawas Point, our list was at about 80 species. That afternoon we visited Tuttle Marsh and got to watch an American Bittern feast on all manners of swamp critters. We even got to hear the local celebrity, the King Rail, calling incessantly. That evening, the marsh was alive with the bugling of Trumpeter Swans, Common Nighthawks swooping overhead, various frogs calling, while the nearby forests delivered a pair of tame Barred Owls and a distant Eastern Whip-poor-will singing deep in the forest.
You can see my complete trip report on eBird at this link: https://ebird.org/tripreport/522439
-- Cory Gregory (Curlew)