The Great Bird Hunter

Lighhouse at Pere Maquette Park

During our trip last weekend I felt like I was a primitive being, tracking animals all over the wilderness that is the great state of Michigan.  Of course that feeling can only last so long when you warp back to reality and remember that you are using multiple birding websites to locate the “prey.”  Nevertheless, it was a lot of fun trying to track down these cool creatures.

Lis and I left the house roughly around 10 o’clock on Saturday morning.  We had packed a lunch and snacks so we didn’t plan on stopping unless absolutely necessary.  Not 45 minutes into the trip my wife informs that she is hungry.  I remind her of the bounty of food located right behind the center console.  She told me that none of it could be categorized as “breakfast food.”  I then asked her if she remembered eating breakfast before we left.  I’m thinking maybe I’m dealing with a very early case of dimensia here.  She says “I’m pregnant.”

Female Long-tailed Duck (nonbreeding)

After a not so quick stop at McDonald’s in Adrian, we were on our way again.  Perhaps 45 minutes later we see our first list bird.  As we were traveling about 75 mph we saw a large bird fly up ahead of us and nearly get smoked by a semi.  I slowed down and watched the bird safely duck down into the roadside ditch.  It was a Ring-necked Pheasant.  Totally cool.  Elissa of course takes credit for the spot because if we had not stopped at McDonald’s we would have never seen it.  I’m willing to live with that analysis.

Female White-winged Scoter

The first real stop on our trip up north was at the Muskegon Wastewater Management Facility.  This was largely a bust.  I was totally disappointed.  Outside of a few turkeys and some pretty common ducks, we really didn’t come up with much.  No worries.  On to Pere Marquette Park near downtown Muskegon.

Male Long-tailed Duck (nonbreeding)

The park proved to be a different story.  For one thing, the weather was perfect.  The water was calm, there was very little wind, and there was just enough light to show off the colorful birds.  Now in the last post I told you I was going after 4 species.  The White-winged, Surf, and Black Scoters as well as the Long-tailed Duck.  At Pere Marquette we got the White-winged Scoter and the Long-tailed Duck.  Check out the pics.  Pretty cool lookin’ birds!

The rest of Saturday saw us bouncing around the Muskegon channel and also Muskegon State Park.  No new birds, but we had a pretty good time.  After cleaning up at the hotel we went out to eat at the Lake House restaurant.  The food was alright but they put lots of sauce on everything.  I had crab stuffed shrimp with the Martha’s Vinyard salad.  The salad was great (carmalized pecans...yum!), but you could barely taste the shrimp due to the sauce factor.  We ordered creme brule for dessert.  That totally made up for the shrimp.

On Sunday we started our decent down the coast of Lake Michigan.  We had studied sightings on eBird the night before and mapped out a plan of attack.  We went after Bohemian Waxwings, Snow Geese, and Eared Grebes.  We came up empty on all accounts.  That turned out not to matter so much due to what we saw in Grand Haven.  After visiting the area in Grand Haven where the Grebes had been seen, we decided to backtrack a bit to a spot on the channel that had a lot of things in it as we had driven by.  There, hanging out with a bunch of Lesser and Greater Scaup, was a single Red-throated Loon.  New bird for the year.  New bird for the life list.  Very cool rarity.

Two days = 4 birds.  I can live with that.  I would have liked to have gotten the other two Scoters (pronounced Sc-O-ter, by the way), but I can’t complain about a trip that dealt me two new life birds.  The next planned birding event I have is on March 30th.  The Toledo Naturalist’s are leading an evening owl watch at Maumee Bay State Park.  Owls are my achilles heel.  Maybe with a little help I can nab a few more hooters for the list.  Happy Birding!