A Common Loon Makes its Return to Traverse City (Love That Laugh!)

By MIKE NORTON

It’s spring. There’s no getting around it. And what a spring it is! Such beautiful weather!

I’ve already seen the return of some of our snowbirds - the hundreds of part-time residents who spend several weeks or months of the year wintering farther south. But they’re not the only birds who’ve started arriving with the spring. Geese are honking in the sky - flying north - and on Sunday there was a warbler in my back yard, singing a new song that I’d never heard before.

Thanks to our coastal location and our many inland lakes, marshes and ponds, Traverse City is a favorite destination for thousands of migratory birds. Like their human counterparts, some of these visitors are only stopping for a few days of relaxation and refreshment while others settle down for the whole summer - but their arrival is cause for excitement among birdwatchers.

Although we’re not one of the traditional “hot spots” of the birding universe, we have enough variety of avian species to satisfy a steady stream of birders - particularly in the spring and early summer. A lot of neat stuff comes rolling through here each year; you never really know what you’re going to see from one season to the next. Maybe it’s the trumpeter swans that suddenly began showing up in 2007 or the Eurasian collared doves and Bohemian waxwings that were the talk of the local birding community in early 2008.

Fortunately, the same natural features that attract avian migrants to our beaches, lakes and forests also make us a favorite destination for the humans who follow them. As a result, our area gets more attention from birders than we would if we had to rely exclusively on out reputation as a birdwatching mecca. People get to enjoy a great vacation and do some great birding too.

Our tourism industry is belatedly taking notice of the phenomenon — and rightly so, since birding is now the country’s number-one outdoor sport. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that there are currently 51.3 million birders, and the number is still growing. Several local resorts and lodges list nearby birding areas in their promotional literature, and a few even arrange guided outings on request.

Those outings may be to locations like the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, where birders can usually find a large variety of songbirds: prairie warblers, pine warblers, Nashville warblers, American redstarts, black-throated blues and even a Blackburnian warbler or two. Thanks to the efforts of the National Park Service, the lakeshore is also home to a recovering population of piping plovers - tiny shorebirds whose habitat has been wiped out most other parts of their range.

Another rare bird can be found an hour’s drive to the east, in the jackpine plains near Grayling and Mio. This is the home of the Kirtland’s warbler, a reclusive songbird that requires frequent wildfires to germinate the gnarled pines on which its survival depends. Visitors are only admitted to the warbler’s nesting grounds on an official guided tour.

For birders with less exotic tastes, there are plenty of great spots within a few minutes of any Traverse City resort or hotel. The best winter birding in the area, for instance, is probably Medalie Park, at the south end of Boardman Lake. The park is a year-round gathering spot for waterfowl - both migrants and year-round residents, including the area’s large population of mute swans.

Spring brings many more choices, from the extensive trail system of the Grand Traverse Commons (a former mental asylum surrounded by 300 acres of forest, wetlands and meadow) to the Grand Traverse Education Reserve, which skirts both banks of the Boardman River just south of the city.

Southwest of the city, near the village of Interlochen, is Lake Dubonnet, where loons, osprey and trumpeter swans have nested in recent years. (The nearby woodlands are prime warbler habitat.) To the north, at the tip of the scenic Old Mission Peninsula, there are deep coastal woods where pileated woodpecker and black-throated green warblers can be spotted. In spring, this peninsula is a favorite resting spot for birds of prey, which rest and feed here while preparing to cross Lake Michigan on their spring migration to Canada.

An even larger migration takes place just to the west at the end of the larger Leelanau Peninsula, where the woods and wetlands of the Leelanau State Park provide cover for hundreds of migrating songbirds, raptors and waterfowl. Nearby is the 44-acre Charter Sanctuary, established by veteran birders Jim and Kay Charter as a safe haven for over 130 species of migrating, nesting and resident birds - including black-billed cuckoos, grasshopper sparrows and bobolinks. Next door to the sanctuary is the Charters’ educational center, Saving Birds through Habitat, which shows private landowners how to adapt backyards, woodlots and vacant property as bird habitat.

To the northeast, the Yuba Creek Natural Area provides an easily accessible overlook from which viewers with scopes or binoculars can keep tabs on a nesting site for bald eagles. A few miles to the north is the Petobego Pond flooding, an excellent site for watching waders and waterbirds, while the nearby Sand Lakes Quiet Area, Skegemog Swamp Pathway, and Grass River Natural Area provide even more opportunities to spot waterfowl and woodland birds.

Specific information about sightings and viewing spots, as well as a schedule of birding outings, can be obtained through the Grand Traverse Audubon Club at www.grandtraverseaudubon.org/