The Plovers of Home

After a few days in Michigan's Upper Peninsula for my friend Clayton's wedding this July, I had just a few days at home in Leelanau County before returning to the Philippines. Most of this was occupied by work, since even though I wasn't in the Philippines I was still working remotely. However, I did have one free day that I was able to spend visiting some of my favorite local birding places, as well as running errands of course. 

My first stop was at Little Glen Park, an area next to a small pond near to the Sleeping Bear Dunes. It's a rather unassuming spot, but wth over 200 species of bird recorded there it's one of the best single birding areas in Northwestern Lower Michigan. Unfortunately, it was almost completely silent by the time I got there, probably because of the strong winds that kept any birds that were there hidden away in the bushes. A family of Trumpeter Swans in the pond was nice to see, as was a lone Beaver, but after unsuccessfully searching for other things I decided to just keep going to the next spot. 

Trumpeter Swans

Beaver

Just around the corner from Little Glen Park is Sleeping Bear Point, one of my favorite hiking and birding spots in Leelanau County. Hiking-wise it's got a trail that provides great views of Lake Michigan and the sand dunes, and bird-wise it's essentially the only place in the county to see shorebirds, especially the Piping Plovers that nest in a cordoned-off area there. 

The first thing I saw near the parked car were some young Eastern Bluebirds resting on a wire and tousling with each other, as well as a pair of Hairy Woodpeckers doing woodpecker things on a Locus tree. 

Eastern Bluebirds

Hairy Woodpeckers

The wind was blowing hard over the lake, but part of the shoreline was sheltered enough by the surrounding dunes that it was a bit calmer, and there were a few birds to be seen. A family of Common Mergansers was lounging on the shore, but more exciting was a Spotted Sandpiper that stayed a healthy distance away from me, but still allowed me close enough to get some decent pictures. Spotted Sandpipers look almost exactly like the Common Sandpipers I see in the Philippines when in winter plumage, but when they're in breeding plumage the difference is easy to see, consider that they're so, well, spotty. 

Common Mergansers

Spotted Sandpiper

Of course, what I was really looking for were the Piping Plovers. Piping Plovers nearly went extinct in the earliest 20th century due to over-hunting, and even though they've rebounded quite well since then they remain Near Threatened, while the Great Lakes population of the Circumcinctus subspecies is the rarest one, with probably fewer than 100 pairs. Sleeping Bear Dunes is one of the strongholds of this population, and a birding friend of mine is involved with the conservation there. They're incredibly cute, and probably my favorite shorebird, at least until I managed to see a Spoon-billed Sandpiper. 

Fortunately, this year's nesting season seemed to have gone fairly well, and soon saw an adult Piping Plover just inside the cordoned-off nesting area. Soon after I saw a few very cute juvenile birds, probably only a month or two old, foraging for tiger beetles near the beach. One of my favorite things about birding in the US is that shorebirds are much more accustomed to people than they are in Asia, and will practically walk right up to you if you sit still enough. A couple of the juvenile birds were so close my lens couldn't even focus on them!

Adult Piping Plover

Baby Piping Plover

Sandy Stream Tiger Beetle- Piping Plover food!

One of the main threats to the plovers is the raptors that frequent the area, particularly the Merlins that nest nearby. Thankfully there were no Merlins around that day, but the plovers would sometimes duck low to the ground as an immature Bald Eagle passed overhead- though the eagle itself seemed content to steal fish from the local Herring Gulls instead. 

Immature Bald Eagle just having stolen fish off of a gull

After taking far too many pictures of plovers, I continued on to the Norconk Road area to search for the vagrant Orchard Oriole that had recently been seen in the area- and hoping for an Upland Sandpiper as well. It took lots of walking through thick grass to get to the proper spot, but I did soon see not one, but two Orchard Orioles- an adult male and a first-year male, as far as I can tell the first time that two different birds were observed there. Also around were a couple of Bobolinks, a male and female Baltimore Oriole, and a Western Osprey being chased by a flycatcher of some sort. 

Bobolink

Adult male Orchard Oriole

First-year male Orchard Oriole

Beautiful male Baltimore Oriole

Northern Pearly-Eye

I had some errands in Traverse City just south of Leelanau to run after that, and of course I took the time to stop at Logan's Landing, another unassuming spot that's one of the best birding places around. It's just a small peninsula jutting into a lake, but ducks and geese of various sorts seem to enjoy it. There were the usual Mallards, Canada Geese, and Mute Swans around, but more interesting a Lesser Scaup and a Redhead, two ducks that definitely weren't supposed to be there in the middle of the summer. There was also a family of Warbling Vireos in the trees near to the water. 

Lesser Scaup

Warbling Vireo

Eastern Pondhawk

Widow Skimmer

On my last morning before leaving for the Philippines, I had just enough time for a quick walk in the woods behind my house, where I saw a beautiful male American Redstart and a Darner species of some sort that unfortunately can't be IDed. 

American Redstart

Darner (Aeshna sp.)

White-faced Meadowhawk

It was altogether a highly enjoyable visit home, although I was itching to get back to the Philippines, as my remaining time there was drawing to a close. Thankfully, I was able to fit many, many adventures into my last month in the country... but those are for later blog posts.