Great Lakes Echo (https://greatlakesecho.org/tag/birds/page/10/)
A 7.5-mile auto trail through Michigan’s Shiawassee National Wildlife Refuge will open in May. The trail would allow visitors to observe birds in the refuge like the bald eagle and peregrine falcon.
The make up of urban landscapes may throw a curve ball at female northern cardinals looking for a mate with more than just a great personality.
Each fall thousands of raptors like the American Kestrel, Bald Eagle and Turkey Vulture, cross the Detroit River every day.
And each one is counted by hand.
Last month Echo reported that Great Lakes migratory birds are threatened by the Gulf oil spill. Regional bird expert Francie Cuthbert, a University of Minnesota professor, was busy with fieldwork when we tried to reach her then. But she got back with us for this update:
Female Great Lakes piping plovers will head south for the winter ahead of the males in a couple weeks. Since nothing is cleaned up, they will almost certainly be affected by the spill, Cuthbert says. She expects only a small percentage of plovers that come in contact with the oil to survive.
The number of Kirtland’s warblers recorded in the Great Lakes region in 2009 was the highest since a census of the birds began in 1951.
The rare bird faces challenges from climate change and funding for its protection.
It lives only in parts of Michigan, Wisconsin and Ontario.
The first falconry field meet in North America was in 1938 in Pennsylvania. It’s a sport that continues to be cherished throughout the Great Lakes states.
“It’s like a front row seat to an I-max movie to nature,” said Kory Koch, communications director of the Michigan Hawking Club.
Spotting a bald eagle may not be a big deal for people who live in Alaska, along the East and West Coasts, the Rocky Mountains and the Mississippi River, where the large, predatory raptor lives year-round. But Great Lakes staters take what we can get when we get it. Below are the best spots in each of the Great Lakes states to spy the national bird, courtesy of the National Wildlife Federation. And once you see one, ask the bald eagle why it finally decided to clarify its stance on war. Indiana
Monroe Lake, (812) 837-9546
Michigan
Erie Marsh, (517) 316-0300
Minnesota
Voyageurs National Park, (218) 283-6600
New York
Mongaup Falls Reservoir, (845) 557-6162
Hudson River, (212) HUDSON
Sullivan County, (845) 557-6162
Ohio
Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge, (419) 898-0014
Pennsylvania
Middle Creek Wildlife Management Area, (717) 787-1323
Wisconsin
Nelson Dewey State Park, (608) 725-5374
What do cologne and Indiana’s great blue herons have in common? They both contain chemicals that are increasingly worrisome to Great Lakes officials. A list of contaminants of emerging concern includes synthetic musks and perfluorinated compounds, or PFCs. Musks are a key ingredient of perfume. PFCs have had a bevy of industrial uses including fire-fighting foams and stain-resistant Scotchgard.
(MI) The Detroit News – All three peregrine falcon chicks — Tucker, Wetzel and Cass — were named after officials with the state’s Department of Natural Resources and the Detroit Zoological Society tagged them with identification bands and gave them a quick physical Wednesday morning. The chicks live with their parents, Nick and Hathor, in an aerie, or nesting site, on an 11th floor ledge of the old County Building, 10 N. Main at Cass in downtown Mount Clemens. The ledge is on the building’s northwest corner. More
(ON) The Toronto Star- One arm of the Leslie Street Spit, home to Tommy Thompson Park and the Great Lakes’ largest colony of cormorants, looks like a wintry apocalypse. There are no trees now, just a few guano-spattered snags. This is where cormorants first settled in the park in 1990. They now number about 30,000. In some Ontario parks, Parks Canada officials shoot cormorants to stem the loss of trees.