A Northwoods Almanac for May 20 – June 2, 2011
Hawk Watching!
On May 6th, Mary and I led a group of intrepid birders to beautiful Brockway Mountain in Copper Harbor, Michigan, to catch the hawk migration. We’ve led many hawk-watching trips for well over a decade, and sometimes we’ve hit it, and sometimes we should have stayed home! Well, this time we were graced on May 7th with a morning that offered very modest winds and enough sunshine to create rising thermals of warm air off the rocky landscape of the Keewenaw Peninsula. Riding those thermals were kettles of broad-winged hawks, flowing east in loosely formed vertical columns that sometimes numbered as many as 50.
Broad-wingeds are masters at living easy, riding the thermals up many hundreds of feet, and then setting their wings and gliding out as far as they can go. Again and again they rise and glide down, rise and glide down, nearly effortlessly sailing north until over many days they reach their breeding areas.
Broad-wingeds can sail out a maximum of 11 feet for every foot they drop in altitude, but their average glide ratio is closer to 7:1. Even better sailors are the turkey vultures which can squeeze 14 horizontal feet out for every foot they fall. And here, surprisingly, is one area in flight where humans surpass the birds – our highest performance sailplanes can sail out 40 feet for every foot they sink.
A tailwind can dramatically increase the migration glide ratio, whereas a headwind can decrease it or stall it completely, leaving the birds grounded and watching the weather like, well, a hawk.
We arrived up on Brockway’s ridge around 10 a.m. and left a little after noon, having counted around 480 broad-wingeds while also acquiring very stiff necks, the bane of a good hawk-watching day.
The official counter, a young man named Arthur from New York State, tallied 1104 raptors for the day, 1034 of which were broad-wingeds.
The next day, the winds had increased and shifted to the northeast in the morning, making it a tough day for the raptors that use soaring and gliding as their modus operandi. So, the playing field changed to favor the powered fliers, those that flap their wings to make progress, but which will happily glide, too, if the gods are kind. Sharp-shinned hawks took the main stage with 226 flying by that day, though the broad-wingeds had a reasonable day as well with 324 gliding by, accompanied by 38 red-tailed hawks.
While the numbers were impressive, there were also moments when individual hawks left us dazzled, either with their close-up beauty or with their aeronautical skills. Sometimes the hawks came in right overhead, perhaps 50 feet above us, and then there were the times where the hawks were flying in the valley below where we were standing, and we were looking down on them, sharing the views that they were experiencing.
The spring raptor migration has pretty well wrapped up by now, but mark your calendar now for this autumn’s migration which peaks around September 15, and where the show shifts to Duluth, Minnesota. You owe it to yourself to see this phenomenon at least once in your lifetime.
Freighter Sanctuary
While the raptors don’t like to cross Lake Superior, songbirds do so regularly, and most often at night. Stories abound of stormy nights that forced songbirds to land on tankers and sailing vessels when the birds had to find an “island” or die. One freighter captain, and avid birder, J. P. Perk, sailed an array of lakers assigned to him by U.S. Steel from the 1930s through the early 1970s, and always created his own bird sanctuary on the deck of his ships. Before leaving port, Perk would buy burlapped trees from nurseries and make a little forest on the deck, complete with a viewing bench and bird feeders. He tried to buy trees that were laden with fruit so the birds would have something to eat, and usually the birds had stripped the trees by the time he made his next port.
Perk kept records of the birds that landed on his deck, even filming them, and he identified 17 distinct migration corridors over Lake Superior, Huron, Michigan, and Erie, while recording more than 200 species using the flyways. Audubon Magazine published his findings in the fall and winter issues of 1964-65.
Perk had some big days out on the water. One day in May, 1960, 44 species of birds, including 15 warbler species, visited his freighter forest. One time an osprey rode 120 miles on the steering pole that projected beyond the front of the ship. Yet another time, Perk semi-tamed an American kestrel that fed out of his hand on the trip.
To read more of Peck’s story in Lake Superior Magazine, see www.lakesuperior.com/blogs/superior-notes/331jrnl.
Lots of Sightings!
5/3: Cynthia and Jim Krakowski observed a small flock of snow buntings near Powell Marsh, a rather late date for snow buntings to still be with us (but then again, it still felt like winter that week).
5/3: Sharon Lintereur observed her FOY (First Of Year) yellow-rumped warbler in Lake Tomahawk.
5/5: Pete Johnson in Mercer had a sow bear with three very small cubs take down his bird feeders.
5/5: Dan Carney in Hazelhurst had both a pine warbler and a yellow-rumped warbler eating suet from his feeders.
5/5: Judith Bloom reported seeing their FOY rose-breasted grosbeaks on Lake Tomahawk. Judith also noted that five pairs of loons are back on their typical territories on Lake Tomahawk.
5/5: We had our FOY rose-breasted grosbeaks appear in Manitowish.
5/6: Al Denninger on Elna Lake watched a gray squirrel swim out to a wood duck box he has placed about 25 feet off-shore, climb up the metal pole, and go in the hole. The squirrel is raising young in the box. Al notes that over the years he has had tree swallows, common mergansers, and mallards nest in the box, but never a wood duck.
5/6: Mary Madsen in Presque Isle had Baltimore orioles eating oranges, as did Ed Marshall in Lac du Flambeau, although his oriole was eating at his peanut butter feeder.
5/6: A yellow warbler visited our sunflower seed feeder in Manitowish, a very unusual behavior for a yellow warbler.
5/7: Sharon Lintereur in Lake Tomahawk observed her first hummingbird and first rose-breasted grosbeak the next day.
5/7: Nacny Skowlund on Powell Road had 18 wood ducks come in to eat corn at her deer feeder. She also had a female red crossbill eating sunflower seeds at one of her feeders, a very unusual sighting.
5/8: Jim Sommerfeldt in Lac du Flambeau reported seeing his first rose-breasted grosbeak.
5/8: Bob and Sandy Alfano in Woodruff reported seeing their first hummingbird of the year.
5/8: Ray and Nancy Pilmonas heard a small bird hit their window, and “before we could get outside to see if we could help it a black squirrel grabbed it and started devouring it. Feathers flew, the wings were bitten off, and it took it away after eating part of it in our yard. Pretty grisly.” They also noted that on Mother’s Day the loons on Little Manitowish Lake laid at least one egg that they could see.
5/9: Pat Schmidt in Hazelhurst reported her FOY hummingbird.
5/9: Bill & Barb Schweisheimer in Arbor Vitae sent me the following note:
“A few minutes ago a male golden-winged warbler knocked himself silly on our patio door. He was lying on his back on our patio stunned with legs trembling. When I tried to pick him up with a rag he flew onto my wife's pant leg. He then let me pick him up with the rag and did not struggle. When I tried to let him perch on a post he remained limp, so I put him in a box with holes in it, which we keep around for just such occasions. After sitting quietly in the box for something less than 10 minutes (enough time for me to look up his identity in one of our bird books) he started to move around. I opened the box and he flew onto the limb of a neighboring maple tree and on from there after a few more seconds.”
5/10: Linda Thomas in Sayner reported seeing her first hummingbirds and Baltimore orioles.
5/10: Jim and Tally Schuppel had a yellow-headed blackbird visit their yard, a quite uncommon sighting for our area.
5/10: Uwe and Cathy Wiechering in Arbor Vita reported seeing their FOY hummingbird.
5/11: Dan Carney in Hazelhurst reported seeing a solitary sandpiper and least flycatcher.
5/11: Ed Marshall in Lac du Flambeau reported seeing an indigo bunting at his sunflower seed feeders.
5/11: A grand day in Manitowish: Baltimore orioles and hummingbirds returned, and a male cardinal appeared (an indigo bunting arrived the following morning).
5/12: Colleen Henrich in Arbor Vita reported a male cardinal visiting her feeders.
5/12: Mary Madsen in Presque Isle photographed a scarlet tanager sharing the oranges she put out for the Baltimore orioles!
5/13: Dan Carney observed FOY parula, American redstart, and chestnut-sided warblers on the Bearskin Trail.
5/13: Jim Sommerfeldt in Lac du Flambeau also reported seeing an American restart, this one having met one of his windows (it was fine later on).
5/13: Barb Kaufmann observed a flock of around 70 Bonaparte's gulls on Island Lake on the Manitowish chain, a quite unusual sighting for our area.
5/14: JoAnn Zaumseil had a scarlet tanager feeding on her suet and thistle in Lac du Flambeau.
5/15: Dan Carney came across a wave of warblers on the Bearskin Trail. The flock included ten warbler species: Nashville, palm, redstart, black-throated green, yellow-rumped, magnolia, orange-crowned, golden-winged, ovenbird, black-and-white.
Discovery Center Bird Festival and Van Vliet Trails Opening
Two reminders: The North Lakeland Discovery Center is hosting its seventh annual BirdFest tonight and Saturday, May 20 and 21. If you like birds, this is the place for you.
And there will be a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 10 a.m. on May 28th to celebrate the opening of numerous hiking trails on the 400+ acres of the Van Vliet Hemlocks.
For directions to the site, and to see a map of the site, visit the Van Vliet Lake website at www.vanvlietlake.com.
Celestial Events
Before dawn on 5/22, look for Venus just one degree south of Mars. New moon on 6/1. We are graced by 15 hours and 30 minutes of sunlight as of 6/2.
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