Hermit Thrush

Migration Miracles: How Migrating Birds Find Their Way to Us … and Survive the Journey

/ Cam Mannino / 5 Comments
Sandhill Crane in flight over Stony Creek Ravine Nature Park.

They’re coming our way. And others are bidding us farewell. The spring bird migration is under way and will really gain steam in early May. Are you curious about how many birds flew through the night over Oakland County yesterday? Here’s a great tool from Cornell University’s Ornithology Lab that can give you a data-based estimate! (Thanks to birding friend Vinnie Morganti for the link!)

The Dark-eyed Juncos (Junco hyemalis) and Tree Sparrows (Spizelloides arborea), who nest in colder climates, are beginning to depart from the hedgerows and from under our feeders as they wing their way to their northern breeding grounds. Bufflehead dabbling ducks (Bucephala albeola) showed up on Cranberry Lake in mid-March as they made their way through Michigan to their nesting grounds that extend from Ontario to Canada’s Northwest Territories. And of course, the hoarse, ancient cries of the Sandhill Cranes (Antigone canadensis) now draw our eyes skyward. (Click on photos below to enlarge.)

Dark-eyed Juncos breed near Hudson’s Bay in Canada.
A Tree Sparrow can nest directly on the tundra!
A Bufflehead on its way north settled on Cranberry Lake.
Text and photos by Cam Mannino & friends

I’m always impressed by the ability of birds to survive the ordeal of migration, successfully navigating their way twice each year across the country and sometimes far beyond. This spring a lot of questions bubbled up in my winter-weary mind.

How does the tiny hummingbird beat its wings thousands of times on its way to Central America without expiring from exhaustion? How do fledglings find their way when they travel without adults, which happens more often than not? How do birds flying nonstop over oceans eat and sleep? And what’s up with birds using the earth’s magnetic field to navigate? I sure can’t perceive the earth’s magnetic field!

Recently, while doing some spring cleaning, I came across an article that I’d saved which gave me some possible explanations and some resources to go further. (See references below.) So I wanted to share with you the astounding and somewhat bizarre adaptations that allow our avian neighbors to successfully make such arduous journeys.

First, a big Thank-You! My photographer friends, Paul Birtwhistle and Bob and Joan Bonin have again generously shared some of their wonderful photos for this blog. My heartfelt thanks to all three!

So How Did This Whole Migration Pattern Get Started, Anyway?

Doesn’t semi-annual migration seem a bit extreme? I mean, why don’t birds just stay in warm regions all year ’round happily eating and breeding? (I’m glad they don’t, though!) The Cornell Lab of Ornithology describes two theories: the Northern Home theory that northern bird ancestors moved south little by little as ice ages advanced, or the Southern Home theory that southern bird ancestors followed the ice north as it retreated. According to a recent University of Michigan study of the evolutionary lineage of 800 species of North American song birds, the Northern Home theory seems more likely. (Very cool detail about this subject at this link! Click on the words “Evolution of Bird Migration” at the top left.)

Birds have continued to migrate for eons because of the basics: food and breeding opportunities. Temperate zones like Michigan are very buggy places. Our inland wetlands and shorelines produce a glorious abundance of insects and their caterpillars each spring and summer. Just look at the meal this Song Sparrow (Melospiza melodia) found in one of our parks! Quite a haul!

A Song Sparrow with a beakful of caterpillars, soft food with plenty of nutrition for its nestlings. Photo by Paul Birtwhistle.

So when daylight lingers in spring or shrinks in autumn, birds notice the change and start feeling restless. Even captive birds in scientific studies evidence migration restlessness, which is known among researchers by the German name zugunruhe. As the season approaches, they eat more and later into the evening. Their sleep decreases by as much as two-thirds in some species. (Sounds familiar somehow. Maybe human “snow birds” are experiencing zugunruhe?)

The other big draw is mating, of course. Favorite stopovers bring together migrating birds of the same species, which means a more diverse choice of mates. Let’s hear it for diversifying the gene pool!

And then there’s the “housing market”; early birds enjoy a greater selection of the preferred, sometimes scarce, nest sites.

A year ’round resident, the Red-bellied Woodpecker (Melanerpes carolinus), claims one of the high-demand cavity nesting sites in a branch of the Big Oak near the Center Pond at Bear Creek Nature Park. Photo by Paul Birtwhistle.

OK, So How Do Birds Prepare for Migration?

It’s tough to generalize about bird migration. Consider that some travel long distances, like the Ruby-throated Hummingbird (Archilochus colubris) who flaps its tiny wings to reach Central America, or the Magnolia Warbler (Setophaga magnolia) who sets off for the Caribbean. Others travel short distances, like Eastern Bluebirds (Sialia sialis) and American Robins (Turdus migratorius) who simply move just far enough in winter to find open water and more food.

The Hummingbird can double its weight quickly before migration. Photo by Paul Birtwhistle.
A male Magnolia Warbler in Cranberry Lake Park. Note his black necklace!
Five bluebirds socialize before moving south. A House Finch joins them (behind the trunk.)
An American Robin plumped on a cold winter morning.

Many songbirds, like the Rose-breasted Grosbeak (Pheucticus ludovicianus), make their way at night to avoid migrating predators like the Cooper’s Hawk (Accipiter cooperii), which migrates in daylight. Also, according to the Audubon Society, “Free of daytime thermals [rising warm air], the atmosphere [at night] is more stable, making it easier to maintain a steady course, especially for smaller birds such as warblers that might fly as slowly as 15 miles per hour.”

The Rose-breasted Grosbeak migrates at night riding tail winds as much as possible . The darkness hides them from many predators.
Cooper’s Hawks like this one year old travel by day so they can see and snag their prey, but their prey can see them better, too!

Some migrators fly in single species flocks, like the Snow Buntings (Plectrophenax nivalis) that arrive in the fall from the Arctic to spend winters in Michigan. Their plumage is whiter in the snowy north to camouflage them while breeding. During their winter visit here, their plumage includes more brown, making them less visible in fallow farm fields and open prairie. Others, like the Greater (Tringa melanoleuca) and Lesser Yellowlegs (Tringa flavipes) make their way north in mixed flocks during spring migration.

Snow Buntings travel here together from their Arctic breeding grounds in the fall. Photo by Joan Z. Bonin.
Many shore and water birds travel in mixed flocks, like these Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs at Stony Creek Ravine Nature Park. The loss and fragmentation of wetlands around the world are causing a severe drop in the numbers of shorebirds. Photo by Joan Z. Bonin.

According to Scott Weidensaul, author of A World on Wings: the Global Odyssey of Migratory Birds, even if huge numbers of birds are aloft together, a migrating songbird flying at night, “does not fly in cohesive, coordinated flocks; each is migrating on it own.” House Wrens (Troglodytes aedon) and Red-eyed Vireos (Vireo olivaceus), for example are lone nighttime migrators.

A House Wren negotiates its migration from Florida on its own.
The Red-eyed Vireo travels finds it own way to its wintering grounds in South America! Photo by Bob Bonin.

Given all that that diversity, here’s what I’ve gleaned so far about how birds prepare.

They Fatten Up Big Time!

A large flock of Canada Geese (Branta canadensis) here in Oakland Township building up their fat stores for migration.

Birds really lard up for migration. Experienced naturalist and local bird bander, Allen Chartier, checks the weight of each bird he bands and gently blows the breast feathers aside to actually see the fat layer. He told me in a helpful email that our Ruby-Throated Hummingbirds, which normally weigh about 3 grams during breeding season can weigh more than 5 grams as they leave Michigan. They need to keep bulking up along the way and amazingly can double their normal weight in about a week just before heading across the Gulf of Mexico in the autumn or the Yucatan in the spring.

Blackpoll Warblers (Setophaga striata) transit across our state twice a year and Allen says they, “… undergo a long water crossing, sometimes from the mid-Atlantic coast down to Venezuela, non-stop. Normally they weigh 10-11 grams, but can put on enough fat to more than double their weight for these multi-day flights.” He reports that “in the Great Lakes, I have had Blackpoll Warblers that weigh more than 20 grams.” Fat is clearly the essential fuel for bird migration!

The Blackpoll Warbler can fly over the Atlantic for 3 days nonstop on its way to its wintering grounds.

As author Scott Weidensaul points out, “By any typical measure, a migratory bird ready for travel ought to head to the ER, not the skies.” But he says, unlike seriously overweight humans, fattened-up migrators are not plagued by increased risk of hypertension, heart disease, diabetes or stroke. Weidensaul says that “Researchers hope that insights from avian physiology may help may help unlock new treatments and preventive approaches in people.” I hope so too!

They “Grow or Jettison their Internal Organs on an As-needed Basis!”

The quote above from Scott Weidensaul’s book just blew me away. The internal organs of birds actually shrink and expand for migration? Yes! “Internal flexibility is actually common among migrants … a thrush or catbird, feeding on the dogwood berries in a corner of the backyard, has undergone a late summer expansion of its intestines to squeeze every calorie from lipid-rich fruit.”

This digestive tract of this Gray Catbird (Dumetella carolinensis) feeding in September 2019 at Bear Creek Nature Park would have extended as the the fall began in order to get as much polyunsaturated fat as possible from the pulp or seeds within the berries it’s eating!

Migrating birds, which need to travel non-stop over oceans or deserts for long distances, shrink their digestive organs since they’re expendable when they can’t stop to feed. But their hearts, lungs and pectoral muscles grow larger, and do so without exercise! On arrival, the digestive organs make a comeback that allows them to start feeding again. Imagine! Transforming organs!

The little Chestnut-sided Warbler (Setophaga pensylvanica) below, photographed by Paul Birtwhistle in Costa Rica, may not have needed such drastic transformation for its nonstop trip across the Gulf of Mexico. I couldn’t find a definitive answer to that but it definitely burned a lot of fat! According to Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s subscription website, Birds of the World, a Chestnut-sided Warbler in non-breeding plumage could have weighed 10 -12 grams when it left the U.S. coast. But these birds are recorded as weighing only about 8 grams when they reach Central America, having lost most or all of their stored fat on their nonstop flights across the Gulf of Mexico.

This Chestnut-sided Warbler in Costa Rica probably lost a lot of weight flying over the Gulf of Mexico to Costa Rica. I’d say a soothing bath was called for! It will probably take a more leisurely trip around the edge of the Gulf on its way to us this spring. Photo by Paul Birtwhistle.

Weidensaul also reports that both male and female birds shrink their sexual organs for fall migration. Anything to make flying lighter and easier, I guess! Allen Chartier wrote, “Ever since humans began preparing “study skins” for museums, more than 200 years ago, it was discovered that during the non-breeding season the gonads of birds shrink in size, to maybe 10% of the size that they are in the breeding season. It was figured, eventually, that this was to reduce weight for migration, and allow for more body fat to be laid on for migratory flights.” Their gonads are ballooning right now, which is why we are beginning to hear that robust morning chorus in the spring!

Once They Start Moving, How in the World Do They Navigate?

A flock of migrating Tundra Swans (Cygnus columbianus) called to each other as they flew over Cranberry Lake Park. Photo by Bob Bonin.

In her lively and well-researched New Yorker article, “Where the Wild Things Go: How Animals Navigate the World,” (April 5, 2021), Kathryn Schulz wrote: “A bird that migrates over long distances must maintain its trajectory by day and by night, in every kind of weather, often with no landmarks in sight. If its travels take more than a few days, it must compensate for the fact that virtually everything it could use to stay oriented will change, from the elevation of the sun to the length of the day and the constellations overhead at night. Most bewildering of all, it must know where it is going — even the first time, when it has never been there before – and it must know where that destination lies compared with its current position.” Wow.

Like humans with our much more limited ability to orient and navigate, birds use a variety of basic navigation strategies, and different species may use a combination of them. Kathryn Schulz lists as strategies: sight, sound or even scent cues, landmarks (mountain ridges, coastlines), compass orientation or vector navigation (stringing together multiple orientations (e.g. south and then southwest for a precise distance) or dead reckoning (calculating based on bearing, speed and time elapsed from a previous location). But she points out, “… to have a sense of direction, a given species might also need to have other faculties, something like a compass, something like a map, a decent memory, the ability to keep track of time, and an information-rich awareness of its environment.” And Weidensaul adds to the list: the patterns of stars around Polaris (the North Star) and the movement of “bands of polarized light that are invisible to us but easily seen by birds.” Wow, again! All that in one small skull!

According to Weidensaul, “Migratory birds grow fresh neurons before autumn migration” and scientists have correlated longer migrations with more neuron growth, presumably as an aid to navigation. The neurons also increase according to whether birds travel individually or in flocks. Warblers which generally fly alone show increases in the hippocampus which processes spatial information and memory. Birds in large migrating flocks see most of the increase in regions of the brain that may be more important for noticing and understanding the actions of other birds.

Researchers believe that a bird’s general destination may be defined by instinct, especially in young birds, many of whom make their first trip alone or with other juveniles. But learning clearly occurs during their first flight with or without adults and plays its part in perfecting the best route from then on.

But what I wanted to know was, how do some migrating birds create and use a mental map of the earth’s magnetic field? I kept finding references to their ability to do so, but no one told me how! Well, Weidensaul had an answer which he says “most experts accept.”

This little Wilson’s Warbler could have navigated from Central America to Tawas City, Michigan using a starlight map of the earth’s magnetic field in its retina! What a feat!

Imagine the little Wilson’s Warbler (Cardellina pusilla) in the photo above glancing upward at the stars as it flies through the night from Central America to where I saw it in Tawas City, Michigan. As I understand it, photons of the stars’ blue light hit specialized cells in the bird’s retina containing molecules of a protein called cryptochrome. (Love the Superman sound of that!) Those molecules react by thrusting one of their electrons into a neighboring molecule and the two become connected (“entangled” in scientific jargon) and magnetic. (That’s the quantum mechanics part which is a bit beyond me.) As light continues to stream in, multiples of these paired molecules build a map of the magnetic field within the bird’s eye. Scientists think the map may appear as a “dim shape or smudge — visible as the bird moves its head, but not opaque enough to interfere with normal vision — that shifts with the bird’s position relative to the ground and to the inclination of the magnetic field lines arcing out of the planet” (Weidensaul). Evidently, birds can orient themselves within that map to help find their way to their destination. Many of us humans have a tough time reading a road map!

If my brief summary leaves you with more questions than answers, you’re in good company. Even scientists don’t completely understand how cryptochrome works its magic and some disagree with the whole theory. But at least that little map in the eye created by starlight and quantum mechanics satisfies my curiosity for now. If you’d like a somewhat what more detailed description, I recommend Chapter Two of Weidensaul’s book, A World on the Wing.

Eating and Sleeping,: How Do They Survive Along the Way?

Eating Strategies

Eating on migrations varies according to what and how a bird eats. Most migrating birds depend on trusted stopover sites for food and rest. Allen Chartier wrote that “Migrating warblers, sparrows, and thrushes migrate at night, and put on fat to fly 200+ miles each night…” to their next stop. Eastern Kingbirds (Tyrannus tyrannus) and Barn Swallows (Hirundo rustica) migrate to Michigan from deep in South America during daylight hours, in order to gobble up flying insects while on the wing as well as at known rest stops.

The Eastern Kingbird gulps down insects in flight on its way to us from the Amazon.
A flock of Barn Swallows gathered at Stony Creek Ravine Nature Park in 2022. They were preparing to fly to Argentina while feeding in flight.

Amazingly, some birds in other regions of the world fly nonstop for multiple days and nights without eating at all! Weidensaul describes the Bar-tailed Godwit’s “7,200-mile nonstop flight each autumn from western Alaska to New Zealand, a journey that takes them eight or nine days of uninterrupted flight — the longest nonstop migration known.” They are an impressive example of “jettisoning” organs and living on fat. I’m really glad I’m not a godwit – but I am impressed by them!

The amazing Bar-tailed Godwit who jettisons its digestive organs and lives on stored fat for its 7200 mile migration. Photo taken in Australia by an iNaturalist.org photographer who uses the name fubberpish (CC BY-NC)

Drinking in Flight

Birds don’t sweat but they do lose moisture through breathing and excreting. That may account for so many birds migrating at night when the air is cooler and more humid, according to Weidensaul. Of course they look for freshwater wetlands as a basic source of drinking water. But on long ocean or other nonstop flights, for instance, research shows that they can still maintain a healthy amount of moisture by extracting water from their beefed-up muscles and organs while in flight.

Sleeping on the Wing

Most migrating birds do their journeys in stages, resting during the day or night depending on when they travel. Weidensaul reports that “For migratory songbirds, like White-throated Sparrows and Hermit Thrushes (Catharus guttatus,) the onset of migration seasons … decreases the amount of time they sleep by two-thirds, even in captivity, and well before they start migration. They may compensate by taking micronaps during the day.”

White-throated Sparrows ((Zonotrichia albicollis) breed from northern Michigan all the way to Hudson’s Bay but they winter from here to Florida, slipping in naps at stopovers on the way.
A Hermit Thrush (Catharus guttatus) during fall migration at Cranberry Lake Park stopped before dawn to rest and eat before traveling on to the southern North America.

Mallards (Anas platyrhynchos) have evolved to use unihemispheric sleep, a condition in which only half the brain sleeps at a time and one eye stays open. Neils Rattenborg directs sleep research at Germany’s Max Planck Institute and his team’s work centers around birds. According to an article from the Max Planck Society, Rattenborg documented that “in a group of sleeping ducks, those [Mallards] sitting at the edge kept their outwardly directed eye open and the corresponding brain hemisphere remained awake. The birds can thereby rest a part of their brain while keeping an eye out for potential predators.” I’m on the lookout for that phenomenon!

Paul Birtwhistle caught this lovely male Mallard feeding. But researchers have learned that while in flocks, Mallards can have unihemispheric sleeping, with one eye open and one half of the brain awake while the other half sleeps!

By outfitting birds Great Frigatebirds (Fregata minor) near the Galapagos Islands with tiny transmitters, Rattenborg also discovered something even more important about sleep. It seems these large birds take repeated unihemispheric naps averaging about 12 seconds long while foraging at sea for six days or more. Sometimes these birds’ entire brains slept while slowly gliding up or down in thermals! Talk about power napping, eh?

A Great Frigatebird hunting off the Galapagos islands naps while in flight! Photo by spinomaly (CC BY-NC) at iNaturalist.org.

What Can We Humans Do to Make Life Easier for Migrating Birds?

Clearly, we’ve created big challenges for migrating birds, despite their amazing adaptations over the eons. So here are just a few of those difficulties and how we might help our beautiful migrating neighbors.

  1. Light Pollution: Birds need a clear view of the night sky even more than we do. (Don’t you miss seeing a sky filled with stars?) So we can turn off outside lights (at home and in workplaces), make the light bulbs yellow or red instead of white, or install shades on outdoor lights that direct the light downward. Inside, we can close curtains or shades where a light is near a window in the evening during migration season. It all helps.
  2. Reflective glass like picture windows: Birds that crash into windows may fly off but they often do so with concussions. Check out this link for options for preventing bird strikes.
  3. Cats: Keep our beloved felines indoors. To quote Cornell Lab of Ornithology on this subject, “These are non-native predators that, even using conservative estimates, kill 1.3–4 billion birds and 6.3–22.3 billion mammals each year in the U.S. alone. Exhausted migratory birds and fledglings are particularly at risk.
  4. Habitat Loss: Restore natural areas and plant native plants at home. Birds count on finding the adult insects, caterpillars, and seeds that make up their diet when they arrive at a stopover or their final destination. If that land is covered by concrete or invaded by non-native plants that don’t provide the nutrition or cover they need, birds suffer along with the rest of the creatures in that habitat.
  5. Climate Change: Actively, drastically and quickly reduce our use of fossil fuels. Climate disruption effects migratory birds in so many ways. But here are at least two important ones. It causes more severe weather events which vulnerable migrators must negotiate over long distances. Also, insects and plants initiate hatching or blooming by ground temperature; as the ground warms earlier, overwintering insects hatch earlier, plants mature more quickly. Birds, however, initiate migration by the position of the sun and the length of daylight. As a result, tired migrators may arrive in the spring unable to find the insects, nectar or pollen on which they depend. Want evidence? Look here!

Birds Do It, Bees Do It, Even Whales in the Seas Do It … Let’s Do It. Let’s Start to Adapt…

A sky full of Broadwinged Hawks (Buteo platypterus) at the Hawkfest in 2018 at Holiday Beach near Windsor, Ontario.

Obviously, we humans need to adapt just like the migrators have – but a lot faster! We don’t have thousands of years for evolution to re-engineer our bodies and nature itself to cope with the new climate we’re creating with fossil fuels. No miracles of transforming digestive systems, cryptochrome maps in our eyes or unihemispheric sleep are on our immediate horizon. Nature already gave us our adaptive tools – our brains and our will. We already know much of what is needed; the trick is, do we find the collective will as a species to do it in time? The changes we need to make are significant, but not insurmountable. Nature is already warning us with tornadoes, floods, droughts, melting glaciers. It’s insisting “You can do this! Use the adaptation tools between your ears that you were blessed with and save us all!” I certainly hope more humans heed that desperate call – and soon!

Main Sources:

  • A World on the Wing: The Global Odyssey of Migratory Birds by Scott Weidensaul, W.W. Norton and Company, New York 2021
  • “Where the Wild Things Go: How Animals Navigate the World,” by Kathryn Schulz, published April 5, 2021 in the New Yorker magazine
  • Birds of the World, a subscription-only website from Cornel Lab of Ornithology, Cornell University in collaboration with the American Ornithological Society.
  • “The Evolution of Bird Migration, “Adapted from the Handbook of Bird Biology, Third Edition, on Cornell University’s website “All About Birds”‘
  • “Snoozing between the skies and earth” a posting on the website of the Max Planck Society.

Letting Nature Breathe Again: Restoration at Cranberry Lake Park

/ Cam Mannino / 1 Comment
North meadow at Cranberry Lake Park after forestry mowing

Ah, at last! The native trees and plants can breathe again! Many of the invasive shrubs that had crept across open areas at Cranberry Lake Park are gone. Now the sun washes across the landscape, rain sluices into the ground, nourishing the roots of native trees, grasses and wildflowers waiting for spring. As the carpet of mowed stems and branches decompose, the nutrition previously taken up by autumn olive, privet, glossy buckthorn and other non-native shrubs can gradually re-nourish the soil. The diverse wildlife that evolved with our native plants will once again benefit from the food and shelter that they’ve depended on for thousands of years. With the help of careful stewardship – treatment of non-native re-sprouts and the spreading of native seed – a habitat will be reborn.

So come have a a look at the new vistas in the park. I can’t show it all, but maybe I can give you taste of it. Along the way, we’ll see a few creatures that shared my walks during the mostly gray days of November and early December.

Miraculous Transformation Along the Hickory Lane

To appreciate the dramatic changes made by forestry mowing, here to the left is a typical view of most paths at Cranberry Lake Park before the restoration work began – and it’s not too scenic, I must say. A tangle of invasive shrubs and vines created very little nutrition for wildlife, left only a narrow edge along the path for native wildflowers and had spread thickly into the fields beyond the trails. The almost impenetrable density of the shrubs blocked views of wetlands and the open vistas of large trees that had existed before the invasive plants took over. The invasives also took up nutrients and shaded out native plants all over the park.

As I headed north from the parking lot at West Predmore Road and stepped into the Hickory Lane, I first noticed that I could see into a wetland that I’d struggled to reach from the opposite side last summer when a group of volunteers and staff monitored a vernal pool there. How nice to see it so clearly from this direction! Perhaps you can see the density of shrubs on the far side, which is what used to exist along the Hickory Lane.

A wetland along the Hickory Lane, now visible after the removal of invasive shrubs

The mature trees along the Hickory Lane, of course, were not touched and only a scrim of shrubs remain between them. Look at the contrast between the un-mowed left side and the open area in the distance on the right! I was immediately tempted out into that cleared meadow.

The Hickory Lane with recently mowed meadow on the right and dense shrubbery remaining on the left

I found a place to slip between the trees and look at the landscape that had appeared. I’d never seen this sight before!

Once dense with shrubs, this beautiful meadow with mature trees opened up before me.

I was elated! The large trees, once shrouded with thickets of invasive shrubs, now stood clear in the November light. I wandered across the shredded trunks and branches of the former thicket, looking down for any signs of native plants which had survived beneath that carpet of invasives. And even though it was early November then, I found two. The tiny evergreen plant popping out in the photo on the left below is named Haircap Moss (a Polytrichum species). These plants thrive in moist, partial shade so they may eventually disappear in this location and be replaced by more sun-friendly species. And on the right below is native Wild Strawberry (Fragaria virginiana) which does well in the sun. Its flowers provide sustenance for butterflies and moths in spring and its tiny berries do the same for wildlife in the summer.

Haircap moss likes the shade so next summer a sunnier plant may replace it.
Wild strawberry is a native that feeds wildlife in spring and summer.

This sprawling meadow is divided by a tree line and in the northern section, a huge Shagbark Hickory (Carya ovata) stood tall in the sunlight, freed at last from the tangle of invasives. It still had one intruder, though. One of the least welcome invasives, Oriental Bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculatus), hung in its branches. Though the mower had chopped it off near the ground, it will try to make a comeback since its seeds will drop to the ground or be carried all over the park by birds.

A huge Shagbark Hickory in the newly mowed field with a few strands of Oriental Bittersweet clinging to its branches.
The yellow berries of Oriental Bittersweet are eaten by birds but provide very little nutrition for them.
These berries will start new vines and can be widely distributed in bird droppings.

This invasive vine spirals up tree trunks, choking them while climbing to the sunlight. It shades out growth below and since it accumulates in the canopy can make trees vulnerable to being toppled in high winds. I saw a smaller tree felled in just this way farther east in the park. (See below left.)The hickory will survive, but a nearby tree in the restored meadow (below right) was heavily infested with Bittersweet. Look at the number of berries that can be spread from one vine!

A small tree on the eastern side of the part felled by the weight of Oriental Bittersweet.
A tree in the newly cleared field heavily infested with Oriental Bittersweet, an invasive non-native vine.

Now that the field has been forestry mowed, our township stewardship manager, Dr. Ben VanderWeide and his crew will take on the extensive follow-up processes to prevent re-sprouting by carefully applying herbicides to invasive shrubs like Bittersweet, or by girdling the trunks of non-native trees. Once that’s completed, native plant seeding can begin. We can do our part by not using Oriental Bittersweet for fall decorating and by cutting and treating any stems that appear near our homes.

The clearing of this wonderful meadow also brought the beauty of the Long Pond into view – a series of linked ponds that runs north and south on the eastern side of the restored meadow. What a treat to get close like this! I look forward to seeing the water glinting through the trees next summer and seeing the water fowl that drop in to forage or rest during migration.

The Long Pond from the eastern edge of the restored meadow beyond the Hickory Lane – a vista not seen until the forestry mowing was completed.

Blue sky days were rare in November. Most of the time, the sun struggled to get through heavy cloud cover.

The sun was dimmed by dark clouds on three of my four trips to Cranberry Lake Park.

On one of those cold, dark days, when most birds were silent, I heard a gruff squeak repeated incessantly by a Red-bellied Woodpecker (Melanerpes carolinus) who fled from one tree near the Hickory Lane to another. (Click here and choose the December call recorded in New York near the bottom of the list for a sample.) I thought it might be issuing a warning but I couldn’t see a threat. Later however, I spotted a Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis) eyeing me from high in a distant tree and wondered if it prompted the Red-belly’s call.

A Red-bellied Woodpecker called repeatedly near the Hickory Lane, perhaps a warning about a nearby hawk.
A Red-tailed Hawk eyed me from afar, perhaps the one that worried the Red-belly?

On one of the snowy, quiet days on the Hickory Lane, it cheered me to see the tracks of little animals who’d visited the lane just after the snow fell the previous night or early that morning. I wasn’t alone! I followed the tracks of an Eastern Cottontail (Sylvilagus floridanus) for quite a distance, a squirrel, probably the tiny Red Squirrel (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus), had bounded across the lane and a White-footed Deer Mouse (Peromyscus leucopus) had left its stitching tracks as it scurried diagonally across the spot where two paths met.

I walked along the lane following the tracks of a rabbit who’d visited after the snow fell.
The outside prints are the five-toed back feet of a Red Squirrel. It pushes off with the four toed front feet.
Mouse tracks skittering across the trail.

Opening Up the Path to Cranberry Lake

Like the Hickory Lane, the path to the lake had been crowded with non-native invasives. Once the forestry mower got to work, though, the lake could actually be glimpsed from far up the trail.

Invasive shrubs crowded the edges of the path to the lake, obscuring the view of the lake.
With the invasives removed, the lake now appears in the distance.

Along the trail in November and early December, birds were more heard than seen on dark cold days. Of course, Canada Geese (Branta canadensis) still trumpeted overhead. I love it when they get close enough to hear the snap of their wings!

A squadron of Canada Geese honking their way to warmer climes.

Along with the usual year ’round inhabitants, I did get to see two more unusual birds , migrators that I’d missed earlier in the autumn. Early in November, the birding group spotted a small flock of Rusty Blackbirds (Euphagus carolinus) high up in trees near the lake. The numbers of these pale-eyed blackbirds have “plunged an estimated 85-99 percent over the past forty years,” according to Cornell University’s website allaboutbirds.org. The ones near Cranberry Lake were too high for my lens to reach that day, but luckily I’d gotten a closer look back in 2017 at Bear Creek.

Rusty blackbird female at Bear Creek Nature Park in 2017. Note the pale eyes on these close relatives of the Grackle.

On one late November visit, a speckled Hermit Thrush (Catharus guttatus) surprised me by stopping by so late in the season. Since they are known to like open areas in woods, maybe this one found Cranberry Lake Park a good stopover after a late start at migration.

A late-migrating Hermit Thrush

When the birding group reached Cranberry Lake early in the month, a bobbing flotilla of ducks floated in the distance.

Hundreds of ducks floated, fluttered and cruised along Cranberry Lake in early November

The ducks stayed out of the reach of even our binoculars. But some of the more expert birders were able to discern three species by the patterns and colors on their wings or heads: Buffleheads, Lesser Scaup and Ring-necked Ducks. Later in the week, I was able to get a bit closer to the Buffleheads (Bucephala albeola) when a friend let me cross his lawn on the far side of Cranberry Lake. (Thanks, George!)

Bufflehead ducks spend the winter with us wherever they can find open water.

My photographer friend, Paul Birtwhistle, shared his photos of a variety of ducks on open water at Stony Creek Metropark one January. Here are Ring-necked Ducks (Aythya collaris) hanging out with a larger group of Redheads (Aythya americana) and Mallards (Anas platyrhynchos) on a cold winter day. For Ring-necked ducks the white swoop on the flanks and the stripe at the base of the bill are good field marks for this black-and-white diving duck. Some Redheads spend the winter here, but most migrate to the Gulf coast.

Ring-necked ducks (the black-and-white ones) hanging out at Stony Creek Metropark with Redheads and Mallards.

Paul also shared some fine photos of Hooded Mergansers (Lophodytes cucullatus) who frequent Cranberry Lake as well as the lake in Stony Creek Metropark during the winter. Here’s a male and female Hooded Merganser and one of a lucky male who snagged a crayfish!

Hooded Mergansers scooting between a Canada Goose and some Mallards . Photo by Paul Birtwhistle
A male Hooded Merganser who’s no doubt pleased with his crayfish catch! Photo by Paul Birtwhistle

I found a photo of the Lesser Scaup (Aythya affinis) by a generous photographer at iNaturalist.org. These ducks may have been migrating through when the birding group saw them in early November. They tend to spend the winter along the Gulf Coast. The ruffled “cap” on the back of its head is what separates it from the very similar Greater Scaup.

That fuzzy little ridge at the top of the head makes this a Lesser Scaup instead of a Greater one! Photo by Robert Pyle (CC BY-NC)

Mute Swans (Cygnus olor) with their bulbous orange and black bills fed actively on the far side of Cranberry Lake. The Cornell All About Birds website describes the difficulties presented by these beautiful, but non-native birds. “Their aggressive behavior and voracious appetites often disturb local ecosystems, displace native species, and even pose a hazard to humans.” Our native Trumpeter Swans (Cygnus buccinator) were once endangered, and though Cornell Ornithology says they are “recovering,” they still have a hard time competing with Mute Swans. Trumpeters, which have solid black bills, breed in our area, but winter farther south.

Non-native Mute Swans feeding near the dock on the eastern side of Cranberry Lake
Our native Trumpeter Swans migrate south. Photo by Jason Miller (CC BY NC SA)

A Quiet Walk Back Wakes Me to the Small Details of a Winter Walk

The last of autumn on Cranberry Lake Park’s eastern meadow in late November

On these four quiet days in the park, I didn’t see much wildlife on my way back through the park’s eastern section. When that happened, I looked more carefully downward and as usual I was rewarded by paying attention. Below a wooden walkway over a small wetland on the trail, leaves made a mosaic under a skim of ice. That’s the kind of detail I can miss when looking up.

A mosaic of leaves beneath a scrim of ice in a wet area by the trail.

The dry Showy Goldenrod plumes (Solidago speciosa) drew my attention to bands of late autumn color at the edge of the Eastern Meadow. Along the paths, fertile fronds of Sensitive Fern (Onoclea sensibilis), clad in their bead-like sori, contain the spores for next year’s crop.

Dry plumes of Showy Goldenrod pointed toward bands of late autumn color.
The Sensitive Fern produces its spores on stems separate from the leafy green ones that photosynthesize in the summer.

Dry Wild Cucumber Vines (Echinocystis lobata) were draped like garlands across bushes here and there in the park. In summer, the vines look delicate and airy. In autumn, they produce the prickly seed capsules that give this plant its name. Each capsule opens in the fall, dropping four seeds from within its two chambers.

The spring flowers and green prickly fruit of Wild Cucumber vine
Dry Wild Cucumber vine draped across a tangle of other vines.
The dry fruit will break open at the bottom when winter ends just in time to deposit its seeds into spring soil.

Tall Thimbleweed (Anemone Cylindrica) is a favorite of mine in early winter. I often miss its modest flowers in the spring. I begin to notice it when its small green center begins to extend into a cylinder as it forms its thimble-like fruit. I appreciate it most when colder weather prompts its seed head to burst forth in a cottony tuft filled with tiny black seeds.

Thimbleweed blossom with green cone at the center and five petal-like sepals
The central “thimble” beginning to expand into a cylinder as summer moves on.
The cottony tufts of thimbleweed seeding in early winter.

So Exactly What is Being Restored at Cranberry Lake?

A thicket of native Gray Dogwood on the path back to the parking lot

At times, I’ve thought of restoration projects as similar to the restoration of an historic home. The work that Dr. Ben VanderWeide and our stewardship crew perform restores natural vistas that thrived here for thousands of years before European colonization. At Cranberry Lake Park we’re removing invasive shrubs and vines so that native trees, shrubs, and wildflowers can reestablish a mosaic of forest and meadows. That’s historic preservation, for sure!

But what’s essential to understand about the work being done in our parks is that it’s about much more.

One presenter at a Michigan Wildflower Conference compared nature’s intricate systems to the thousands of lines of code in your cellphone, each one of which depends on the performance of thousands of others to make the system work. Imagine, the presenter said, randomly removing just one line of code from your cellphone. You wouldn’t do it! The system might crash!

Nature spent eons perfecting its “coding,” creating a delicate balance that fed and sheltered a huge variety of life forms. Sometimes unwittingly, sometimes knowingly, humans have removed one “line of code” after another from nature’s finely-tuned system. It’s happened everywhere on our small, blue planet, even right here in our yards and parks. Non-native plants introduced into our parks, fields, and gardens can act like an aggressive computer virus, spreading quickly, damaging nature’s finely balanced systems with destructive force.

So as we begin a new year, let’s celebrate that in our little spot on the globe, we’ve chosen to support stewardship and restoration in our natural areas. As the native wildflowers, trees and grasses that nature fostered for eons return to their rightful places, they provide a healthy foundation for the rebirth of our meadows, forests and wetlands. We can justifiably hope that with time and effort, some small part of nature’s intricate and carefully balanced “lines of code” can be restored to our ecosystem. If so, the myriad of complex relationships that once thrived here will again sustain the rich variety of life that nature planned for us.

Birds, Butterflies, A Few Blossoms and Basking Turtles: Circling the Eastern Side of Draper Twin Lake Park

/ Cam Mannino / 7 Comments

Looking from the south side of Draper marsh toward the northern prairie.

The eastern side of Draper Twin Lake Park grows more inviting every year. Some of the former farm fields there had been abandoned for decades when Oakland Township Parks and Recreation acquired the property in 2005. Dense thickets of invasive shrubs crowded the shores of the marsh and began to spread within what had been a rolling prairie and oak savanna landscape in the centuries before European settlement.

But restoration is slowly changing this somewhat scruffy park back to its former beauty.  After forestry mowing, the trail by the marsh, once choked with stands of non-native shrubs, now provides open vistas.

The trail on the west side of the floating marsh is now cleared of invasive shrubs so that a stand of native White Pines (Pinus strobus) and other trees can be appreciated.

The dark water of the marsh sparkles between the scrim of trees and shrubs that surround its shores. The roots of grasses and shrubs form a floating mat at the heart of the marsh, creating nest sites for birds large and small. Migrating birds flit through the trees at the marsh edge singing spring songs. Some settle in to mate, nest and raise young; others simply forage, rest and move on.

IMG_6640

Photos and text by Cam Mannino

On warm days in the northern prairie, tiny spring butterflies dart and dance within the dry stalks of last year’s prairie wildflowers and grasses, while the shimmering blue wings of Tree Swallows soar and dip above them. By mid-summer, fresh prairie grasses will sway above fields mixed with the bright colors of native wildflowers and big beautiful butterflies. But even a cool spring day can be beguiling.

So just for a few minutes, escape with me. Muster your imagination as we explore Draper Twin Lake Park together. Listen to a brisk breeze hushing in your ears and feel warm sun on your shoulders as I take a turn around the marsh and then circle the field on the prairie trail loop on a bright spring morning.

In the  Spring, the Marsh is the Place to See and Be Seen!

DTLP_TrailMap

My Draper Twin Lake Park hiking route

Wetlands mean wildlife in every one of our parks. After parking at the building at 1181 Inwood Road, I headed left, leaving the path to enter the trees that shelter the south edge of the floating mat marsh, pictured at the top of the blog.

The clarion “wika wika” call of Northern Flickers (Colaptes auratus) throbbed overhead as these elegant woodpeckers whisked back and forth in the treetops, competing for mates and territory. This mustached male and his mate will spend the summer with us, nesting in a tree cavity, but foraging on the ground, unlike other woodpeckers; ants are a favored meal for flickers.

A male Northern Flicker challenging other males with his “wika wika” call

A pudgy, green-gray bird hopped about within a tangle of vines, repeatedly flicking its wings and only pausing for a few seconds each time it jumped to a new twig. The male Ruby-crowned Kinglet (Regulus calendula) was enjoying a bit of R&R before flying north, possibly as far as Hudson’s Bay. Imagine! On those tiny wings! There its mate can lay 5-12 eggs in a 4 inch nest woven with grasses, feathers, moss, cocoon or spider silk and lined with finer grass and fur. Never underestimate the little Kinglet!

My photo was a bit blurred by movement in a heavy wind, but bird enthusiasts and excellent photographers, Bob Bonin and his wife Joan, also visited Draper in the last two weeks. In fact, we chatted from a safe social distance when we came across each other at the park.  They generously offered to share some of the photos they took at Draper. So here’s Bob’s rare shot of an excited little male with his crown raised! Thanks for the loan, Bob!

An excited male Ruby-crowned Kinglet with his crest raised – a rare sight to see with this busy little bird. Photo by Bob Bonin with permission.

Joan shared two other migrating birds she saw on the east side of Draper. The Black-throated Green Warbler (Setophaga virens) sports such dramatic plumage! It has two versions of its song that has a lot of buzz and a smaller bit of  “tweet” in it. One song is directed at competing males and the other is used to attract females. Find an explanation of both, a video and some recordings here at Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s website.

The Black-throated Green Warbler doesn’t come to feeders and breeds a bit farther north of us and farther into Canada. So it’s a treat to see one! Photo by Joan Bonin.

Joan also provided us with a lovely photo of a Hermit Thrush (Catharus guttatus) at Draper. Cornell Lab reports that this modest little milk chocolate bird with the spotted breast utilizes “foot quivers,” when foraging, shaking its feet in the grass to stir up insects. I will watch for that the next time I see one!

Hermit Thrushes breed north of us where its flute-like call is more likely to be heard. Photo by Joan Bonin.

A pair of Palm Warblers (Setophaga palmarum) skittered around me within the low bushes at the marsh. Traveling from the Caribbean to Canada, they were hungry. Their tails wagged up and down as they grazed along the ground for insects. This one thought it might have spotted something interesting in the crevices of tree bark. Note the brown crown, yellow eyeline, throat and the yellow under its tail.

According to Cornell Lab of Ornithology, ninety-eight percent of all Palm Warblers and thousands of other species breed in the boreal forests of northern Canada, an essential ecosystem!

Looking north, I spotted something large in the trees at the far north end of the marsh. For the second time this spring, I got a distant look at a Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) surveying the landscape. I’m so used to seeing these birds wading at the edges of ponds. It always delights me to see them perching high up in a tree, though I know their big, flat nests are always situated at the top of high trees in their rookeries.

A Great Blue Heron looking out from the treetops at the far north end of Draper’s floating mat marsh.

As I moved to the west side of the marsh, I looked up into the frothy blossoms of one of my favorite native trees, the Serviceberry (Amelanchier interior).

The rippling petals of a Serviceberry in a spring wind.

This tree with its plumes of white blossoms in the early spring offers a native alternative to the non-native Callery/Bradford Pear trees (Pyrus calleryana) that flower at the same time. If shopping malls and housing developments bloomed with this native beauty each spring, the fields of our natural areas would not be invaded by groves of the invasive pears. We can hope for a change as the value of native plants is better understood by more landscapers.  Several stately serviceberry trees dot the early spring landscape at Draper Twin Lake Park. Aren’t these clouds of dancing white lovely in the sparseness of the spring landscape?

A native Serviceberry tree makes a perfect replacement for the invasive, non-native Callery/Bradford Pear.

In a shadowy pool beneath low branches on the west shore of the floating mat marsh, some movement caught my eye. A Swamp Sparrow (Melospiza georgiana) dipped its head into the water while balancing on stick, probably plucking insect larvae or small invertebrates  out of the dark water. Fortunately this sparrow is equipped with long legs for wading and doesn’t mind the cold water, if this sopping-wet bird is any indication!

This swamp sparrow stuck its head under water while fishing for insect larvae or tiny invertebrates.

Out at the edge of the floating mat, a pair of Midland Painted Turtles (Chrysemys picta marginata) warmed their shells in faint spring sunlight. Perhaps these two will mate or perhaps they’re just basking together. These two larger turtles could be quite old; Midland Painted Turtles sometimes live over 50 years!

Our Midland Painted Turtles can mate in the spring or fall.

The “boing!” call of a Green Frog (Lithobates climatans) surprised me, so I approached to search the water until I spotted this one. Since the round ear drum or tympanum is about same size as its eye, this is a female Green frog. She may have jumped the gun a bit with the changeable spring weather. Normally, Green Frogs don’t wake from their winter somnolence until the temperature reaches 50 degrees and they don’t mate until the weather is consistently warm. So this female may need to bide her time even though there was a male singing somewhere nearby.

The skin of Green Frogs darkens on cold days so they can soak up more sun.

Back out along the trail on the west side of the marsh, I met a turtle with a ferocious visage, a snout for snorkeling air from under water and an intimidating set of claws! Here’s the steely glare of this master predator, the Common Snapping Turtle (Chelydra serpentina).

This Snapper must have emerged from the mud before heading out to look for companionship.

I’m kidding really. Yes, it did look fierce, but I was being stared down by a small Snapper maybe 8 inches long who probably was just curious.

This small snapper may not yet be mature enough to mate.

I have no idea of its age or what it was doing on trail. According to Wikipedia, a snapper can take 15-20 years to reach sexual maturity and mating is usually done while tumbling about in the  water. So unless this one is older than it looks and was looking for a place to lay eggs, it may have just decided to go on walkabout. Snappers sometimes move great distances to find less crowded habitat, as well as to lay eggs. After all, that carapace, an extremely long neck, powerful jaws and claws are pretty good protection for an adventurous young snapper.

As I stood at the north end of the floating mat marsh, a Green Heron (Butorides virescens) flew swiftly back and forth across the pond. Its yellowish-orange feet trailed behind its bulky body as it landed in the vegetation around the shore. Luckily, Joan later spotted one out in the open in the southeast section of the marsh. One way to spot this colorful bird is to listen for its distinctive “skeow” call;  listen here under the first “calls” recording. That’s the Green Heron sound with which I’m most familiar.

A Green Heron at Draper Twin Lake Park. Photo by Joan Bonin.

Her husband, Bob, saw a bird that I’d never come across before – and neither had Bob.  The Northern Waterthrush (Parkesia noveboracensis) loves wetlands and according to Cornell Lab of Ornithology, will even settle for a puddle if it’s near cover. It was migrating through on its way from the Caribbean to its breeding grounds in northern Canada. Bob went back to look for it again the next day, but it never appeared. I feel lucky that it “popped out of cover,” as Bob put it, at just the right moment for him to take his photo!

A rare photo of a Northern Waterthrush at Draper Twin Lake Park taken by Bob Bonin.

When I reached the southeast corner myself, a pair of Sandhill Cranes, heads down, were calmly feeding on the floating mat, looking up once a while, and then back to feeding again

This pair of Sandhill Cranes might consider the floating mat a good place for a nest since the marsh creates a kind of moat! Sandhills have nested here before.

As my camera zoomed in on that startling orange eye beneath the crimson cap on one of these huge birds, I hoped that they would choose to nest there as Sandhills did a few years ago. I’d love to see a “colt,” as their fledglings are called, join its parents at the Draper marsh.

A closer look at one of the Sandhill Cranes

That southeast corner of the marsh is full of turtles. I know that Blanding’s Turtles (Emydoidea blandingii) live at Draper Twin Lake Park because I once helped one across the road outside of the park and Donna, the Draper bluebird monitor, has seen them, too. Last week, I thought I saw their slightly domed shells deep in the grass at the southeast corner of the marsh, but they never raised their heads. But Joan Bonin and her very long lens caught this wonderful closeup of one! Thank you, Joan!

Joan Bonin’s wonderful photo caught the yellow throat perfectly, the distinctive field mark of the Blanding’s Turtle.

As I was looking for the Blanding’s turtle,  I noticed a dark lump laying in the water behind a mud flat in the marsh. Could it be? Was that a neck stretched out to gather some sun? I think what I saw was a large Snapper, its neck partially extended along the mud flat, camouflaged as just another black lump in the landscape. Look for its pointed head and eye to the right in the grass. That looks like a large snapper to me!

A large snapper masquerading as just another lump of mud in the Draper Marsh.

Some small upland birds share the southeast corner with turtles and herons. One dark, windy day, my husband and I caught sight of a Yellow-rumped Warbler (Setophaga coronata) and identified it from its characteristic yellow patch above the tail. It appeared to be the more modestly dressed female. Here are the photos I got from a distance 10 days ago and a much better one from 2015.

On a snag near the edge of the trees, a House Wren (Troglodytes aedon) ignored me completely while he belted out his wonderful, bubbling trill. According to Cornell Lab of Ornithology, their sharp, fizzy song sallies forth from Canada, through the West Indies, all the way to the tip of South America.

A House Wren, beak wide-open in full song.

The distinctively sweet “tweeting” of an American Goldfinch (Spinus tristis) caused me to look up at this little splash of bright sunlight on a cloudy day. The males have donned their brightest colors and execute their rolling flight all over Draper.

A male American Goldfinch posed quite calmly near the southeast edge of the marsh.

On to the North Prairie!

Volunteer Donna Perkins has already found bluebird eggs in two of her boxes within the prairie!

Volunteer nest box monitors like Donna Perkins above are citizen scientists who are gathering data on which birds nest in the boxes, how many eggs they lay, how many days pass before hatching and fledging and how many little birds successfully leave the nest. Donna found six Eastern Bluebird (Sialia sialis) eggs in two of her boxes. And along the prairie’s edge, male and female bluebirds surveyed the area, keeping an eye on their nests.

Don’t worry if you find a nest with eggs in your yard with no adult around. Birds take time off to forage and if scared off of their nest, will usually return. But most often, once the last egg has been laid, the adult will start incubating them most of the day, which helps ensure that they all hatch at the same time, making it easier to care for them.

Tree Swallows (Tachycineta bicolor) move into our township nest boxes as well. Usually, Eastern Bluebirds and Tree Swallows will live in a neighborly way when their boxes are near each other, though occasionally there’s competition for a preferred box. Neither species, however, will tolerate another member of their own species moving nearby. So right now, the Tree Swallows are beginning to construct their nests with a mixture of grasses carefully lined with feathers. What a sight to see these shining blue beauties swooping over the field, periodically opening their beaks to snag passing insects. Joan Bonin got a fabulous shot of two of them in flight over the Draper prairie – an exciting and rare shot! Congratulations and thanks to Joan for sharing it.

Tree Swallows in flight above the Draper prairie. Photo by Joan Bonin.

A clear song rippled out from the tree line to our right. So loud! What was that? We finally located the rear end of a male Eastern Towhee (Pipilo erythrophthalmus) facing out of the park to the east. In the distance, we could hear his competitor singing as well.  Establishing territory is serious business, so our Towhee in the park never budged an inch, though we waited for almost 20 minutes, listening but frustrated that he kept his back turned. So the photo below was taken last year at Draper. This year’s towhee sang his “drink your teeeeeea” song much more slowly than usual, so it took longer to identify it. Maybe the song had more emphasis that way for the male in the distance!

An Eastern Towhee singing from a snag at Draper in 2019.

We came across, though, a sad sight on the prairie – an injured Nashville Warbler (Leiothlypis ruficapilla) feeding on a path but unable to take flight. It appeared right in front of us and at first I thought it had an injured wing. But when it turned its head, its eye was swollen shut. When I asked local birding expert, Ruth Glass, she said that it had probably hit its head on a window. When that happens, the brain can swell and they lose their ability to orient themselves. It was foraging on the ground and fluttered off into the tall grass. I include this just to ask that you do what you can to prevent such window collisions. Here’s a link from Cornell to get you started.

On a happier note, some small spring butterflies floated and fluttered near the prairie trails. I always wonder what criteria make them settle on one stem rather than another; much of their frantic fluttering seems aimless, but I doubt that it really is. I clearly don’t see what they do!

An orange flash in the grass made me think I was seeing my first Pearl Crescent, a common sight on summer days in our parks. But this mid-sized butterfly was an Eastern Comma (Polygonia comma). The upper (dorsal) side of both its forewings and hindwings are tawny orange with black spots. It was born last fall and is referred to as the “winter form”; it overwintered as an adult and will now mate and lay eggs. The caterpillars from those eggs will hatch around the Summer Solstice (June 21) and the offspring from that generation (referred to as the “summer form”) will still have orange forewings, but their hindwings will be much darker than this one.

An Eastern Comma sipping on an open dandelion bloom. It wintered over and will now seek a mate!

But look at the underside of this butterfly’s wings! The winter form Eastern Comma spends the cold months under tree bark or inside logs; that mottled brown design does a nice job of camouflage while they are hibernating, I would imagine.

The pattern on the underside of the Eastern Comma’s wings camouflages it during hibernation under tree bark.

A female Cabbage Butterfly (Pieris rapae) paused to sip at a dandelion, just as the Eastern Comma did. One good reason not to remove dandelions from your lawn in early spring is that native bees and butterflies benefit from the nectar of this non-native flower when few other blossoms are available. Male Cabbage Butterflies have one spot on their forewings; females have two.

A female Cabbage Butterfly benefits from the presence of dandelions.

A flash of lavender blue appeared in the grass – a Spring Azure (Celastrina ladon)! This little insect is only as big as your thumbnail. Its host plants (the ones on which it will lay eggs) include Wild Cherry, Flowering Dogwood, Gray Dogwood and Blueberries. This one didn’t stop long enough for anything but a photo of a blurry smudge of blue. So here’s the best photo I’ve ever gotten of one – only because it made the rare move of posing for a moment! If you see a blue blur flying by during July through September, that’s the Summer Azure (Celastrina neglecta), a different species.

The blue open wings of the tiny Spring Azure butterfly in a photo from 2015.

A surprise on the prairie was a Carolina Locust (Dissosteira carolina). I’ve never seen one this early in the year! Could it have rushed the season like the Green Frog? Usually the nymphs arrive when the weather is much warmer and this one appeared to have its wings which would indicate that it’s an adult. So I’m puzzled. Normally I would send this photo  to Dr. Gary Parsons, an insect specialist as Michigan State University – but I believe the university is closed during the pandemic. So if any reader has more information than I, please leave a comment to that effect. I love its beady eyes, but wonder if it survived the cold nights that followed.

The nymph of a Carolina Locust that hatched a bit earlier than it probably should have.

Restoring Complex, Nourishing, Chaotic Beauty

Draper Marsh, looking south toward Inwood Road

Farm fields can be so lovely in spring – neat rows of green as far as the eye can see taking the shape of a field’s rolling contours. But as I’ve watched the stewardship crew recreate the natural landscapes in our parks, I’ve come to love even more the glorious chaos of wild natural areas. Here at the eastern section of Draper Twin Lake Park, the fields of last year’s stalks once again host nesting Bluebirds and Tree Swallows, looking like shining bits of sky taking up residence in our midst. Turtles safely sally forth from the marsh mud to mate and warm their chilled shells in the pale spring sunlight. The dark water around the floating marsh hosts frogs, several jousting Red-winged Blackbird couples, and those ancient and elegant cranes. Weary avian travelers find respite, nourishment and for some, a place to raise their young. As years of invasive overgrowth are cleared, the old farm fields bloom with a rich array of native trees, grasses and wildflowers. Once again the marsh and the prairies take up their ancient role of providing shelter and nourishment to a whole and healthy community of wildness.  During this difficult time, restoration comforts and delights me – and many of you, too, I believe, since new visitors have recently explored our parks. Thanks for accompanying me, even at such a great social distance.

PHOTOS OF THE WEEK: Amazing Migrators on the Move!

/ Cam Mannino / Leave a comment

Monarch butterflies at Tawas Point State Park last weekend. Photo by Nancy Isken

Well, they’re off!  When the wind sails in from the north, it’s a signal to all kinds of creatures: “Time to go!” So they take wing singly and in large flocks, letting the flow of cool air support them, carrying them quickly onward as they beat wings of all sizes to make their way to warmer climes.

Text and photos
by Cam Mannino

And of course,  it’s not just birds. Above you can see our friend Nancy Isken’s photo of  Monarch Butterflies (Danaus plexippus) last week resting at Tawas Point State Park before crossing Saginaw Bay. They were beginning their long journey to Mexico where they will spend the winter. In the spring, these Monarchs will make the first leg of the journey back north, stopping in warm areas like Texas to produce a new crop of butterflies who continue heading north. These new generations will fly only a few hundred miles, stop and reproduce, completing their whole life cycle in only  5-7 weeks. So it takes several generations to complete the trip  back to Michigan each summer. Sarina Jepson of the Xerces Society, which is focused on invertebrate conservation, says in a fine National Geographic article, “…when fall rolls around again, a special ‘super generation’ of monarchs that can live up to eight months will make use of air currents to wing all the way back to Mexico—a seemingly impossible feat for such a delicate-looking insect.” Imagine that!  So the Monarch butterflies born here In Oakland Township each summer can potentially live for 8 months instead of 5-7 weeks and fly 3,000 miles instead of a few hundred. We are living among  real, live superheroes!

A female Green Darner on the Wet Prairie along the Paint Creek Trail

And Monarchs aren’t the only insects that migrate. Green Darner Dragonflies (Anax junius) (also tracked by the  Xerces Society) travel down to Texas and Mexico as well. For dragonflies, it also takes many generations of reproduction before their trip is completed, though their migration is less well understood. But again, like the Monarch generations that arrive here each summer, the dragonfly offspring seem to know how to find their way in the right direction. Citizen science and research is helping explore dragonfly migration. But for now, I love a good nature mystery, don’t you?

Painted Lady butterflies (Vanessa cardui) make multiple generation migrations all over the world. But they migrate erratically. Some years they migrate and some years they don’t. And the direction and route can vary widely. Some experts speculate that their migration routes may be affected by dramatic changes in weather and climate – another nature mystery yet to be solved.

A Painted Lady sipping nectar during migration

At this time of year, the night sky begins to fill with thousands, even millions, of birds riding the wind south in the darkness, navigating by the stars or the setting sun, or by sensing the earth’s magnetic field. Some may navigate by landmarks or simply remembering good feeding grounds. And amazingly, most juvenile migrating birds, like those insects hatching during migration,  somehow know how to find their way without any help from adults! Cornell’s BirdCast website is a great way to watch the flow of birds across the United States day by day throughout the fall.

Remember all those bright little warblers, unusual sparrows and other small birds that sailed up here on a south wind in May?  Well, most of them have now finished breeding farther north and are beginning to make their way back to more warmth and sunshine. They’ve molted out of their bright breeding feathers so they’re a little less colorful now and their routes vary a bit depending on available food and weather. But keep a look out for these little travelers starting now.  Here are a few from the autumn of previous years:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

If you’re thinking you’d like to see some bird migrations in BIG numbers, you might check out the Hawk Fest featuring hawks, eagles, falcons and owls at Lake Erie Metropark on September 15 and 16. Or if you love our Sandhill Cranes (Grus canadensis), consider a trip to the Audubon Society’s  Cranefest at Big Marsh Lake in Bellevue, Michigan (near Battle Creek) on October 13 and 14.

A large flock of migrating Tundra Swans called over Cranberry Lake Park. (Photo by Bon Bonin)

Of course, if you want to stay close to home, you’ll be warmly welcomed at our Oakland Township Wednesday morning bird walks.  The walks rotate through our township parks each month and in September and October, they start at 8 a.m.  The schedule is available year ’round if you click on the drop-down menu above  for “Stewardship Events.”  We’re a friendly group with some experienced birders who are glad to help beginners see their first migrators.  Bring your binoculars or borrow a set from Ben, our Natural Areas Stewardship Manager, who leads the walks.

So yes, summer is waning.  But I can’t help feeling celebratory as autumn air turns crisp and the skies fill with winged creatures.  I recommend looking upward this fall and  perhaps wishing  “Bon Voyage!”, to our migrators who provide such beauty and mystery as they find their paths through the air.

Beauty in Every Season: A Year-End Review of our Parks and Natural Areas

/ Cam Mannino / 1 Comment

Oakland Township Stewardship Manager Ben VanderWeide and I both got inspired by the idea of a year-end reflection on some of  the remarkable sights in our parks and natural areas over the last year. Nature excels in surprising and delighting any curious observer with its ability to come back from adversity, in some cases to even thrive in difficult circumstances. That ability to keep on growing and creating in the face of any obstacle can be a great inspiration in challenging times.

Blog and photos by Cam Mannino

So as the snow falls, please sit back in a comfortable chair with a warm drink and savor  some highlights from the four seasons of 2017 here in Oakland Township.

Winter 2017: Serenity Rises as the Snow Falls

The Tree Line Between Two Prairies, Charles Ilsley Park

Sometimes we just need a little less hubbub after the holidays and the parks provide a  peaceful escape. In general, the only sounds are the wind in bare branches, the occasional calls of the year ’round birds and the tapping  of energetic woodpeckers foraging in the tree bark. And other times,  when we feel  a bit house-bound and crave crisp air on red cheeks,  a winter walk provides little discoveries unavailable in other seasons. During one deep freeze last winter, the weekly birding group stepped out on the ice at Cranberry Lake to inspect a beaver lodge. And a few weeks later,  I plopped down in the snow for a closer look at 3-D ice dendrites standing upright on a frozen puddle! Folks enjoyed the fine skating rink at Marsh View Park, but some who fancied wild surroundings skated on Twin Lake. On sunny winter days, shadows are always sharp and any spot of color, like the brilliant red of a male cardinal,  catches my  eye in winter’s clear, white light. Hiking in winter can be wonderful; just be sure you’re bundled up for it! (Click on pause button for longer captions.)

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Spring 2017: Buds, First Blooms, Migrators Flying in by Night and the Ebullient Symphony of Courting Birds and Frogs

Golden Alexanders carpet the woods near the Wet Prairie along the Paint Creek Trail

Ah, mud-luscious spring! The tiny Chorus and Wood Frogs thawed out after their winter freeze and sang lustily from vernal ponds. In early spring, the birders spotted a crayfish at Bear Creek who’d climbed out of her chimney with eggs under her tail and was lumbering toward the pond. Some spring avian migrators quickly passed through, and we bird watchers were lucky to spot a few special visitors. An unusual American Pipit appeared before my camera lens one afternoon at Gallagher Creek Park on its way to its breeding grounds in the far north. While others, like the Tree Swallow or the Eastern Meadowlark, settled in for the summer to raise their young. After last year’s controlled burn, native Lupines appeared along the Paint Creek Trail. And in May, Ben spotted a rare sight, a frilly spread of rare Bogbean flowers in a kettle wetland at Bald Mountain State Recreation Area off Kern Road. Snow melt and bright green buds always offer an irresistible invitation to come out and join the bustle and music of spring!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Summer 2017: Butterflies Galore as Restored Prairies Began to Bloom

East Prairie Ilsley 2017 (1)

Member of the birding group at Charles Ilsley Park in July

Summer! The very word conjures up a coloring box assortment of butterflies hovering over prairie wildflowers. Birds constructed their nests and later wore themselves out feeding noisy, demanding fledglings. We birders particularly enjoyed close looks at a male Rose-breasted Grosbeak sharing egg-warming duties near a Bear Creek path. The birders laughed in surprise watching  a passive/aggressive pair of Canada Geese successfully discourage the presence of a Green Heron by simply swimming uncomfortably close to it.  A family ambled along a path at Draper Twin Lake Park, headed for a morning fishing expedition.  The birding group, binoculars in hand,  spotted an Indigo Bunting while walking the new paths through the prairies at Charles Ilsley Park, increasingly spangled with colorful native wildflowers as restoration proceeds. A Great Horned Owl stared at the delighted birding group through a scrim of leaves near Bear Creek marsh.  Every path in the township hummed with life during the summer months. But that’s what we all expect of summer, right?

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Autumn 2017:  Birds Departed South, and Fall Wildflowers Bloomed

Autumn color at Cranberry Lake Park

Tundra Swans flew in formation overhead,  as migrators of all kinds, like the Hermit Thrush, rode the north wind down to southern climes. But as they departed, nature offered a consolation.  Many native wildflowers bloomed in the cool weather as they faithfully do each year. Asters formed carpets of color everywhere, from meadow to marsh! At the Wet Prairie on the Paint Creek Trail,  tiny Ladies Tresses orchids, Grass of Parnassus with its delicately striped petals, and vivid purple Fringed Gentian intrigued me again by emerging in the chill of early autumn. Native bumblebees pushed their way into Bottle Gentian flowers at Gallagher Creek Park and the Wet Prairie. Butterflies still sipped nectar from late fall blooms. The birders identified ducks of all kinds assembled in rafts on Cranberry Lake. Rattling cries alerted me to the presence of  Belted Kingfishers who scouted for prey at  both Bear Creek’s pond and Cranberry Lake. Ben dipped his net into a marsh at Charles Ilsley Park to show us tadpoles that overwinter on the muddy surface beneath the water. So much life as the year 2017 began to ebb!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Parks Full of Life All Year ‘Round. Aren’t We Lucky?

As a direct result of the foresight of township residents who have supported the Parks Commission and land preservation, native plants, wildlife, birds, and a beautifully diverse combination of habitats are being restored and preserved in Oakland Township. I want to share my appreciation for that foresight and for the hard work and knowledge of Ben VanderWeide (my kind and able supervisor and editor), other parks volunteers, my fellow birders and park staff.  And at the end of the year, I thank all of you who read, comment on and/or follow Natural Areas Notebook. It’s wonderful to be learning more all the time about the natural world – and then to have this opportunity to share what I’m learning with all of you. On to 2018!