Season Total
Snow/ Ross’s Goose – 1
Canada Goose – 1135
goose sp. – 28
Trumpeter Swan – 5
Mute Swan – 3
Wood Duck – 8
Gadwall – 0
American Wigeon – 2
American Black Duck – 14
Mallard – 139
Blue-winged Teal – 2
Northern Shoveler – 10
Northern Pintail – 17
Green-winged Teal – 4
Redhead – 90
Ring-necked Duck – 12
Greater/ Lesser Scaup – 95
Athya sp. – 117
Black Scoter – 2
Surf Scoter – 2
White-winged Scoter – 1089
scoter sp. – 25
Long-tailed Duck – 8295
Bufflehead – 84
Common Goldeneye – 288
Hooded Merganser – 4
Common Merganser – 1094
Red-breasted Merganser – 7837
merganser sp. – 297
duck sp. – 2318
Red-throated Loon – 2
Common Loon – 1156
loon sp. – 30
Horned Grebe – 222
Red-necked Grebe – 23
American White Pelican – 4
Double-crested Cormorant – 1628
Great Blue Heron – 19
Great Egret – 38
White-faced Ibis – 2
Bonaparte’s Gull – 157
Ring-billed Gull – 130
Herring Gull – 182
gull sp. – 3416
Caspian Tern – 8
Common Tern – 130
tern sp. – 3
Total waterbirds – 30,167
Notable sightings:
May 3rd: Before dawn the sky was filled with COLO (334). Had I not been in place before official sunrise I would have missed nearly 100 birds. Before anyone steals the thunder out of migration in the straits, I understand more loon are seen in an hour at Whitefish Point. Either way after sitting patiently through the last of the winter weather I enjoyed the spectacle thoroughly. 161 COLO flew through between 6:18 – 6:22AM. Another 117 flew through between 6:24 – 7:23AM. The straits were literally filled with COLO! HOGR (35) are increasing in numbers daily and again defying many peoples assumptions. These birds were all staged in close to McGulpin Point. Arriving well before dawn and walking as quietly as possible to the gazebo made it such that the birds stayed close to be counted and observed.
May 5th: (246) COLO continued through the straits today in a westerly direction. Today’s flight was different than Thursdays in that the birds were predominantly a steady trickle throughout the day versus the first hour after dawn. The busiest hours were 6:00AM (42), 7:00AM (69) and 8:00AM (56). (33) HOGR were the high count of loafing birds in the 9:00AM hour. (2) TRUS crossed high and moving north. It has been a long time since I had seen any swans.
May 5th: Big surprise for the day was (2) WFIB winging their way south. I noted them as two black birds off over the north side of the straits coming almost directly at me. They seemed like crows at a distance, but their flight style and spacing was definitively un – crow like. As they got to the middle of the straits they swung a little west of me and a long down curved bill came into view. I knew it was an ibis instantly as they are quite common back home in the west. The two birds ended up flying just to the west of me less than .25 mile. I could make out the glossy sheen on the feathers and very long bright red legs dragging behind them. I was surprised to see it was a rarity here in MI and was happy I payed attention to every detail as without the leg color it may have been hard to make the call between a GLIB and a WFIB.
May 7th: A nice surprise to the end of the count was AWPE (4) spotted about mid – channel winging north low over the water to the Pt. Labarbe vicinity.
