In the Outdoors Scot Stewart

A male red-bellied woodpecker shows off his colors. (Photo by Scot Stewart)

Counting Crows

"Christmas gives us an opportunity to pause and reflect on the important things around us."--David Cameron

by Scot Stewart

The arrival of winter usually means the days have shortened considerably to the briefest on December 21 at 8 hours, 34 minutes, 10 seconds from the longest on June 21 at 15 hours, 49 minutes. That means it’s 7 hours and 15 minutes shorter at the Winter Solstice.

Early winter has become more of a puzzle in recent years. Weather has been less predictable, with warmer stretches and weird snow patterns. It does mean the leaves are gone, mornings are quiet, just the sound of wind, falling precipitation, some rain and a few blowing leaves.

Most all of the summer birds— wrens, warblers, flycatchers, swallows, swifts, orioles, thrushes—have headed south, many all the way to the tropics to find warmer days and more daylight.

It is not all bad though. What December does mean is that one of the best birding events of the year, the Audubon Christmas Bird Count (CBC) is on tap. It is a day of opportunity for birders to get out with friends and other bird lovers and explore the neighborhood for all the birds that are still here. Some birds will stay for the entire winter, like the chickadees, woodpeckers and nuthatches that keep us company all year.

Others may truly brighten up the day as wanderers make their way through the area, like gulls cruising the Great Lakes, migrants from northern Canada and Alaska, and birds simply continuing to hang around late into the season due to physical condition or other unknown issues.

Late in the 19th century, hunters often held “Side Hunt” contests, heading out in teams to see who could bring back the largest number of birds and mammals shot on the day. As birders and conservationists began to see the effects of hunting for “sport,” for fashion and for food were having on birds, some felt it was time to raise public awareness.

In 1900, Frank Chapman, an orni- thologist with the newly formed Audubon Society, suggested a “Christmas Bird Census” instead of a hunt, to take an account of the winter birds of various regions. The idea was a success and has continued for 121 years.

Each year the count is held between December 14 and January 5. Because some areas of the country have so many counts—the Upper Peninsula may be holding up to 17, including one covering both Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan and Canada, and one over the Mackinac Straits—a wide stretch is needed to schedule many around the holidays and allow birders the opportunity to participate in a number of them each year. Plans for counts are made from November through January 1 and frequently depend on the planning skills and holiday schedules of a few dedicated birders to bring a group together.

In Marquette, the counts have continued since the first in 1948. The idea is to describe a circle with a radius of 7.5 miles and attempt to count as many of the species and actual numbers of birds as possible in a 24-hour period. The Marquette Circle chose Old City Hall on Washington Street as its center, with the intent of including a long stretch of the Lake Superior shoreline, and a rather amazing list of other sections, reaching up to Harlow Lake, out to Negaunee Township along Reany Creek and an area behind the Michigan State Police Post, across CR-480 to the edge of the Sands Plains, and eastward to an area past Harvey. Other long-term U.P. counts have been held in AuTrain, Gwinn, Cedarville, Sault Ste. Marie and the Copper Country.

“Expectancy is the atmosphere for miracles.” —Edwin Lewis Cole

The expectations for the Marquette CBC and many others in the Upper Peninsula have changed considerably over the years. Many of the early Marquette counts were more social, with the entire group of participants, caravaning to a number of selected sites in town including the Lower Harbor, the Dead River at Granite Street, the MDNR Fish Hatchery on Cherry Creek Road and Lakewood Lane in the morning.

Most ended their day at lunch, but a few would continue north of Marquette in the afternoon, following the old Huron Mountain Railroad grade and either Wetmore Bog or Harlow Creek. In the early days groups were led by Nick Ilnicky, Connie Lincke, Rollie Thoren, Louie Taccolini and Bill Robinson, professor of ornithology at NMU.

In 1992, a more systematic approach was developed by Melinda Stamp, dividing the circle into quarters, and sending four different groups out to cover the quadrants and having another small party cover the Lake Superior shoreline. Added to this new plan were the improvements in optics—from 7X binoculars in those early days to high power 50X spotting scopes—to provide better looks at distant birds brought counts to a higher level.

With the added viewing power, and more importantly, a group of birders with much greater identification skills, new discoveries and more complete lists of the U.P.’s winter birds resulted. The other huge change was the number of extremely able birders who could work from visual or audio cues to identify birds and pick out rarities more accurately.

But there have been even greater changes to the area and to birding totals. With climate change, more of Lake Superior is regularly open during the end of December. Instead of holding their breaths to see if the harbors would freeze, birders can usually depend on open water there, and at the Dead and Chocolay rivers.

With that open water, a greater diversity of waterbirds is present. On many counts, the Lake Superior party has birded all day along the Lake Superior shoreline in search of western and red-necked grebes, canvasbacks, lesser and greater scaup, double-crested cormorants, scoters, gadwalls, mergansers, ring-necked ducks, longtailed ducks, Thayer’s, glaucous, lesser black-backed, great black-backed, Iceland and ivory gulls.

They are also on the lookout for the hunters too, snowy owls, bald eagles, gyrfalcons, peregrines, merlins and sharp-tailed hawks.

An adult red-breasted merganser is 20 to 24 inches long with a28- to 34-inch wingspan.

Photo by Scot Stewart

Pine grosbeaks, like this female, are large and plump, heavy-chested with a round head, and are part of the finch family.

(Photo by Scot Stewart)

Each winter, as most of the summer residents head south, there comes the arrival of a number of species from even further north, looking for enough food to get through the winter before they return back to the tundra and boreal forests of Canada and Alaska.

Some of the “normal“ Arctic birds hoped for each winter include snowy owls, northern shrikes, rough-legged hawks, gyrfalcons, northern hawk owls, common and hoary redpolls. Some make it here with some regularity.

Snowy owls made the Christmas bird counts for several consecutive years in Marquette and are seen fairly regularly on the Chippewa County counts in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan and Ontario.

Two years ago, a northern hawk owl surprised many birders, arriving in Marquette at the end of October and sticking around until February. It spent nearly all its time in and around the old city compost area off Lakeshore Boulevard.

Because the area was closed to the public, it was sometimes difficult to find because the area was fenced. It did make the Christmas bird count, and actually stuck around through a good part of the winter. Wistful birders check the area each winter, hoping for a return of this beautiful diurnal owl, a day hunter.

Lateral migrators also are hoped for in the December counts. These are birds migrating west to east like pine grosbeaks and bohemian waxwings in search of mountain ash fruits, red and white-winged crossbills, pine siskins and purple finches looking for conifer cones, boxelder and birch seeds.

Varied thrushes and Townsend’s solitaires are two other western vagrant birds sought out during the early weeks of December as birders scout out their circles and identify trees, shrubs and feeder stations

Throughout the 75 years of the Marquette count, only five species have appeared every year of the count. They are common goldeneyes, herring gulls, blue jays, European starlings and black-capped chickadees.

A sixth, the downy woodpecker, has made every count except one. These are usually year-round residents, although the gulls head south for open water in severely cold winters. Some other year-rounders are sought with greater effort.

A group of birders heads out before dawn to seek out great-horned, northern saw-whet and barred owls. Some residents monitor the birds at their feeders all day to tally nuthatches, goldfinches, juncos and other feeder regulars.

The snowy owl, also known as the polar owl, the white owl and the Arctic owl, is a large, white owl of the true owl family.

(Photo by Scot Stewart)

Warmer winters have also led to lingering warblers—an orange-crowned warbler made last year’s count. Horned larks, snow buntings and other ground feeders like American tree sparrows and white-throated sparrows have also been more regularly found on the counts in years with little snow. Some early Marquette Christmas counts were nearly blinded by snow squalls and blizzards and now many are on days with above-freezing temperatures and clear skies.

Changes to climate have encouraged species like crows, mourning doves, red-bellied woodpeckers, northern cardinals to expand their regular or winter ranges northward. The doves did not appear on a count until 1968. There were reports of some of them sitting on warm power plant coal piles and actually losing frozen toes in those first winters. Northern cardinals were only on six counts before 1994 but have been on nearly everyone since. There could be 30 or so counted this year. Red-bellied woodpeckers were on two counts before 2006 and on nearly everyone since. The species count for the Marquette CBC count is now close to 50 every year.

It has become clear citizen science from the Audubon Christmas Bird counts has added a wealth of information about the impact of development, habitat changes, feeding stations and climate changes have on bird populations. Data from the counts is compiled and published after each count is completed.

Although some local counts are not held every year, and weather conditions affect visibility and counter turn out, species maps and long-term trends about total numbers can be compared. The more than 120 years of data provide a valuable look at how numbers have changed and relationships between humans and birds affect each other.

Christmas bird counts provide a wonderful opportunity to pause briefly during the holiday season, spend some time with others who love the outdoors and are often very knowledgeable about it and ponder the beauty and wonder of the planet. It can also be a time to watch and reflect on the importance of birds as we seek some tranquility and take a deep breath in the new whirlwind of the man-made world we have created.

About the author: Scot Stewart has lived in Marquette long enough to be considered a true Yooper even though he was born in Illinois. He is a teacher and loves to be outdoors photographing and enjoying nature.