Northerly Treks: Michigan's Upper Peninsula

As the day of June 2nd started with an early morning departure from Grayling, I made my way north to the upper peninsula of Michigan.  As the day would be consumed with at least nine hours of driving, it did have some hardcore birding goals.  After spending a day-and-a-half in Crawford County, my Michigan list had reached about 85 species.  My goal for the day and as I would drive west to Wisconsin from the upper peninsula was to reach 100 species for the state of Michigan.  I had a certain time that I wanted to be back to Gretchen's cabin by, but I planned the drive out that I would have five hours of birding time.

The Mackinaw Bridge was a treat to drive over again as I went from the lower to upper peninsula in a matter of minutes via the bridge over the Lake Michigan and Lake Huron divide.  Once I got on state highways, I wanted to stop at many different locations as I drove.  The scenery was awesome, and seeing roadside birds like Bald Eagles and Sandhill Cranes were good indicators that the birding would be good.  I kept myself disciplined to not get carried away and to stop at a bunch of locations before I would get to the main location of the day that I had in mind.  The GPS was running for directions, and after passing through state highway for about a minute and entering into Michigan's Chippewa County, I arrived at my main location interest for the day, which was Hulbert Bog.

Highway 28 accessed Basnau Road, which the Basnau Road branched off in a straight direction to the due east, while Highway 28 had ran in a straight, slightly southwestern direction for a good length.  It was an interesting intersection.  Basnau Road accesses Hulbert Bog just off of Highway 28, and runs to the east for two miles through the bog.  As Basnau runs through Hulbert Bog, the road is in good shape and one can park and easily access the bog just about anywhere.  I was aware of that, but I decided to park at the Highway 28 and Basnau Road intersection and walk east for two miles on Basnau to explore the bog slowly and to take my time.  When I first started, I didn't think it was going to take me as long as it did.  A good birding spot is a good birding spot!

In the early going, the songs of Alder Flycatchers came everywhere from a more open area on the west side of the bog.  Common Yellowthroats matched their numbers.  Upon starting, this male Black-and-white Warbler sang along the edge of the road, and it was awesome when it came down to getting his picture taken!

The exciting department really lit up when I heard calls above me that we coming from White-winged Crossbills.  This northern species breeds in the northernmost regions of North America, and will breed in the northern states I was in during years.  Prior to my trip, I was seeing regular, but not abundant, reports of White-winged Crossbills, which indicated that this was a year that they were breeding.  As I heard them flying over me, they became an official life bird.  I looked up to see a flock flying over the bog, and they kept on going.  There must have been at least fifteen birds in the flock.  I heard their distinctive, dry, and low, "chut-chut" calls and the flock was vocal.  Minutes later, a single White-winged Crossbill flew overhead and was lower, and I got to hear it's flight calls more clearly than the flock who had just gone by.  I looked up to see the bird visually, but it kept going and avoided my hopes of wanting to see one perched in one of the spruce trees within the bog.  When the Crossbills flew over, I took a recording.  One can barely make out the White-winged Crossbills, but I did capture some of the early morning bird chorus.

As I went through the bog, this Canada Warbler, as any Canada Warbler, sparked a fun sighting.  It was working it's usual tangles of dense habitat and would come into view every now and then.

When walking through a bog during crisp, early morning air, it's a good time to hear a variety of bird songs.  While most bird songs are peaceful, some of them have the power to immediately cleanse and refresh the mind.  One example of a song like that comes from the Black-throated Green Warbler.  It gives a beautiful song.

Looking ahead of me was a Snowshoe Hare.  Right now they are brown with white feet, but in winter their fur turns into a solid white.

The next warbler that I photographed was a male Mourning Warbler who sang out in the open for a few minutes.

An awesome American Redstart male!

A big highlight came from watching a pair of Magnolia Warblers forage in dense habitat.  The male gave me the chance for photographs, and the female popped up briefly.  This was the first time of the trip I encountered Magnolias on their breeding grounds.  Another epic warbler out of many.

One of the best songs in North America comes from the White-throated Sparrow.  It's song is heavenly.  And it's a sharp-looking sparrow!  Hulbert Bog had a lot of them singing throughout the length of the hike.

Even though it was partially covered when I photographed it, I like the way the pictures turned out of this striking Canada Warbler.  Yeah, I think this warbler is awesome and whenever I hear one sing, I try to make the most of it!

The last bird I photographed in the bog was this female Purple Finch.

I ended up spending close to three hours at Hulbert Bog.  I covered about two miles in one way of walking, and I recorded at total of 57 species.  The bird diversity at this location was impressive, and my looking at eBird, most people don't hike the entire length of the bog but usually opt to cover shorter distances and usually stay for shorter time duration.  I'm glad that I spent the amount of time there that I did and covered the amount of the entire bog that I did.  It makes me appreciate what birding underbirded locations, like this, can do.  Here is a link to my eBird checklist:

Hulbert Bog, June 2nd

After Hulbert, I made my way west into Schoolcraft County, Michigan and decided that I would make my last birding stop in Michigan an hour long one at a location called Seney National Wildlife Refuge.  On my way to the refuge, I had an American Bittern fly low and just over the highway, where it continued into a marshy area.  When I got to Seney National Wildlife Refuge, I decided to drive a seven mile loop drive through lakes, marshes, and woodlands.  It was a fun spot to explore for about an hour, and I didn't get too serious about birding it thoroughly.  Trumpeter Swans were very common.  

From Seney, I wanted to start heading back to Spooner.  I took a stop to submit all of my eBird checklists after Seney and a few other Michigan incidentals.  I was pleased to see that I had reached over 100 species for Michigan, and I ended up with 106 species total for the state in roughly two birding days.  From Kirtland's Warblers to the scenic upper peninsula, Michigan is a place I'd love to return to someday.  Ahead of me was six more hours of driving to Gretchen's cabin, where a comfortable and homely sleep sounded great.  The next day of the trip was planning to see some of Minnesota's boreal forest.  An expedition was planned in place, and the biggest target was yet another warbler.  That will be the next stop on Northerly Treks!

Gila County: The 300 and..

Once I hit 298 species in Gila County (see last post), things started to get more and more interesting in my head.  With an array of different bird possibilities that I could get to reach 300 made the climb seem easier over time, but at the same time, finding those two birds could take some time.  For me, reaching 300 species in Gila was exciting.

I wanted to hustle.  I wanted to reach that personal milestone.  I wanted to have 300 species in a county outside of Maricopa County.  I wanted to accomplish that personal milestone in Gila County, which is one of Arizona's most under-birded counties.  I wanted to bird on the morning of September 23rd, 2018 before work.  And I did.

September 23rd was a decision that I look back on now and think of as dumb.  The dumb isn't dumb in a bad way.  All I did was drive for over two hours to Gisela, bird for about four hours at Tonto Creek via Gisela, and then drive back to Phoenix for over two hours to be able to get to work on time.  In the meantime, I brought a pair of crappy shoes, old clothes, and a fresh change of work clothes along.  I waded in Tonto Creek on-and-off for most of the time while birding Gisela that morning.  At times the water was over two feet deep, which resulted in me being soaked knees down.  After all, I was birding at a vital time of the year for eastern vagrants, and I was pleased with the effort I was putting in.  Tonto Creek via Gisela is situated at about 4000' in elevation and has a variety of habitats.  I got an odd #299 that day as I heard a Pinyon Jay calling from a hillside on the east side of Tonto Creek.  There were junipers on the hillside and in the rather close distance is some good habitat for the species, but it was a weird occurrence.  While I didn't like such for a heard only, I couldn't doubt what I heard, and it is a sound I've memorized.  I managed to convince myself to be pumped up about my observation.  After time and time again convincing myself to be pumped up, I think I was possibly "pumped up".  Whatever, 299.  I couldn't find an eastern warbler that I was hoping to find, but I did have 3 Northern Beardless-Tyrannulets.  It was cool to find more of them at this location, which is pretty far north for the species.

 
Gisela had over 60 species of birds show up for me that day, the place is always good for diversity.  Other than birds, many species of odes can be seen there.  Filagree Skimmer was one of them, and is one of the neatest dragonflies overall.

After I went to Gisela, I planned for my Wednesday and Thursday "weekend" that still holds true as I write.  I can't remember the last time I didn't have a Wednesday or Thursday off, and it has gone on for a long time.  I think it's quite awesome.  Most people aren't out on weekends, I have a lot of the places completely to myself, and that's the way I like it.  Over the actual weekend, birders were venturing out to San Carlos Lake and were reporting the Parasitic Jaeger as continuing.  I was pumped because I wanted to see it again, as I would be venturing out to the San Carlos Reservation once again to start my weekend off.  The thrill set in that this could be the trip that I reached 300 species in Gila County.  My plan was to go to Tufa Stone Tank and then San Carlos Lake.  I invited Dara and Jeff to come with me, and they said yes.  The Jaeger would be our biggest target of the day.  Even though I had killer looks the previous week (see previous post), I wanted to see it all over again.

Wednesday, September 26th came around.  Dara, Jeff, and I met in Globe early, got our San Carlos Reservation permits, and headed for Tufa Stone Tank.  Once we got there, we were busy from the start, as birds were everywhere and showed up in diversity to represent the Tufa Stone Tank I had been describing to them.  It's pretty rare I have others join my party in Gila, but I was glad to have Jeff and Dara with me.  The rarer birds cooperated too.  Dara really wanted to see the Grasshopper Sparrow I had seen in my previous visits here.  The Grasshopper Sparrow popped up as we got to it's haunts.  A few Dickcissels were present.  Another Clay-colored Sparrow appeared in midst of a large flock of Brewer's Sparrows.  Vaux's Swifts had a short window where they came in in numbers.  65 species at Tufa Stone Tank in nearly 4 hours was a solid effort.

Besides birds, we had another major highlight.  While walking through a thick stand of mesquite trees, we stirred up a Mojave Rattlesnake lifer for the three of us.  This snake was irritated by us at all times until we left.  Even when we got hundreds of feet away, I swear, I could still hear him rattling.  Even now, I think I might hear him.  He's still mad at us.  Lame jokes aside, this snake was cool to see, and is the 5th rattlesnake species I have seen personally.  Mojave Rattlesnakes are very dangerous due to more toxic venom than most rattlesnakes, and high yields of venom when striking on top of that.  Don't mess with this snake, I sure didn't mess with this snake at all during our time with it, not even a little.

This Twelve-spotted Skimmer was also cool to see.  Jeff in particular enjoyed seeing this dragon!

After Tufa Stone Tank, we made our way south towards San Carlos Lake for our Parasitic Jaeger search.  En route to the lake, I wanted to stop at the San Carlos Sewage Ponds for a few minutes to see if the Pyrrhuloxia would pop up for "us", I mean, me.  I wanted this Gila lifer a lot!  While the importance of the Jaeger was dominant, things quickly went downhill from that aspect.  A car pulled up to us and it was Chris Benish and Deb Finch.  I knew that they had to have been coming back from seeing the Jaeger.  Benish said, "we saw it, and then I think we saw it leave".  I thought he was joking at first because Benish does joke.  "Am I being punked", I asked.  But he wasn't joking.  He said it lifted up very high and flew to the west and well over the dam, continuing into the mountains and desert to the west.  It was a bummer to hear, and all we could hope for was to wait at the lake and have it fly back in.  After talking with Benish, we heard a cardinal species calling from the sewage ponds.  Dara spied it at the top of a tree, and right when we lifted our binoculars up, it flew back down.  It came back up again to another tree.  The lighting was bad, and before we could get any more looks, it flew off again.  I managed to snap some distant photographs of the bird in a desperate attempt for an identification as it flew off.  The looks I had gave me a Northern Cardinal vibe at first, but then, the lighting was bad.

We arrived at San Carlos Lake to find some other birders there looking for the missing-in-action Parasitic Jaeger.  And the Jaeger wouldn't return.  It didn't stop Dara, Jeff, and I from having fun.  We enjoyed lunch and waterbird scanning from a high peak overlooking the lake.  I got out my camera to check on my pictures of the Cardinal species.  As I zoomed up, Dara and I realized right away that the bird was indeed a Pyrrhuloxia!  I was shocked, and I didn't think the photographs would result in being awesome.  I was stoked because it meant it was my 300th species for Gila County, one that is quite scarce in the region and one that I've tried for and missed before.

As it was time to head out of the lake, I backed up and got stuck again, in lose freaking sand.  Two weeks after the previous incident, the same thing happened again.  I really blew up this time.  Luckily, Jeff and Dara were there.  Jeff had lots of great pointers in getting me out of the deadly San Carlos sand.  After 20 minutes of trying to figure things out, the teamwork managed to drive me out.  Good grief.  After that, we said till next time.  I continued on further to explore some tanks and grasslands further north into the San Carlos Reservation for the remainder of the day.

These grasslands and tanks have some good potential.  They are located on the east side of Highway 60 if going north towards Show Low, shortly before the descend down into the Salt River Canyon.  Tanks are numerous here, but the ones I covered were Tanks Canyon Tank, Upper Highway Tank, and Sycamore Tank.  While I didn't find anything good in the tanks (Upper Highway Tank was the only tank with water), it was good to scout the area out.  On a funny note, this area is great for Pinyon Jays.  I heard a ton of them while hiking back from Tanks Canyon Tank.  Fun birds to detect!  It made the Gisela one seem lame.  The grasslands surrounding the tanks and pinyon-juniper forest impressed me.

After the tanks and grasslands, I explored Seneca Lake Recreation Area for an hour and I camped out at Jones Water Campground after checking habitat worthy for Long-eared Owls.  The next day, September 27th, was spent going down to Winkleman, birding the Gila River, and then visiting Roosevelt Lake to close out the day and the trip.  I didn't have many bird highlights worth shouting about on this second day.  A Javelina family was neat, and Roosevelt Lake held Semipalmated Plovers and a few Common Terns.

October 3rd and 4th resulted in me going to Roosevelt Lake on the 3rd, camping out, and then going to Senecca Lake early on the 4th and exploring different spots while heading back south down AZ 60/77.  I didn't have any major highlights, but the explorations were fun.  This Coues' White-tailed Deer was cool to see.

Riparian forests are one of the funnest places to bird in the fall.  I love searching for eastern warblers and vireos in these woodlands.  Pictured here is one of my favorite Gila County locations, which is the section of Tonto Creek via Bar X Crossing Road located in the town of Tonto Basin.  This place is incredible, and the possibilities of what can show up are sky high.  Here is one of the favorite spots to walk through when I bird at Bar X.  A Great Horned Owl often greets me as I make my way through this stretch..

October 11th was the date of this adventure.  Birds were everywhere at Bar X, just not an eastern vagrant I was hoping for.  I tallied 62 different species that day, and many species showed in high numbers.  The time was a blast, no doubt!  I did have an epic highlight when I found what is only my 2nd Broad-billed Hummingbird for Gila County, and the first was at this location too.  I finished the latter hours of the day at Roosevelt Lake.  That good ol' Reddish Egret still continued.

On October 18th, I did the same thing.  Call it Bar X and Roosevelt Lake.  This day I was determined to find an eastern warbler, let me tell you all, I was determined!  The first half of the search at Bar X was filled with birds, but no eastern warbler.  Lawrence's Goldfinches highlighted this portion.  And then I entered my favorite stretch, where it was time to be greeted by Great Horned Owl.

While walking along this dense riparian jungle scanning carefully, it finally happened.  I crossed paths with an eastern warbler at Bar X after many visits.  It was an American Redstart.  This was an overdue Gila County lifer on top of it being my first eastern warbler for Bar X.  I saw this bird just in the nick of time, as it disappeared just as quickly as it appeared.

I finished this day at Roosevelt Lake.  Bermuda Flat held Forster's Terns, a Franklin's Gull, and that good ol' continuing Reddish Egret.  Scanning from Cholla Recreation Site gave me my second Gila County lifer of the day and one that I'd also consider a little overdue, a Horned Grebe.  Yes!!

On November 1st, I went back out to the San Carlos Reservation, and for the second time, I went out to explore the tanks and grasslands surrounded by pinyon-pine, juniper, and ponderosa pine forest.  It was suggested to me to start here first by Mr. Caleb, and he was right.  The grassland birds are likely to fly around a lot more first thing in the morning.  Those grassland birds, such as longspurs, are what I was after.  The Tanks I explored were Tanks Canyon Tank, Brushy Basin Tank, and Upper Highway Tank.  The first two tanks mentioned were passed along a hike I took that went for about two miles.  It was pleasant, and a large mixed flock of Pinyon and Mexican Jays moved gregariously through the area.  A Prairie Falcon was also present.  It took awhile, but once I got close to Brushy Basin Tank, I heard my first Gila county longspur in a Chestnut-collared Longspur calling as it flew overhead.  It was great to hear the bird, my 303rd bird for Gila County.  Hearing the Longspur also confirmed that the place has potential.  Other grassland birds such as McCown's and Lapland Longspurs, Short-eared Owl, Sprague's Pipit, and Rough-legged Hawk weren't detected, but it doesn't they can't be found another time.  Time will tell.  Here are a few pictures of the grassland and tanks.

After the tanks and grasslands, I went to Tufa Stone Tank.  Even though it was afternoon, Tufa was still pretty impressive.  The water levels are considerably lower, but they did hold diving ducks in Red-breasted Merganser and Bufflehead.  Late day circumstances prevented good songbird activity, but Lawrence's Goldfinches were nice.

After Tufa, I went to my usual Roosevelt Lake to scan a few of my favorite spots.  The lake was fun as always, and that good ol' Reddish Egret continued...

I'm excited to find out what November and December will hold for me in Gila County, and I have a lot of ground to cover...