By Brian Allen
This is the 34th year that I have been the compiler of the Manistee Christmas Bird Count. The CBC is one of the oldest scientific bird surveys that attempt to determine the populations of our local winter birds and any trends for their decrease or increase.
In the early morning before the count, I lie awake thinking about whether it will be a good day or not. Will we have sufficient coverage of our area and cooperative weather? There are a lot of variables that make it difficult to consistently get a good count, but over the years this averages out and we get an indication if there are more bald eagles or fewer ruffed grouse, more Lake Michigan ducks or fewer robins wintering, and the like.
High winds can make it extremely difficult to do a CBC, and I can hear the wind roaring through the pines and shuddering the house. I usually survey the owls before dawn but, knowing they wouldn’t be responding to my calls, I stay under the warm covers for a bit longer than usual. I sleep in until about 5:30, get up, put on about five layers of clothes and head out the door. Despite walking for two miles in the forest and along the road, I hear no owls ⸺ not even the easy-to-call-up barred owls. This will be a tough day.
At daybreak I start to cover my area, #7, part of a circle of coverage extending 7.5 miles from the center at Fisk Road and U.S. Highway 31, north of Manistee. I’m going to meet Patsy, a retiree from Arizona, who recently moved to Manistee. I wonder if her thin Arizona blood will freeze too soon for a CBC in Michigan. But there she is, getting out of her car and joining me at Fifth Avenue pier to help me check for ducks and gulls in the harbor. I notice she is wearing adequate Arctic apparel, and we shout greetings over the gale-force wind.
No walking on the pier today! High water and huge waves roll over the cement wall as if it were just a speed bump. We count a few mergansers and herring gulls but not much else. We head to Lake Bluff Audubon Center, where I will bird some more and meet Scott Fraley, a Manistee News Advocate reporter.
The trees at Lake Bluff make a bit of shelter from the wind and we hear a Carolina wren, which I know has been there. This is the first “good” or unusual bird of the day. Our eyes tear in the wind as we look out over the lake and struggle to count the long-tailed ducks which are often found here in the thousands. Today only 100 or so are out, bobbing and diving in the oceanic waves.
But, there is something different ⸺ darker ducks in a small group of eight. Black scoters! A good find. These ducks usually winter on the Atlantic Ocean, so finding them on the Great Lakes is always a treat. I try to help Patsy see them, as she hasn’t previously, but the wind and waves make it too difficult. I promise to try to spot some for her again another time, as we retreat from the lake to meet Scott.
Just then I get a call from Shelley, another field observer. She’s found a snowy owl on Dontz Road just north of the Casino. We finish checking the Lake Bluff area and the three of us drive to find the owl. Stopping on the road, we see other good birds that Shelley had spotted: horned larks. A flock of more than 40 land alongside the road. This is the largest flock I’ve ever seen on a count! I check each of them in case there are any Lapland longspurs or snow buntings hiding with them, but all are larks.
Checking over the field, I find the snowy owl where Shelley said it would be ⸺ hunkered down in the field and glaring at us with its piercing, yellow eyes. Scott has never seen one before and I’m happy to see he is excited about it, rather than muttering about the cold wind. We get some good photos which he can publish with his story. By then it’s lunch time, and Patsy and Scott have to go. I’m looking forward to warming up with lunch at home.
In normal years, the counters meet at a place near the center of the count circle in Onekama to go over the exciting findings of the morning. This year, with pandemic raging, we have to break tradition and stay on our own. I get a few calls from the other observers who picked up some good birds like northern shrike, pine siskins, great horned owl and rough-legged hawks. At the end of the day, it will add up to a good number of species after all.
CBC afternoons are always more difficult. We’re usually cold and tired from the long day, and the birds are not as active. Ordinarily, I do some difficult treks in the woods or swamps to find the more reclusive species. I used to wade into the cattail marshes along M-55 but am thankful for the other observers covering the area this year.
Now, I hike behind the house into the cedar swamp, trying for kinglets and winter wrens. There’s a creek back there I call “New Year’s Creek,” as it is often so mucky you can only get to it when the ground is frozen solid at New Year’s. The creek is always open and flowing from its relatively warm springs. The winter wren likes to forage along the sheltered banks and toppled cedars there but, other than the roaring wind, there is no sound of wrens or kinglets this day.
I spend the rest of the afternoon hiking along the Manistee River, in the state game area, and don’t see much else until just before dusk when I spot a robin fleeing a Cooper’s hawk near Switalski Road.
Back home, it’s getting dark. My wife Maripat gives me a cheery greeting and makes a hearty dinner for me. This year, due to COVID-19, the doorbell will not ring, and the other observers will not stop by for a potluck, as usual. I miss the company.
The CBC dinner is one of the highlights of the birder’s year, as we would all share stories of the day and look forward to new, exotic destination adventures and trips up north to the U.P. Nothing beats sitting around the table with good friends, with a warm bowl of homemade chili and a cup of hot chocolate after a long, cold day in the field.
Instead, I just collect the phone calls, texts and emails to compile the results. As I clean up the dishes and organize the papers and emails, I silently hope the following year will be as it used to be.
Bird Count Overview
The wind did affect this year’s Christmas Bird Count. Our totals can be in the 70s for species on good years and once we even had 81 species, the second highest total for all the CBCs in Michigan. This was outstanding as most of the high species counts are in the south of the state, where it is milder and there are more birders participating in the counts.
This year we had 65 species, which is good for the windy day but just average for our usual totals. Compared to other counts in Northwest Michigan we are usually the highest; this year we only just topped Traverse City, Benzie, Leelanau and Mason Counties with our total, as they were all in the lower 60s.
It’s difficult to judge if any species is in decline based on our one day in the field, especially when it’s impacted by the strong winds we had, but there are some numbers that deserve comment.
This year we had a total of only three American tree sparrows. These are small Arctic birds that arrive in our area in late October and stay until April. They live in brushy habitats and are most often seen here near bird feeders and in wetlands. Our usual total for this bird is in the 30s or 40s and it’s hard to know why there is such a decline. More of these birds arrived a little after our count, and the mild winter may have been the cause of that.
Manistee is acclaimed for its internationally designated “Important Bird Area” or IBA. The Manistee IBA is the section of Lake Michigan from Orchard Beach State Park to the Bar Lake Outlet, where usually thousands of long-tailed ducks spend their winters. Over the years, we have counted up to 10,000 long-tailed ducks and the average is usually 2,000-6,000. This year we counted only 186, despite serious efforts viewing in the challenging conditions. A few days later, with calm waves and better viewing, I counted 1,500 in the same area.
One complication with our duck counting is that, in the last several years. the state of Michigan has initiated a late-season duck hunt on the same weekend as our bird count. After a couple years of trying to count as hunters kept the ducks in motion, or perhaps caused them to avoid the area, we decided to move our count day to mid-week.
It’s difficult to tell if the long-tailed ducks and other ducks are possibly moving out of the area due to pressure from hunting, are harder to count from their increasing movements, or are declining in numbers from an actual population change. We appreciate our hunters as they, too, have an interest in maintaining and conserving the population of ducks in the area. It’s too bad the late season has conflicted with our CBC, and we hope it can be held on different dates in the future.
Hopefully, next year’s CBC will be held after the pandemic is just a bad memory, and we will again enjoy the traditional chili and hot chocolate potluck. We look forward to more people joining us to count birds in the field or at their home feeders. This year, I thank the 14 other birders that braved the gale-force winds and the 15 that kept track of the birds at their feeders. In the past, we’ve had people count by boat, ski and kayak too. I invite all that are interested to contact me or the Manistee Audubon Club for this and future events.
Dr. Brian Allen is an optometrist and a long-time birder and bird researcher based in Manistee County. Reach him at manisteebirder@gmail.com.
