Features

Continued growth, change make summer most interesting

By SCOT STEWART

Marquette-area bird enthusiast

"You can observe a lot by just watching." -- Yogi Berra

There always seems to be many more details in summer to observe than in winter. Even more exciting is the way most of these details like growth, reproduction and so many other summer events are continuing to change making them even interesting.

On some of the trails along the Chocolay Bayou in Harvey and at Harlow Lake in Marquette Township, fragrances of wild roses are almost strong enough to lift admirers right off their feet.

Recent rains have encouraged some fungi to send out their spore-filled fruiting bodies. A chicken of the woods fungi provided a spectacular display of shelf-like bright yellow and oranges mushrooms creating a tableau nearly five feet tall last weekend in one of Marquette's city parks.

On other trails on the north side of town, wood frogs jumped through wetlands filled with small, bright orange earth tongue mushrooms.

Bird songs are also continuing but are changing, too. Many of the songs are most prominent in the dim predawn hours before sunrise. Once the sun breaks through, they are off to find food for their young.

That seems to be filled with variations, too. Adults may be incubating soon to hatch second clutches or feeding newly hatched featherless young. Some youngers are sitting at the edge of their nests nearly ready to fly with plenty of newly emerged flight feathers. Many of the new fliers are easy to find, calling out to parents and flapping their wings as they beg for their next easy meal.

Young Canada geese are now nearly fully developed and resemble slightly smaller adults. And there are LOTS of them at places like Presque Isle in Marquette and other wetlands where they nested this spring.

Mallard and common merganser young continue to paddle around both Lower Harbor and Upper Harbor in Marquette, but as is often the case, the brood sizes generally diminish as the summer moves on due to predation -- northern pike, snapping turtles, mink, bald eagles and other predators all take their toll. For the mallards in Marquette, it is not enough to take a big percentage, as the local population in town has grown to a winter population of nearly 1,000 found during late December's Audubon Christmas Bird Count in town.

For those able to watch the birds in the same places, there are plenty of rewards, and some need to continue watching for more. One birder has been watching the birds around the university in Marquette daily and during the past week was surprised to find a Cooper's hawk on campus and on another day watch a great blue heron fly over.

Cooper's hawks are medium-sized accipiter hawks between shar-shinned hawks and northern goshawks in size. They have wider wings than falcons, and narrower tails than broad-wing and red-tailed hawks and often have a cruising wing pattern in a "flap, flap, glide" similar to that of sharp-shins.

Accipiters are primarily hunters of medium-sized birds. The remains of individuals collected showed healed fractures of breast bones from collisions, presumably while hunting. In urban areas, they also have problems with collisions with windows and automobiles.

Cooper's hawks have also had a fair amount of success as a species in the U.S., too. Their numbers have increased since the use of DDT and other harmful insecticides was discontinued in the 1960s. Their summer range basically runs just north of the U.S.-Canada border, but they have been more commonly seen in both summer and winter the past few years.

Great blue herons have also become more visible in the Marquette area in recent years. A small nesting population north of Marquette has produced regular forays by the adults seen in spring and summer along the Dead River, especially in the shallows of the Dead River Marsh between Powder Mill Road and the Dead River Bridge at Lakeshore Boulevard.

Another location where they are occasionally seen is in the mitigation pond off Lakeshore Boulevard at Wright Street. If there are young in the area this summer, they may eventually show up there, too. Other spots to watch for them are near the mouth of the Carp River and the ponds at Park Cemetery.

Shorebirds have been quiet recently. At Whitefish Point in Chippewa County, four piping plovers were reported earlier this week. In recent years, there has been a nesting pair on the beach near the tip of the point with several other plovers hanging out nearby. This may be the case again this year. Several years ago, there was a pair nesting near Crisp Point just west of Whitefish Point. During a severe hailstorm early in the nesting season, a female, on a nest there, was killed by the hail. A short time later, another female appeared and nesting resumed, so there may be some benefits to having more birds at a good nesting site.

At the AuTrain River mouth in Alger County, the daily watch has not produced any recent shorebird sightings. July brings a new look at sandpiper and plover species usually seen only during migration. With the short nesting season in the Arctic, late-arriving birds and those losing mates tend to turn around and start the long trip back to the southern parts of South America. Some of those birds can be seen in the Upper Peninsula at river mouths and on the breakwalls beginning now.

Back in the treetops of Marquette, American redstarts, black-throated green, black-and-white, blackburnian, pine, and yellow-rumped warblers are still being heard regularly in the maple and poplar trees. The strongest songs, though, are of the red-eyed vireos. At lower levels, a few northern house wrens have been seen, too, but their numbers seem lower this year, possibly due to the cold spring. A daily walk through the same spots with a keen eye, watching for all the details of the season, can reveal much!