Scot Stewart

“It is spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you’ve got it, you want-oh, you don’t know quite what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!” -Mark Twain

Flowers seem almost out of place after so much snow! The blooms , the songs, the color of spring are spreading the fever. In valley wetlands bright yellow marsh marigolds are in full bloom in Marquette. The first bright trout lily blossoms are also emerging. Other ephemerals like bellwort, squirrel corn, bloodroot and Dutchman’s breeches should be showing off their blooms soon too, before the canopy of birch, maple and ironwood open above and shade them, making it more difficult for pollinators to find them.

Spring has spun a great variety of creatures into action at ponds in Chocolay Township. Dragonflies, muskrats, swallows, ducks and shorebirds have all come to find meals to refuel on their journey northward for summer or to settle in to their summer homes.

Green darner dragonflies have been dancing across the water lunging at newly hatched midges spinning above the water, joined overhead by barn, cliff and tree swallows grabbing midair meals of the same insects. Muskrats have continued their submarining dives for aquatic vegetation and occasional wanderings along the shorelines to graze on new shoots of emerging plants. ducks and shorebirds have proved the water edges for worms and other invertebrates. Duck species have included American wigeon, greater scaup, bufflehead, American black ducks, mallards and wood ducks. The shorebird highlight there was a short-billed dowitchers and a nesting pair of killdeer. The killdeer have been very tame, allowing observers to watch the change of parents incubating eggs and occasional mating.

In the wetlands at the Presque Isle Bog Walk it appears the beavers have returned again. Over the past 20 years at least three lodges have appeared in the bog. They have been located between the two boardwalk spurs when the water levels have been high and have given the beaver easy access to more of the area. Even though there is no real outlet for the water there, the beaver have created small dams in the past to deepen water and make travel easier. While their dam work does not alter the habitat too much for birds, the impact they have had on the surrounding trees does. The last colony there took down a large number of large poplar trees as they cut the trees down for food.

The city wrapped a number of larger trees with wire fencing to prevent further losses and may have to revisit the site to see if others need to be wrapped with the new residents. The water levels during the winter will determine the length beavers’ stay.

Beavers must be able to exit their lodges during the winter and enter unfrozen water to reach food stored near the lodge. If the water is too shallow and freezes sufficiently around the lodge, they must chew their way out the side of the lodge or starve to death. Water levels at the Presque Isle Bog generally fluctuate with the levels of Lake Superior. The higher water levels also bring lots of migrants. Open water has drawn buffleheads, teals and mallards. Occasionally wigeons, scaup, hooded mergansers, gadwalls and even harlequin ducks stop over. Virginia rails, soras, American coots, great blue herons and American bitterns are some of the other larger birds providing excitement there.

For the most part though, duck numbers have been down across the Marquette area, especially in the Lower Harbor where small groups of buffleheads have made up the bulk of the ducks seen there. Lakes and ponds have seen northern shovelers and Canada geese and the

The birds of color have been coming in waves this past week. Early May brings a true palate of colors — blue indigo buntings, orange Baltimore and an occasional orchard oriole, red, V-neck rose-breasted grosbeaks, green and red ruby-throated hummingbirds. Warblers are still in short supply. Only three species, yellow-rumped, pine and palm have come through the central Upper Peninsula in any noticeable numbers. At Peninsula Point at the end of the Stonington Peninsula in Delta County eight species of warblers were seen on Tuesday. A yellow-throated vireo was also seen a few miles away at the public boat launch.

Other shorebirds of note reported recently include plenty of lesser yellowlegs — 20+ in once group in Chocolay Township, and a solitary sandpipers with the yellowlegs and a single piping plover at the mouth of the Dead River in Marquette.

At Ogontz Bay on Lake Michigan in Delta County six great egrets and a pair of black terns were seen earlier this week. The two species are on opposite ends of bird changes in the U.P. Black terns were formerly more common on Lake Michigan, especially when lake levels were higher. Their numbers seem to be declining sharply. Great egrets, on the other hand, seem to be expanding their range farther northward, and are becoming much more common on the Menominee River and along the Lake Michigan shoreline.

For the most diversity in the “bloom” of colorful birds that comes with spring fever hit the “Points” of land and watch spring migration at its best!

EDITOR’S NOTE: Scot Stewart is a teacher at Bothwell Middle School in Marquette and a freelance photographer.