A peregrine falcon is shown. (Scot Stewart photo)

August creates as she slumbers, replete and satisfied.” – Joseph Wood Crutch

Nearly full-grown birds, cocoons, and plenty of new seeds, ready for next year. Despite the occasional hot temperatures and sleepy days, there is no other season where more is needed to prepare life for the future. There is an industry to the season as life readies for times not so carefree.

This time is especially crucial to animals and plants make crucial preparations for the winter here but also to animals leaving the area and making great treks to warmer, faraway places for the month ahead. This includes the obvious birds, but also some bats, butterflies and some dragonflies. Monarch will head to Mexico soon and can be seen from time to time flying toward the Lake Michigan shore. When unfavorable flying conditions are encountered, they may que up at the tip of Peninsula Point in Delta County. Rain conditions and several days of strong south winds can produce some large groups of the butterflies clinging to cedar trees until conditions improve.

A least a couple of the five great egrets that arrived in Marquette two weeks ago have remained in the area. Two were spotted on the Dead River west of the Tourist Park this past Wednesday. Slowly expanding their summer range northward, they are now more commonly seen farther north, but to stay in the northern tier counties of the Upper Peninsula is something new. Today in the Great Lakes region there are areas where solid populations of great egrets’ nest, usually where there are large wetlands of well-developed wetlands like the Horicon Marsh National Wildlife Refuge in southern Wisconsin, and along larger rivers like the Illinois and the Mississippi. Most of the local birders have made the trip to the Dead River area to see these beautiful, graceful birds.

One of Marquette’s summer birding mysteries seem to have solved recently. With the decommissioning and deconstruction of the two power plants in town currently in progress, peregrine falcon nesting boxes had been removed from both facilities leaving birders and biologists wondering if and where they might nest in the Marquette area. A new nesting box was placed on the roof of a downtown hotel, but apparently did not appear to the falcons.

A temporary box was placed on one of the remaining structures at the Presque Isle power plant as other structures were being torn down, but it was not apparently used either, despite the numerous of appearances the falcons made at the site. Finally, some signs of nesting activity were seen on the cliffs at Presque Isle Park. After several sightings of adults along the edge of the cliffs was reported earlier this summer, a pair of young falcons was seen on August 3. Large falcons like peregrines and gyrfalcons frequently nest in crevices on rocky cliffs in the wild so it seems natural to find them there, although no historic records of them nesting on these cliffs is known.

The peregrines should be able to find a good food supply in the Presque Isle area with shorebird migration beginning to pick up. Four semipalmated plovers were seen on the beach near the mouth of the Dead River August 4 and more shorebirds will be using that area in the weeks ahead. Shorebirds, blue jays, mourning doves, smaller ducks, grebes and pigeons are primary foods for them. One issue peregrines on Presque Isle must have dealt with is a small bit of competition from a pair of merlins that also nested near the bandshell. While these smaller falcons dine mainly on small prey like warblers and sparrows, both common on the “Island” especially during upcoming migration both falcons will feed on medium sized birds like robins and mourning doves and are territorial and try to drive off other predators.

Shorebird numbers are picking up a little across the region with sanderlings, Baird’s. semipalmated and piping plovers reported at Whitefish Point this week in Chippewa County and spotted sandpipers, greater and lesser sandpipers seen at Portage Point. Some inland areas like the Chatham Sewage Lagoons and pond in the Rumely area ae producing yellowlegs and solitary sandpipers. As unseemly as it might seem, sewage lagoons in the U.P. can be excellent places to bird. Sites in Gwinn, Chatham and Lake Linden have proven to host a great variety of ducks, geese, shorebirds and other waterbirds. These three sites have accessibility for the public to view. Others may require permission to visit or may not be available to the public at all. At all sites caution should always be used when in the areas of these facilities.

On the Cleveland Cliffs Basin eat of Limestone in Alger County a whopping 120 American white pelicans were seen, August 4. These are most likely pelicans from the Green Bay area, wandering the area as they frequently do each fall. 200 mallards, trumpeter swans, wood ducks, a pectoral sandpiper, both greater and lesser yellowlegs and small sandpipers were also seen there that day for a total of 40 total species of birds seen that morning.

Birding does continue to be good around the area. A great pair of prothonotary warblers was spotted on Portage Point August 4. These beautiful, yellow headed and bellied warblers are more commonly found to the south and are rarely seen north of central lower Michigan, and extreme southern Wisconsin almost always near water. Their backs are a bluish olive. They are one of only two North American warbler species that nest in cavities in trees. There is much more to find including the satisfaction of August.

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