Well in the Upper Peninsula this winter and spring those comments, have kept going and going. Heck, there was snow on May 18 across Marquette County. Spring has been anything but an easy transition this year, and if it wasn’t for some green grass, new tree leaves, and maple flowers it might have been might tough to know when the seasons were changing.

The changes will keep coming. Trilliums, new deer fawns, and a full canopy of tree leaves are sure signs June will bring on summer. JUNE! Difficult to believe the sixth month of the year is here on Monday! That will mean only three weeks until the official start of summer and then the Fourth of July!

One of the best parts of summer is the bright array of colorful birds settling into the area, fresh from long trips here from Central and South America. Many are called Neotropical migrants – birds returning from winter homes outside the United States, Mexico, the Caribbean, Central and South America. They are true travelers, flying northward in the Western Hemisphere from south of the Tropic of Cancer here for the summer. That means they wintered south of 23 degrees of latitude.

Many of the 200+ species of birds make impressive one-way trips of up to 7,000 miles to get to the Upper Peninsula each spring. Red-eyed vireos, barn and cliff swallows, and scarlet tanagers are just a few of the songbirds making big flights. Some other Neotropical migrants travel even farther and don’t stop here in Michigan – they keep going on to northern Canada or Alaska like some lesser yellowlegs making a 9,300 mile trip according to the Smithsonian’s National Zoo. These sandpipers may be returning from the southern tip of South American in Tierra del Fuego and end up above the Arctic Circle.

A Baltimore oriole looks on. (Scot Stewart photo)

The reason these birds travel so far – up to 18,000 miles round trip, is to take advantage of the best opportunities to find food during each of the primary seasons – summer and summer, summer time in each hemisphere that is. The migration routes that far do mean encountering a wide variety of challenges plus dealing with other issues to successfully breed too.

If sandpipers are delayed in reaching summer ranges in the Northern Hemisphere due to weather, poor health, or arrive to find poor weather and nesting condition in the Arctic, they may not have enough time to successful raise a brood. When that happens, they will simply fly back south the 9.000 and wait until the next year. When some of these sandpipers are found in the U.P. in late June or early July birders often follow a simple rule. Seen before July 1 they are still probably heading north, after that date heading south. Because nearly all are without microchips, radio transmitters, or other tracking devices, it is literally impossible to follow them when they leave the area to find out which direction they are going.

Conversely, many of these long-distance flyers are among the first to leave each fall as they head back south. Swallows and sandpipers are among the first to head back south on their way back starting in late-August. Other Neotropical migrants include wood, hermit, gray-cheeked and Swainson’s thrushes, Baltimore orioles, bobolinks, and most of the warblers.

Because these birds make such long flights, much more attention has been given in recent years to look more carefully at the sites they use to “refuel”, rest, and stop to avoid foul weather. Some great examples of these places are the coast of New Jersey where red knots and other shorebirds stop during the breeding season of horseshoe crabs to feed on the crabs’ roe.

Here in the U.P. warblers often stop on the north shores of Lakes Michigan and Huron to feed on the large numbers of midges resting in the trees along the waters’ edge. Sandpipers and plovers often stop on the Lower Harbor breakwall in Marquette to take advantage of the midges, feeding on the stone and concrete. These sites are crucial to the birds’ success in making it to their summer ranges and breeding. White-rumped sandpipers are rare visitors in the U.P. but make occasional stops in both the spring and fall. Their summer range is across the High Arctic of Canada and the very top of Alaska on the Bering Sea. In winter they can be found along the eastern coast of South America from southern Brazil to Terra del Fuego.

Neotropical songbirds make a huge addition to the color of summer in northern Michigan. Orange from Baltimore orioles and blackburnian warblers, the reds of scarlet tanagers, rose-breasted grosbeaks, and most of the ruby-throated hummingbirds, and blues of the indigo buntings. Many of these grosbeaks and hummingbirds fly non-stop across the Gulf of Mexico and the buntings as much as 1,200 miles each way.

Just as much can be said of their contributions to the sounds of summer. Many songsters are less flashy color wise, but more than make up for that with their songs. The thrushes in particular provides beautiful music from the edges of woods, often in the underbrush where they remain unseen. Wood thrushes are becoming more frequent sightings in the central U.S. and have the ability to sing two different notes at the same time and can learn as many as 50 different songs. And it is hard to beat the songs of hermit thrushes at dusk! Sights and sounds of Neotropical birds help us appreciate these long-distance travelers all the more!

EDITOR’S NOTE: Scot Stewart is naturalist at the MooseWood Nature Center, a writer and photographer.