Kay’s Birding Blog

Every year, Saving Birds Thru Habitat donates a copy of my book (For the Love of Birds) to the Leelanau Conservancy for its fund-raising auction.  A private bird hike for up to ten people is included.  The woman with the winning bid from last year’s event brought several of her friends last Friday morning.

During our email exchange to set the date for this walk, I offered to present our PowerPoint program for the group and she accepted the offer.  But when the morning brought beautiful weather and a rush of migrants, I suggested we skip the program and hit the trail.  She and her friends agreed.  It was one of the best bird hikes we’ve ever had on Charter Sanctuary; it began before we left Saving Birds property with a calling Black-billed Cuckoo (see our Weblog for a photo of this elegant bird).

Although we did not see that particular cuckoo (at least we did not see it then), we were able to watch several of these sleek, rich brown birds with creamy undersides and bright red eye rings once we got down into the heart of Charter Sanctuary.  It was the best cuckoo show we’ve ever had on the property.

And there was more; we heard or saw the usual suspects… a host of birds that regularly nest on the Sanctuary.  There were catbirds and kingbirds, redstarts and house wrens, orioles and grosbeaks (Red-breasted) thrashers and vireos.  Tree Swallows foraged over fields and pond and meadowlarks sang     from a dead mullein stalk in the heart of the three-year-old little bluestem planting.  There were sparrows - Chipping, Song, Vesper and Savannah.   Great Crested Flycatchers Called from the treetops and Cedar Waxwings flocked in an aspen.

Best of all was the female Hooded Merganser that has been hanging around in our pond and, of course, the bright tinkling song of the first Bobolink of the year.

In the summer of 2003, just as we began to work on the Habitat Discovery Center, a bulldozer appeared on the hill, across Weaver Creek from our home.  The ‘dozer was excavating for a new home.  The ten acres on which the home was going up is immediately adjacent to Charter Sanctuary.  The two properties share a quarter mile line – to the east of our land and to the west of the new owners.

We had owned our property for ten years when this new home began to go up.  Because of our work on behalf of declining bird populations, we had hoped the land would remain vacant.  It was admittedly an unrealistic hope, but we humans have a way of hoping things will go the way we want rather than the way they likely will.  These ten acres acted as an extension for Charter Sanctuary, and keeping them in an undeveloped state would be good for the birds we were trying to help.  Thus my heart sank when the bulldozer took its first big bite out of the land.  Neighbors would put an end to the extended habitat – or so we imagined.  We could not have been more mistaken.

It was the end of summer before we met Steve and Jackie Cuson.  I drove up one weekend afternoon to introduce myself.  They welcomed me warmly and showed me around their unfinished home. For several years, we exchanged pleasantries when we saw each other, but that was about all.  Then, early one spring evening several years later, Steve knocked at our door.  He said he had a question for us.  We invited him in, and as we sat in our living room, he asked if we would mind if he cleared a path through a thicket below his home.

“Steve,” I said,  “That is your property; we have no right to tell you what to do with your own land.”

He knew that, he said.  His question was whether or not such a path would adversely impact any birds.   He added that he and Jackie wanted a trail like we have on Charter Sanctuary.  Because the great majority of their land is open, the shrubby corner he referred to is the only place they could do that.  But they didn’t want to do it if we thought they shouldn’t.

I told him that the corner they were thinking about cutting into is perfect Indigo Bunting habitat. His immediate response was, “then we won’t do it.”

His reaction was completely unexpected, and it was most welcome.  I was overwhelmed with gratitude.  Imagine our good fortune in having a neighbor willing to help our effort.

Since then, we have developed a solid relationship with them.  They joined SBTH and they have worked to improve their open acres by planting a variety of native trees and shrubs.  They have also kept an eye on our home and our land when we are away.
Last week the Cusons came down to give me a hand moving tree saplings from my car into the basement.  Jimmy was out of town and I’ve been struggling with a bum knee.  After the trees were safely out of the car, we talked about the new birds coming in for the breeding season

They have been seeing American Woodcock.  Steve said he’d never seen this fascinating shorebird’s sky dance.  One of these evenings, when I hear the male’s “peent,” I’ll call our neighbors down so we can watch them together.

Jimmy and I feel extremely fortunate to have neighbors who not only care about our work here on Charter Sanctuary, but who want to do their part to help out. It’s like we won the good neighbor lottery when the Cusons moved in.

For the week beginning Wednesday, April 29 and ending Wednesday, May 6, I was on the road between Illinois and Ohio for SBTH.  The Sunday before my return, my son Jeff took me birding at Crane Creek in northwestern Ohio.  Things were slow in the morning, but as the day went on we saw scads of warblers, including a Northern Parula, which I haven’t seen in years.

I returned home to find that Baltimore Orioles, Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, Yellow Warblers, Common Yellowthroats and Warbling Vireos had beaten me back.  We’re still waiting for Eastern Kingbirds, Great Crested Flycatchers, Red-eyed Vireos and others…especially my beloved Bobolinks.

But Bobolinks are in the area.  Over the weekend, SBTH was invited to participate in a native plant sale at Brian Zimmerman’s Four Season Nursery.  The nursery is just west of Traverse City and includes 20 acres of land on one side of Harry’s Road – where the business is laid out in a way that makes it feel like a park with chipped trails.  Across the street are twenty additional acres, which is an old farm field turned meadow.

On Friday when Brian was talking to a potential client about incorporating native plants in her garden, I heard my first Bobolink of the year.  “Bobolink!” I shouted.  Brian and his client looked at me as though I’d taken leave of my senses, which, in fact I had done.  Bobolinks have that effect on me.

The next day Brian took me across the street and drove through the meadow up a hill on the west side.  He’d built a bench there and wanted to show it to me.  As we sat there, an Upland Sandpiper jumped from the grassy hillside and flew away.

“You’ve got an Upland Sandpiper!” I said.

“Is that something good?” he asked.

“It is,” I assured him; “it’s a bird in steep decline.”  I added that for the 16 years we have owned Charter Sanctuary, Upland Sandpiper is a bird we have always hoped to attract.

“And you’ve got the bird,” I said.

Brian is coming to Charter Sanctuary for a special tour week after next.  When I left his nursery on Saturday I told him that there are wonderful birds here.  But we saw the best bird on Saturday, flying away from a potential nest site in the quiet meadow across from his nursery.