"Are You Admiring My Prairie?"

by Mike Berst
SBTH President

My uncle was a Park Service ranger and, as a child, I was fortunate to spend summers with him at various national parks. He taught me to respect nature and all living things. My wife, Kathie, is a long-time bird-watcher. We have been supporters of the Michigan Nature Association and have spent a great deal of time looking for both native plants and birds on the Association’s preserves across the lower and upper peninsulas.

Since retiring and moving to Omena, we have been propagating native plants on our property, which is just a mile from the Saving Birds Thru Habitat Discovery Center.

One day in 2014 I was photographing plants along Omena Road when an energetic woman approached me.

“Are you admiring my prairie?” she asked.

“Um, no,” I replied, surprised by the question, “but I am certainly willing to.”

That was how I met Kay Charter, Founder and Executive Director of Saving Birds Thru Habitat. I told Kay that I was photographing native plants along the side of the road. She pointed to a plant that resembled a sunflower and asked if I knew whether or not it was native. It wasn’t. It was Elecampane (Inula helenium), a Eurasian plant.

Over the next few years Kathie and I became friends with Kay and her late husband, Jim. I led native plant walks as part of SBTH events, and we helped out where we could as neighbors and friends.

In the fall of 2023 Kay told us she needed to step down, something she thought she would never do, and that she was afraid the organization might not survive unless we stepped forward. She had previously asked us to become Board Directors, which we had agreed to earlier that summer, but now she had little stamina and needed others to take the lead.

Kay had always imagined that someday the grounds around the Discovery Center would be covered in native plants. She believed we might be able to help make that happen because of our knowledge of, and love for, native plants and birds.

Serving as Board Directors had never really been an aspiration of ours. We were enjoying our retirement. However, the organization had been negatively impacted by the COVID crisis, had an aging and dwindling—though loyal—membership, and had recently lost the majority of its Board Directors at the beginning of 2023. The few remaining directors were considering stepping down as well.

We realized that the loss of Kay, the organization’s founder and only Executive Director, would be a serious blow. Kathie and I strongly support the vision of Saving Birds Thru Habitat and admire the work that Kay, Jim, and so many other dedicated people invested in building the organization.

After much soul-searching, we decided to take on the challenge.