By CHELSEA MONGEAU
Capital News Service
LANSING – If you ask about their favorite birds of the region, they almost always have one response: “That is a really hard question.”
Bird watching is a social activity as much as an appreciation for nature’s only feathered vertebrates. According to a U.S. Fisheries and Wildlife survey, there are 47 million bird watchers over the age of 16 in the United States. About 30 percent are over the age of 55, while 16 percent are between 16 and 34.
“Birds are our most-watchable form of wildlife,” said Jonathan Lutz, executive director of the Michigan Audubon Society. “We tend to think of them as ‘well they’re just birds,’ but it’s the form of wildlife more available to the most people in different settings.”
Sean Williams, a doctoral student studying zoology at Michigan State University, is no stranger to tracking down rare birds. He spotted a remarkable 249 species of birds in Peru in one day. But while not traveling for research, he enjoys birding around Michigan.
“One of the rarest ones in our region is the Kirtland’s warbler,” Williams said. “They’re a really nice-looking bird. They have yellow on the back and blue in the front. There’s only about 2,000 of those total in the world.”
The Kirtland’s warbler, also known as the jackpine warbler, breeds only in the jackpines of the Northern Lower Peninsula. In the winter, they fly to Jamaica. They used to be present in Minnesota and parts of Canada where jackpine could be found, but those populations were wiped out.
In the same family is another of Williams’ picks: the cerulean warbler. These bright blue birds are also rare due to declining habitat.
“Cerulean warblers are kind of a sky-blue bird that’s only here in the summer,” Williams said. “We get them in some large intact forests where they show up to breed. There aren’t many of those now because a lot of forests are being turned into farm fields.”
He says birders who live near grasslands should keep an eye out for the Henslow’s sparrow, which oddly prefers to run from predators rather than fly. It breeds during the summer in Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and the Toronto area.
“Grassland is a very uncommon habitat, and this sparrow is specialized to live only in this habitat,” Williams said. “They’re really nice to see, though there are not many around.”
And birders looking for a bit of a challenge can seek the least bittern, a small heron with a special way of camouflaging itself – making it a tricky catch, he said.
Least bittern have a funny way of handling predators. Since they reside in marshland, they cling to reeds, turn their beaks skyward, and sway slightly to resemble reeds, he said.
Meanwhile, Richard Wolinski has an affinity for swallows that goes back to his undergraduate days when they were among the first birds that he banded.
“Swallows exhibit a diversity in behaviors, with purple martins being the largest and also the most friendly in terms of their interactions with humans,” said Wolinski, a wildlife ecologist for the Department of Transportation. “They’re particularly tolerant, and their use of cavities is restricted to human-supplied housing. You can bring them right out into your backyard. They’re very tolerant of having their human hosts at hand.”
Wolinski recommends scouting for barn swallows, a brown-and-blue bird that travels long distances and is native to North America.
Smaller than their purple martin cousins, barn swallows prefer suburban areas and wet marshlands.
And while you’re checking those out, keep your eyes peeled for tree swallows, which are about the same size but have a metallic blue color, Wolinski said. They have a bright white underbelly and can live much further north than other swallows during cold winter months because they don’t rely on insects as food.
Chelsea Mongeau writes for Great Lakes Echo.