Every serious birder must make a pilgrimage to Michigan to see the Kirtland’s or “Jack Pine” Warbler.  This small, lively, song bird breeds in scrublands of Jack Pine that form naturally after wild fires.  The tree is a phoenix, highly flammable, and thriving on arid sand ridges of the upper Midwest.  Its small cones mature and remain tightly closed, sealed by a wax-like resin that melts away when heated to allow the cone to open.  After   a fire the seeds float away from the charcoal branches to reseed the land.  In a few years the young trees form a tangle in which the birds find places to next on the ground.

Before modern settlement there were always large patches of suitable habitat, but forest management and fire suppression effectively reduced the scrub so that in the latter half of the Twentieth Century, the bird had become endangered.  Efforts to restore the species were failing when a large fire seemed to doom the species.  Then, to the surprise of the wildlife managers, the population rebounded where the fire had reopened the land.

Today, the practice is to log a section of a few square miles each year and plant Jack Pine.  Five years later the birds move in and thrive for about a decade before moving into another prepared tract.  The federal and state governments spend about three million dollars each year to maintain the population.  That may seem rather an extravagance to provide something of interest only to birders, but for now the program is funded.  If it is ended, the bird is likely to go extinct in a few decades.

So, we come to Michigan and stop first at Tawas Point on the Lake Huron coast of the upper lower peninsula.  We joined the birding festival that is hosted there by various Michigan bird clubs.  We camped with the RV on a little peninsula that collects small birds on migration.  Much of the festival involved walks there to see  birds that nest in the far north and winter in the tropics.  These birds tend not to stay in one place and are not easy to see, but now in full-blown breeding plumage on their way to the nesting grounds often pause on points of land before flying across large bodies of water.  Birders have smiles on their faces seeing these gems feeding among the alders and spruces scattered across the lake front. 

We, however, on the first day joined a bus trip to the nesting grounds of the Kirtland’s Warbler.  Our guide was a USFS ranger who briefed us on the bird and the maintenance program.  Passing from a section of tall trees to open Jack Pine scrubland, we opened the windows and listened for the distinctive song of the rare bird.  Hearing it, the bus stoped and we climbed out.  Of course, the birds stopped singing and silence reigned.  I spotted a distant bird on a snag, but it was a common Nashville Warbler.  We paused.

Then, we heard the song, sort of a “chuckle, chuckle, weyo weyo weyo.”  In a few moments someone spotted the bird on a pine snag about a hundred meters from the sand road.  All binoculars pointed in that direction.  The bird stayed.  In a minute, we had our scope on it for close looks.  Another started singing on the opposite side of the road and we watched him too.  Another “life-bird” in the bag.

I find it hard to estimate our cost to see this bird.  This four-week Michigan trip will probably cost us a couple of thousand dollars, but it is probably not quite fair to charge that all to this bird.  We are enjoying scenery and a number of other birds on this expedition.  We also hope to see or at least hear another life-bird before it is over.  Our cost for the festival was about two hundred dollars, but we could have seen the bird without joining the festival which provided educational and social rewards as well as opportunities to bird.

So, no matter what estimate I put on the cost for this bird, someone in the Congressional Budge Office could complain it is unreasonable.  I’ll probably put it down as $2,000.  We would not have come to Michigan this spring except for this bird.  Of course, doing this, I will have to consider any second life-bird on this trip as a free bonus. 

We find Michigan to be sandy.  Most of the bedrock is Cambrian sandstone, but even that is well covered by sand that has been moved around by glaciers and wind.  The land is relatively flat and today covered in the south by crops and in the north by forests.    On the Lower Peninsula the forests are largely Red Pine except where managed for the warbler.  We are now on the Upper Peninsula.  Here there are also fine red pine forest and jack pine uplands and spruce and cedar wetlands.  Not much agriculture up here, the prices are higher, and the people are poorer.  Mostly lovely unsettled country with vacation homes along the lake shore. 

We arrived among the “Yuppies” of the Upper Peninsula (as opposed to the “Trolls” who live south of the Mackinaw bridge) to stay at the Lower Falls Campground of Taquamenon State Park near Whitefish Point.  We settled in and went driving to bird the next morning.  Our jaunt was interrupted by a phone call.  A little forest fire had got away and was thriving.  This area is suffering draught and on that day a northwest wind was blowing a twenty knots.  We returned quickly to unmoor the motor home.  The campground was fogged with smoke.  We moved around the point and down the east coast a bit to here at the Rivermouth Campground.  Ours was a minor problem.  At least thirty houses and cottages as well as a motel and a store were destroyed.  This is somewhat of a resort community that has had an awful Memorial Day Weekend!

The residents have been remarkably upbeat about the whole thing and very hospitable to us.  We were disappointed that a night tour of the natinal wildlife refuge had been cancelled.  There is another at the end of this week.  We hope that goes.  It is our best chance to find the Yellow Rail, our second potential life-bird of this trip.  We have never before been displaced by fire.

Except for the fire the trip has been punctuated with only small excitements.  We met a former neighbor from York on the boardwalk at Magee Marsh in Ohio.  Yesterday, driving in search of spruce grouse, the car became mired in soft sand.  After careful review of the situation, I had Anne push as I reversed the car down the hill and off the road.  She got in and I drove through the woods around the soft patch and back onto the road.  We had already turned around seeing that the road was not fit for anything less than all-wheel drive.  We sighed when we returned to the hard gravel road and I remarked that our auto was now an “Off Road Vehicle.”

The mosquitoes have not been too bad yet.  The instructions for our night tour of Seney Marsh said to bring mosquito netting.  We have it.  This evening it showers and every drop of rain is welcome in northern Michigan.

We plan a hike tomorrow, but showers are forecast.  Perhaps they will put out the fire which is now only “45% contained.”  That would be great news.  The day after tomorrow we move west to Picture Rocks National Lakeshore where we will stay for four nights.  Rumor has it that the rare Philadelphia Vireo nests in a birch grove nearby.  We will see.