The Jack-Pine Warbler of Grayling, Michigan25 May 2020

After a night on the south shore of Lake Superior in the small town of Musining, I rose before dawn and drove southeastward across the Upper Peninsula toward the Mackinac (pronounced “MACK-i-nauh”) Bridge at St. Ignace. The morning produced heavy fog for much of my drive (sandwiched between Lake Superior to the north and Lakes Huron and Michigan to the south). That caused me to drive right past Seney National Wildlife Refuge (no visibility, thus no good birding opportunities). It is always inspiring to drive across this great bridge, looking out over the sea-like expanses of water stretching east and west.

I was hurrying to a patch of planted young Jack Pines just southeast of the town of Grayling, Michigan. I wanted to get there before the sun rose too high, because I wanted good light for photography of the confiding and endearing Kirtland’s Warbler, a summer-dweller of young Jack Pine monocultures. 

I was driving to a site featured by a recent eBird report of three birds. It was warm and sunny when I arrived around 9:15AM.

Pulling off the gravel forestry road I could hear males of the warbler giving their distinctive cadenced and emphatic territorial song from amongst the pines. Where I stopped, the pines were particularly small and almost feeble-looking, arrayed in orderly fashion across the hilly landscape.

With a few exceptions, Kirtland’s Warblers continue to breed only in plots of young Jack Pine planted by state and Federal teams on plots of land in central Michigan (a handful also breed in the Upper Peninsula, northern Wisconsin, and Ontario—all in human-constructed pine monocultures). Thus this species is 100% “conservation dependent” meaning without direct human intervention building habitat, the species would disappear. Back in 1971, the species was down to 201 singing males (and presumably a similar number of females, which are harder to census).

The remarkable thing is that the warblers like plots of very young pines, which allow the birds to nest safely on the ground in tufts of vegetation under the conifers. A male will set up a territory in a group of trees 3-15 feet tall.

Another remarkable thing about the birds is their tameness. Females, especially, will approach an observer to uncomfortable proximity—sometimes foraging on the ground within a few feet of one’s boots. The males are not terribly shy either. They tend to sing from the upper reaches of pines or deciduous trees that have invaded the plot.

The first male I approached this morning was color-banded:  Right leg: Orange/Red, Left leg: Aluminum/Blue. It also was distinctive in exhibiting a lot of black on the face—looking much like a Magnolia Warbler.

This male was accompanied by a female, who foraged all around me while I took my photographs. I found myself backing up to bring the female into focus with my zoom lens.

I wrote to Nathan Cooper, who has been studying Kirtland’s Warbler here for the last decade, to ask about the provenience of the color-marked male. He checked his records and reported that this bird was no younger than 8-years old. I was spending time with a very successful male, and presumably the female that had paired up with him knew that as well (at least by his colorful jewelry).

Across the road the pines were lower and more scraggly. Two males were singing over there. These two were not banded and neither seemed to be accompanied by a female. These two were perhaps younger and less-dominant birds.

By 10:20AM the sun was high and beating down on the tick-infested pinelands. I retreated to Grayling for a quick lunch to recover from my hectic morning. 

Following lunch in my car I decided to drive to the south shore of Lake Erie to the Magee Marsh environs. I arrived in the afternoon. The access road to Magee was barricaded with orange barriers, but I was able to visit Howard Marsh and Metzger Marsh as well as Metzger Woodlot (a warbler trap) where in the bright and humid afternoon sun I was also to see a handful of wood warblers in the cool shade of the woodlot, and, surprise, a singing Philadelphia Vireo that was being harassed by a nearby Red-eyed Vireo.

I spent the night camped south of Port Clinton, Ohio, in the River Retreat Campground, on the Portage River. The next morning I departed early for home. My last new bird for the trip was Indigo Bunting, which I heard singing there at the campground.

My final trip blog will be a “best images” collection from across the 19 days of my travels... Enjoy!