How much can 15 miles really mean to migrating birds? Apparently, a lot!

I just spent the last week serving as a volunteer lighthouse keeper at Crisp Point. This lighthouse is 15 miles shy of Whitefish Point and is only accessed via a 19 mile dirt road. The lighthouse is very remote, and serving as keeper is a fantastic experience. Our keeper’s residence is our tent, but back to birding …

Whitefish Point is a major bird migration route both in the Spring and Fall. Thousands and thousands of birds from the northern reaches of Canada fly past Whitefish during their twice annual migrations. However, Crisp Point is almost due west of Whitefish. During our latest mid September stay I saw almost zero birds … a few flocks of Canada Geese, a couple of crows, three common mergansers, and an actually quite rare Mew Gull (see below … data courtesy of All About Birds from Cornell University). Winds must have pushed this fellow off its planned migration. However, the birds know the way south (or north in the Spring) is to follow Lake Michigan down towards warmer weather. Thus, 15 miles is HUGE in terms of distance from a flyway.

While Molly and I did not see many birds at Crisp Point, the grand old lady came through for us! Here are a few photographs taken two days ago starting with the Blue Hour (40 minutes before sunrise) till about 30 minutes after sunrise.

Our final new experience was learning about Yooperlite! Last summer, a local rock hound discovered that some Lake Superior stones have sodalite fluorescent crystals embedded within the rock. Under a black, UV light, the crystals reflect light in a brilliant manner. As the campfire was burning down three nights back, we decided to walk the beach with a UV flashlight in search of the fabled stone. Yooperlite! (Yooperlite image taken the next morning).