Arenac Co.: Whimbrel, Cerulean & Hooded Warblers

[Karl Overman]

Today I planned a morning of birding at Tawas Point, leading the  
Detroit Audubon Society Camp Out field trip.  Tawas was quite dead so  
in the afternoon I opted for county listing in Arenac County on the  
way home.  I particularly wanted to follow up on Tom Pavlik's report  
of 3 Cerulean Warblers on Davis Road, south of Manor Road on May  
10th.  Manor Road parallels U.S. 23, running  two miles south of it.   
Ron Weeks' 1995 book, Birds and Bird Finding in the Saginaw Bay  
Area,  lists no records for Arenac County for Cerulean Warbler and 3  
birds would certainly point towards a breeding population of this  
species generally considered in serious decline.  I found no  
Ceruleans on Davis Road but to my surprise I found (and  
photographed)  a singing male Hooded Warbler, 120 yards south of  
Manor Road on Davis Road.  Weeks, again lists no record of this  
species for Arenac County and it is still only a casual visitor to  
the Saginaw Bay area.  I went a half mile west on Manor Road and took  
an unmarked dirt road south which ended on the north shore of Saginaw  
Bay.  Six tens of a mile south of Manor Road, I came across at least  
six singing Cerulean Warblers.  Adding Tom's sightings to mine,  
results in an apparently good sized population of this species of  
concern. The first breeding bird Atlas of Michigan, listed no  
Cerulean Warbler records for Arenac County and none further north on  
the east side of the lower peninsula.

Other birds on this unmarked road which runs along a drainage ditch  
known as Big Creek, included Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, Mourning  
Warbler,  Golden-winged Warbler and Sedge Wren (this species was at  
the end of the road in the wetlands bordering Saginaw Bay).  I also  
saw Golden-winged Warbler along Davis Road.

I found a flock of 70 Whimbrel resting in marshland on the edge of  
Saginaw Bay on Michigan Avenue, east of Au Gres, also in Arenac County.

Cheers,

Karl Overman
Farmington Hills, Michigan