We have a weekend off from water polo tournaments so today we went down to Point Mouillee, better known to birders as Point Moo. Point Moo is right where the Huron River flows into Lake Erie. The Michigan DNR touts Point Moo as the world’s largest freshwater wetland restoration.
When the Europeans showed up the area was a huge marsh complex, protected from Lake Erie by a barrier island. Around 1875, eight millionaires bought the area to make it a private hunting area called the Big 8 Shooting Club. Eventually the barrier island eroded away and Lake Erie started eating into the marsh. The hunting club sold the land to the State of Michigan. In the 1980s the Corps of Engineers needed a place to dispose of contaminated dredge material so they used it to recreate the island that protected the marsh. The State added a system of dikes, pipes, and water control structures, making a 4,000-acre complex.There is the adjoining nuclear plant that may cause some birds to glow at night.
Point Mouillee
The nice nuclear pant.
Pipes in a lagoon.
Point Moo is a great birding place. There are miles of dikes accessible only by walking or riding bike. We opted for the bicycle option, loading ourselves down with scope, binos, field guides, tripods, and camera gear. We were ready for anything short of hand to hand combat. And lunch. We seem to have forgotten a lunch. Others were out there too, including loaded down birders and photographers, and fishermen that modified bicycles to carry fishing gear.
One would think that birding from bicycle is safer than highway birding. I’m not so sure. Both of us had incidents where we were looking at birds while riding and almost went down a steep berm. Once you go over the edge of the berm, gravity will make sure you finish the trip.
Ready for anything. Only the dedicated need apply.
We had a good day. Temperatures started in the 40s but rose to the 60s. Did over 10 miles of biking. For new species, both of us got marsh wren, semi-palmated sandpiper, black-crowned night heron, common moorhen, ruddy turnstone, osprey, whimbrel, bobolink, savanna sparrow, and black-bellied plover. I got a ruby-throated hummingbird and Lise got purple martins. We missed a couple species known to be in the area so we will be making the two-hour drive down there at least one more time.
An eagle nest the size of a compact car and the adult eagles.
Cooperative black-crowned night heron.
Got in a little local birding this past week too. We both got black terns at some local ponds and Lise got a Swainson’s thrush at Fenner Nature Center. That brings our totals up to 182 species for me and 174 species for Lise.
Ed's and Lise's Biggish Years 