Winter Opportunities

Snowy Owl

I want to encourage people to get out and see what this time of year has to offer. It is easy to traverse the woodlands with the lack of snow this year and these are great places to see and enjoy some friendly birds like Chickadees, Nuthatches and other song birds. Skunk Cabbage should also be poking through and be seen with its pointed mottled hoods in wet areas. Watch along gravel roads and farm fields for the Horned Lark and Snowy Owls. Just the other day I saw four Snowy Owls between Hudsonville and Hamilton, just look for the clump of white sitting on the ground or sometimes on a perch.

With the lack of ice in the rivers and Lake Michigan, ducks are not necessarily as confined to the openings in the ice as they might normally be this time of year. They can be found in sheltered river mouths or along the sheltered side of the piers when it is windy and rough on Lake Michigan. While fishing from the piers in Grand Haven the last couple of weeks I have seen an Eider, some Long-tailed Ducks, Redheads and Golden Eyes close to the pier in the calmer water. Be careful if venturing out on the piers as the colder temps set in, any water splashing on the pier will quickly freeze making it quit slippery.

Cork Elm

This is a great time to get out and work on winter botany. Learn to identify plants that are still standing. You can learn to identify trees by their bark and buds. Some have very unique limbs or twigs like the Cork Elm pictured above with its thick layer bark and ridges. One goal I have is to find and identify the Shellbark Hickory in bud, this will give all four of our Hickories listed in the Michigan Flora.

Even though the temps are forecast to be colder the next week or so, the lack of snow and ice make much easier to get out and look for birds and other natural features that would normally be buried under the snow in winter. Who knows, you could even see some rare or not so common birds for our area or add some new ones to your life list.