Wild Places, Wild Birds

Allow me to preface that first title and embellish it as well. Born in New York just north of NYC, I spent my entire adult life in North Carolina. In the spring of 2019, we, my wife Sheree’ and I purchased a home in Marquette, MI. Recently retired from teaching high school science, I found a new (seasonal) job in Marquette with The Nature Conservancy. Outdoors, real outdoors.
My first visit to Echo Lake showed me I had made the right choice. WOW!
Most of my 20 hours each week were filled with peace and solitude as I went about monitoring public use, trail maintenance, and studying flora and fauna of the preserve. Being a “southerner,” it was almost like beginning over again when it came to vegetation, many new trees and flowers. Some of the fauna was easy – initially, I was shocked at the lack of reptiles, amphibians, insects, and spiders. Still, they slowly appeared to me as the summer moved on, except for one, the pesky mosquito, which made its presence known on every calm and warm day.

Located just a few miles outside of Marquette, Echo Lake Preserve is a serene environment where pristine waters flow unimpeded from surrounding wetlands, creeks and Harlow Lake to Lake Superior. The 480-acre property feature a mixed deciduous and conifer forest. Echo Lake, the primary water source of Harlow Creek, is a 20-acre natural lake surrounded by a landscape of dramatic relief with high bluffs of exposed bedrock. The site also provides watershed protection for several high elevation glacial lakes.

The Nature Conservancy

In retrospect, I did not pursue four-legged, six-legged, and non-bird flying critters as I could have. I spent a lot of time looking and listening for birds and learning the trees and flowers of the Upper Peninsula. Nevertheless, some of the fauna of Echo Lake presented themselves to me now and then. Often I became aware of them by sound, by smell, foraging evidence, and by scat.

On my first walk into the preserve, I was a little disappointed by the back of birds, but in time things improved. Warblers, in particular, had not yet arrived in force in the Upper Peninsula. They flowed through over the next two weeks. Echo Lake is a little off the beaten path, requiring a bouncy ride down a logging road until you get to the parking area, so it does not get a lot of birders. My highest species count came on May 29 when I recorded 38 species. On average, through the late spring and into early summer, I recorded 24 species per day.

I did not label the plant pictures but if you go to my iNaturalist page you can view the ID’s, assuming iNaturalist is correct. Next year I hope to get back to keying plants out, a long-lost skill.