Outdoors

While the weather outside may, as the song goes, be frightful, winter is one of the most exciting times to go birding across Michigan and the Great Lakes region. Many new visitors from the north arrive in the colder months, including snow buntings, horned larks and dark-eyed juncos. Snowy owls, great gray owls, northern hawk owls and boreal owls also make their way into the Upper Peninsula and northern Lower Peninsula. Winter is the perfect season for waterfowl birding, too, as hundreds of thousands of ducks, geese and swans descend on the Great Lakes.

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A recent cooperative venture has resulted in an exciting new opportunity for birdwatchers in the eastern Upper Peninsula. With the help of several partners, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources has developed the Shore-to-Shore Birding Trail, which is a driving/walking/birding experience that covers more than 400 miles and 40 birding points of interest throughout parts of Chippewa, Schoolcraft, Luce and Mackinac counties.

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As hundreds of thousands of hunters head into the field with Michigan’s firearm deer season kicking off today, the DNR encourages them to help hungry families in their community by donating a deer to Michigan Sportsmen Against Hunger.