Learning music along the Sleeping Bear Birding Trail

By Linda Beaty
Sun contributor

Taking a stroll down Western Avenue in the village of Glen Arbor, you’ll come to a lawn that is beautifully landscaped in Michigan native plants. This is 6391 Western Avenue, the headquarters of Sleeping Bear Birding Trail (SBBT). What, you wonder, is a birding trail? That’s the most frequently asked question by both tourists and locals coming through the door, said operations director Mick Seymour. “What the heck is a birding trail?”

Birding trails, which began in Texas in 1996 with the Great Texas Coastal Trail, a 2,110-mile route with 310 birding sites, are established routes linking sites recommended for bird watching. And they are growing by leaps and bounds, as more and more people enjoy birding. A recent Birding Trend Survey sponsored by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Forest Service, ranked birding as the 15th most popular outdoor recreational activity in the United States, above hiking and only slightly below swimming, biking and hitting the beach.

Establishing a birding trail is a smart move for a community like Leelanau County, because it can increase year-round tourism, said Kay Charter, executive director of Saving Birds Through Habitat, an organization based in Omena that is dedicated to bird conservation education and activities. “Birders spend a lot of time traveling to look for certain birds,” she explained. “While in the area, they also visit local businesses like restaurants, gas stations and shops, which is a great boon to local economies.”

The SBBT was founded in 2013 by avid birders Dave Barrons, a retired television weatherman and chairman of the organization, and Seymour. It was developed in partnership with Michigan Audubon, Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy, The Leelanau Conservancy, and the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. It’s made up of 35 recommended birding sites, (21 in Leelanau County), scattered along 123 miles of Michigan’s M-22 Highway. Anchored by the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, with over 71,000 acres of public land and 35 miles of beach, there’s an additional “Benzie Loop,” which adds 13 other sites inland, taking birders through grasslands and different riparian environments along the Betsie and Platte River watersheds. All told, it offers plenty of opportunity to see a diverse selection of bird species.

On a recent damp and chilly Northern Michigan summer day, I had the pleasure of taking a hike through one of the stop-off points along the trail in Maple City, the Teichner Preserve (a Leelanau Conservancy property), with Charter acting as a guide. Also along were Stuart Campbell, assistant director of Saving Birds Through Habitat, and Barbara Nowinski. All of us, excluding Charter, were self-avowed semi-novice birders.

“This is a good place for beginners to start,” said Charter. “This is a beautiful habitat from a birding perspective. There’s lots of understory and birds depend upon understory for insects.” And with swampy lowlands and dense forest, she added, “it’s a wonderful place to find birds.”

But, she cautioned, we would have to identify the birds by sound, as the leafed-out trees would interfere with visual identification.

That proved to be my downfall, as I’ve never gotten the hang of bird sounds, other than the standard chickadee-dee-dee. Fortunately, Charter took us through it all and repeated the sounds to imprint them on our minds. The Rose-breasted Grossbeak, which “sounds like a Robin that’s had voice lessons,” the “breep-breep of the Great Crested Flycatcher, the “witcheta, wicheta, witcheta of the Common Yellowthroat. Charter chalked up her proficiency in birding by ear to a musical ear (learning bird sounds is like learning music, she said)—which I thought I had too, up until this trip. But as time went on, we all became better at it, and we were identifying Orioles, Common Yellowthroat, Song Sparrows, Red Bellied Woodpeckers, and American Redstarts fairly easily. In all, we counted 18 species that we (mostly Charter) identified by sound—or at least by movement, as bird species tend to fly in characteristic patterns.

In addition to bird identification, Charter and Campbell, whose educational background is in native landscaping and conservation, impressed upon us the importance of native plant species to birds, many of whose populations are drastically declining. According to the experts, everything, from the shape and structure of native plants, to their chemical content, evolved along with native wildlife, and is tailored to the bird’s and animal’s feeding habits. Non-native species, introduced largely through landscaping, competes with native plants, eventually making them disappear. Fewer native species means fewer birds and animals. But this trend can be reversed, said Charter, whose website (SavingBirds.org) offers numerous tips for preserving bird habitats. “Each one of us can make a difference by planting native species in our yards and gardens,” she claimed.

Ready to go birding? If you’re a novice and feel a bit intimidated by it all, there are plenty of ways to learn, including bird identification books and even tapes, both of which can help you to identify birds by sight, behavior and by ear. But be careful not to play tapes when you’re out in the field birdwatching, cautioned Charter. “People sometimes play bird sound tapes to call in birds, and this draws them away from their nesting duties,” she explained. “When a nesting bird is off the nest, another bird like a Jay can come in and take the eggs.”

You shouldn’t be afraid to go out and learn by experience, either, said Charter. For the best experience, visit the SBBT website (SleepingBearBirdingTrail.org) or visit the headquarters for a map and information about what species you might find at each location. But don’t feel you have to know everything to be a birder, she added. “Don’t be intimidated by some of the elitist top birders, who make people feel bad if they can’t identify every bird. If you’re interested in birds, you’re a birder.”

Become a citizen scientist

The Sleeping Bear Birding trail embraces eBird, a real-time online checklist program developed by the National Audubon Society and Cornell Lab. The program allows “Citizen scientists” traveling the Trail have and opportunity to record what they see and hear along the trail, said Seymour, which helps others in the birding community to access information about birds. Recording numbers of birds in specific areas around the country also helps scientists to track location and migration of various species and to understand the impact of humans, climate change, and disease on the bird population.

You can learn more about accessing eBird at the SBBT website.

A previous version of this story incorrectly referred to Dave Barrons as a meteorologist. He is a retired television weatherman, not a meteorologist. We regret the error.