[cobirds] Veery and Northern Waterthrush, Jackson Co

Yesterday morning Paul Slingsby and I started the day birding the newly designated eBird hotspot Beaver Lodge Nature Trail in Jackson County. We were hoping for Veery and Northern Waterthrush which have been found here in the past. We dipped on both species here, but did find singing Dusky Flycatchers, Lincoln's Sparrows, and MacGillivray's Warblers among other species.

This trail in the State Forest State Park just below North Michigan Creek Reservoir is a great location for listening for and observing willow carr species in breeding season. There is a nice trail that looks down on the willow carr along the creek and loops up through lodgepole and aspen on the slope. The lodgepole have been largely beetle killed. The trail is upstream from JCR30 where it crosses the Michigan River. That location is long known as a reliable spot for Veery and Northern Waterthrush. With more attention by birders, I suspect Beaver Lodge Nature Trail will see more documentation of Veery presence and perhaps waterthrush as well. 

We went to the Michigan River wetlands near Jackson CR 30 hotspot next where we did hear several Veeries singing and calling. We glimpsed a couple, but it is difficult to get good looks at the Veeries here because of the willow density. In the past, we have had better looks at a Veery at the Beaver Lodge Nature Trail location. 

Most exciting, however, was the Northern Waterthrush that was singing when we got out of our vehicles. The bird was singing fairly close to us and performed long enough for me to get a smartphone recording. Here's a link to the checklist with the recording https://ebird.org/checklist/S70358661.

Thanks to Gregg Goodrich who sometime back introduced me to the Rode VideoMic Pro, an excellent external microphone for smartphones as well as video recorders, and to Christian Nunes, who a couple of days ago nudged me to get more serious about recording songs.

Chuck Hundertmark