Michigan - The Sunset Coast

Today we headed west to the Sunset Coast, which follows the shoreline of Lake Michigan. 

Our first stop was Fisherman's Island State Park, which isn't located on an island, but does look out toward Fisherman's Island. This park offered tent and RV camping, and was busier than most of the parks we'd visited previously, but still pretty quiet. 

The park is 2678 acres and includes approximately 5 miles of sandy Lake Michigan shoreline. 

Once again we were impressed by the beautiful white sand beaches along the Great Lakes. 

Very clear water.

The entrance road passed through some mature forest, and then followed the shoreline. 

We saw a few birds on our way in, including a Black-capped Chickadee. They look identical to our Carolina Chickadees in Texas, but sing a different song and don't occur in Texas at all. 

Black-capped Chickadee

We also enjoyed seeing Yellow-rumped Warblers in their bright breeding plumage. These birds overwinter in Texas, but are in their much duller non-breeding plumage when we have them

Yellow-rumped Warbler

Once the road began following the shoreline, we started seeing different birds. There were several Bald Eagles, including this youngster. Bald Eagles take four years to obtain their classic black-and-white pattern, and as they grow up they have a variety of brown and pale plumages. This one was probably two years old. 

Bald Eagle

After driving to the end of the road, we walked about 3/4 mile down the beach to a point. There we found a couple of the endangered Great Lakes population Piping Plovers, and a nest site protected inside of a wire cage. We didn't run into anyone monitoring the nests, but obviously someone has been taking care of things!

Piping Plover

Piping Plover on protected nest

From Fisherman's Island we made a quick stop at Sportsman's Park, a site that we'd visited a couple of days prior, and then headed on toward Jordan River National Fish Hatchery. 

Our GPS gave us two options for reaching the hatchery, one the "normal" route along major paved roads, and the other a sketchy looking back way on dirt roads. We decided to take the roads less traveled, not sure if they would actually get us there. We were rewarded with a beautiful drive on nearly deserted gravel roads through beautiful forests and marshes. 

We pulled over in several places to enjoy the scenery and birds, and in one marshy place came across this large beaver-felled tree. These beavers mean business!!

The gravel roads eventually brought us right into the back gate of the fish hatchery and we got out to explore. 

It was Sunday and we only saw one hatchery worker at a distance, but many of the buildings were open and we got to look around a bit. 

They had a couple of native plant gardens that sure could have used the attention of a couple of hard-working volunteers!

We had a bit of a sobering moment at the Jordan River NFH as this was to be our summer volunteering gig in 2020. All of the paperwork had been signed and we were scheduled to arrive in May, but COVID brought all of that to a halt and eventually resulted in us pulling the plug on full-time RV volunteering.

As we stood there in the glorious cool weather, surrounded by green grass and forests and singing birds we couldn't help but feel some regret. It looks like it would have been an amazing place to spend a summer or two. 

We returned to our Cozy Cabin for an afternoon rest, and then headed to our now favorite Michigan State Park, Hartwick Pines, for a final evening at their feeders. The birds were cooperative and I got some great shots. 

Pileated Woodpecker male

Rose-breasted Grosbeak male

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Scarlet Tanager male

White-breasted Nuthatch

Eastern Phoebe with dragonfly

Next time: Our last day and, we found a factory tour.