Our 2022-2023 Season

        We're back!  This year's schedule reflects the difficulties that many Audubon chapters are experiencing just staying alive these days.  Fortunately the Muskegon County Nature Club (MCNC) is back for another season, thanks in no small part to the efforts of our new president, Beth Miller.

    MCNC and the Owashtanong Islands Audubon Society (Grand Haven's chapter) will combine their resources for programs this season.  Instead of scheduling fourteen (7 per club per season) for our gradually-dwindling audiences, we've combined resources and scheduled a total of seven.  Until further notice, programs will be presented at the Covenant Life Church, 101 Columbus Ave. in Grand Haven.  See the sidebar.

Our first MCNC meeting of this new season will be at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday evening, September 15, at the Roosevelt Park Community Building as in the past.  One item of business will be to determine dates, times and locations of future meetings.  We'll also catch up on what we've all been doing since last season.  There will be light refreshments for this social time.  We hope to see you there.

The MCNC will continue to conduct monthly field trips, the Christmas Bird Counts, the Big Day Count, and our annual Potluck Picnic meeting in May.  See the sidebar. 

August 20 Field Trip Report

Ten of us began Saturday morning's field trip to the Muskegon County Resource Recovery Center and were joined along our way by four others.  Thanks to the birding skills of Chip Francke, we found an excellent number of shorebird species: Semipalmated Plover; Killdeer; Stilt, Least, White-rumped, Baird's, Pectoral Semipalmated and Spotted Sandpipers; Red-necked Phalarope (15 in the northeast corner of the West Lagoon) and Lesser Yellowlegs.

Among the 47 other identifiable species were Blue-winged Teal, Ruby-throated Hummingbird, Sandhill Crane, Bonaparte's Gull, Green Heron, Bald Eagle, Osprey, Northern Harrier, American Kestrel, Merlin, Horned Lark, Tree, Cliff and Barn Swallows, Cedar Waxwing and Eastern Meadowlark.

A trip highlight was the Merlin seen first eating small prey on the wall of the aeration lagoons and later zipping over a rapid filtration cell scaring all the birds and tail-chasing some shorebirds.

Thankfully, very little of the predicted rain materialized.  All photos by Glen and Beth Miller.

Lesser Yellowlegs were seen at various locations.

Tree Swallows, Red-necked Phalaropes, Bonaparte's Gulls and Mallards.

Stilt Sandpiper

August 20 MCRRC Field Trip

You're invited to meet with those of us breakfasting at the McDonald's restaurant at Apple Ave. & US-31 before the field trip.  We will leave the restaurant at 8:00.

The trip itself will begin around 8:15 a.m. just inside the Maple Island Road entrance to the Muskegon County Resource Recovery Center (formerly the Wastewater).  We will bird the entrance area until 8:30 before heading to the headquarters, the dikes, and the fields of this 16-square-mile property.  

We will drive to various areas and then get out to bird.  Besides your binoculars, a spotting scope and a walkie-talkie tuned to Channel 11, Subchannel 0 will be useful, but neither is necessary.

We hope to find many migrating shorebirds and yet-to-migrate breeding grassland and woodland birds this Saturday morning.  The trip will end around noon.  The public is welcome.