Pelicans flocking to Michigan's Pointe Mouillee as population grows

Hasan Dudar | Detroit Free Press

They winter along the Southern seaboard. They breed across a wide range that covers the north-central plains and the nearby Canadian provinces. And more and more, they’re stopping to refuel in Michigan.

The American White Pelican is witnessing a population spurt, experts say, and as a result may be expanding its migratory range.

The massive white birds, famous for their long beaks and black wingtips, saw their numbers decline in the early to middle of the last century, down to the tens of thousands, said Patrick Doran, assistant state director in Michigan for the Nature Conservancy.

But since the 1970s, they’ve rebounded and now number more than 100,000, which, Doran said, means we’ll start seeing them in a lot more places during both the migratory and breeding periods.

Why pelicans are flocking to Michigan The American White Pelican is witnessing a population spurt, experts say, and as a result may be expanding its migratory range.

“The population’s doubled or more in size,” Doran said. “They’re expanding outward. Just think of a range of a species. It’s expanding outward to additional suitable habitats.”

The most reliable place to spot pelicans in Michigan is likely at the Pointe Mouillee State Game Area in Monroe County, said Holly Vaughn, Wildlife Communications Coordinator at the Michigan Department of Natural Resources Wildlife Division.

Vaughn said the birds tend to be found in Michigan either in pairs or individually, but at Pointe Mouillee there is a sizable population — anywhere from 20 to 60 birds — that stays on the collection of coastal dikes throughout the summer.

But Vaughn said she can’t tell exactly why they choose that spot to congregate.

“I think it’s a good mix of big open water,” Vaughn said. “They’re on Lake Erie, which isn’t too deep for hunting. And then there’s a nice sheltered place within the game area where they can roost and shelter during the night.”

Bob Arzadon, 67, of Trenton, who said he’d before never seen a pelican in the wild, reports spotting them during visits to Pointe Mouillee since April 22.

“I told my daughter last night, I thought I was in Jurassic Park,” Arzadon told the Free Press during a phone call on Monday, a day after he spotted egrets, blue herons, and pelicans at Pointe Mouillee.

A quick search for pelicans on eBird.com, a Cornell Lab of Ornithology site that allows enthusiasts to document their bird sightings, shows a map crowded with pins on the Pointe Mouillee State Game Area, where 199 species of birds were documented so far this year. According to a map, the game area is an American White Pelican hot spot, where the latest pelican spottings were on May 24, numbering 24 and 6 each.

Observers Jane Sender and Kathy Seymour wrote in their eBird entry that the birds were "unmistakable."

Doran said that the western shores of Lake Erie, including Erie Marsh Preserve up to Pointe Mouillee in Michigan and spots in Ohio like Maumee Bay State Park and Magee Marsh, are considered some of the best birding locations in the world.

He recounts seeing about 60 at Erie Marsh last year, soaring around Erie Marsh in groups.

"It’s a spectacle," he said. "Sometimes, you may see one. But when you see like numbers of them on a beautiful day like that, it’s just one of those incredible nature events that kind of stick in your memory."

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It's peak migration season for the American White Pelican, the largest bird native to North America, said Jen Owen, an associate professor in the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife at Michigan State University.

Owen said that the birds primarily migrate on the west side of Lake Michigan and that their breeding range is west of Michigan, with Wisconsin recently witnessing a "pretty substantial increase in the number of pelicans observed along their lakeshore."

"So it doesn't surprise me that we are now seeing an increase on the eastern side of Michigan, seeing American White Pelicans," Owen said.

She said the development could be because of changing of wind patterns, the timing of migrations, or the birds' use of aquaculture facilities, such as catfish farms down south, for food, which may shift them further to the east.

Vaughn at the DNR said sightings in Michigan have been picking up over the past several years and that the state is probably the farthest east that birds go — with some speculation, she adds, that their range is expanding eastward.

"So it could be they become a regular fixture in Michigan at some point,” Vaughn said.

She said the birds spend the winter on the southern Atlantic and Gulf coasts, with some wintering on the Mexican coast and up into California. They start arriving in Michigan in March and tend to leave in September, October, and into November, Vaughn said.

Doran said there has been some breeding in Michigan, including as recently as 2015 on Little Charity Island in Saginaw Bay.

The first nesting of the the American White Pelican in Michigan was documented in 1999, when 10 nests were recorded in June of that year on Little Gull Island in Delta County, according to the Michigan Bird Breeding Atlas. In June 2007, the atlas says, 17 nests and three eggs were observed on the island through aerial photographs.

Doran says it indicates that the Great Lakes are healthy and that there's enough fish for the birds to feed on.

"It means there’s some good habitat out there, quality habitat that they’re finding and successfully breeding on," Doran said.

The birds are ground nesters that settle mostly on islands and coastal areas, Doran said, and are a species that is sensitive to pollutants and disturbances from people during the breeding season.

Owen said that the reason for the decline in the mid-20th Century was because of human disturbance and a loss of suitable breeding and foraging areas.

"They depend on shallow wetlands and a lot of agricultural practices have altered flooding regimens — either permanent flooding or completely draining wetlands," Owen said in an email.

Doran stressed the importance of protecting and sustaining places such as Pointe Mouille and Erie Marsh, and said the pelicans wouldn't be there if there weren't high quality wetlands.

"It's not just pelicans but it's the system that is attracting them, that's providing habitat for them and then has its positive feedbacks to society," Doran said.

Contact Hasan Dudar: hdudar@freepress.com.