Migration on Manitou

On a Tuesday night in late April 2024, Alison Világ’s friend Tim Baerwald, a fellow migration counter, asked if she’d be able to meet him Thursday morning at a remote Upper Peninsula boat launch 8 hours away. She said yes: the boat would be taking them to Manitou Island??"5 miles off the tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula??"and Manitou Island is an incredible concentration point for migrating birds. But Manitou’s migration is little-studied: the island, situated in a particularly treacherous sweep of Lake Superior, is uninhabited; its only accommodation is a decommissioned lighthouse built in the 1860s. Tim was particularly interested in banding hawks and owls, which had never been done on Manitou. Alison will be sharing what she and Tim learned about raptor migration on Manitou??"and will share, too, the general experience of witnessing avian movement from a remote island. ?

Alison is a singular voice in our birding community, and nobody describes witnessing spectacles of nature like she does. Check out the daily blog on our website to read a sample of her short Seawatch reports or follow her on Instagram @boreal_vagabond.