As regular CFZ-watchers will know, for some time Corinna has been doing a column for Animals & Men and a regular segment on On The Track... particularly about out-of-place birds and rare vagrants. There seem to be more and more bird stories from all over the world hitting the news these days so, to make room for them all - and to give them all equal and worthy coverage - she has set up this new blog to cover all things feathery and Fortean.

Monday 22 October 2012

Bird Die-Off Hits Region


It looks like another bad year for avian botulism in northern Lake Michigan. In the last week or so, hundreds of dead loons have washed ashore from Sleeping Bear Dunes north to the Upper Peninsula.
Conditions Right
Warm water temperatures and low lake levels are associated with outbreaks of avian botulism. And there have been both of those conditions this year.
“This is looking to be a very intense year,” says Dan Myers at Tip of the Mitt Watershed Council. He tracks reports of dead birds in Emmet County.
One volunteer who walks a beach near Harbor Springs found 40 red neck grebes and 33 loons washed ashore in one day.
Tec Cummings says the sight was disturbing.  “It’s heartbreaking to find them, that many birds, because I’m only walking three or four miles of shore,” Cummings says.

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