A nice opportunity to guide popped up recently and I was able to take someone up the Peshekee Grade (Marquette County) this week. This was great because I was able to get some field time in one of my favorite birding spots, and in the last few years, it’s  tended to be a winter birding run for me. This was a great reminder that summer birding the Peshekee is awesome! The place is a breeding bird factory. This healthy watershed has some high octane (and at least for Michigan, high elevation) boreal birding. There is extensive spruce forest as well as patches of pine forest, northern hardwoods, grassy creek marshes and Canadian Shield lakes.

I’m always struck by how birdy the Peshekee is during the breeding season. I was really impressed by the number of Winter Wrens we heard; this species has seemed real scarce to me elsewhere this summer, I have been wondering if Winter Wrens had been caught in one of the many late season snow/cold snaps we had this spring and many didn’t make it. This does not seem to be an issues up the Peshekee. Its possible that the snow melted so late up there that many wrens simply didn’t try setting up territory later then normal this year. Also heard in high numbers were a personal favorite of mine- Blue-headed Vireo. There were at least 20+ of these sublime birds whistling up the Peshekee canyon all morning long.

Warblers were plentiful, and we tallied in 16 species here, including a shocking 19+ Cape May Warblers. These handsome tigers can often be found up the Peshekee, but this may the most I’ve recorded in a morning. I’ve had a few scattered across the rest of the UP this summer, but this was delightful.

However, the main target as always when going up the Peshekee are Gray Jays and Boreal Chickadees. Both these species can be a bit tricky in the summer, and seem to be quite stealthy this time of year. But fortune smiled on us and we encountered 4 Boreal Chickadees in three spots, a series of exciting June finds! Equally exciting was a robust family group of Gray Jays with five young! The young jays were quite noisy and chattery as they explored the spruce bog, learning the lay of the land and begging from the adults. A single adult jay was seen lower down the canyon as well.