July would prove to be a unique month, only bringing in four year birds: all four were Lifers, all four were shorebirds, and two were exceptionally rare birds.
The first actually came in late June, though some documentation has it having arrived in Michigan in May or even earlier. It’s origin was, for a time, a hotly-debated topic, but what isn’t debated is the fact that immediately after it was found in the last couple days of June it drew a crowd. Many searched for the peculiar rarity for the first few days of the year, and eventually those searched would yield success as the first ABA accepted ABA record began to show itself regularly at the Wurtsmith Air Museum at the Oscoda-Wurtsmith Airport. The bird in question that drew crowds of first dozens, then hundreds? Southern Lapwing.
Without getting into too much detail, the reason for the discussion of this birds origin stems from the fact that it was found at the airport and concerns were raised that it could have arrived on a plane – however those claims have been thoroughly contested and in the end it was agreed by both the Michigan Birds Record Committee and ABA Birding Association Checklist Committee that the bird almost certainly got there on it’s own accord, and as such it is a “countable” bird. To most birders I’d imagine the decision of some committee that a bid is “countable” is an inconsequential thing, however it is something that matters to many and was important for me in my quest to break the Michigan Big Year record, as only countable birds were, well, countable.
As fate would have it, the day before I saw the Southern Lapwing another exceptional shorebird would be found in St Clair county when Brandon Aho spotted an incredible record – a breeding plumage Red Phalarope. Red Phalarope are roughly annual in Michigan, though they always are during the fall when they are not in their breeding plumage and to see one in breeding plumage is an exceptionally rare thing in the United States. Unfortunately by the second the bird was already gone, so I would have to wait a couple more days to see a crazy-rare shorebird.
When I say “a couple days”, I mean it rather literally. While I was at work on the the fourth of July a notification popped up on Discord that Bobby Irwin had found a bird arguably as rare if not rarer the Lapwing – a Common Redshank at Pointe Mouillee. A Eurasian shorebird, Common Redshanks are exceptionally rare in North America, with all previous records coming from Newfoundland in Canada. Bobby’s bird was the first ever American record, and as seemingly never-ending shift wrapped up I pained myself watching the flood of reports come in as people abandoned their Independence Day plans to see the bird.
Fortunately the Redshank was still there when I managed to get down to The Mou, and when I tell you the mile from the parking lot to the spot the bird was being watched by dozens of observes was the fastest and farthest I’ve run since my days as a Cross Country runner in high school I’m not exaggerating. The next day I would return to southeast Michigan in pursuit of a Stilt Sandpiper at Erie Marsh Preserve, a Lifer at the time, but while I celebrated a Lifer on the 5th of July, the dozens of other birders searching for a particular shorebird in Monroe county were not as lucky as the Redshank proved to be a one-day-wonder.
In the aftermath of the eventful first few days of July the month regressed back to the dullness that I had become accustomed to in June. It’s not that there were no rarities showing up, it’s just that it seemed everything showing up was something I’d already seen earlier in the year, aside from three notable exceptions.
The first of those exceptions came in the form of a Red-cockaded Woodpecker that was spotted in Muskegon County by a birder who managed to snag a cellphone photo of the bird while they were out golfing. Unfortunately despite extensive effort birders were unable to unable to locate the woodpecker, however it still remains mind-boggling that the Muskegon county Lewis’s Woodpecker back in May somehow wasn’t even the rarest woodpecker in Muskegon county in 2022. I suppose it isn’t fair to say the Red-cockaded Woodpecker was never relocated though, as later in the year – either in late July or sometime in August, I can’t recall, the bird was relocated when it showed up at a random set of feeders. Inside the house of the feeders a woman spotted the bird and recognized it as being something she didn’t recognize, snapped a photo, and sent it to her husband – who just so happened to be a professor of Ornithology. He immediately recognized the bird in the photo and raced home, but unfortunately the woodpecker stuck to it’s M.O. from it’s previous sighting and was never relocated.
The second exception came when my last reasonably-possible heron of the year showed up at Erie Marsh Preserve, a Tri-colored Heron. The bird was found on July 10th, and I raced down there only to arrive shortly after it’s departure. I tried again on the 11th with no luck, but the bird reportedly showed up again on either the 12th or 13th – there is no eBird record on either date, but I distinctively recall hearing that somebody spotted the bird. I couldn’t make it down until the 15th, though, and even then decided not to head down in favor of some other plans when the bird was MIA on the 14th. That proved to be a stupid decision when the bird showed up on the 15th, and again on the 16th, and again on the 17th. I finally got back down to make another try on the 19th, but by that point the bird was gone and never to be seen again. While hoping to see the bird, though, I again ran into Brandon Aho, and while were were chatting about how incredible the year had been to-date, I commented “We’re due for a Ruff”. Imagine my shock when, later that day, a report came of a Ruff at Pointe Mouillee, just a handful of miles north of where I had made the comment. For those keeping track this is at least the second time I manifested a bird into existence in 2022, and it wouldn’t be the last. I made the trip to Monroe county for what felt like the thousandth time of the year on the 20th, where after some time looking I managed to connect with my fourth shorebird-Lifer of the month. This effectively brought to a close my July, aside from picking up a few more month birds as I casually birded locally in Lapeer and Oakland county.
It was around this same time I first started having Discord correspondence with someone who up to this point had simply been a “background” figure. If the name Isaac Polanski is a familiar one then it’s with good reason – Isaac, a Stormchaser-turned-birder (who still does plenty stormchasing), is one of the best photographers I have ever met and is one of the few people I know who descended into the madness of all-out chasing as quickly as I did, though in 2022 he was just beginning that descent into madness. My first encounter with him was back in February at the unsuccessful Gyrfalcon chase in Wayne County, where he stood in the background and watched as us “big-time” birders stood and talked (a statement which I find hilarious because I wouldn’t call myself a “big-time birder” even know, let alone then). Then, throughout the year at various chases either our paths would cross briefly or we would barely miss each other, and over the months his name became one I began to recognize. While he hasn’t played a role in the story of my 2022 Big Year yet (outside of a brief mention of our June 2024 Big Month I don’t think he has yet to be mentioned), his role will soon come and I figure he is worth mentioning now due to the fact that several of the photos posted over the past few entries have been his – if you are wondering which you can probably tell without even looking at the captions, as pretty much all of the good photos are his. Tomorrow, in the August episode, he will play his first part in the story, before being brought back as a main character in September and beyond; in the meantime you should check out his Instagram, @stormbird_photography.
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Follow me on my journey to see 100 species in every Lower-48 State during 2025, experience some of the incredible places and events in American birding, and meet and bird with as many local birders as possible along the way.
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