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Aug. 3, 2017
Contact: Caleb Putnam, 517-643-6873
Guided birding tour of Pointe Mouillee State Game Area Aug. 18
 The Michigan Department of Natural Resources invites the public to join a guided caravan tour of Pointe Mouillee State Game Area in Monroe and Wayne counties Friday, Aug. 18, from 9 a.m. to approximately 1 p.m. Pointe Mouillee, widely recognized as one of Michigan’s top birdwatching destinations, normally is off-limits to vehicles.
“August provides a great opportunity to see a wide variety of herons, ducks, shorebirds and water birds in the game area’s vast wetlands and in Lake Erie itself,” said Caleb Putnam, Michigan bird conservation coordinator with Audubon Great Lakes and the Michigan DNR. “This tour will be a lot of fun, and educational, too.”
Putnam and DNR biologists will be on hand to answer questions about wildlife management, habitat projects under way at the game area, hunting opportunities later in fall and other topics. Participants likely will see a wide variety of species on the tour, including osprey, great egret, marsh wren, Forster’s tern, common gallinule, pied-billed grebe and black-crowned night-heron. With luck, they also may see a short-billed dowitcher, yellow-headed blackbird, black tern and snowy egret.
The tour will meet at the game area’s Sigler Road entrance at 9 a.m. Participants are asked to dress for the possibility of rain, and bring binoculars and spotting scopes, if possible. The trip leaders will have a small number of scopes available.
Pointe Mouillee State Game Area is one of Michigan’s Wetland Wonders, the seven premier managed waterfowl hunt areas in the state. The other six Wetland Wonders are the Fennville Farm Unit at Allegan State Game Area (Allegan County), Fish Point State Wildlife Area (Tuscola County), St. Clair Flats State Wildlife Area on Harsens Island (St. Clair County), Muskegon County Wastewater Facility (Muskegon County), Nayanquing Point State Wildlife Area (Bay County) and Shiawassee River State Game Area (Saginaw County).
These areas, scattered across the southern Lower Peninsula, were created in the 1960s to provide exceptional waterfowl hunting opportunities, and still are managed today to provide waterfowl habitat for nesting and migration and for the benefit of other wetland wildlife. Since the beginning, the areas have been funded by hunting license fees and area use fees, but they are open for anyone to visit, use and enjoy most of the year.
To learn more about Pointe Mouillee State Game Area, visit www.michigan.gov/wetlandwonders.
/Note to editors: An accompanying photo is available below for download. A suggested caption follows.
Snowy egrets have been spotted at Pointe Mouillee State Game Area this summer and, hopefully, will be seen during the birding tour there Aug. 18./
The Michigan Department of Natural Resources is committed to the conservation, protection, management, use and enjoyment of the state’s natural and cultural resources for current and future generations. For more information, go to www.michigan.gov/dnr.
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