Copper Country Audubon

After talking to John Woodcock about the flight paths of fall waterbirds at Thunder Cape and seeing apparent flights coming south out of Black Bay (I was at Blake Point on Isle Royale) in 2009, I was convinced that all three major bays on the north shore are basically exit and entrance ramps for waterbirds traveling the big lake.  These bays are exit ramps in the spring and entrance ramps in the fall.   So in October of 2011, CCA sent Greg Cleary and I to Battle Island which sits between two channels that lead from Lake Superior into Nipigon Bay.   We generally split up and had one guy at each end to watch the two channels. Unfortunately we had nice pleasant weather during our stay.  Waterbirds generally make their big fall moves with north winds and we had a shortage of those during our visit.  Our counts weren't very high but the birds were moving past.