John Bates to present habitat-based birding talk in Caspian

A bog behind the house, a cedar swamp off the trail or an old-growth pine stand near the lake can tell Iron County birders more than a checklist ever will. John Bates will use those familiar Northwoods habitats to show how residents can read the landscape for the birds most likely to be there.

The Iron County Audubon Society will meet Monday, June 8, at 7 p.m. at the Iron County Historical Museum, 100 Brady Ave., in Caspian, where Bates will present “Birding by Habitat.” The talk is built around a simple idea with practical value for people who spend time in the woods, on the water or in their own yards: when you know the habitat, you know where to look for warblers, waterfowl, sparrows and other species moving through Iron County’s wetlands, ridges and mixed uplands.

That approach fits a county where forests, sedge meadows, cedar swamps and hardwood ridges sit close together. Bates has spent more than three decades watching, listening to and writing about Northwoods wildlife, and his perspective gives local birding a broader lesson in conservation. Instead of memorizing birds by sight alone, attendees will hear how land conditions shape where birds feed, nest and migrate, and why those patterns matter for the health of the region itself.

Bates is also a familiar name to many readers through his long-running “A Northwoods Almanac” column. He has written widely about the forests, wetlands and birds of the Northwoods, and his work has long tied natural history to the places people recognize from daily life, from backroads and camps to shoreline edges and old timber stands.

The setting for the program carries its own Iron County history. The Iron County Historical Museum was founded in October 1962, and in 1963 the Pickands-Mather Company deeded 5.5 acres, including the Caspian Mine headframe and engine house, to Iron County to create the museum. Today, the site is described as one of the largest outdoor museum complexes in the Upper Peninsula, with 26 buildings, more than 100 major exhibits and two art galleries. It is also known as the Log Cabin Capital of Michigan.

The Audubon meeting is free and open to the public, and light refreshments will follow. For anyone who has seen birds shifting through the county’s woods and wetlands as the season changes, the program offers a way to connect those sightings to the habitat that supports them.