My 2025 Chickadee Pilgrimage

A Walk Down Memory Lane (and Farm Lane, too!)

(Listen to the much abridged radio version here.)

On Sunday, March 2, 1975, exactly fifty years ago, at Baker Woodlot on the Michigan State University campus, I beheld the very first bird I ever looked at through binoculars, figured out what species it was all by myself, and was instantly and forever transformed into a birdwatcher with a life list. That morning was one of the most important in my life, so of course I had to mark the 50th anniversary by beholding that same bird (well, maybe one of its descendants) through my binoculars (and now camera) at the same place I saw that first one. So on February 28, the day after I got home from Cuba, Russ and I embarked on my 2025 Chickadee Pilgrimage.

I wonder how many people would indulge their spouse in taking a 1500-mile round-trip journey simply to see a species so common that we see it every single day in our own backyard? I started talking about making this trip several years ago, and Russ was game from the very start, never once wavering.

We arrived in East Lansing in mid-afternoon on Saturday. March came in like a lion—it was cold and incredibly windy—so rather than looking for birds, we spent the rest of the day searching out the five places we’d lived in during our first four years of marriage, the only nomadic period of our lives.

Our fourth apartment, the one we lived in when I started birding, was in a subsidized housing complex. That’s where I saw my lifer House Sparrow, European Starling, and Brown-headed Cowbird, which tells you that the habitat was far from ideal, but I also did enjoy plenty of robins and cardinals there.

The fifth place we lived was a professor’s house—we were housesitting while he was on sabbatical during winter and spring terms of 1976 before we moved to Madison. Dr. George had bird feeders with lots of regularly visiting cool birds—I got to see Tufted Titmice every single day! And his property backed on a huge field where I watched my lifer American Woodcocks skydancing, did a Savannah Sparrow territory study for my ornithology class, and first saw the red crown on an Eastern Kingbird (still no photos of that). Unfortunately, I remembered the back of his house much more clearly than the front, and we couldn’t remember the address, but I’m pretty sure we drove past it, and if so, that splendid back field is still undeveloped.

As much as I love to travel, I love nestling at home, too, so checking out each of these beloved places felt lovely despite the fierce north wind. The next morning—my “Chickadee Anniversary”—was still windy and cold, the temperature topping out in the lower 20s.

As soon as we got out of our car by the Natural Resources Building parking lot, we could see small groups of robins passing over. The first major pulse of robin migration roughly follows the 37º isotherm, and apparently the warm weather a week ago sent a bunch of robins here who I suspect were regretting being part of the vanguard. We saw over a hundred flying about in flocks or hunkering down, feathers fluffed, facing the fierce wind to keep their feathers from ruffling out. They did not seem to approve of paparazzi.

I was surprised how moved I was standing in the Natural Resources building parking lot. After Russ and I moved to subsidized housing, we had to drive to campus each day, and Russ’s graduate student parking pass was for this lot. Once I started birding, this was where I made some of my important first discoveries.

Both the Natural Resources Building and Baker Woodlot are on Farm Lane, separated by busy railroad tracks.

I had three splendid lifers right in the parking lot—a Chipping Sparrow and American Goldfinch were both singing in conifers in the narrow strip between the lot and Farm Lane.

My first nighthawks darted about in the evening sky and boomed as I sat on one of the concrete wheel stops, mesmerized by the amazing miracle I’d never noticed before.

I used to hate waiting for trains when I was running from our apartment in married student housing to the main campus or to catch a bus downtown, but after I started birding, I never minded trains stopping me on Farm Lane because there was good habitat whichever side of the tracks I was on. My lifer Horned Larks scurried underfoot in the strip of weeds alongside the tracks, and my lifer Red-headed Woodpecker tapped on a big old shade tree behind the parking lot.

The chippy and goldfinch conifers along Farm Lane are still there (though much bigger), but the habitat near the train tracks on both sides of Farm Lane was dramatically changed when they created an underpass so pedestrians and drivers could pass beneath the tracks without stopping for trains. To prevent the lowered road from flooding, a small pond was enlarged east of Farm Lane, so the hedge where I’d long ago seen my lifer Gray Catbird and Brown Thrasher and the trees where my first Baltimore Oriole sang are gone, and I doubt if Ring-necked Pheasants wander around there anymore. But because of the pond, I heard and saw my first Red-winged Blackbirds of 2025 there. I’d seen them in the same general area in April 1975, so even with the bigger pond, that hasn’t changed too much.

As for Black-capped Chickadees, the bird du jour, we saw and heard two in a spruce tree right by the Natural Resources Building parking lot within minutes of arriving. That seemed auspicious even though neither would pose for pictures. We weren’t worried—we figured we’d quickly see chickadees at Baker Woodlot.

Baker Woodlot didn’t used to be fenced in and there weren’t informational signs at the entrance, nor even a simple sign identifying the place as Baker Woodlot. Now the area is called The Baker Woodlot and Rachana Rajendra Neotropical Migrant Sanctuary, in memory of a lovely young woman.

I don’t have photos from 1975, but I think either the main path has been rerouted a bit near the entrance or the big rocks where the path forked were moved. Whatever happened, I wonder if anyone found our gerbils buried near the big rounded rock?

I’m holding the little gerbils who are (well, were) buried near the big round rock.

We walked the main path all the way around the woodlot. There were more oak trees than I remember—oak leaves dominated the leaf litter—and I think there may be fewer mature beeches and cherries, though there were several huge downed cherry trees.

I searched for a trace of one particular huge rotten old snag—I knew it would no longer be standing but thought I might find a trace of it on the ground, though if it was still there, I didn’t recognize it. The first bird I saw in 1976—#121 on my life list, on January 15—was a Great Horned Owl sitting atop that snag, where her nest was. Later that year, a bird bander tried to climb to the nest, but he was afraid the tree couldn’t handle his weight so he set up a pulley and looked for the smallest person he could find to hoist up to retrieve the baby owls for banding, and then to hoist up again to return the babies to the nest. I weighed just 90 pounds so up I went, wearing my bike helmet and the bander’s way-too-big thick leather jacket just in case the mother went ballistic, but she seemed content to glare at me. That rotten old tree is long gone, but my memories are still vivid.

As I recall, there was plenty of snow on the ground on March 2, 1975. Now there was very little snow on the ground but about half the trail was covered with ice. One big difference between me at 23 and me at 73 is that back then I did not need a walking stick to get around on slippery trails, but now I do. Age is a big part of it, of course, but so is the fact that I’m now lugging a heavy and expensive camera, making falling an even scarier prospect.

Another critical difference between me then and now is that in 1975, I could hear virtually every bird vocalization in my neck of the woods but didn’t have a clue what birds were making those sounds. Now I can identify virtually every bird vocalization I hear, but can no longer hear many of them.

The nuthatches didn’t think much of having their pictures taken.

As we walked, Russ and I were both on red alert, intently looking and listening for chickadees, but we didn’t find a single one within the woodlot, nor any other bird except a pair of White-breasted Nuthatches who apparently are claiming a territory near the southeastern corner. I was happy about that—I didn’t see my lifer at Baker Woodlot, but did regularly see White-breasted Nuthatches on subsequent visits.

Russ and I saw and heard quite a few Canada Geese flying over at the woodlot as well as hanging around with the Mallards on and near the Red Cedar River. I never once saw Canada Geese on campus back while we lived there—their resident populations have since mushroomed all over the Midwest. The other species that was nonexistent in East Lansing in 1975 but is all over now is the House Finch—one let me take its photo by the Natural Resources Building parking lot.

Overhead in the area around Baker Woodlot we saw a pair of Red-tailed Hawks engaging in courtship flights, though I don’t know where their nest is.

I was feeling pretty disappointed when we left the woods, but the moment we crossed Farm Lane, two chickadees who probably spend some of their time in the woodlot took pity, one even letting me take a couple of photos.

As far as we could see, Baker Woodlot is 100 percent hardwood trees with very little understory, and in winter, chickadees really do like to spend some time in conifers, where cones supply excellent winter meals and thick branches provide some protection from the elements, and in the understory or weedy edges where they can find a wider variety of seeds. The chickadee who let me take a few photos was picking at seeds in the crusty area where snow had melted.

Russ and I returned to Baker Woodlot and walked the trails again later that morning and then the next morning before heading home. And both times, the nuthatch pair was very conspicuous, and both times, no matter how hard we looked and listened, we didn’t see any other songbirds, woodpeckers, or anything else except geese and that pair of hawks flying overhead, well above the tree line.

We saw and heard a chickadee on March 3 at one of my other haunts, the Red Cedar Woodlot, but that was the only other chickadee we saw that weekend, and we strolled all over campus, me trying my hardest to find them. I wasn’t aware or skilled enough fifty years ago to have an objective sense of whether there are fewer chickadees in East Lansing nowadays, whether there are just as many but they gravitate to other areas, or what else might be happening. But I’m sure happy that I made it to Baker Woodlot on March 2, 2025, and that I saw chickadees on the 50^th anniversary of seeing my first one.