Some of Michigan’s Best Birdwatching Happens at the Shiawassee National Wildlife Refuge
The Shiawassee National Wildlife Refuge was established in the 1950s to provide habitat for migratory waterfowl. This 10,000 acre preserve just southwest of Saginaw sees hundreds of species of birds visit its wetlands each year. Visitors can check out the refuge and its trails to see birds, mammals, reptiles, and amphibians, with some of the best sightings coming on the Wildlife Drive (Auto Tour) route. We had a chance to visit in July and had a great time viewing and identifying birds while driving along this magical route.
The entrance for the Wildlife Drive can be reached by taking M-13 south from Saginaw for five miles, then heading west on Curtis Rd. for four miles. Here you will see sign fro the refuge and begin the one-way drive through 6.5 miles of wetland habitat. This drive is open from June – September each year, with varying hours depending on the month. The speed limit is 15 miles per hour and visitors are encouraged to not stop except at designated observation platforms and trailheads.
We were barely a quarter mile into our drive when we saw a great blue heron in the wetlands to the east of the drive. The fields through here also had whitetail deer and sandhill cranes in the distance, and many smaller birds flying overhead. Bring a pair of binoculars, a camera, and some kind of bird identification app or book (we use Merlin) along when you visit!
Just over a mile into the drive we had the chance to pull off at an observation area and one of the Ferguson Bayou Nature Trail trailheads. There was a large blind set up here that provided some great views into the open field to the west, where many deer, turkeys, and cranes could be seen.
The Ferguson Bayou Trail is one of the longest in the refuge and it offers some great views of the sloughs, forests, wetlands, fields, and pools in the refuge. While our main focus was birdwatching, there were plenty of mammals to see here as well. This muskrat was completely unbothered by our presence as it continued to dine on the plants next to the observation blind.
The Wildlife Drive continues on, offering miles of great waterfowl observation as it nears the Shiawassee River. A few of the birds we observed during our visit were sandhill cranes, great blue herons, eastern kingbird, Canada goose, common tern, red-winged blackbird, wood ducks, red-breasted merganser, common gallinule, pied-billed grebe, mallards, barn swallow, swamp sparrow, and common yellowthroat.
We had driven the Marshland Wildlife drive at the Upper Peninsula’s Seney National Wildlife Refuge many times before, and found this drive at Shiawassee offered many more opportunities to view waterfowl and many more species to observe. You’re guaranteed to see lots of birds when you visit the Wildlife Drive at the Shiawassee National Wildlife Refuge, and if you visit during spring or fall migration you might be lucky enough to spot something rare! Plan on an hour or two to drive the entire route, and be sure to look everywhere for wildlife!