Nature/Bird Walk at the Siskiwit River Preserve

By: Mary Anne Welch Lavin

Strike a pose birders!! Click any image in the post to enlarge.

As part of National Trails Day on June 7, a nature/bird walk at the Siskiwit River Preserve was added to this spring’s series of walks co-sponsored by Bayfield Area Trails and the Chequamegon Audubon Society. We met our guides from the Audubon Society, Ted May and Neil Howk, at the trailhead.

It was a small group. One hiker noted that the leaf-filled trees would make it harder to spot birds. Neil said this is when birding goes from watching to listening—but if you know the calls, you can “see them singing.”

​Ted gestured toward the sound of a Red-eyed Vireo and jokingly said it sounds like, “Hey, you, over here. See me, here I am, I’m here.”

“Hey, you, over here. See me, here I am, I’m here.”

Later in the hike, Neil added a few more bird “phrases”:

“free beer”

“quick, three beers”

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“ze-ze-ze-zu-ze”

“witchity, witchity”

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The Preserve
The Siskiwit River Preserve comprises 105 acres. The property is diverse, with a 3,000-foot corridor along the Siskiwit River within a boreal forest, a coastal estuary wetland where the river empties into Siskiwit Bay in Lake Superior, and an old apple orchard and farm field along Siskiwit Falls Road.

Main Trailhead

The land was placed into conservancy in 2018 by two families. Trails have since been established throughout the preserve by Bayfield County’s Department of Forestry and Parks, Bayfield Area Trails, and other community volunteers.

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The Understory
Saturday’s hike began with a short walk to the river through a forest carpeted with emerging woodland flowers: starflower, bunchberry, bluebead lily, and wood anemone.

As we neared the river, birdsong became obscured by rushing water. Ted talked about ground-nesting birds. He said there are several, like the Ovenbird—named for its nest, which resembles a Dutch oven— and that you’re likely near a nest if the bird becomes bolder, attempting to distract you.

Bunchberry, also called creeping dogwood, was just beginning to bloom. Ted pointed out that the flower is actually made up of many tiny flowers in the center.

Examining the beautiful forest floor.

You Can’t Step into the Same River Twice
The trail along the river is charged by waterfalls and cascades. The riverbed is Orienta Sandstone, and in many places the red, smooth, flat rock rises above the waterline. This makes it easy to step out for a broader view of the whitewater. In the summer, children ride part of these falls on inner tubes.

One set of falls has formed a kettle hole, a good fishing spot. Siskiwit is classified as an Exceptional Resource Water and a trout stream, much of it designated Class I. The lower one-mile segment is Class II because of the lack of spawning beds on the sandstone outcrop.

Kettle Hole on the Siskiwit River

Siskiwit Falls from a distance.

Siskiwit River Falls

In 2024, a severe flood deeply impacted this area, shortly after volunteers had finished refining the trail. Torrential waters rose above the banks, carrying sand and stones downstream.

The force washed gravel from the path, stripped bark from cedar trees and vegetation from the red sandstone. A felled tree whose years-long spot on the river’s edge had seemed permanent was carried 40–50 yards downstream. Sand deposits made the kettle hole shallower, and the buildup of rock at a turn in the river is slowly altering the river’s meander toward the lake.

It’s all still quite beautiful--and volunteers quickly restored much of the gravel!

A Conversation Piece
Heading back to the trailhead, we stopped at a giant white pine to admire its “charm.” Unlike the typical straight, thick trunk prized for lumber, this tree was... different. Its branches grew thick from the trunk like extra trunks, shooting off in random directions.

Ted and Neil talked about trees losing their “terminal bud.”  Some, like pines, readily form new terminal leaders—but grow in unusual shapes. This one, they guessed, was odd enough to have survived the area’s logging days.

Giant White Pine

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Bug Season Is Good for Birding
At the start of the walk, some of us donned bug shirts and hats. It’s worth the effort because, as Neil pointed out, “birds come for the bugs.”

Up from the river, we entered the meadow and birdsong returned full force: Tree Swallows, Black-throated Warblers, Savannah Sparrows, and grouse (when we flushed it from the woods).

Neil pointed out two visible birds: an Alder Flycatcher perched atop an alder tree, and an Indigo Bunting settled on a powerline.

Meadow with trail from river to orchard.

A hiker asked about the bat houses in the meadow. Neil said they get used and added that this was the weekend of the annual statewide bat count. They’ll count again in July after the pups are born. Numbers, he said, are slowly improving after being devastated by White-nose Syndrome.

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The Orchard and Beyond
The orchard was filled with lupine that day (which also happened to be the Lupine Festival in Corny). The path leading from the meadow hadn’t yet been cleared for the season. The hike could have been extended to the west side of the river, where volunteers have groomed another path along the ravine above the river. But we ended our hike where we began, and both Ted and Neil headed to the Bayfield Area Trails Forum.

Orchard & Lupine

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Trail Notes
The east trail to the river actually has three entrances:

• The trailhead near the kiosk is a gradual incline to the falls.
• The entrance closest to the bridge includes steps down to the river and also has a gentle incline.
• The entrance furthest to the right is the steepest, descending via a switchback.​
  

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Credits: Birdsongs and bird images are from the Cornell University’s Cornell Lab | Macaulay Library.

​Helpful Resource: The Merlin app lets you ID birds by sound.