Great Lakes Now

- [Rob] Coming up on "Great Lakes Now."

tracking the millions of birds that fly through the region.

- Coming up to a bird net is like Christmas morning all over again.

You just never know what's gonna be in there.

- [Rob] Keeping freighters moving on the frozen lakes.

- The weight of the tug will allow you to break a path.

It is raw power.

- [Rob] And how to make your yard into the next national park.

- Nesting bird forage is very close to the nest, usually around 50 meters.

That's your yard.

(upbeat music) (graphic whooshes) - [Narrator] This program was brought to you by the Fred and Barbara Erb Family Foundation, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, Richard C. Devereaux Foundation for Energy and Environmental Programs at Detroit PBS, Polk Family Fund, DTE Foundation, and contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.

Thank you.

(smooth gentle music) (graphic whooshes) - Welcome to "Great Lakes Now," I'm Rob Green.

On this show, we've told you about animals whose numbers are declining or rebounding, but we can only tell you that because somebody's out there counting them.

So now we want to introduce you to some of those counters.

(graphic whooshes) (water lapping) Millions of birds migrate through the Great Lakes region every year, and they're tracked by an army of bird banders and volunteers who catch, count, and release birds at sites throughout the region.

One important site is Kelleys Island in Lake Erie, about nine miles north of Sandusky, Ohio.

Tom and Paula Bartlett have banded thousands of birds on Kelly's Island, including reclusive Northern Saw-whet owls.

(gentle strumming music) - In the early eighties, I had friends that band all along the North Coast, Canadians.

They contacted me.

They were having a big year with Saw-whets.

Those guys over there said, "Hey, we've banded 100 owls already this year.

You got any on Kelleys Island?"

And I said, "I don't know."

We set up a net one Friday night, went back to the nets, didn't see anything in the nets, and it was that windy.

I said, "This is not good, so we're gonna close up."

So we started to close the nets and the one net wouldn't come outta the grass.

And so I walked over to see what it was caught on.

And when I lifted it up, there was a Saw-whet owl.

(bright music) - [Rob] For years, scientists believed many migrating birds like the Saw-What owls would avoid crossing the Great Lakes.

But thanks to the long-term work of bird banders like Tom and Paula, we now know that's not the case.

Birds do cross the lakes and many stop on islands like Kelleys Island to rest and refuel.

- People have asked me, you know, "You're never home."

Or, "The birding thing is so neat and your life is so interesting."

Our neighbors, they're like, "You're going again?"

- Last year we were on Kelleys Island probably four months out of the year.

And this year it might be pretty close to that again.

(upbeat music) Back in the mid-nineties, I came over and gave a talk and I thought, man, this is a nice place for banding birds.

This is a perfect migrant trap.

We set up the nets.

We were only there one day.

We caught 200 plus birds.

It was great.

(water lapping) - We each open our own nets and we come back together at the banding station.

We set the timer and we head out ready to catch birds.

(energetic music) - [Tom] Oh, it's a Field Sparrow.

Good one.

- Coming up to a bird net is like Christmas morning all over again.

You just never know what's gonna be in there or how difficult it's gonna be to extract.

Ow!

Not banded?

- [Tom] Nope.

93.

- [Paula] we come back and process the birds.

So Tom gives me all the information, he measures the birds, weighs the birds, tells me what sex they are, how old they are.

- Hopefully we get a fat bird and you can see it.

- [Rob] Each band identifies a particular bird.

Together, the data tells researchers where the population is growing or shrinking, where recaptured birds have traveled, how long they've survived, and more.

Here on the islands, this kind of data has even helped guide major conservation efforts, including the purchase of hundreds of acres of land to protect important bird habitats for the future.

(serene music) (wings fluttering) Tom's and Paula's dedication to bird banding has helped shape what we know about migration in the Great Lakes.

They have a team of volunteers at each banding site who help capture the birds.

Tom does all the banding.

He's a master bird bander for the US Geologic Survey and a certified bird bander for the North American Banding Council.

- As people come out and volunteer for me, they know I have all kinds of goals.

My long-term goal for banding now is to band 100,000 birds.

Not many banders have done that.

Right now I'm at 94,751.

- [Director] And once you get to 100,000, what are you gonna do?

- I'm gonna quit, and yeah.

Paula says we're gonna go dancing someplace.

I don't know.

(director laughing) - [Director] What about Paula and Tom's interaction with each other?

- Paula and Tom's interaction is fascinating in a lot of ways.

- [Tom] Nag, nag, nag.

Recapture, Paula, recapture!

- They both have very different senses of humor, - And if you didn't watch 'em for a while and realize that the chiding is done in love, you'd think, "Boy, this couple, they're really scrappy with each other."

- [Tom] It's time for a trade-in, you know what I mean?

It's time for a trade-in.

- [Both] Ooh!

(Tom laughing) - (imitates smacking) She got too close.

(Paula laughing) - [Lisa] No.

- I met Tom at Heidelberg College.

We got married our junior year and we've been married for 49 million years, I think.

I knew he was interested in birds and in science, but I had no idea that my life would become what it's become because of marrying Tom.

And it's been wonderful.

(gentle music) (water lapping) - [Rob] Across the Great Lakes region, tiny Northern Saw-whet Owls migrate quietly through forests each fall.

A network of bird banders work through the night to study these elusive travelers.

- [Tom] Chris, how many?

- [Chris] Just one.

- [Tom] Ouch.

- Is this number two, Tom?

- [Tom] This is a feisty one.

Let me check just to make sure.

Saw-whets were thought to be rare because of their defense mechanism of remaining stationary and blending right into the habitat they're in.

People would walk right by 'em not even knowing they're there.

So now there's a whole network over the whole country where people have nets up.

And what was once thought to be a very rare bird now is probably the most common raptor in North America.

(gentle music) (owl hooting) Oh, we got one.

(owl hooting) Oh, hold on.

There.

(people laughing softly) (owl hooting) Oh, you know what?

This might not be one of our birds.

(owl hooting) Yep.

(soft music) 14 years ago at our banding station, this pickup truck pulled in and young kid jumped out and ran up to the table.

I had a bird.

We banded it.

I showed him how to hold it.

He let it go.

And then he turned around.

Sorry.

He turned around and his dad was walking up and he said, "Dad, it was just like you said," you know?

And he looked at me and he said, "You don't remember me, do you Mr.

Bartlett?"

And I said.

And his name was Brian McClain.

Whew.

I've told this story a hundred times.

- [Paula] I know.

- He was a second generation Bartlett birder when I taught junior high.

And so I had a group of kids that I would take out hawk banding.

He was one of those kids that was interested and then he disappeared.

Which kids do you know?

And then when they grow up, and this is like 20 years later, and he just said one morning, he said, "I wonder if Mr.

Bartlett's still banding over there.

Let's go over and see."

Tyler's been there for 14 years now.

(soft music) (people chatting quietly) - [Director] How many birds have you banded up until this point?

- 99,625.

- [Paula] There we go.

Oh, Chestnut-sided Warbler.

- She's just gobbling up.

Look at that, man.

You only got two birds?

Two stinking birds?

(upbeat music) Would you like to leave?

It's a Canada Warbler.

That's a Red-winged Blackbird.

American Redstart.

(bird chittering) Baltimore Oriole.

35 is 96.

- [Chris] Yep.

- You need four more birds.

You got that?

Try not to kill it and leave the head on.

- [Paula] The thing, I guess, I would have to say that's fascinated me is watching the people and the fact that they're so awestruck by it.

And it's just normal everyday stuff for us.

I have to remind myself that seeing a cardinal, for some people, it's an amazing event.

Especially kids who are holding a bird in their hand and the look on their face is amazing.

- [Tom] There he goes.

- [Nick] Goodbye.

- This one's very feisty.

Get me out of here!

- Do you want me to hold it?

- Nick, can I borrow your shirt?

- No thanks.

- [Child] Wait, what is that?

- [Bander] What do you think it is?

- [Child] Poop.

- We missed him.

- Okay, so is that it?

Is that your number?

What number is he?

- [Tom] He's number nine, nine, nine, nine, nine, nine.

- [All] nine, nine, nine, nine, nine, nine.

(Paula laughing) - Drum roll.

Woo!

- This is it.

(joyous upbeat music) (cork pops) - You did it, Tom!

- [Tom] 100,000.

(all cheering) - [Friend] Probably one of the most important things that Tom and Paula do is get people excited about birds.

- [Friend] When people are excited about something, they kinda lure you into that excitement yourself.

(joyous upbeat music continues) - What's next for my bird banding?

I don't know.

Probably winding down.

You ready, buddy?

- We have so much fun and we're always laughing (laughing) through this thing that we do together.

I think it's definitely brought us much closer.

We hope that it gives people a different point of view about the world.

I just hope that it translates into at least monetary help for environmental causes.

But if it means they go home and put up a bird feeder for the first time, that's perfect.

- I think if you handle a wild animal, it gives you a whole different perspective on wildlife and the natural world, and it's something that we have to protect.

(lively music) (graphic whooshes) - Great Lakes freighters are powerful steel behemoths, but during wintertime, mother nature can bring them to a standstill until an icebreaker comes to help them out.

(graphic whooshes) Each year, the closing of the Soo Locks marks the official end of the Great Lake shipping season, but not all shipping stops and winter creates a problem for any vessel on the lakes.

Ice.

That's why the US and Canadian Coast Guards and a fleet of commercial tugboats stand ready to break ice all winter long.

Retired Commander Eric Peace is vice president of the Lake Carriers Association, but he spent 20 years in the US Coast Guard.

And for much of that time, he broke ice in the Great Lakes.

- The difference between the Northeast and the Great Lakes as opposed to the polar ice breaking mission is the fact is that that's salt water and salt water does not freeze as hard as it does here on the Great Lakes.

And it also has tidal influence, which breaks the ice as the tide comes in and out.

Here on the Great Lakes, we get ice and it stays.

We started forming ice here December 13th where it was impacting navigation.

That ice has stuck around and grown even thicker, and then put three feet of snow on top of that up in Whitefish Bay and you've got a real problem.

When you have three feet of snow on top, there's a lot of friction on the hull, which slows the ships down and really limits their ability to break the ice.

- [Mila] Heavy ice on Lake Superior delayed the start of the 2026 shipping season, trapping at least a dozen freighters in Whitefish Bay.

And the 826-foot Lee Tregurtha got caught in the ice outside of Duluth Harbor and needed Coast Guard assistance to make it back to port.

When ships can't move through the Great Lakes, it has an impact on the wider economy.

- It's really difficult when you're dealing on the national stage trying to convince Texas, or California, Florida that it's important to have icebreakers on the Great Lakes.

But the bottom line is the steel that they consume and use comes from the Great Lakes.

- Peace is now vice president of the Lake Carriers Association, which advocates for US flagged cargo operators on the Great Lakes.

He says current Great Lakes icebreaking capacity is inadequate.

- So, there's 11 icebreakers between the US and Canada.

Tell you, in 1979 there was 20.

We've cut back, they've sliced the mission in half, and now we're seeing the results of that, which is multiple day delays.

We're almost on a week right now for delays with icebreaking.

- [Mila] The Mackinaw is the US Coast Guard's only arctic class icebreaker working in the Great Lakes.

But while mighty and beloved, she can only be in one place at a time.

- There is definitely not enough - icebreakers to cover the entire system - and rignt now youve got ice focused in one area - So imagine if we had ice down here on Lake Erie.

If we had ice in the Detroit, St.

Clair, Green Bay, you're stretched way too thin without enough assets.

The Lake Carrier Association conducted a study a few years back that looked at all the delays that we had incurred over three ice seasons.

And those results came back with a loss of 10,000 jobs and $2 billion in economic activity because of inadequate icebreaking.

These steel mills have been sitting without raw material since January 15th after the Soo Locks closed.

I mean, the bottom line is they can't operate their blast furnace.

They have to shut it down.

(dramatic music) - [Mila] Breaking ice on the Great Lakes requires a specific skillset that is best learned by doing.

But Peace says retaining experienced service members is an ongoing challenge, especially with changing winter conditions.

- [Peace] There's no substitute when it comes to operating in the ice, but experience.

So I would argue right now the Coast Guard does not have a good career path for ice breaking COs, planning officers, or even any officer.

You're on board for three years.

In the first two years you never saw ice, and the third year you have ice, then that makes it problematic.

- [Mila] Aside from Coast Guard vessels, commercial tug boats assist ships in and out of port year round.

Captain Paul LaMarre III has been assisting ships in breaking ice on the Great Lakes for nearly two decades.

He says Great Lakes tugs can weigh 200,000 pounds or more, have thick hulls, sharp bows, and can break ice that's several feet thick.

- A tug like this will cut into ice, climb on top of it, and then the weight of the tug will allow you to break a path.

It is raw power.

- [Mila] Coast Guard ice breakers and commercial tug boats work together to move ships through the Great Lakes in the winter.

A Coast Guard vessel might lead a convoy to a harbor where commercial tugboats take over.

(bright music) - We, as the assist tug, will go out roughly an hour or two early from our tow time or the vessel's arrival, and break out the river prior to their arrival.

Where the Coast Guard cutter brings them up to the entrance of the river and that we then are able to go out to the vessel, hook up, and bring them into port.

- [Mila] Once in the port, the tugs continue clearing the ice out so the ships can safely reach the dock.

(gentle music) - You wouldn't think that ice that's only in an area that's three or five feet wide could prevent a steel ship from coming up against the dock.

But it does.

- [Mila] The environment aboard a ship when breaking ice is violent and loud with each impact reverberating through the entire vessel.

- It's a very brutal operation.

It is not nearly as smooth as it looks.

- [Mila] While it may look like the captains are just plowing their vessels through the ice, there is a great deal of reasoning behind each pass they make.

- In theory, your goal would be to drive directly at the ice and break through it in a straight line and have it break very efficiently.

That's not always the case.

The tug will often want to veer very rapidly off to one side or the other.

And so maintaining control of the tug in those conditions can be very challenging.

- [Peace] While you break it, it still needs to go somewhere, especially in the rivers where you have to move it out of a channel in order for ships to pass.

- One of the most common methods is cutting your path, clearing an area of open water, then turning around, going straight back through that path at almost full speed.

And what that does is throws a wake and breaks it like a piece of glass.

- [Mila] Massive ice sheets are constantly shifting and moving, which can trap a vessel or pile up into jagged masses called windrows.

- The windrows occur out on the big lakes.

They're wind-driven plates.

One plate rides over another and then provides a much larger chunk of ice there.

They can get upwards of eight, 10 feet tall, and that's one of the most dangerous times in the season as when the tracks have been laid in the ice, but they're starting to give way because the shore ice is pulling off.

That's when you get pinched.

You get shoved out of the channel by those big, large plates that come across.

And then that's really the scariest part.

- I think the biggest risk is the loss of propulsion in ice conditions where it puts you in a situation of peril of either being overtaken by an ice flow, where the ice will literally climb up on the tug, and/or if you are assisting a ship in ice conditions, you get stopped, and the ship is still coming forward behind you.

- You have to get out far enough in front of 'em.

You have to understand the conditions, and you just have to be prepared in case you have to get out of their way.

Because a 1,000-foot ship doesn't stop on a dime.

- [LaMarre] Safety is paramount.

It's a jarring endeavor.

But as a captain who loves tugboats, who loves the Great Lakes, it's also a lot of fun.

(graphic whooshes) (bright music) (graphic whooshes) - Often the conversation around biodiversity, land, and development leads back to the topic of ownership and property rights.

But author, entomologist, ecologist and conservationist, Doug Tallamy, has created a movement to circumvent that.

What if property owners reframed their perspective and looked at their plot of land as part of the larger ecosystem?

That's where the Homegrown National Park Movement comes into play.

Thank you for joining us, Doug.

- Well, a pleasure to be here.

Lisa.

- Doug, I'd love if you could break down what exactly the Homegrown National Park concept is.

- Well, we do have a biodiversity crisis.

It's global, but we'll just focus on this country.

We have parks and we have preserves and they're doing the best they can, but, you know, we still have this crisis, so it's not good enough.

What we need to do is start to practice conservation outside of parks and preserves.

That, of course, is on private property.

It's where we live, we work, we play, we shop.

So, the future of conservation really falls to the private property owner.

Problem is they don't know that.

They don't understand what the crisis is, how important it is, what their role is.

And that's where Homegrown National Park comes in.

- What's the best way to get started?

It's spring in Michigan.

I'm thinking about a little plot in my backyard.

What would you recommend to me as a beginner?

- Well, I would stop thinking about something that's so ugly we have to hide it in the backyard.

Front yard's an option too.

We always talk about backyard habitat, but that cuts our conservation area in half.

Most people have too much lawn.

There are four things that every landscape needs to accomplish.

It needs to support pollinators, a food web, it needs to sequester carbon, and it needs to manage the watershed.

And lawn doesn't do any of those things.

So reducing the area we have in lawn is step one.

How you do that, I mean, you can put in a pollinator garden.

The easiest thing is to plant a tree and put a bed under that tree, and that reduces the area of lawn around that tree.

Tree's gonna grow, so that bed can expand.

But, you know, I would recommend starting slowly.

Sometimes I give a talk and people say, "I'm gonna rip out all my lawn."

Don't do that, you have to have a plan for it.

That becomes a big job.

But if you planted one tree a year, and you did that for 10 years, you've had 10 extra trees in your yard and it would be very different.

- Within the realm of restoring biodiversity in someone's yard, what would you consider a success?

- Yeah, I think the easiest form of success in terms of measuring it is to have a bird actually nest on your property.

Because they can't do that unless the food they require is there.

Nesting bird forage is very close to the nest, usually around 50 meters within the nest.

So, that's your yard.

And it takes thousands of caterpillars to get a bird to complete its nest.

So you've gotta have all those caterpillars in your yard.

So if you have, let's say you have a nesting chickadee, that's a real measure of success.

- We're obviously really passionate about our watershed at "Great Lakes Now."

And I'm curious to know how native planting might help the waters in our local ecosystem.

- Well, again, let's go back to that lawn.

We've got 44 million acres of lawn in this country, and much of it is around the Great Lakes region.

When you have a storm event, most of that water runs off, and it takes the fertilizer and the pesticides and the herbicides that we put on our lawns with it into the Great Lakes.

So, getting any kind of planting instead of lawn is going to help the watershed.

But if you're going to put plants in your yard, why not do plants that do everything?

That help the food web, that support pollinators, that sequester carbon, and that guard that watershed.

So all of those things can be accomplished by putting native plants in your yard and reducing the area that's a lawn.

Big trees, of course, have big root systems that hold the topsoil.

They absorb tons and tons of water, believe it or not, before it even gets to the groundwater.

So getting the trees back is a big, big part of it.

- In my yard, I have an established heritage rose.

That's definitely not a native plant, but it's sentimental to me because my aunt gifted it to me when I moved there.

And I'm wondering what your thoughts are on gardening with plants like this.

- Your rose is not a native rose and what I think is, that's fine.

There is room for compromise here.

We did a study with chickadees in the suburbs of Washington DC.

And it turned out that if you had 70% of your plant biomass native, you could support a family of chickadees on that property.

But that leaves 30% of plants that didn't have to be native.

They weren't required to support that chickadee.

That's where your rose comes in.

That's where you have crape myrtle.

You can put anything in your yard as long as it's not invasive and as long as most of the plant biomass in your yard is native.

- I love that.

I think that's a great way to end the interview.

Thank you so much, Doug.

I really appreciate you taking the time today.

- No, you are welcome.

(graphic whooshes) (bright music) (graphic whooshes) - Thanks for watching.

You can find more about the stories in this show at greatlakesnow.org.

While you're there, please follow us on social media and subscribe to our newsletter.

(upbeat music) (graphic whooshes) - [Narrator] This program was brought to you by the Fred and Barbara Erb Family Foundation, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, Richard C. Devereaux Foundation for Energy and Environmental Programs at Detroit PBS, Polk Family Fund, DTE Foundation, and contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.

Thank you.

(smooth gentle music) (bright music)