Spring

Bird Watching

Get your life list off to a great start this spring. From pileated woodpeckers to the endangered piping plover. Bluebirds, buntings, waxwings, hawks, ospreys, eagles, and loons. This diverse ecosystem with its fields, forests, cedar swamps, hardwood hills, rivers, beaver ponds, and the magnificent coast of Lake Michigan is a stop over point and nesting ground for a staggering variety of migrating birds. The Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore is arguably the birding paradise of northwest Lower Michigan.

Foraging-Morels

With the melting of the winter snow and cool coming of the first April rains, the budding forests of northern Michigan flower with trillium. Whitetail deer tend to their spotted fawns. Wild turkeys strut and gobble. The forest bustles with life and a cacophony of bird song. The landscape is brilliant with more shades of green than you ever thought imaginable. If you can manage to pull your eyes away from the natural beauty that surrounds you look down. Here, the king of all mushrooms an earthy delicacy known as the morel can be found poking up out of the leafy litter. They're right there for the picking. All you need is a keen eye.

Manitou Passage Golf Course

Manitou Passage Golf Course an Arnold Palmer signature course was redesigned by Palmer and rebuilt to become a destination course. It now offers five traditional tee boxes, strategically placed hazards, lush fairways and exceptional greens in one of the region's most spectacular natural settings. To complement that, there's unmatched service on the course and in the all-new clubhouse. The course is located just south of the Manitou Passage on M-22 between Glen Arbor and Leland. See it online at: www.manitoupassagegolfclub.com.