TLC has begun fundraising to acquire 30 acres of forested beach ridge and swale habitat along Lake Huron in Burtchville Township. The property is located along the west side of M-25 about ½ mile north of Metcalf Road.

 

The habitat is very unique, restricted along the Great Lakes, composed of sand ridges and low muck swales paralleling the shoreline. The ridges are old beaches that began forming about 4,500 years ago as a higher post-glacial lake level began to subside, leaving a succession of sand bars, then beaches, beyond the waves.

 

Uncommon species like Purple-flowering Raspberry (the Lower Peninsula¡¯s equivalent of the Upper Peninsula¡¯s Thimbleberry) and Yellow Lady¡¯s-slipper Orchids are found in this habitat. 

For anyone that has done any bird watching along the shoreline, it is obvious that this habitat is a critical pathway for an abundance of migratory birds. For more information about this habitat, see the Thumb Habitats article in the December 2003 edition of The Lakeshore Guardian here.

Beach ridge and swale habitat is part of what truly makes

the Blue Water Area and Thumb shoreline unique.

TLC must raise well over $100,000 in a short time.

We hope this will be the first acquisition of a larger shoreline initiative.

Here are some photographs of a few species

found in this special Great Lakes shoreline habitat -