Julia and I are on Drummond Island, Michigan, to survey one of my sites. We surveyed east of Manistique this morning after getting rained out yesterday. Then we took our time driving to the island, stopping at a pretty alvar beach along the way. An alvar is a limestone plain. The soil is too crumbly and shallow for many trees to grow, so there are some stunted bushes and lots of lichens, mosses, and prairie grasses. Alvars are found in particular regions of the Great Lakes, but mostly in Europe (Scandinavia). The biggest one is found in Sweden. It's a rare habitat around here and there are some rare species found on it. The Nature Conservancy owns a lot of the alvar land on Drummond Island to preserve it. The rocks have the characteristic pockets, seen in Figure 2. Figure 6 shows how little soil and how flat the limestone rock is. We also found some Indian Paintbrush and a yellow ladyslipper!
We also FINALLY found a place to stay at a B & B that's not open yet. The owner gave us a deal on the B and we have to get our own B. She even invited us to her cookout tonight.
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