Michigan’s Sleeping Bear Birding Trail ("SBBT") spans an excellent migratory flyway and thousands of public acres along the Lake Michigan coastline. The Trail is home to the Piping Plover, an endangered shorebird that needs undisturbed beach for nesting. The Trail is anchored by Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, a National Park and an Important Bird Area ("IBA";) with 71,000 acres of public land and 35 miles of beaches. The length of the Trail covers all 123 miles of Michigan Highway M-22 which runs from Manistee on the southern end to Traverse City at the northern terminus. The Trail and M-22 outline the northwest shoreline and the “little finger’ of Michigan’s mitten peninsula. The diverse habitat, significant public access, and many miles of shoreline make the Trail a birder’s paradise. There is a lot to experience along the Trail; we take pride in our habitat variety from forests, orchards and vineyards to wetlands and beaches.
Sleeping Bear Birding Trail is brought to you by Saving Birds Through Habitat, a conservation organization working to protect North America's declining bird population. Click the logo to learn more about the work we do.
