Michigan Trail Tuesday is our attempt to showcase a different trail or trail segment each week. The Mitten State is home to thousands of miles of trails, including the new Iron Belle Trail that runs from Detroit in the southeast to Ironwood in the western Upper Peninsula and more miles of the North Country Trail than any other state.

One of our travel goals for this year was to hike a new-to-us trail in every county in Michigan, so we have been out exploring almost every weekend since the snow melted. Last month we visited Anderson Woods Nature Preserve in Muskegon County and had a great time checking out the trails, doing some birdwatching, and enjoying signs of spring! This preserve covers 76 acres near Whitehall and has two miles of trails. A small parking lot off of Simonelli Rd. puts visitors at the trailhead, where you can start following a well-maintained gravel path into the woods.

Anderson Woods offers two miles of trails on two loops, and the one closest to the parking lot is a hard surface trail. We found this trail to be wide, well-maintained. We took a right turn from the parking lot onto the trail with the intent to do the hard surface loop until it connected to the outer natural surface loop. With it still being early spring the trees hadn’t filled out much yet so we had clear lines of sight for birds. Unfortunately, we didn’t see or hear many through the first part of the hard surface loop.

A sign along the path highlighted some of the birds and plants to be on the lookout for. When the intersection with the outer loop came up, we took a right and headed into some deeper woods. The trail wasn’t as wide here, but was still easy to follow. Along the way we saw a few plants like the wintergeen shown above, and started to hear some active woodpeckers, a few brown creepers, a cardinal, a tufted titmouse, and even a yellow-rumped warbler.

After the outer loop re-joined the hard surface path, we started to finally see and hear a lot of wildlife. Squirrels and chipmunks popped up on both sides of the path, and we even got spotted a northern flicker that had been making quite a racket. This bird was peeking out of an older tree near the top of the forest canopy.

As we got closer to the parking lot we spotted this chipmunk peeking out of a tree stump. For a visit that had started quietly, the second half of our two-mile hike at Anderson Woods was the complete opposite.

A red bellied woodpecker was putting in some work on a tree branch as we got back to our car, which made for a great ending to another great visit at a Land Conservancy of West Michigan preserve!

Anderson Woods Nature Preserve is located at 3901 Simonelli Rd. in Whitehall. The parking lot has room for six to eight vehicles and the trail begins just past the map and information sign.