Guide to Significant Wildlife Habitat - Door County Web Map

• Waterfowl often visit the area in the spring and fall. Canada Geese (Branta canadensis) and Mallard
(Anas platyrhynchos) are seen nesting along the shore and in the adjacent woods (Corbisier 2000).
The basin houses a variety of frogs including spring peepers (Hyla crucifer), leopard frogs (Rana
pipiens), wood frogs (Rana sylvatica), and gray tree frogs (Hyla versicoloer).
• Red-shouldered Hawks have been heard in the lowland swamp. Other birds observed in the upland
hardwoods include Scarlet Tanagers, Ovenbirds, Eastern Wood Pewees, and Red-eyed Vireos
(Grimm 2001B).
• Rare plants include the state threatened linear-leaved sundew (Drosera linearis goldie), sedge (Carex
exilis) and arrow-grass (Triglochin maritima). The Red-shouldered Hawk is state threatened. Bog
copper butterflies (Lycaena epixanthe), a state special concern species, are also found near the
alkaline fen.
Hibbards Creek
Hibbards Creek, upper Door County’s longest steam corridor, is 7.4 miles long and varies in
width from 10 to 30 feet. It has a low gradient of 7.6 feet per mile and originates southeast of Thorp Pond
in a series of springs and emergent wetlands. The creek drains a watershed of 21.9 square miles.
Emergent wetlands, conifer swamps, dry-mesic woodlands, and ridge-swale complexes are characteristic
of the stream corridor.
Hibbards Creek is the only stream in Door County monitored by the USGS under the National
Water Quality Assessment Program (NWQA). Under this program, Hibbards Creek is used to compare
other streams with similar physical settings. According to the USGS survey, habitat, algae, benthic
invertebrates, and fish scored a fair rating (Corbisier 2000).
• The Hibbards Creek watershed is in the Towns of Jacksonport and Bailey’s Harbor. Both towns have
adopted the county’s zoning ordinance.
• Land use surrounding the creek is primarily agriculture with lesser amounts of woodland and
residential area along the lakeshore. A sand and gravel quarry is located adjacent to the stream.
Future residential development is planned along the stream corridor off of County Highway A
(Grimm 2001).
• Soils are mostly shallow to deep, well drained, and nearly level to moderately steep. A sandy loam or
loam subsoil lies over loam, fine sandy loam or dolostone bedrock (USDA SCS 1978).
• Overall, stream habitat is ranked good. Most of the stream is considered a warm water forage fish
community, but 2.8 miles of the stream are classified as Class II trout water (Corbisier 2000).
• Vegetation in the northern portion is comprised of wet-mesic and dry-mesic woods. These were
traditionally maple (Acer spp.), hemlock (Tsuga canadensis), and yellow birch (Betula allgheniensis).
Hibbards Creek flows through conifer swamp and shrub-carr before it passes through a ridge-swale
series and empties into Lake Michigan. (Corbisier 2000). In the 1830’s, a vegetation survey found
that paper birch (Betula papyrifera), sugar maple, white cedar (Thuja occidentalis), hemlock, quaking
aspen (Populus tremuloides), willow (Salix spp.), beech (Fagus grandifolia), basswood (Tilia
americana), tamarack (Larix laricina), and white spruce (Picea glauca) were common tree species.
Understory is beech, sugar maple, hemlock, pine, cedar, and tamarack (Grimm 2001).
Bay to Lake Wildlife Corridor 101