Courtesy Photo A Kirtland’s warbler appears in this undated photo provided by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

ALPENA — About 900 small birds twittering in Northeast Michigan treetops offer a reason to celebrate, officials say.

In a June census of Kirtland’s warblers — a songbird once in danger of extinction — researchers counted 452 pairs of the bird in Presque Isle, Montmorency, and Alcona counties.

Tallied at fewer than 200 pairs in the world in the 1970s, the bird has rebounded in northern lower Michigan, at one time the only place in the world the warblers nested.

Officials now estimate the Kirtland’s warbler global population at 2,245 pairs, all living in northern lower Michigan, the Upper Peninsula, Wisconsin, and Ontario, according to recently announced results of a 2021 Kirtland’s warbler census.

Census-takers counted 98 pairs in Presque Isle County, 153 pairs in Montmorency County, and 201 pairs in Alcona County, according to John Pepin, spokesman for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.

One of the first species in the U.S. added to the federal list of endangered and threatened species, the songbird winged its way off the list in October 2019, when officials estimated around 2,300 pairs lived in northern Michigan and neighboring forests.

Though officials have declared eagles, peregrine falcons, and other birds of prey no longer endangered, Kirtland’s warblers represent the first songbird with that distinction, Pepin said.

Last month, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declared the ivory-billed woodpecker extinct, along with 22 other birds, fish, and other species.

Efforts by conservation groups, the DNR, the U.S. Forest Service, and private land managers to preserve the young jack pine forests in which Kirtland’s warblers nest help keep the warbler from a fate similar to that of the ivory-billed woodpecker.

Landowners and those who recreate in northern Michigan woods can lend a hand in protecting the yellow-bellied Michigan songbird by learning about the bird and supporting efforts to preserve its habitat, Pepin said.

Kirtland’s warblers nest on the ground, under protective low-hanging branches of young jack pine trees.

Recent human efforts to reduce forest fires also reduced the number of young trees that follow a fire, limiting locations for the birds to lay their eggs. Intentional harvesting and reforesting, by local land owners and others, helped the bird recover and continue to thrive.

Conservation groups have also worked to control parasitic brown-headed cowbirds, which threaten Kirtland’s warblers by laying their eggs in warbler’s nests, compelling warbling parents to raise cowbird offspring at the expense of their own.