COLSP Raptors 1/29

At 8:00am this morning, there was a blizzard. At 8:45 the sun was out. The wind continued throughout the day, unfortunately, for the 2nd consecutive day. This ruined an otherwise beautiful day. I hate wind so I battled the elements for a couple of hours and came home.
  At Volo the feeders were busy with the regulars. The best bird here was a cruising sub-adult male NORTHERN HARRIER. Also had nice looks at 2 SWAMP SPARROWS. On to COLSP.
  At the Chain, there were lots of raptors. I saw 2 ROUGH-LEGGED HAWKS (dark juvenile, light male), 3 E. Red-tailed Hawks (1 juv, 2 adult), 2 SHARP-SHINNED HAWKS, and 1 juv. BALD EAGLE. Also saw 3 BROWN CREEPERS and 1 FIELD SPARROW. Pretty sure I heard a WW Crossbill fly over me near the spruces in the parking area, but, of course, I didn't see anything and only heard the call once.

light morph adult male Rough-legged Hawk

Unfortunately, no new year birds today, but a good day nonetheless. 

Ryerson Redpolls!

  So this morning I got up and checked my IBET email, as is my usual routine in the morning while I eat my breakfast at 5am. Usually there is nothing real exciting because not too many people post from Lake County. This morning, however, there was a gift. My birding friend, Al Stokie, had gotten a message from Nan Buckhardt, who lives at Ryerson Conservation Area, that she had 2 Common Redpolls at her feeders yesterday. I've been trying to get that bird for the past 3 weeks with no luck, so this was big.
  I headed out there around 7 and tried to call in a Barred Owl, which I whiffed on for the 2nd time this week. As I was walking back to the parking lot, I heard the distinct and repeated raspy "chit-chit" flight call of, what I can only think would be, a Red Crossbill. There is really nothing for them at Ryerson, though, so I brushed it off and continued to the parking lot. I got in my car and drove down the exit road toward Nan's House. The feeder setup is easily viewed from the road, so I stopped the car and quickly glassed the feeders. Bingo! 1 COMMON REDPOLL (#80) was feeding on the thistle sock with some goldfinches. I got my scope on it to get a better look and then went around the back to see if I could get a photo.

Nothing artsy, but you can see the bird pretty well. That's a great bird for Lake County! I eventually was able to see a 2nd bird for a
2-redpoll morning!
  I figured I would stay out of the 35mph winds as much as possible, so I checked the feeders at Heller Nature Center. This was a little disappointing as their feeders are mostly empty and nothing out of the ordinary was present.
  I decided I would make a couple of lakefront stops and deal with the wind to see if any gulls or divers were around. At LF Beach the hills block the wind well so it wasn't windy at all, really. The only birds for the most part were Red-breasted Mergansers, though. I then headed to NPM to check for gulls. There were none. The south docks have some ice, but there were no birds. The rest of the yacht club is open water and the only gulls I could find were either out on the lake or flying overhead. The wind is ferocious here so I didn't stay long.
  I finished the morning with a stop at birding pal, Jim Solum's house for my first good looks at 2 PINE SISKINS. Apparently Jim has had up to 10 at his feeders this winter.

  So I had a couple of nice finches today with the help of my birding compadres. It's always better when victories are shared with others. Thanks, men!

The Magic Puddle.......Again!

So around 2:30pm this afternoon I get a text from my birding pal, Jim Solum who tells me that there are Tundra Swans at Independence Grove. Now any swan other than Mute is a great bird for lake County, so Nick Minor, Pat Palmer, and I headed over right after school to get some great looks at these splendid birds.

The Magic Puddle

  Independence Grove FP is a very picturesque location suited more for people really than for birds. There are not many wild plantings and the main pond is designed more for fishing than for waterfowl seeing as there is virtually no emergent vegetation along the edges or within the body itself. It has a swimming pond and many rolling hills with paved trails. In spite of the myriad of human visitors and disturbances, it continues to house a good supply of birds, some of which are very rare elsewhere. This fall a Red-necked Grebe spent a  couple of weeks here and just a month or so ago, Al Stokie found a couple of Tundra Swans here. Cackling Geese are consistently found here in the fall and Snow Geese can often be found here as well.
  In the winter there is an area of ice that takes longer to freeze than the rest of the pond, though I'm not sure why. It is not a very big opening but it manages to attract a large number of waterfowl species. It looks like a big puddle......no kidding. The following species were present in the puddle today:

 1. Canada Goose
 2. Mallard
 3. American Coot
 4. Gadwall
 5. Red-breasted Merganser
 6. Common Merganser (f)
 7. Redhead
 8. Northern Pintail (m)
 9. Lesser Scaup
 10. Ring-necked Duck
 11. Mute Swan

  I had nice looks at the rear peaked head of the LESSER SCAUP and a bonus gift of a beautiful NORTHERN PINTAIL. 2 new year birds today!

                               Northern Pintail

                                      Lesser Scaup

Rough-legged Hawk!!!

  I was hoping to at least get a Rough-leg and a couple of waterfowl today. As an added bonus some rare finches would be nice. Alas, no luck on the finches but finally hit pay dirt on the ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK.
  I started the morning at Lakewood FP hoping to see some Common Redpolls in the vast stands of birch and alder, but my 4th try ended the same as my other three.....nada, zippo, zilch. Not a peep. Amazing. David Johnson had 10 at the Buffalo Grove Metra Station on Friday morning. Are you kidding!? A Metra station? I'm a little befuddled by those redpolls. I then wandered over to St. Mary's seminary in Mundelein to check the VAST supply of cones for crossbills. This is another conundrum. There are cones galore at this place, small ones at that, yet not a peep from anything but a chickadee, cardinal, or woodpecker. Unreal. Why are they only in Rockford?
  At Independence Grove is a small open water pit with a surprising variety of waterfowl. I saw all 3 mergansers, AMERICAN BLACK DUCK, RING-NECKED DUCK, and a Scaup sp. with a peaked, taller head in the middle and duller white on the side. It was kind of a tweener for me, though, so I'm not counting that one.

Ring-necked Duck

                                  American Black Duck

 Adler Park had nothing. The boat launch had the standard fare, but I thought I heard a "peter-peter" call in the background a couple of times, but nothing definite. It still bugs me that I had that bird calling right across the river a couple of weeks ago and could not get a visual.
  Heading to church west on Peterson Rd. I saw a hawk on top of a tree at roadside. I quickly pulled over (no traffic fortunately). Just as I got out of the car, the bird lifted off and instead of retreating, fluttered and hovered right in front of me for some awesome looks at an adult ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK. There was another hawk a bit farther down the road perched atop some feeble twigs that also looked like a Rough-leg.

  Wish I could get a few finches somewhere, but the Rough-leg made up for it!
1 new year bird today.

1/21/12 McDonald Woods Comes up Big

Well, following yesterday's snowstorm I was hoping for some good birds today. I started as per usual at Waukegan Harbor and beach but the place was almost completely iced in. There was a bit of open water at the end of the piers, but nothing but ice in the harbor. The regulars were visible: Common Goldeneye, Bufflehead, all 3 mergansers, Mallards, Greater Scaup. Not much happening so I headed for Lyons Woods. Things were a little better here. I could hear some Black-capped Chickadees in the background, so I headed off-trail into the pines area. As I emerged from the spruces, an adult SHARP-SHINNED HAWK flushed and landed on a branch not too far away.

Very nice! New year bird #1 for the day. Also calling was a Red-breasted Nuthatch. On to IBSP South to check the beach. Completely iced in. Not a water bird in sight. Headed to the North Unit and got nothing there either, so I finished my lakefront run at NPM (North Point Marina aka "Gull Heaven"). Hoping to find some gulls, I pulled up behind the yacht club and parked. The place was complete ice save for a hole near the south docks and some open water at the mouth of the harbor. Unfortunately not very many gulls were present. Probably 40 or so gulls, including 2 adult THAYER'S GULLS.

From here I headed to Van Patten Woods to look for finches, but even though there are some nice pine trees and birch stands, there were no finches. As I was walking the trail, though, I heard some high-pitched "tree-tsee-tsee, tsee-tsee" which sounded very much like a kinglet. I walked under some pines and, sure enough, 2 GOLDEN-CROWNED KINGLETS were flitting up in the needles.











Year bird #2 on the day. For my last stop, I decided to hit the trails at McDonald Woods in Lindenhurst. There are some good feeder set ups here as well as some varied habitat. Needless to say, the Woods did not disappoint. It was very birdy here with White-breasted Nuthatches, American Goldfinches, House Finches, American Tree Sparrows, 4 species of woodpeckers, crows, blue jays, and brown creeper. Nothing new, though, until I saw a juvenile COOPER'S HAWK hanging around by the feeders.

They like these spots due to the high density of prey items, songbirds. A very nice bird, indeed. I headed into the pines, which, once again, look like prime habitat for White-winged crossbills but no such luck. So I headed back. On my way back, I heard the single, longer "seeee" calls of some type of sparrow. I've heard White-throated, Song, Savannah, and Fox all give similar calls as these, so I began scanning the shrubbery and found a tree of American Robins, a Northern Flicker, and the source of the calls, a beautiful FOX SPARROW. My first ever January Fox Sparrow! Very cool.

So I ended up with 4 new year birds today to give me 75 for the year so far. All 'n all a pretty good day considering the slow start and lack of water birds this am.

Quest for the Rough-leg 1/17/12

    Though I had a 1 sec. look at a ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK last weekend as it ducked behind a barn, I really want a better look at a very cool bird. Consequently on the heels of Pat Palmer's double sighting on Sunday, Pat, Nick Minor, and myself headed for Rollins Savanna to see if we could catch up with one of these elusive birds.
  The trip started off well as I spied a male AMERICAN KESTREL on a power line on the south side of Rollins Rd. as we headed to the Drury Ln. parking lot.

   Once in the lot, we scanned the area but saw nothing. We ventured north on the trail toward the observation deck. We stopped a few yards short of the deck and scanned again. This time we got nice looks at a male "gray ghost" NORTHERN HARRIER as it cruised right above the grasses.

   After checking the observation deck area, we meandered south through the grassland. Not far from the observation deck we encountered a band of about 50 or so AMERICAN TREE SPARROWS

with a SONG SPARROW thrown in.

  We continued south and were able to see another Northern Harrier. This time a female. As we prepared to round the corner and head back, I saw to the east a group of 4 SHORT-EARED OWLS hunting and some were barking! Totally cool.

    Unfortunately, we never did see the Rough-legged Hawk, but we saw a few cool birds nonetheless. Always a good day when you're birding!

MEW GULL REDUX

So yesterday I get a call from by birding friend, Adam Sell, who says, "I found your Mew Gull!" I immediately reply, "You're kidding me?!" So I gather my camera gear and head to North Point Marina to get a photo. Well, on the way there, Adam lost the bird. We searched for 45 min. with no luck before I had to leave. Fortunately some other guys showed up later and the bird was refound and confirmed with photos as only the 3rd Lake County record for MEW GULL. Woohoo! #71 for Lake County.

                                            Mew Gull

Western Lake County 1/16

    This morning I had 2 target birds, Common Redpoll and Rough-legged Hawk. As is often the case, I found neither of them. Birds were tough to come by in general this morning. I started the morning cruising the backroads and open areas around Lake Barrington and Cuba Marsh but saw nothing save for a couple of Red-tailed Hawks. I stopped at Cuba Marsh to check pines for owls (none) and the stands of birches lining the main pond for redpolls (none). There were a number of BC Chickadees and 2 BROWN CREEPERS ( capitalized birds are either target birds, new year birds, or first sightings of the year- some birds I've previously ID'd by call or song).

  I also had a flyover PINE SISKIN.

I then headed to Lakewood FP in Wauconda to check the vast stand of birch and alder off of Ivanhoe Rd. for redpolls (again none). I did have another flyover Pine Siskin, though. My last stop of the morning was Volo Bog. I wanted to check the feeders and the tamaracks for crossbills or other finches. I whiffed on those, but there were tons of sparrows. The sparrows were mainly 3 sp. (song, swamp, Am. Tree) BUT I had 1 nice bird that is really unusual this time of year, a FIELD SPARROW.

The weather was a bit breezy but the upper 30's for temps were nice.
   It still baffles me, though, how there can be 100+ Redpolls at Chicago Botanic Gardens, where there is one small island of birches, and NONE where there are large NATIVE stands of these same trees. It's a little frustrating. The Lake County '12 List stands at 70.                           
                                          Swamp Sparrow

All photos from the internet.

January 15, 2012

  After my small group meeting at church today I headed north to North Point Marina with visions of Purple Sandpiper and Snowy Owl dancing in my head. When I got there, I noticed easily 300 CANADA GEESE. In fact, I think it was the most geese I have seen in one place without being able to pick out at least 1 other species of goose. Just a huge monoculture of Canadas.
  Also out on the ice was a nice squadron of gulls. Eager to see if I could refind my Mew-type Gull from Friday, I walked over to the patio behind the yacht club to set up my scope. Now, as a socially conscious birder, one needs to always be aware of the "flushing" distance. That is to say that one needs to be aware of how close they can get to a group of birds before they take off. I used to be pretty good at this, but either I, or the birds, have changed in sensitivity to this issue. In any case, I flushed all gazillion gulls on the ice and the sky was raining gulls for a few minutes afterward. I definitely lost a few in the transition but most of the gulls repositioned themselves back on the ice. After sifting through the gulls, I found nothing of note. Al Stokie, Dave Johnson, and Bob Erickson showed up shortly thereafter and we moved to Stateline Beach to check the beach and view the gulls from a different angle. Nothing of note was at the beach, but the new viewing angle of the gulls  uncovered an adult LESSER BLACK-BACKED GULL and a beautiful adult GLAUCOUS GULL. Nice! Bird #68 for Lake County '12.

Never did see the Snowy or the Purple Sandpiper :(

  Learned a valuable birding lesson yesterday: always bring your camera. I found a bird that looked very good for a 2nd or 3rd cycle MEW GULL yesterday but since I have no photo, I have no documentation or help with the ID. That's the 2nd bird in 2 weeks that I have needed a photo to document and have not been able to get one.
  I went back to North Point Marina to find the bird but was not able to do so. I did see at least 3 THAYER'S GULLS and 1 ICELAND GULL, however. I wasn't able to find the Purple Sandpiper, but Greg Neise found it later. Birding can be a very frustrating avocation at times.
 Tomorrow I will make a concentrated effort to find the sandpiper.
 I also was able to finally, after searching NE IL for 2 weeks, find a ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK at Singing Hills FP in Wauconda.