0 for 4.... 2/22/12

Birding has been a little tough lately. I've whiffed on all my target birds for the past 4 days. My goal right now is to find owls, geese, and a Black Scoter. Those are all pretty tough in Lake County but I'll need them to have a crack at the record.
  I headed out to Volo Bog on Sunday and thought I had found some great habitat for a Saw-whet owl but after checking EVERY tree, I came up empty. The one highlight of the day was seeing my FOY SANDHILL CRANES. One was actually doing a mating dance in the middle of the bog! Pretty cool stuff.

On Monday I started the day off with great looks at a staked out NORTHERN SAW-WHET OWL. The first time I've ever seen one. That was awesome! Unfortunately, the owl was in Cook County.

  Then I traipsed around Grant Woods and COLSP. Didn't see much at all. Best birds were a FOX SPARROW and my FOY RED-WINGED BLACKBIRD.
  Yesterday I headed out to Middlefork Savanna to check out some Long-eared Owl ebird records from '08. Unfortunately, I could not see anywhere that a Long-eared Owl would be found. What I did see was a lot of wiped out shrubs and hedgerow along the trailside creeks where many warblers, sparrows, etc. used to hang out. Won't be seeing those anymore at Middlefork. It amazes me how our forest preserve district just clear cuts huge areas without replanting anything. Aren't they supposed to be preserving habitat? One of the trees they removed was box elder, a native tree, and a favorite of finches. Not understanding this philosophy. Anyway, on my walk back to the car, I had a flyover female WOOD DUCK #97.

  Today was pretty frustrating, though. I went to both Daniel Wright Woods and Ryerson Conservation Area to look for Barred Owls which have been seen/heard there numerous times by others. I've already tried calling them in 3 previous times in the past 2 months with no success, so today I really wanted to get one. I spent over 40 minutes trying to call one in today but couldn't get a response. Very frustrating and I don't understand why the owls are not responding.
Anyway, I'll have to try again another time. Saw about 100 Robins picking through the forest litter which was kind of interesting to see.
(all photos from the internet)

Lake County Lakefront 2/19

    Headed back to the lakefront this morning in hopes of finding a Black Scoter, Harlequin Duck, or Peregrine Falcon. Unfortunately I whiffed on all 3 of those but found just about everything else you would look for in the way of waterfowl. Highlights:
Waukegan:
WHITE-WINGED SCOTER-25 (4 in the water right off the end of North Pier and 21 fairly close flybys)
RED-THROATED LOON- 2 (both flybys that landed in the water fairly far away. ID'd by 2 tone body coloration, longer, slower wingbeats, and longer neck than Mergs. Lighter colored and slimmer than Common Loons)
DARK-WINGED SCOTERS-8 (I'm pretty sure these were Black based on very round heads and smaller bodies, but the back-lighting was so bad and they weren't very close, so I can't tell for sure)

North Unit/Sand Pond:
Iceland Gull-1

NPM:
This place was rocking'. I stood watching birds fly over the lake for 90 minutes. That's an eternity for me. There was constant action, though.
WHITE-WINGED SCOTER - 33 (all flybys)
SURF SCOTER- 4 (flybys that landed and I could see a flash of white on at least one of their heads)
DARK-WINGED SCOTER- 58 (distant but the heads looked larger compared to body size than the birds I saw at Waukegan. Many of them landed in the water at the horizon. You couldn't see them after that.)
RED-THROATED LOON- 2
LOON SP.- 3 (distant and really couldn't tell if they were Pacific or Red-throated. Too trim for Common)
LONG-TAILED DUCK- around 300 ( probably 10 were close enough to see tails and whitish heads, but even the distant ones you can ID because of their twisting turning flight with dark wings that look too big for their bodies and the fact that they don't fly in formation. They fly in swarms and often dump into the water. They also are the smallest ducks flying in the distance.

Also stopped at Volo Bog before heading home. Not much here except the usuals, but I wanted to check for owls, which I, of course, did not find. Highlights:
SANDHILL CRANES- 3
EASTERN BLUEBIRD-1
YELLOW-RUMPED WARBLER-2

Definitely a great day to be out!

Gull Frolic 2/18

Today was the annual Gull Frolic hosted by the Winthrop Harbor Yacht Club and the IOS. Unfortunately the gulls that were there were either flying around or were in the middle of the south docks and backlit by bright sunshine. In either case, they were very difficult for me to ID, so I didn't spend much time looking at them. However, there were a couple of nice non-gull sightings. The best of these by far was my FOY SNOWY OWL (LCYB #94). I've been looking for this owl for the past month and a half so this was a very welcome sighting, indeed. She was sitting on the north break wall very near the harbor mouth.

   There was also a female-type SURF SCOTER in the harbor along with 2 AMERICAN BLACK DUCK and the more common birds. While we were watching the scoter, someone called out some flybys, and we were able to get nice looks at 4 fairly close WHITE-WINGED SCOTERS.

   At Lyons woods I had nice looks at 3 RED-BREASTED NUTHATCHES. Unfortunately I didn't hear any crossbills or finches of any kind. The Snowy was a nice gift from God, though. Tough to beat that!

The Quest for owls part II

Today I had some time before heading off to Bible study, so I thought I would try to find my flushed owl from Sunday. Sure enough, as I approached the pine grove, I saw an owl fly. This time, though, I was positioned to be able to follow the owl to another branch. It sat nicely in the open and I was able to get great looks at #92 GREAT HORNED OWL.

Always tough to get owls, so that was a real nice bird for today. Then I headed to the lakefront and ventured to Shiloh Park in Zion. Apparently wild birds sometimes hang with the semi-domesticated mallards at the pond in Shiloh Park. Sure enough, there on the grass was a female AMERICAN WIGEON #93. Another sterling day of birding. The weather was great today. Mid 30's and mild winds with overcast skies. "Shooting" for some geese tomorrow :)

A Quest for owls....and such.

Sunday 2/12 brought slightly warmer temps and slightly gentler winds. After my small group meeting and church service I headed out to Independence Grove to look for some owls. On my way out I had great looks at a light morph male Rough-legged Hawk over Peterson Rd. Possibly the same bird that I had there a couple of weeks ago. Love those birds!
  I've always thought that the pine groves at Independence Grove would be a good spot for some owls, so today was the day to check it out. I meandered my way through the conifers. No owl yet, but I got nice looks at #90 YELLOW-RUMPED WARBLER.

I continued through the pines. As I was walking in the middle of a stand, I saw the shadow of an owl flying behind me. But I was buried in the pines, so I couldn't see anything. I walked out to get a look, but saw no owls. Instead, I had great looks at a beautiful WESTERN RED-TAILED HAWK dark morph.

  Having failed on finding the owl, I decided to head to McDonald Woods to find white-throated sparrows near the feeders on the wood chip path. The shrubs near the feeders were alive with sparrows. I first heard, then saw 3 WHITE-THROATED SPARROWS #91, including an adult male:

Another great day to be out in the field marveling at God's awesome creation.

The Wind Continues.........2/11

   It seems that every weekend there are gales blowing across northern Illinois. Could be my imagination, but when I go out during the week, the winds are almost always calm. Once Saturday hits, though, the 20-30 mph gales come back. A little frustrating. This time accompanied by bitter cold. It was 8 degrees at 7am with a wind chill approaching -15. Not exactly great birding weather and bordering on insanity.
   I started the morning at Waukegan where the harbor was largely iced in. The lake did have a couple of scaup flocks bordering 15-20 individuals but nothing else. The most memorable event of the morning was the pain in my face as it froze while I walked the long walk back to the car from Government Pier.
  Since I had to be home by 11am I hustled to NPM to get a good look before heading home. No Harlequin was seen anywhere, but after scanning 3 separate groups of gulls, I was able to finally pick out 2 GREAT BLACK-BACKED GULLS (a 1st yr. and a 3rd yr). LCY bird #86.

Then I headed home for lunch with my wife and daughter before they headed off to a play. I had the rest of the afternoon to look for wrens in Lake Forest and check out some newer places. Almost as soon as I got to Lake Forest, I got a call from Jim Solum. Apparently a Ross' Goose had been seen by Steve Bailey at St. Mary's Seminary in Mundelein. So I quickly headed over there and got some great looks at LCY bird #87 ROSS' GOOSE which is a great bird for Lake County!

From here I headed to Shaw Woods in Lake Forest to look for winter wrens. Unfortunately I didn't find any of these, but I did have a nice flock of 10 CEDAR WAXWINGS #88 fly over me. And as I was looking for the waxwings I spotted a COMMON GRACKLE #89.

                                Cedar Waxwing      

                                    Common Grackle
A great day with 4 new year birds in spite of the winds!

Lake County Lakefront 2/4

  I woke up this morning with a little bit of anticipation over today's birding possibilities. The last two days have seen other birders finding loons, scoters, and long-tailed ducks, so I was hoping that I might be able to share in the viewing of some of the more uncommon waterbirds.
  I started the morning off at Waukegan Beach where I checked both piers, the north beach, and the southernmost drive-on pier. There were birds but just the everyday variety of mergansers, Bufflehead, Greater Scaup, Common Goldeneye, geese, and mallards. From here I headed to NPM and was pulling in the parking lot just as my birding pal, Jim Solum texted me to say that he had 2 scoter sp., long-tailed ducks, and no loons. I talked briefly with Jim before heading down the road on foot to the southern point of the park. It was windy but not brutal, about 15-20mph. The water was pretty choppy, though, and finding ducks would be a challenge. Fortunately, the first bird I saw was sitting comfortably in the south slip of the harbor in calm, glassy water. I got some nice shots of a female SURF SCOTER (LCY bird #83).

On the lake were the regulars but I quickly saw some very dark birds with white wing patches fly right in front of me. 13 WHITE-WINGED SCOTERS made not one pass, but two, so I could get some nice looks at about 100yds.

  Didn't see anything else, though, so I headed back to the car to go to IBSP North. Just as I got back to the car, Jim called me to say that he had a red-throated loon at the North unit. I hustled over there to meet Jim, but the loon was AWOL. As I said before, the water was very choppy and tracking water birds was tough. That, combined with the fact that loons will travel large distances underwater when they dive, makes it difficult to follow these birds. It didn't really surprise me that the bird was no longer visible. I started working my way north along the beach scanning as I went along. Finally after looking for about 15min. I found the RED-THROATED LOON (LCY bird #84) about 100yds from the spot where Jim had him. He dove almost immediately and it took me another 5 min. to find him again. He still didn't stay up long and this time vanished for good. I never saw him again. A beautiful bird!

I continued south to Hosah Park where I had really bad looks at 2 SURF SCOTERS in the choppy surf and morning glare off the water. I could tell they were surfs by the blocky, square head with the triangular doorstop bill. I also had 4 LONG-TAILED DUCKS fly by in the distance. Long-tailed Ducks look quite singular when they fly. Unlike most ducks, they twist and turn in flight and you can see their white sides and belly contrasting with their all dark wings which seem very long for their size and flap almost butterfly-like. They also rear back and throw their feet up when coming in for a landing.

  I finished the morning at Lyons Woods, finch capital of Lake County. I'd been teased once by 2 finches back in early January that I'm pretty sure were white-wings but I could never see them since they were buried in the branches of a pine. I could hear their periodic calls, though. Can't count an unseen finch, though, so I continued to search and come up empty. Today as I walked in the place was silent. Not even a chickadee was making a sound, so I made a couple of screech owl calls and played the chatter of the white-winged crossbill. Nothing. I continued walking. In about 5 more minutes I heard them. Paydirt! A group of 8 flew into a tree right in front of me and I was able to get a great look at an adult female.

WHITE-WINGED CROSSBILL (LCY bird #85). That's a big one. White-wings are tough to get in Lake County. A truly awesome day!

Tufted Titmouse!!

Last week Sue Tinkle found a Tufted Titmouse at the Oak Spring canoe launch in Libertyville. That same day Nick Minor, Pat Palmer, and I went over there to find it. However, we could do no better than to stand on one side of the Des Plaines River while the bird called repeatedly from the other side in a private backyard. I went back a few days later and heard nothing. Yesterday, I decided to go back and see if I could find some Yellow-rumped Warblers that had been found a few days earlier in the same area. As I walked along the path near the river it turned west. Just as I rounded the corner I heard a distinct "peer-peer-peer." It was the elusive titmouse! I scurried back to the river and started doing my own "peer" calls. The bird then stopped calling. What I found to be interesting about this bird was that pishing and repeating its calls seemed to scare the bird away. So I stopped calling and just started scanning the area with my bins. Couldn't see much, though, since the riverbank was thick with branches. I didn't see or hear anything for a few minutes so I walked away. As soon as I left, I heard him again but this time he was on my side of the river. I ran up the bridge and finally saw the TUFTED TITMOUSE singing atop a bare branch. Woohoo! Lake County Lifer #279!