Summer Comes Early...

  Now that baseball season has started, I pretty much have only 1 day a week to go birding, which is kind of a bummer, but I do enjoy coaching baseball with my buddy, Sean Ferrell. After reading all the sightings this week, my game plan was to get a Rusty Blackbird this weekend. I started the morning at the Russell Rd. entrance to Van Patten Woods. I scoped the river from the top of the hill and found a total of 0 waterfowl. Not real promising. I put the scope back and headed down the DPRT. There were numerous sparrows flitting about and I had some nice looks at SONG, AMERICAN TREE, FOX, and 1 SAVANNAH SPARROW. There were also 6 HORNED LARKS in the cornfield and 7 GREEN-WINGED TEAL in a fluddle.
  From here I detoured back around to the 173 entrance and parked at the first lot near the yellow trail. Almost immediately upon walking onto the trail I heard a persistent "fee'-bee, fee'-bee, fee'-bee". Could only be an EASTERN PHOEBE which I was able to get nice looks at a moment later.

 I continued down the trail for about another 30 ft. when BAM! out exploded 2 female WILD TURKEYS!!! from the woods. A Lake County lifer for me and Lake County year bird #109.

I was so excited that I texted Jim right away and forgot to follow the birds. Bad etiquette. Sorry, Jim. I'll pick ya up next time or find you some turkeys at the Chain.
  Nothing else of interest was noticed so I headed to the North Unit to check the North loop trail for Rusties. No dice. Feeling a little frustrated after going 0-2 at 2 good Rusty spots, I headed back to Rollins. As I was heading west, Jim called me to tell me he was looking at 3 Rusties in Gurnee Woods on the DPRT. I bolted over and eventually had nice looks at 2 male and 1 female RUSTY BLACKBIRD Lake County Year Bird #110.

  We also heard probably another 10 birds calling in the wet woods along the river. Thanks to Jim for my target bird!

  Today on the way back from practice I decided to see if the pelicans reported by Peter Grant were still around, so I headed over to Addison Ln on Lake Catherine. The road is no parking, but I pulled over at a couple of spots and scanned the lake. I saw 12 COMMON LOONS and way off to the west on the edge of the cattails were 4 AMERICAN WHITE PELICANS (LCYB #111). Another good bird for Lake County.

  The title of my post is due to the incredible weather we've been having. For the past 2 weeks the temps have been in the high 70's-low 80's. More like May than the end of March. It's been awesome. Tons of south winds and a bunch of early migrants. Bring on spring!

The Winter Wren!

  This weekend I got 3 new birds to put me at 106. I'm a little perturbed that I've missed both Snow Geese and Greater White-fronted Geese. Jim had both of those on flyovers. I haven't seen hardly any geese in the air at all this spring and they have all been Canadas. Frustrating but that's birding.
  Saturday morning after returning from the grocery store at 5:30am, I passed an area in Old Mill Creek on Rt.45 just north of Grass Lake Rd. that had some wet meadow near a forest edge. Seeing as there was no traffic here at this time. I pulled off the road, turned my car off and rolled the window down. Almost immediately heard 2 distinct and separate "peent"s and the twittering noise of a display flight. AMERICAN WOODCOCK! Awesome. Unfortunately, I had to get home and didn't have time to see if I could get a visual on the performers. Here's a great youtube clip on the mating call and display: American Woodcock
   This morning, Sunday 3/11, I headed out to the lakefront to try and find geese or Black Scoters on the move. I started at Van Patten Woods where I saw some waterfowl in the distance but they weren't geese so I didn't bother with them. I then went to the Point at NPM and scanned the lake for birds. The regulars were there along with 2 female-type WHITE-WINGED SCOTERS. Also at NPM was my first flock of BROWN-HEADED COWBIRDS this spring. The weather was beautiful with temps in the 50's and light south winds, so it was a great day to be out.
   The next stop was the South Unit of IBSP where a marsh wren was heard yesterday. I checked the pond where the bird was heard, but I got nothin'. Tons of SONG SPARROWS were out and about.
  The bird of the day, though, was identified by its twinkling flutelike song: Winter Wren
  The Winter Wren (#106) is a little brown fluffball of a bird but it has a beautiful voice! I heard this bird while walking on the road at the South Unit near the lodge. It was singing in a small woodlot with many logs and shrubs. I could never get a visual, though. It just kept moving away from me.

Pulaski Day weekend 3/3-3/5

After a beautiful week of balmy 60's and upper 50's, Friday brought with it the promise of a 3-day weekend combined with the din and numbness of winter winds. For the 2nd week in a row we got significant snowfall accumulations on a Friday right before the weekend followed by a series of days with cold NNW winds. Not good for spring migrants, so my hopes weren't very high Saturday when I left practice around 11:45am to head west and hopefully find some geese. I headed out to Dowell, Neville, Darrell, and Fisher roads in far NW Lake County but saw nil except for a couple of HORNED LARKS. I continued north toward Volo Bog and stopped at Sullivan Lake when I saw what looked like a dark-billed non-Mute swan. I got out of the car into the stiff 20mph winds and was
able to get nice looks at a beautiful TRUMPETER SWAN (#99).

Trumpeter Swans have a large black bill that completely encloses the eye as you can see above. The similar Tundra Swan has a smaller bill that pinches off the eye:

There's also usually a yellow spot near the eye which you can kind of see in this picture. Anyway, that was a great bird and only my 3rd in Lake County. From here I headed over to COLSP to look for a Turkey Vulture. I headed down the Goldfinch trail and lo-and-behold there was a TURKEY VULTURE (#100) soaring right along the trail!

From hear I headed home quite pleased with the day's findings.

  Sunday I had trouble deciding where to go, as usual, so I started on the lakefront at 6:30 am hoping to find a Black Scoter. I saw a few birds moving north around 7am that were definitely dark-winged scoters. Unfortunately, as is usually the case with me, they were too distant to accurately ID. Other than that nothing was moving on the lake, so I headed to Van Patten Woods where I also had nothing. I had gotten a call earlier from Jim that he had some birds behind the citgo station on 41, so I decided I would head over there. I took a detour by way of Delaney Rd. so I could scan the skies for any passing Golden Eagle (one can always dream :). Never saw any raptors, but I flushed a group of sparrows on the road as I drove past, so I pulled over to check them out. Good thing cuz #101 WHITE-CROWNED SPARROW was playing right alongside the American Tree Sparrows.

There were 2 juvenile birds along with a beautiful adult. As I finally pulled into the Citgo Station I could see that the wetland area had a few birds. There were 6 NORTHERN SHOVELERS, 2 NORTHERN PINTAIL, and #102 GREEN-WINGED TEAL

Nice! Last stop was Rollins Savanna where I added namesake SAVANNAH SPARROW (#103) along with the Song and Tree Sparrows. Ended up the morning with 21 sp. of waterfowl which is not too shabby!

3/1/12 Independence Grove

It's been a rough week for birding. I started coaching baseball on 2/27 and haven't had a lot of time to get out. I went out Wednesday 2/29 but the wind was blowing at 35mph and it was about 30 degrees and raining. Needless to say, I didn't stay out long. I went out for about an hour yesterday and had my first new bird in over a week, a Killdeer. Woohoo!!!!

Starting to feel like my chances for a Greater White-fronted Goose are slipping away. Hopefully I'll be able to get out and see some good birds this weekend!

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!