Too much work.....

Today birding seemed like work. I had to work real hard (lots of pishing and waiting and many miles walking) in order to see few birds. And, once again, I missed a Broad-winged Hawk seen by someone else in the same area. Unbelievable. I started at McDonald Woods where Jim had a broad-wing yesterday. No such luck today. The only birds where your common migrant white-throats, RC Kinglets, and yellow-rumps. I did have nice looks at a male PINE WARBLER and heard another, but those were the best birds. Then I headed to school and walked the lake from about 8-9am. Didn't see a whole lot but Nick Minor had a Broad-winged Hawk and a Black-and-White Warbler. Missed both of those. Also nothing at Old School FP and I whiffed again on Barred Owl at Daniel Wright.
The best bird I had today was a FOY CHIMNEY SWIFT that I saw while hawk watching on top of the Butler Lake building from 9:45-11am. Also saw 2 COOPER'S HAWKS, 1 BALD EAGLE, 1 TURKEY VULTURE, 7 E. RED-TAILED HAWKS and 0 Broad-wings.

                                  Chimney Swift #145

Earth Day Weekend

Wasn't expecting a lot this weekend. We've had a lot of N/NW/NE winds the past few days so I wasn't thinking that there would be many migrants. Nevertheless, I headed down to Waukegan Beach and Ryerson Woods to try and nab a couple of birds before heading to my game at Highland Park.
  The beach at Waukegan had nothing on it, so the trip didn't start off well. I decided to take a walk through the blond grass in front of the beach parking lot before I left to try to find a Leconte's Sparrow given that my time was dwindling for this species. I kicked up a Song, a Swamp Sparrow, another Swamp, and then I kicked up a small bird that jumped into a very small bare shrub. I got my bins on it and was elated to see the golden face and gray cheeks of a beautiful LECONTE'S SPARROW! Bingo! These birds are extremely tough to find, and this bird was providing awesome looks, even though there were a couple of small branches in front of him.

These are the most beautiful of the sparrows IMO and my 2nd favorite bird. I drank in the long looks and then headed over to the pines to see what I could get there.
   Saw a few more kinglets, and white-throated sparrows, but also my FOY HOUSE WREN. It was only a quick glimpse, but good enough to ID. It also began singing which clarified matters.

   I then headed quickly over to Ryerson Woods to see if I could get a Louisiana Waterthrush. Unfortunately I whiffed on that bird. There were many birds singing, though, and I found a few new warblers. There were singing Nashville, Orange-crowned, Black-throated Green, and Yellow-rumped Warblers. I was able to get nice looks at NASHVILLE and BLACK-THROATED GREEN, but the Orange-crowned continues to elude me.

  Fast forward to Sunday. I was chosen to lead a COS trip at Rollins Savanna. The weather was a tad cold but pretty calm to start. We headed out from the Washington St. lot and immediately had a t'slicking Henslow's Sparrow. We couldn't find it, though. We ended up with 5 and finally got some nice scope looks at one. Our next target was a blackbird so we drove over to the animal hospital and tried to find the bird. Finally after a couple minutes of searching, a YELLOW-HEADED BLACKBIRD popped into view in my scope.

He didn't stick around long, though, and I wasn't able to get anybody on the bird, though one other person saw him as well.
  A trip to the north side didn't turn up much other than bluebirds and field sparrows, so we headed to the tennis court lot. There was a calling Cooper's Hawk in the small woodlot near the parking lot, but the best bird was a wheezing BLUE-GRAY GNATCATCHER.

So the trip ended and I headed over to COLSP to check the pines. I heard a Pine Warbler but no Yellow-throated. There were tons of gnatcatchers, RC Kinglets, and YR Warblers. Also saw a female WILD TURKEY, 3 FORSTER'S TERNS, and the Bird-of-the-day, a singing BLUE-HEADED VIREO! 144 baby :)

2 more for the year

  Things have been a little slow bird wise lately. I've been immersed in baseball and we've been having a lot of rain and north winds this week. We did have south winds yesterday and the day before so I went to Waukegan Beach and Redwing Slough before school the last couple of days. Unfortunately, I didn't see much other than a Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs on the beach. At Redwing, I went to look for a Yellow-throated Warbler but failed. I did hear a Pine Warbler. On the way back to the car at Ravens Glen West, I heard a t'slick-ing HENSLOW'S SPARROW right next to the parking lot. Listen here:
henslow's song.
  This morning after the rains I took a walk around Butler Lake and found my FOY PALM WARBLER.

  Tomorrow I can hopefully find a Louisiana Waterthrush. TTFN.

The Storms

Last night it rained. And rained. And rained more. We had a couple of inches at least along with some nice thunder and lightning. So after grocery shopping and meeting with my small group at church, I headed out to Waukegan Beach to meet my birding friend, Jim Solum. As with yesterday, expectations were a little higher than usual, but given yesterday's results, not THAT high. The beach was very windy. The winds were southerly, which was good, but at 20-30 mph it made seeing birds difficult. I heard both the wheezing of a Blue-gray Gnatcatcher and the "zit-zit" calls of a Bank Swallow, but didn't see either well enough to ID them decisively. On the way out, we decided to check the flooded lot on Seahorse Dr. just opposite the beach. Good call as there were Lesser Yellowlegs, Greater Yellowlegs, Pectoral Sandpipers, and my FOY DUNLIN.

Jim and I then parted ways, with him going to North Point Marina and me going to Ft. Sheridan to look for Leconte's Sparrow.

Neither one of us found much so we headed to Middlefork Savanna. Jim got there before me so he was pretty much done when I arrived, but I wanted to check out the north end fluddles before I left, so I walked off-trail. I ran into a group of 5 Greater Yellowlegs, 2 Pectoral sandpipers, and my FOY SOLITARY SANDPIPER.

   My last stop of the afternoon was Independence Grove. Jim had 2 Forster's Terns yesterday, which I missed, and others have had Bonaparte's Gull, which I've missed about 5x now, so when Jim texted me that both were on the beach, I made haste and got there as quickly as legally possible. Got nice looks at 1 winter plumage BONAPARTE'S GULL and 2 breeding plumage FORSTER'S TERN.

                            Winter plumage Bonaparte's Gull

                                       Forster's Tern

So I ended the day with 4 new birds, though it could easily have been 6. I had a falcon fly over me that I thought was a Merlin, but then concluded it was a female kestrel with backlighting. The mask on the face was too dark for a Merlin. So the weekend ends with no real good birds like a Bittern or a Leconte's or a Lark Sparrow, all of  which were found at Montrose this weekend. Location, location, location. The morning ends at 134.

A Tale of Two Outings

   Last night we had SSE winds and all week various birding prognosticators were saying that we should have our first big push of migrants this weekend. So, needless to say, expectations were high. This is the kiss-of-death in birding. Expectations are rarely met in my birding world and today was no different.
   I started the morning at Waukegan Beach hoping to find some gulls or shorebirds. Well, there were no shorebirds and the only gulls were Herring and Ring-billed, as usual. A walk through the grass yielded no Leconte's Sparrows, though one was found at Montrose today. In other words, Waukegan was dead as a doornail. Unreal. So I headed to my next destination which was Ryerson Woods to look for Louisiana Waterthrush, which has been fairly regular there the past few years. I spent the next 2 hours walking around at Ryerson. Not only did I miss the waterthrush, but I found no new birds at all. Lots of robins, cardinals, and Yellow-rumped Warblers. The time came for me to go to my baseball game, so I left for Evanston with 0 new birds for the year. Very disappointing.
   As the games progressed, I kept getting texts about the new birds Jim Solum was finding in various locations. It was a little frustrating knowing that I made bad choices this morning. I should have gone to Middlefork Savanna instead of Ryerson.
   Bring on outing #2. On my way home from the games, I had just enough time to stop at Middlefork and Independence Grove on my way to church.
  Middlefork is the only spot I know of in Lake County to have produced any shorebirds yet this year, so I stopped there and, thanks to Jim and Michal Furmanek, was able to locate 2 GREATER YELLOWLEGS and 4 PECTORAL SANDPIPERS.

                                  Greater Yellowlegs

                                 Pectoral Sandpiper

While looking at the sandpipers, I heard the rough buzzing sound of a swallow and was able to see 2 NORTHERN ROUGH-WINGED SWALLOWS.

Also heard a calling SORA RAIL right next to the trail.
Listen here: sora.
   My last stop of the day was Independence Grove. Jim had 2 Forster's Terns there earlier. I didn't see any Forster's, but I did see a full PURPLE MARTIN house.

So the day went from 0 new birds to 5. Turned out to be a pretty nice day after all. We'll see what happens tomorrow with storms coming tonight.

The soft warbling trill

Started off my day today determined to find a Pine Warbler. I'm sure that I heard 2 of them singing yesterday at St. Mary's Seminary in Mundelein. I couldn't get a look however. Listen here: pine warbler.
Anyway, I went back this morning to try and get a look. In one of the spots I heard them yesterday, I heard an unfamiliar chip note, so I stopped to check it out and was rewarded with a couple of nice looks at a female PINE WARBLER.

I wanted to see the male, though, so I continued to another spot where one was singing yesterday up in a pine tree (go figure :). He was still singing this morning and I was able to get some nice looks at him as well. My first non-YR Warbler of the year!

                                        #125

Adding a couple more...

So the winds were out of the North today and it was COLD!! Only in the 30's this morning. It was sunny out, though, so I thought I would check out the action around Butler Lake. Not a lot going on. There were 4 Pied-billed Grebes on the lake and a bunch of Tree Swallows flying around. I watched the Tree Swallows for a few minutes and thought I saw one with some orange on its belly. Sure enough I saw it again along with the streaming tail feathers. Positive ID for FOY BARN SWALLOW.

Later after practice I stopped at Almond Marsh on the way home and had nice looks at 2 adult BLACK-CROWNED NIGHT HERONS #123.

Not a bad day after all.