The "Grass" Plover #253

  This morning I had a birding appointment with my good friend, Jim Solum. Since we had west winds overnight we decided to hit the lakefront and hope for some good sparrows or shorebirds. We headed first up the beach which looked incredibly vacant save for some gulls. The habitat on the beach looked great, however, with a few small sandbars and some nice algae mats. Unfortunately, we saw no shorebirds as we headed north. Jim is very adept at hearing flight calls and picking up flying birds. Usually I just stand there in awe as Jim calls out all these birds flying over us. I've gotten pretty good at picking them out over the last couple of years, though, and I was right with him today as we heard LAPLAND LONGSPURS and PINE SISKINS flying over us. Felt pretty good about that :) We continued to the small beach pond where we saw the ever-present juvenile Black-crowned Night Heron and a juvenile Pied-billed Grebe. While we were standing there a MERLIN flew right by us. We were lucky enough to see a second bird later in the morning, so that was pretty cool. Nothing else noteworthy, though. We decided to head back to the pier and parking lot. As we walked down the beach talking, I was paying minimal attention to what I had already determined to be "nothing on the beach." I should know better, though. At Waukegan there can be nothing one minute and something amazing the next minute. As we're walking Jim suddenly exclaims, "Plovers ahead flying along the beach!" Plovers were our target birds for the day, specifically AMERICAN GOLDEN PLOVER and BLACK-BELLIED PLOVER. These birds can be tough to ID in juvenile plumage since they look very similar. The one easily distinguishable feature is the color of the axillaries, or "armpits," in flight. Black-bellied Plovers have black armpits and Golden Plovers have gray armpits.

                                              American Golden Plover

                                       Black-bellied Plover
                                          (internet photos)
As our birds turned and flew away from the beach and then came toward us, we could see that 2 of the birds had black armpits and one of the birds had pale armpits. The paler bird was also slightly smaller than the other 2, another characteristic of American Golden Plover. So, even though we didn't get extended looks, we saw the bird well enough to ID it as an AMERICAN GOLDEN PLOVER #253!
  I was doubtful about getting a chance to see this bird as it is normally found on sod farms along with other "grasspipers" like Upland Sandpipers and Buff-breasted Sandpipers. Amazingly, there are 0 sod farms in Lake County, so I thought my chances were slim of seeing any of these 3 birds. I know they show up on the beach at times, but that's always iffy, so I'm really happy I was able to see 2 of the 3 of these birds this year (missed Upland).
  On the way out we stopped in the pines and along the parking lot to look for sparrows. We had 1 GRAY-CHEEKED THRUSH, and 3 LINCOLN'S SPARROWS as highlights.
Thanks to Jim for another great morning of birding!

Ammodramus Slam

  Today I had the day off for Yom Kippur, so while my wife was working out at the gym, I headed out to Rollins to look for a Red-necked Phalarope and some sparrows. In the past week, Bob Hughes, Fran Morel, and Steve Bailey have seen a number of Ammodramus sparrows. These are some of my favorite birds and definitely my favorite sparrows probably because they are so difficult to get good looks at but also because of their rich orange, yellow, and ochre colors. There are 4 species of these found in Illinois: Henslow's Sparrow, Grasshopper Sparrow, Nelson's Sparrow, and Le Conte's Sparrow. Henslow's and Grasshopper both breed at Rollins so I have seen them a number of times this year. Nelson's and Le Conte's migrate through at the end of April and September. Nelson's is very difficult to find in spring but much more common in fall. By the time Nelson's and Le Conte's come through in the fall, though, Henslow's and Grasshopper are usually gone. I have never seen all 4 of them on the same day......until today :) I had a great time this morning watching sparrows pop up all over the place as I walked around the main pond. Nelson's were very common with 8 of them being seen. I never had great photo ops with them, however, and only managed 2 mediocre blurry shots:

                                        Nelson's Sparrow
  These sparrows love the Bidens plants which border the lower wet spots around the main pond.
  Le Conte's Sparrow has always been a difficult bird for me to find. They have this terribly frustrating habit of waiting until you almost step on them in the grasses and then fly about 3 feet and dive back in the grass. Then they run. Seriously. You see them go into the grass and think you have them, but they are nowhere to be seen. Evaporated like a whisp of smoke. Unbelievable. So today when I saw, not 1, but 2 of them sit right up for pictures, I snapped about 30 shots to make sure I got a couple of good ones.

                                         Le Conte's Sparrow
Le Conte's is similar in appearance to Nelson's, but Nelson's are grayer and more orange with a gray nape and crown stripe. Le Conte's are buffy yellow and more faded in coloration with a white crown stripe and subtle purplish streaks in the nape that you can vaguely make out in the above photo. A truly beautiful bird as is the Nelson's!
  The Grasshopper Sparrow is the one that I thought would be the toughest to find, since I haven't seen them in a while. As I was walking along the east side, though, I heard the tinkling call, and managed to pish one out of the grasses for a nice pic.

                                         Grasshopper Sparrow
The ochre color on the face, the flat forehead, and the bright eye ring are diagnostic for Grasshopper.
  The Henslow's Sparrow was, unfortunately, a heard only bird, with it's distinctive t'slick call. Would have been nice to get pics of all 4, but so goes it. My first ever Ammodramus Slam. Gotta love it.
  Another great bird for the day was the RUSTY BLACKBIRD. Only the second Rusty I've seen this year.

                                         Rusty Blackbird
Related to our more common Red-winged Blackbird, the Rusty is jet black in the summer and difficult to tell from Brewer's Blackbirds. In the fall, however, they turn the color that gives them their name. Very cool. They don't breed around here and are declining in number, so it's always good to see one.
  Another great day at My Favorite Place to Bird!

Another Nemesis No More!

  The last 24 hrs. have been wrought with moderate to fairly strong NW winds. This usually bodes well for fall migration along the Lake County lakefront. So today I headed to Waukegan Beach and both units of Illinois Beach State Park to see if I could find some thing interesting. Unfortunately there was only 1 shorebird at Waukegan, a SANDERLING. The prairie grasses and dogwoods abutting the parking area were alive with sparrows and warblers, however. I had 9 sp. of sparrow, and could have gotten more if I worked at it. Here's a few of them:

                                      Lincoln's Sparrow

                                      Savannah Sparrow

                               Chipping Sparrow

 Also had a PHILADELPHIA VIREO and a BLACK-THROATED    GREEN WARBLER.
    From Waukegan, I headed to IBSP South. My goal was to walk the Dead River trail to look for two birds, Lark Sparrow and Black-billed Cuckoo. Both are birds that I have never seen in Lake County. My chances of seeing a Lark were pretty slim, but I thought I had a decent chance of seeing a cuckoo. There had been a large number of BB Cuckoo reports in the past week, so I was thinking that they were on the move and more visible at this time.
Remember, if you will, that I have been looking for this bird since May.....and all of last year. It has truly been a nemesis bird for me in Lake County. In fact, the only place I've ever seen BB cuckoo is at Montrose where they practically sit out in the open. No such luck in Lake County. Today was to be a different day for me....though it didn't seem so in the beginning.
   As I headed down the trail I saw a couple of FOS (first of season) birds. I had 3 HERMIT THRUSHES and 2 BROWN CREEPERS. Creepers winter here and Hermits sometimes do, so a definite cold weather flavor was in the air. As I neared the end of the trail I entered an open area in between woodlots. In this area are a couple of willow shrubs and a dogwood thicket along the Dead River. I saw a couple of Lincoln's Sparrows here and as I entered the opening, a bird flew out of a willow and buried itself in an oak tree. I knew immediately that it was a cuckoo based on its brown color, slim body, and long tail. I couldn't tell if it was a yellow-billed or a black-billed, though, and that was frustrating. I walked up to the oak and the bird flushed above my head. I saw it fly to the next tree but couldn't make out any details. I looked into the tree but could see nothing so I walked up closer. The bird flushed again into the dogwood thicket where it buried itself. I was really frustrated at this point, because I had 3 chances to see the bird and missed them all. I finally gave up and continued around the bend to take the woodland trail back to the parking lot. I had walked about 1/4 of the way down the trail when I started thinking. What's my best chance to see a cuckoo, continue on or go back and retrace my steps along the Dead River? I decided to head back, hoping the bird had returned to the open after I left. Sometimes I make good decisions...this was one of them. I walked back to the same clearing and as I approached , the bird flew out of some dogwoods across the path to the edge of another thicket where it incredibly sat out in the open! I had great looks at the buffy throat of a juvenile bird and the black bill. A BLACK-BILLED CUCKOO!!! #252 and Nemesis No More!

                                     juv. BLACK-BILLED CUCKOO
    It's a good feeling when you finally find a bird that you've worked very hard to see. A very cool bird, indeed.
 

My Favorite Place to Bird

  It's been a frustrating couple of weeks for me. I've missed Mississippi Kite, Swallow-tailed Kite, Whimbrel, Whooping Cranes, and Snow Goose in the past 2 weeks here in Lake County. Family obligations and work schedules have kept me away from the lakefront for the most part, so I just haven't been able to go out that much. I'm 0-2 on the Mississippi Kite and 0-2 on the Whimbrel as well, so I made the effort at least. It's also been tough for me to make the 30 min. drive to the lakefront due to extreme nerve pain when sitting brought on by a pulled hamstring. The pain is literally a 9 after about 15 min. of driving. Thus, I haven't made it to the lakefront nearly as often as I would have liked.
  The one bright spot this month has been Rollins Savanna. Fortunately I live a mere 8 min. from Rollins, and I love this place. Though it doesn't have much in the way of woodland habitat, it has a little, and during many years, it is the single best easily accessible shorebird spot in the county. This year was no exception. It's easily the best grassland bird spot. It's also a good spot to see migrating raptors, and is also the best waterfowl spot in the county. So, unless you're looking for warblers, this is a truly awesome place to bird. The only drawback to it is that you really need to walk off trail to see the best birds. This can be difficult and treacherous at times. I've fallen into holes on more than 1 occasion but I know where most of them are by now, so I can navigate more easily.
  Since it's coming up on sparrow and raptor season, I thought I would head out there this weekend and see if I could find a couple of new birds that should be migrating through soon. Last night I headed over after school and had a couple of good birds:
1 Greater Yellowlegs
1 Pectoral Sandpiper
2 Northern Harrier
1 American Pipit
And......
#250 a cruising MERLIN that passed over one of the ponds and freaked out a bunch of Killdeer.

                                  internet photo
  This morning I headed back to search for a Nelson's Sparrow. Nelson's love wetland grasses, so Rollins is a great place for both them and LeConte's. Though the latter is much harder to find. In any case, I made my way around the main pond, saw a juv. BALD EAGLE, 3 juv. COOPER'S HAWKS, 1 SHARP-SHINNED HAWK, 2 juv. NORTHERN HARRIERS, 1 fem. AMERICAN WIGEON, and #251 a beautiful NELSON'S SPARROW.

                                   internet photo
2 pretty awesome birds, absolutely beautiful weather, and a stone's throw from my house. Gotta love Rollins!

The Hawkwatch

The hawkwatch is located at the North Unit of Illinois Beach State Park on 17th St. and Sheridan Rd. in Zion. It can be a pretty magical place in the fall as thousands of raptors migrate along the boundary of Lake Michigan. When conditions are good, typically NW winds on the backside of a cold front, you can see literally hundreds of raptors migrate past and overhead in one day. It's a very cool spectacle to behold.
  This morning I went to the hawk watch to hopefully find the Mississippi Kite that has been hanging around for 2 weeks now. I've attempted to find that bird at least 3 times with no luck. Today marks 4 since the bird was a no show for the 2 hours that I watched for raptors.
  The good news of the morning, though, was that I saw bird #249 for the year. A RED-SHOULDERED HAWK passed close by but slightly west of the hill. It was fairly high up but good looks could be had with my 10x bins. The coloration and striping and I couldn't see that well but the diagnostic pale windows at the terminal ends of the wing create diagnostic crescents that are only seen in Red-Shouldereds.

                                    internet photo
The pale crescents along with the black-tipped primaries distinguishes this bird as a Red-shouldered. The coloration and stripes seals the deal, but you can still ID this bird from the crescents. A gorgeous bird!
  Today's NW winds produced a good number of raptors for my time there. I saw 5 other species besides the Red-shouldered:  OSPREY, SHARP-SHINNED HAWK, COOPER'S HAWK, RED-TAILED HAWK, and TURKEY VULTURE. I'm sure that more would seen through the course of the day, including the kite.

#246, 247, and 248!

  Summer birding can be very monotonous and, after a while, I kind of got tired of seeing all the same birds or no birds at all. About a week ago, however, I was checking my bird mail (listserv emails with bird sightings from Wisconsin, Iowa, Indiana, and Missouri) and I noticed that there were multiple sightings of Red Crossbills in Milwaukee. Now Red Crossbills are tough birds to find in northern IL and, when you do see or hear them, it's usually in November or during the winter. Seeing them in August is incredible! Anyway, I checked the weather for August 17 and noticed that there were Northwest winds overnight so I decided to give it a shot and check the two best locations for crossbills in Lake County, Van Patten Woods and Lyons Woods. I stopped first at Van Patten Woods, where I saw Red Crossbills last November. Nothing, however. Then I headed to Lyons Woods in Waukegan. The great thing about Red Crossbills is that they have very distinctive "chit-chit" flight calls. As soon as I walked onto the path at Lyons, I heard a flock of RED CROSSBILLS fly over me doing repeated "chit-chit" calls. This happened twice before I saw them land in a pine near the trail. I looked up to get a nice look but didn't see anything more than the form of the birds as they flew over me again and out of sight. They were big finches, though, which fits, since RED CROSSBILLS are the largest of the finch group.
red crossbill call
#246 and a good one!
   Haven't done much birding since then except to check Nippersink mudflat once in a while. There are lots of shorebirds there but all common types. I keep thinking that it looks like a good spot for a Golden Plover or a buffy, though, so yesterday, August 24, I stopped at the mudflat to check again for buffies. BINGO! 4 awesome BUFF-BREASTED SANDPIPERS meandered around the mudflat with the numerous other common shorebirds. #247!

Today was yet another highlight even better than yesterday's, if you can believe that! I headed out to Rollins for some quick birding before having to head to Crossfit for a workout with my son, Doug at 8:30. When I got there it was gorgeous. Calm air, moderate-warm temps. I headed down to the edge of the main pond and walked the western edge of the pond. There were a number of the more common shorebirds scurrying about in the numerous muddy edges and flats. The habitat was excellent for mud-loving shorebirds. As I walked past the Cormorant Tree the pond doglegs to the west. I followed the shoreline and as I approached the end of the inlet, I saw a very large shorebird digging through the mud along with some Semipalmated Sandpipers. I looked at its gray body, olive green legs and bright white eyeline and immediately thought, "this is a RED KNOT!" Then I simultaneously thought, "No. It can't be" But I saw it lift its head, got a nice look at the short, thick, black bill, and confirmed that it was, indeed, a Red Knot! Tremendous bird for Lake County and even better bird for Rollins Savanna. #248 Woohoo!

Bob Hughes internet photo

#245 AND a Least Bittern!

  The day didn't start off well today or yesterday. After going 45 days in a row with little to no rain, now it's going to rain every day and eliminate all the shorebird habitat- at least that's my fear any time I read the weather forecast or look at the radar. So this morning when more rain came in, I was a little disturbed, to say the least. I had to alter my original plan to go to Vernon Hills first and check the athletic fields for Uppies. Now finding an Uppie in Lake County will take no small act of God. I've never seen 1 here and only heard of 1 or 2 in my 5 years of extensive birding. Still, I need to make the effort in order to have a shot at the record. In any case, I had to start at Waukegan Beach first, since it wasn't raining there, then hit Waukegan Airport, Vernon Hills, and Rollins to round out the morning.
  Waukegan Beach is a tough place to bird mentally. Usually there's absolutely nothing there except standard fare, but 1 day you'll hit something really cool. Initially it looked pretty bleak this morning. No shorebirds except the standard SPOTTED SANDPIPERS and SANDERLINGS. I was expecting something on the beach with impending storms looming dark in the west. I did see a shorebird farther down the beach, so I headed out to walk at least to the pond and back. Yes, there's a pond on the beach. It is favored by shorebirds every once in a while, but I haven't seen many in there over the years. There was a Tricolored Heron that hung out there for a few days in spring a couple of years ago. As I approached the pond slowly, I saw a Great Blue Heron to my left along with a juvenile Black-crowned Night Heron. In front of me I saw a juvenile Green Heron and next to it was a butterscotch ball with a bill staring right at me.....a LEAST BITTERN! I don't swear often, but I let one fly right there. I have never seen a Least Bittern in Lake County. I've HEARD them a few times, but never seen one. I've actually only seen them twice TOTAL in the U.S. and those were either distant looks or fleeting flybys. This was a killer look and it was AWESOME!!

  That was a pretty nice start to the day. I then headed to the Waukegan Airport. Airports are sometimes used by Uppies during migration as well as sod farms and hay fields, so I thought I would check it out. It looked promising but not much was there. Then I headed to Fairway Dr. in Vernon Hills where the Vernon Hills HS and Stevenson HS athletic fields are. This area looks very promising. I had 117 KILLDEER here and over 125 RING-BILLED GULLS. Also 2 HORNED LARKS and numerous blackbirds. If that many birds like the area, I'm thinking an Uppie can slip in there somewhere. I guess we'll see. Nothing today, though. I headed back home and stopped at the Peterson Rd. fluddle which had 6 STILT SANDPIPERS, 4 LEAST SANDPIPERS, 1 LESSER YELLOWLEGS, and 1 SEMIPALMATED SANDPIPER. Not too shabby.
  My last stop was at Rollins. My Rollins trips consist of two parts: taking my bike and riding around the loop to check the trailside ponds, and then hiking off-trail around the main pond. So I took off on my bike appropriately laden with camera, bins, and small scope. My first stop was the west trailside pond. It looks real good at the north end with a nice puddle surrounded by mud. I got off my bike and glassed the area with my bins....1 Killdeer, 2 Killdeer, and, wait....it looks like a BAIRD'S!

I got my scope on the bird and had a nice look at the buffy color on the chest, black legs and thin black bill, thin eye ring, long body, and...the key...long wings past the tail. This bird was also definitely bigger than the other peeps of the day. It was great to see this bird. I don't see many of them usually. The problem, though, was that this bird was very jumpy due to harassment by the Killdeer. It took off and flew away once only to return, but it was constantly flitting around the puddle until the Killdeer drove it off for good. Consequently I didn't get a diagnostic pic at all, which bugged me. Hopefully I will find another one, but still a great bird, #245 for the year! I finished the morning with 11 shorebird species, which isn't too bad for July in Lake County:

Killdeer  125     mostly at VHills athletic fields
Spotted Sandpiper  4
Solitary Sandpiper  2     rollins
Greater Yellowlegs  6
Lesser Yellowlegs  5
Sanderling  4
Semipalmated Sandpiper  1
Least Sandpiper  12
Baird's Sandpiper  1     rollins west side pond
Stilt Sandpiper  6     peterson rd. fluddle
Short-billed Dowitcher  1     rollins discovery trail main pond

Tomorrow the search for the Uppie continues!