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.