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!