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!