MacArthur Woods: The Pileated Haven

   I do breeding bird surveys for the Lake County Forest Preserve every summer and keep track of Short-eared Owl numbers at Rollins  for the fall and winter, so I correspond often with Gary Glowacki, the LCFPD wildlife biologist. At the end of May, I gave Gary a list of the birds I was looking for this summer and asked him to let me know if he found any of them. Well, he immediately told me that he scared up a Pileated near data point 104 in MacArthur Woods earlier in the month. I should tell you a little about MacArthur.
   MacArthur Woods is a beautiful forested area along the Des Plaines River and lies just to the north of Daniel Wright/Half Day FP. The differences between these places are vast, however. Whereas DWright has many amenities to make the area more attractive to people, MacArthur is very wild. It has no trails. It does have fallen timber everywhere and a lot of it is buried beneath herbaceous ground cover. I literally tripped my way through the woods as I moved to the river and then again as I made my way back to the car. It's not a fun hike. You also need either a compass or a GPS to find your way around safely. You can't see the sun well usually, so it's easy to get disoriented. I had no compass or GPS this morning, and nearly got lost. It was the first time that I've ever been out hiking where I actually didn't know where I was. Fortunately I was able to find the sun and make it back to the car.
   Anyway, I decided to follow up on Gary's sighting and venture down to the river to see if I could hear anything. So I walked due west from my car for about 15min. to the Des Plaines River. As I was nearing the riverbank I heard the characteristic descending hammering of a Pileated.....and it was very close! I have never actually seen a Pileated in Lake County before so that was exciting.
I immediately pulled out my iPod and played the Pileated call. As soon as it started playing, the woodpecker began calling from across the river. calling pileated A second later it flew right over me for great binocular looks. I played the call again, it flew over me again. It flew by a third time after that. Tremendous! That was a great bird for me to get this year. Too bad others could'nt have seen the Pileated as well.
Maybe next time :)