7/14/14
Yesterday Andy Stewart and I journeyed forth on my 19th straight monthly Big Day, 18 of those in Lake County. As always it was filled with surprises and frustrations, but it ended up being my 2nd most rewarding Big Day (after May) of the year.
The day started rather bleakly and with a great deal of uncertainty. I have never started a big day in the rain before, and I wasn't about to this month, but at 12:00 midnight it was raining and only a few minutes earlier there had been some nasty thunderstorms and wind. We were currently under a tornado watch until 1am. Not exactly ideal conditions for nocturnal forays to hear birds. I was ready to cash it in right there at 11:30pm and go back to bed, but the radar showed the storms to be moving fairly quickly. Sure enough the rain was all but done by 1:00am. I called Andy and picked him up at his house at 12:45. After loading the car up, we headed to our first stop, Bowen Park. Bowen has since been ousted by COLSP as my favorite place for EASTERN SCREECH OWL, but I wanted to go east to west and start daybreak at Grant Woods. This necessitated starting at Bowen to maximize our chances for screech owl. Cue the first major frustration of the Big Day: powerless iPod. I made sure to check my iPod for power before leaving the house and it showed a full green battery. So I THOUGHT I was good to go. However, no sooner did I pull said iPod out of my pocket and turn it on, than the "charge battery" light went on. NOOOOOO! This ticked me off quite a bit, but I still had my iPhone which WAS powered up. It's not very loud, though, which is why I like the iPod w/speaker. Anyway, I played the tooting and whinnying calls a couple of times with no response. After about 5-10 minutes, I decided to play the "squeals and bill snaps" choice from the Sibley App. I didn't even get through half of it before a screech owl flew right over our head squealing. I had never heard this call from a screech owl before, so it scared the bodily fluids right out of me momentarily, but then became probably the coolest birding moment of the day. Pretty nice bird #1 at 1:27am.
From here we headed to the South Unit where we had a juvenile GREAT HORNED OWL making begging calls not far from the visitor center, and a distant, but clearly audible EASTERN WHIPPOORWILL calling. 2 great birds, but we were disappointed with 0 rails. IBSP is always a great rail spot, so getting none was a little disturbing. We then headed to Spring Bluff where we had our only Sora in June. Today we got nuthin except a nicely hooting adult GREAT HORNED OWL, which was a bird that Eric Lundquist and I missed last year. So we had 2 owls and 1 whip but 0 rails as we headed west. Our private residence for Common Gallinule gave us no gallinule but it did give us a nicely grunting VIRGINIA RAIL. No Sora, though. Deja vu. In June we struggled to get this bird, as well. Since when is Sora a tough bird? I had them through September last year with no problem. I wasn't liking our Sora-less landscape in Lake County right now. Sure enough, neither COLSP nor Volo Bog, another great rail spot, surrendered a Sora, which became our first big miss of the day. Big Disappointment soon became Jubilant Elation, however, as our ever-faithful BARRED OWL took all of 1 second to respond to my "who-cooks-for-you" call at Lakewood FP. Love that bird. So we ended the night with all 3 owls, which was 2 better than last year. Nice.
DAYBREAK:
Friday and Saturday this week I put in a lot of time into scouting, and I found some pretty nice birds, so I wanted to maximize my chances for getting them on Sunday obviously. I thought that the best way to do this would be to hit Grant Woods first and then Daniel Wright before heading to the lakefront. This strategy added a couple of birds, but should have given up more. At Grant Woods, we heard/saw our only BROWN THRASHER and OVENBIRD of the day, but the Alder Flycatcher and Pine Warbler were silent and invisible. I knew the Alder would be tough, but I thought we would get the Pine. As it turned out, we missed 5 birds yesterday that I had on Friday. That was incredibly frustrating. It makes me wonder what the actual point of scouting is???? Scouting for habitat and probability is useful, I suppose. I need to realize, though, that birds are fickle. Just another of the challenges of Big Day Birding. So on to Daniel Wright which gave us our only HOODED WARBLER as a "good" bird. Off to the lakefront where we got nothing of note at Waukegan except CASPIAN TERN, a beautiful buffy-chested juvenile PEREGRINE FALCON at the Midwest Gen, a calling YELLOW-BILLED CUCKOO in the woods at Lyons Woods (we had another YB fly in right in front of us at Middlefork), LARK SPARROW, BREWER'S BLACKBIRD, and a calling BELTED KINGFISHER at IBSP South (Andy also spotted one fishing from a wire off of 173), BLUE GROSBEAK at the North Unit, and a pair of HOODED MERGANSERS in the slip at NPM. Biggest miss at this point was Grasshopper Sparrow. Not sure how we missed that bird. We were there around 10:00am. Maybe they were siesta-ing by then? Who knows. Anyway we headed west to Kelly Rd. and Crawford Rd. where, at 1:00pm, I was not hopeful of getting a Vesper Sparrow. However, joy-of-joys, our last stop on the way out I heard a singing VESPER SPARROW off the road by a farm building. Woohoo! Andy missed hearing it, though, so that was our 2nd dirty bird of the day (I heard a couple of Yellow Warblers earlier as well). At East Loon Lake we had 2 BLACK TERNS (we had 5 at the boat launch at COLSP) but our golden spot for Yellow-headed Blackbird, which I had on Friday, gave us nada after looking for 15 minutes. That was probably the toughest miss for me because I know that bird is there. We headed to COLSP hoping for a bundle of birds that we needed.....and we got most of them, which was awesome. COLSP is a great place to bird and consistently gives you SCARLET TANAGER and YELLOW-THROATED VIREO, which it did yesterday as well. It was the only spot for these birds as well as ROSE-BREASTED GROSBEAK, and OSPREY. Best bird here, though, may have been a low-flying flyover PECTORAL SANDPIPER- our first migrant shorebird of the day.
After leaving Chain-O-Lakes I played my Shot-in-the-Dark Card and strolled over to Sullivan Lake to check for swans. We saw 1 bird on the lake, but it was a good one, a beautiful adult TRUMPETER SWAN. Hadn't seen that bird for a few months so that was a big pick-me-up. Over at Lakewood the CLAY-COLORED SPARROWS were still buzzing away at 3:30 in the afternoon, which was awesome as well.
The Make-or-Break spot for us has always been Rollins, though. It's by far the best waterfowl spot, and this year, the ONLY shorebird spot in the county. And today it did not disappoint. We had 6 shorebird species here with the best being 2 SHORT-BILLED DOWITCHERS. We also had 2 RUDDY DUCK males and a calling PIED-BILLED GREBE. The big question I have, though, is "where, o where, have the Blue-winged Teal gone?" I have not seen one of these birds since the beginning of July. Don't ever remember them being tough to find in July. I had 8 of them last year. Hope this isn't a nasty harbinger of some sort, along with the dearth of Soras.
With a couple of stops left we headed to Almond Marsh for BLACK-CROWNED NIGHT HERON and GREEN HERON (also another HOODED MERGANSER), to Independence Grove for PURPLE MARTIN, and then to Fort Sheridan. We still needed Baltimore Oriole and Red-headed Woodpecker. Strangely enough, we had probably 5 or 6 ORCHARD ORIOLES but no Baltimores, so we hopped on our bikes and slowly rode around the wood-chip trail near the south ravine by the parking lot. In about 5 minutes we had a great look at a head-high male BALTIMORE ORIOLE followed by nice looks at an adult RED-HEADED WOODPECKER.
We finished off the day at Middlefork looking at a YELLOW-BILLED CUCKOO and then sipping gatorade on the patio of a friend while we watched her hummingbird feeder to no avail.
I stopped at Rollins on the way home for 2 HENSLOW'S SPARROWS which had eluded us on the day, so that gave us 3 dirty birds: Vesper Sparrow, Yellow Warbler, and Henslow's Sparrow.
It was a pretty awesome day, and we did pretty well, but I'm always thinking how it could have been better. We missed 3rd place for a Northern Illinois Big Day by 1 bird and 2nd place by 7. I can't help thinking we had a good shot at 2nd place if we would have gotten the 5 birds I had on Friday. Those plus a coot, Bw Teal, and grasshopper sparrow give us a tie for 2nd which would be spectacular. I'll take 108 for a July Big Day in one county, though. A day which beat our June Big Day of 104.
Thanks again to my compadre, Andy Stewart, whose good-natured temperament and patience even out my spastic personality, and whose sharp eyes always pick up a good bird when we need it (can you say distant turkey vulture?). Thanks also for hauling that heavy scope through vegetation for an hour and a half! Thanks also to all the people who responded very quickly and clearly to my many emails. Your help is greatly appreciated.
As always, Good Birding!
Here's the List:
lake county big day, Lake, US-IL
Jul 13, 2014 1:30 AM - 9:30 PM
Protocol: Traveling
200.0 mile(s)
Comments: w/andy stewart
108 species
Canada Goose 1
Mute Swan 1
Trumpeter Swan 1
Wood Duck 1
Gadwall 1
Mallard 1
Hooded Merganser 1
Ruddy Duck 1 male, non-breeding w/white cheek patches
Pied-billed Grebe 1
Double-crested Cormorant 1
Great Blue Heron 1
Great Egret 1
Green Heron 1
Black-crowned Night-Heron 1
Turkey Vulture 1
Osprey 1
Red-tailed Hawk 1
Virginia Rail 1
Sandhill Crane 1
Killdeer 1
Spotted Sandpiper 1
Solitary Sandpiper 1
Lesser Yellowlegs 1
Least Sandpiper 1
Pectoral Sandpiper 1
Short-billed Dowitcher 1
Ring-billed Gull 1
Herring Gull 1
Caspian Tern 1
Black Tern 1
Rock Pigeon (Feral Pigeon) 1
Mourning Dove 1
Yellow-billed Cuckoo 1
Eastern Screech-Owl 1
Great Horned Owl 1
Barred Owl 1
Eastern Whip-poor-will 1
Chimney Swift 1
Belted Kingfisher 1
Red-headed Woodpecker 1
Red-bellied Woodpecker 1
Downy Woodpecker 1
Hairy Woodpecker 1
Northern Flicker 1
American Kestrel 1
Peregrine Falcon 1
Eastern Wood-Pewee 1
Willow Flycatcher 1
Eastern Phoebe 1
Great Crested Flycatcher 1
Eastern Kingbird 1
Yellow-throated Vireo 1
Warbling Vireo 1
Red-eyed Vireo 1
Blue Jay 1
American Crow 1
Horned Lark 1
Northern Rough-winged Swallow 1
Purple Martin 1
Tree Swallow 1
Bank Swallow 1
Barn Swallow 1
Cliff Swallow 1
Black-capped Chickadee 1
White-breasted Nuthatch 1
House Wren 1
Sedge Wren 1
Marsh Wren 1
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 1
Eastern Bluebird 1
Wood Thrush 1
American Robin 1
Gray Catbird 1
Brown Thrasher 1
European Starling 1
Cedar Waxwing 1
Ovenbird 1
Common Yellowthroat 1
Hooded Warbler 1
American Redstart 1
Yellow Warbler 1
Eastern Towhee 1
Chipping Sparrow 1
Clay-colored Sparrow 1 continuing
Field Sparrow 1
Vesper Sparrow 1 continuing
Lark Sparrow 1 breeding at this site; singing
Savannah Sparrow 1
Henslow's Sparrow 1
Song Sparrow 1
Swamp Sparrow 1
Scarlet Tanager 1
Northern Cardinal 1
Rose-breasted Grosbeak 1
Blue Grosbeak 1 continuing
Indigo Bunting 1
Dickcissel 1
Bobolink 1
Red-winged Blackbird 1
Eastern Meadowlark 1
Brewer's Blackbird 1 continuing
Common Grackle 1
Brown-headed Cowbird 1
Orchard Oriole 1
Baltimore Oriole 1
House Finch 1
American Goldfinch 1
House Sparrow 1
