Steve Bailey, Andy Stewart, and I meandered our way through myriads of birds on Sunday, Sept. 14 for my 21st consecutive monthly Big Day. The weather was beautiful, though a bit chilly in the early morning hours as it dropped to 41 degrees! I'm definitely not ready for bone-chilling cold again.
We started the day at Rollins Savanna at 2:00am and promptly ticked off both VIRGINIA and SORA RAILS. This was a big lift since these birds have been a tad difficult to get since May. We also heard a juvenile GREAT HORNED OWL doing a very high-pitched squeal that sounded rather odd to me, so I was hoping we would get another one. We heard 2 other juveniles during the course of the night, and had nice looks at 3 adults during the day/night. No adults were calling, though, which was interesting given the number we had last month (only 2 weeks ago).
We then were off to Lakewood. Steve let fly with his famous Barred Owl call but we heard nothing initially. Then on about the 3rd try, we heard our buddy off in the distance. Definitely clearly audible but, also, definitely not close. He's been moving around quite a bit these days. At COLSP we had 2 calling EASTERN SCREECH OWLS, so the only bird left for us was the Whip. We arrived at IBSP around 4:30 and played the call. Shortly we had a nicely responding EASTERN WHIPPOORWILL behind the nature center. A great start to the day with all of our expected nocturnal species. We finished the evening at Middlefork trying for a Least Bittern or King Rail but no luck. We also had numerous calling SWAINSON'S THRUSHES flying over us during the night, but we could not hear anything else. A nicely silhouetted GREAT HORNED OWL in the wetland tree was our last bird of the evening hours.
We started the day at Daniel Wright where we had no less than 4 calling WOOD THRUSHES and a kekking COOPER'S HAWK. We then headed quickly over to Ryerson where my first tactical error occurred. With visions of Warbler Grandeur dancing in my head on the heels of Doug Stotz's post yesterday about his 20 Warbler species, I figured we would head to the river where Doug had most of his birds. This probably would have worked well had it been May.....and the birds were singing. In September, when the birds are definitely NOT singing, however, this is a recipe for advanced frustration. There were definitely birds around us, but they were not visible and the leaf cover is too dense around the river to see much, so we ended up not being able to ID very many. We hurried back to the Brushwood parking lot and were able to get a couple of species, but nothing even close to what I was expecting, and our vireo count was a whopping 1....not the beginning I had hoped for. I should have done Warbler Alley on the west side of the preserve along the river. Birds congregate here in the morning sun and they are close. The leaf cover isn't nearly as dense either. Lesson learned. I also missed a HOUSE FINCH! while going to the bathroom. Really? That was only the beginning of the Dirty Bird Debacle.
Stop #3 was at Ft. Sheridan which continues to be probably my 3rd favorite birding spot after Rollins and COLSP. We had the usuals although we missed orioles on the day. Best bird here was a MOURNING WARBLER that I unfortunately didn't get Steve and Andy on quick enough before it disappeared for our second dirty bird on the day. This was the challenge. Getting all 3 of us on quickly moving warblers, falcons, and kinglets proved to be a very frustrating endeavor during the course of the day. We also had 3 or 4 RUBY-THROATED HUMMINGBIRDS in the jewelweed tangle along the path. We then moved over slightly to the Openlands preserve where CHIPPING SPARROWS had been reported a couple of weeks ago on ebird. Andy did some stellar scouting on Saturday and found a small flock very close to the road which was still there Sunday morning. That was a great bird to get seeing as I missed it in August. Steve also found a nicely singing WHITE-THROATED SPARROW that Andy had also locate day before, so some timely scouting paid off for us early.
Waukegan was interesting. We initially got there, picked up our AMERICAN KESTREL family, and then saw only SANDERLINGS, SEMIPALMATED PLOVERS, and a SEMIPALMATED SANDPIPER on the beach along with some HOODED MERGANSERS. This actually proved to be pretty good seeing as we had none of these shorebirds anywhere else. We were definitely hoping for something rarer, like a Red Knot or Buffie or Whimbrel, but nothing like that ever appeared. The weather was probably too nice. The pines area was almost completely devoid of birds, with the exception of a small clump of shrubs behind the locked fence area of the water plant. This shrubby clump had 5 or 6 birds in it, that stayed very hidden for most of the time, but we eventually found a couple of warblers and what I'm fairly certain was a YB Flycatcher, but I never saw the back of the bird to rule out Least Fly so that bird remained UF. On the way out, Steve noticed a couple of birds on Government Pier to the south, so we scanned them quickly and had nice looks at 2 RUDDY TURNSTONES just before someone flushed them. On the way back out we checked the fenced in prairie and had a juvenile BROWN-HEADED COWBIRD, our only one of the day. Near the parking area pavilion were some secluded warblers and sparrows. Andy was able to dig up a WILSON'S WARBLER but neither Steve nor I was able to get on it before it disappeared. Another dirty bird. So Andy decided to walk around to the back of the shrubby area to flush birds toward us. In so doing, he flushed an AMERICAN WOODCOCK. All I could see was some wings flapping as the bird disappeared. Another dirty bird. This was getting ridiculous.....and it would get worse. A BLACK-BELLIED PLOVER in the fenced in pond area was a nice gift on our way out. A trip down Clayton Ave. toward Bowen Park netted us a nice flock of RED-WINGED BLACKBIRDS and 2 COMMON GRACKLES, the only ones of the day. The main goal, though, was to find the Peregrine. We stopped at Doehringer Rd. to check out the stacks for the Peregrine. I don't know where those guys were looking, but right in front of me flies the PEREGRINE FALCON into the back of a tree. We could not find him, though, since he was on private property behind a closed fence. Another dirty bird. Amazing....and disturbing. On to Lyons Woods where we had a yanking RED-BREASTED NUTHATCH, a GRAY-CHEEKED THRUSH, and nice looks at a foraging PINE WARBLER that also responded nicely to its song by flying right in to a tree right in front of us. While watching the Pine, Andy Yells out that he has a MERLIN flying overhead. Steve gets on it but I couldn't see anything and the bird disappeared over the trees. ANOTHER DIRTY BIRD????!!! Seriously? This is killing me.
We headed to IBSP hoping for some good warblers. It was now around noon and our warbler count was about 6 sp. Not real encouraging. No worries, though, because IBSP delivered the goods. We walked out and back along the middle trail beyond the locked gate and had literally flocks of birds moving all along the trail. We were here for 2 hours getting birds. Of course we also got more DIRTY birds. Andy found an OVENBIRD and a RUBY-CROWNED KINGLET but the birds were moving around quickly and both disappeared before I could see them. We saw a lot, though, and ended the day with 17 warbler species, most of which we got here between noon and 2pm. Pretty unbelievable.
The rest of the day played out like this:
North Unit- Belted Kingfisher, Least Flycatcher, and Yellow-throated Vireo snagged by Andy at eye level in the clump near the gate.
Spring Bluff- Swamp Sparrow
Rt. 173- Bald Eagle
COLSP- Osprey
Rt. 59 and Grand Ave- Turkey Vulture
and then......ROLLINS! As always, Rollins came up huge. Even though the shorebird habitat is nonexistent save for a small, muddy island. We still got 3 shorebird sp. there. AND in the process of walking around the pond searching for our absentee Nelson's Saprrow, Steve flushes a beautiful AMERICAN BITTERN that EVERYBODY had nice looks at. Great bird. We then pulled out GREAT EGRET, BOBOLINK, SANDHILL CRANE, LINCOLN'S SPARROW, NORTHERN SHOVELER, NORTHERN PINTAIL, PURPLE MARTIN, GREEN-WINGED TEAL, GADWALL, and PIED-BILLED GREBE. On the way out we had nice looks at 4 or 5 MARSH WRENS. By now it was only about 45 minutes to sunset, so we quickly headed to Almond Marsh and picked up BC Night Heron and 2 female AMERICAN WIGEON, as well as a couple of cruising COMMON NIGHTHAWKS. With darkness creeping in, we headed to Allegheny ballfields and just had enough light to see and hear a small flock of HORNED LARKS in the bare dirt and scrubby weedy edges of the fields at the top of the hill.
It was another stellar day birding with some great weather and great compadres. The dirty bird element was frustrating but not debilitating. We finished with 122 species and 8 dirty birds. The 5% rule only allows us 6 dirty birds so we had to take 2 birds off of our list to give us 120 species. This put us 3rd for a Northern Illinois Big Day. I've only been able to accomplish this 1 other time, last year in June with Jeff Sundberg, so Sunday was truly a great day. Thanks again to Steve and Andy for the laughs, the great stories, and some awesome birds. The next Big Day in October will find temps even cooler, so I'm a little sad at bidding the summer weather farewell. There were a lot of great birds, though. Thanks for reading and I'll see you in October!
Lake county big day, Lake, US-IL
Sep 14, 2014 2:00 AM - 10:30 PM
Protocol: Traveling
200.0 mile(s)
Comments: w/steve bailey and andy stewart
122 species
Canada Goose 1
Mute Swan 1
Wood Duck 1
Gadwall 1
American Wigeon 1
Mallard 1
Blue-winged Teal 1
Northern Shoveler 1
Northern Pintail 1
Green-winged Teal 1
Hooded Merganser 1
Pied-billed Grebe 1
Double-crested Cormorant 1
American Bittern 1
Great Blue Heron 1
Great Egret 1
Green Heron 1
Black-crowned Night-Heron 1
Turkey Vulture 1
Osprey 1
Cooper's Hawk 1
Bald Eagle 1
Red-tailed Hawk 1
Virginia Rail 1
Sora 1
Sandhill Crane 1
Black-bellied Plover 1
Semipalmated Plover 1
Killdeer 1
Spotted Sandpiper 1
Lesser Yellowlegs 1
Ruddy Turnstone 1
Sanderling 1
Least Sandpiper 1
Pectoral Sandpiper 1
Semipalmated Sandpiper 1
American Woodcock 1
Ring-billed Gull 1
Herring Gull 1
Caspian Tern 1
Mourning Dove 1
FERAL PIGEON 1
Eastern Screech-Owl 1
Great Horned Owl 1
Barred Owl 1
Common Nighthawk 1
Eastern Whip-poor-will 1
Chimney Swift 1
Ruby-throated Hummingbird 1
Belted Kingfisher 1
Red-headed Woodpecker 1
Red-bellied Woodpecker 1
Downy Woodpecker 1
Hairy Woodpecker 1
Northern Flicker 1
American Kestrel 1
Merlin 1
Peregrine Falcon 1
Eastern Wood-Pewee 1
Alder/Willow Flycatcher (Traill's Flycatcher) 1
Least Flycatcher 1
Eastern Phoebe 1
Eastern Kingbird 1
Yellow-throated Vireo 1
Red-eyed Vireo 1
Blue Jay 1
American Crow 1
Horned Lark 1
Purple Martin 1 juvenile bird; dark, large swallow, long periods of gliding, brownish-gray throat on otherwise white underside.
Tree Swallow 1
Barn Swallow 1
Cliff Swallow 1
Black-capped Chickadee 1
Red-breasted Nuthatch 1
White-breasted Nuthatch 1
House Wren 1
Marsh Wren 1
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 1
Ruby-crowned Kinglet 1
Eastern Bluebird 1
Gray-cheeked Thrush 1
Swainson's Thrush 1
Wood Thrush 1
American Robin 1
Gray Catbird 1
European Starling 1
Cedar Waxwing 1
Ovenbird 1
Northern Waterthrush 1
Black-and-white Warbler 1
Tennessee Warbler 1
Nashville Warbler 1
MOURNING WARBLER 1
Common Yellowthroat 1
American Redstart 1
Cape May Warbler 1
Magnolia Warbler 1
Chestnut-sided Warbler 1
Blackpoll Warbler 1
Palm Warbler 1
Pine Warbler 1
Yellow-rumped Warbler 1
Black-throated Green Warbler 1
Wilson's Warbler 1
Eastern Towhee 1
Chipping Sparrow 1
Field Sparrow 1
Savannah Sparrow 1
Song Sparrow 1
Lincoln's Sparrow 1
Swamp Sparrow 1
White-throated Sparrow 1
Northern Cardinal 1
Rose-breasted Grosbeak 1
Indigo Bunting 1
Bobolink 1
Red-winged Blackbird 1
Common Grackle 1
Brown-headed Cowbird 1
House Finch 1
American Goldfinch 1
House Sparrow 1
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