We started at 5:15 am at Pine Dunes and had probably our biggest highlight of the day right off the bat. In the span of 15-20 minutes we had 2 whinnying EASTERN SCREECH OWLS, 1 adult GREAT HORNED OWL, and a barking N. SAW-WHET OWL not 10 ft. from us and about head high. If only the rest of the day could have played out this nicely. We headed over to Rollins but got skunked yet again on Short-eared Owl.
It started to get brighter around 6:45 so we scanned for waterfowl on Third Lake quickly and headed over to Deep Lake. The day before I had some nice waterfowl here, but today the lake was almost completely frozen, and the Canvasback that was here yesterday was reportedly shot by the hunters on the lake. We did manage to find a male RING-NECKED DUCK and 7 MUTE SWANS in with some mallards but that was it. On to the lakefront.
Thought I would detour down Crawford Rd. on our way to the lake to see if we could get Steve his County turkeys. We drove past Millburn school and down to Kelly Rd. without seeing a bird. As soon as we turned the corner at Kelly Rd., however, we almost ran into a flock of 15 WILD TURKEYS meandering in the middle of the road. We could have literally reached out the window and touched them as we drove past. Unfortunately, that was about as good as the birding got for the rest of the day.
The lakefront was dead. Midwest Gen, which, In January had given us a ton of good birds, had barely any birds on it with 6 LESSER SCAUP being the best birds. NPM had virtually nothing other than the regulars. No flyovers and only a couple of RUDDY DUCKS in the harbor and slip. Waukegan had a HORNED GREBE in harbor but there was nothing in the lake itself and the gate to the south end was once again locked (?!?!!). The South Unit campground pines gave us BROWN CREEPER, RED-BREASTED NUTHATCH, and PINE SISKIN, but no Fox Sparrows or yellow-rumps.
Ft. Sheridan and Ryerson gave us nothing other than a HOUSE FINCH, though Red-headed Woodpeckers were found by another birder that afternoon. That proved to be a big miss for us on Sunday. There were 6 SONG SPARROWS at Ft. Sheridan and a ton of gulls at the North Unit. I was able to pick out 1 THAYER'S GULL at the North Unit but it promptly was covered up by another gull so I couldn't share it with my cohorts, so that became our only dirty bird for the day. There were also no less than 5 adult LESSER BLACK-BACKED GULLS in the bunch.
Middlefork proved to be a great stop. We found a distant AMERICAN KESTREL, a noisy BELTED KINGFISHER sitting very close to the bridge, and a flyby GREAT BLUE HERON for our only individuals of those 3 species for the day. At Independence Grove we had 2 AMERICAN BLACK DUCK, but we could not pick a Cackling Goose out of the many geese at either IG or Third Lake. This was disappointing because there almost certainly was at least one of these birds in there. We finished the day at Rollins/Third Lake with misses on Short-eared Owl and Northern Harrier.
At dusk we tried for rails at the north creek/marsh and had a weird eek call in response to the tape. It didn't sound quite right to me for Sora, but what else could it be? We were all thinking this until later, Eric Walters told me that Virginia Rails also squeak. I listened to that squeak, and it sounded a little more like what we heard in my opinion. In any case, we couldn't tell for sure, so it went down as rail sp. Still pretty cool, though.
We finished out the day with our old friend, the BARRED OWL at Lakewood FP, who began calling as soon as Steve started his call. It took all of about 1 minute to get a response. Love that bird!
So Dec. ended with very few hard-fought birds and a lot of big misses. Major misses were Cedar Waxwing (not enough berry bushes), Northern Harrier, Swamp Sparrow, Wood Duck and Canvasback that I had the day before at Deep Lake, Red-headed Woodpecker, Fox Sparrow, and Cackling Goose.
One thing about winter Big Days, they really make you appreciate the common birds. Our last daylight bird was an AMERICAN ROBIN at Third Lake, and I almost wet my pants when Andy called it out as we were driving by! Never been so happy to see an American Robin!
Not sure yet what my plan for 2015 will look like but I'll let ya know. Good Birding! and thanks again to my awesome birding team of Andy Stewart and Steve Bailey.
Here's the list:
53 species (+1 other taxa) total
1 | Canada Goose |
|---|---|
1 | Mute Swan |
1 | Gadwall |
1 | American Black Duck |
1 | Mallard |
1 | Redhead |
1 | Ring-necked Duck |
1 | Greater Scaup |
1 | Lesser Scaup |
1 | Bufflehead |
1 | Common Goldeneye |
1 | Hooded Merganser |
1 | Common Merganser |
1 | Red-breasted Merganser |
1 | Ruddy Duck |
1 | Wild Turkey
group of 15 at well-documented site
|
1 | Horned Grebe |
1 | Double-crested Cormorant |
1 | Great Blue Heron |
1 | Red-tailed Hawk |
1 | rail sp.
high-pitched eek call sounded like it could be either sora or virginia rail
|
1 | American Coot |
1 | Ring-billed Gull |
1 | Herring Gull |
1 | Thayer's Gull
large apical spots, dark gray primaries, dark eye
|
1 | Lesser Black-backed Gull |
1 | Rock Pigeon (Feral Pigeon) |
1 | Mourning Dove |
1 | Eastern Screech-Owl |
1 | Great Horned Owl |
1 | Barred Owl |
1 | Northern Saw-whet Owl |
1 | Belted Kingfisher |
1 | Red-bellied Woodpecker |
1 | Downy Woodpecker |
1 | Hairy Woodpecker |
1 | American Kestrel |
1 | Blue Jay |
1 | American Crow |
1 | Black-capped Chickadee |
1 | Red-breasted Nuthatch |
1 | White-breasted Nuthatch |
1 | Brown Creeper |
1 | American Robin |
1 | European Starling |
1 | American Tree Sparrow |
1 | Song Sparrow |
1 | White-throated Sparrow |
1 | Dark-eyed Junco (Slate-colored) |
1 | Northern Cardinal |
1 | House Finch |
1 | Pine Siskin |
1 | American Goldfinch |
1 | House Sparrow |
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