Vespers galore!

Today is Good Friday. The day that Jesus died for our sins. He's been my friend and savior for many years, now, and I thank him again for his ultimate sacrifice. As I venture out to look for birds I am constantly reminded of the blessings he has bestowed on me and the wonders of God's creation.
  My goal this morning was to find Vesper Sparrows and Pine Warbler. I was 1 for 2. The warbler I knew would be a stretch. It's still about a week early and with north winds blowing, new migrants were not likely. Vespers, on the other hand, have been seen in a number of spots already, including my destination, Ft. Sheridan preserve. Ft. Sheridan is a vast expanse of grassland with wooded ravines running along the north and south edge. I honestly don't bird here much, but it's a great place for sparrows, and I think I may spend more time here in the coming few weeks as I take my best shot at finding LeConte's Sparrow and a Smith's Longspur, both of which have been found at Ft. Sheridan in the past.
  Anyway, Vesper Sparrows have always been a tough bird for me to find in Lake County, and when I do find one, it's an isolated bird singing in some old cornfield usually. I've actually only seen one once that wasn't in corn stubble. Something that Jim taught me about Vespers is that they love burned areas. Last year he found a Vesper in a newly-burned area at Almond Marsh. It was just my luck today that Ft. Sheridan had just recently been burned, and it proved too much for the Vesper Sparrows to resist. I have never seen so many VESPER SPARROWS in one place before in my life. There were at least 6 and I think 9 or 10 is probably more likely given the number of birds flying around the edge of the burned area.
  When I got out of the car, I decided I would walk through the grassland on the north edge and head west. Then I would double back and head east through the center. The burned area was adjacent to the parking lot and I had to walk through it to get to the north edge of the preserve. In so doing I flushed a couple of birds but they flew far and I didn't get a look at them. As I neared the ravine on the edge of the burn, I heard a Vesper Sparrow singing. I got decent looks at it, but then another flew in with it. Then I heard one singing behind me in the burned area and another singing further west along the ravine. There were at least 6 birds in that immediate area and probably more. It was awesome.

These are my pictures I took this morning. They're not the best, but you can see some of the diagnostic features of the Vesper Sparrow. The bold white eye ring and the white stripe extending downward from the side of the bird's bill (malar stripe) stand out and ID the bird as a Vesper. The lack of an obvious crown stripe also further separates it from any similar species like a Savannah Sparrow, for example, which were also very plentiful.
  My next stop was McDonald Woods in Lindenhurst to check for Pine Warblers. It was pretty birdy but nothing out of the ordinary save for at least 4 singing Field Sparrows. The Pine Warblers were a no show, but I did have nice looks at a Red-breasted Nuthatch right above my head. There was also a 2nd bird calling in the background.

Tomorrow south winds. Hooray. Hopefully a Louisiana Waterthrush will show up :)

April 1.....No Foolin!

Well, reality has set in. Michelle and I returned from our haven in the Keys yesterday so we could gather ourselves and get ready to go back to work next week. Needless to say, I took the opportunity that I had in the morning to do some birding after my small group meeting with Brent and Matt. I wasn't expecting a lot. I mean it's only April 1. I did have some early migrant target birds, but nothing out of the ordinary. Rarely do I get my target birds for the day, but today was one of those days. I had 6 birds I was hoping to see, and I got all of them plus a couple of other nice additions.
  The day started off pretty nicely with a Jim Solum sighting in the parking lot of Waukegan Beach at 8:40am. A Purple Sandpiper had been seen the day before, so we checked out the pier and the beach but didn't see anything noteworthy. Jim didn't have as much time as I did, so he was in a hurry to go to IBSP which was opening today for the first time in about 10 months. I was also looking forward to checking the park trails out, but I thought that the pines area would be good to check before we left. It turned out to be a pretty good spot. We both added RUBY-CROWNED KINGLET, BROWN THRASHER, and YELLOW-BELLIED SAPSUCKER to our Lake County Year lists, and we also had nice looks at 2 Fox Sparrows and a Brown Creeper.

                                 Ruby-crowned Kinglet

                                         Yellow-bellied Sapsucker

                                     Brown Thrasher

  On the way out I saw some birds moving in the vacant lot west of Seahorse Dr., so I pulled over to check out the action. It was mostly Dark-eyed Juncos but mixed in with the group was my first look at a male PURPLE FINCH. Nice! Love those birds.

  Jim and I then headed to IBSP South. We started at the deciduous woods lot just inside the entrance. This proved to be the best spot of the day by far. We added great looks here at a WINTER WREN, and singing EASTERN TOWHEE as well as more Ruby-crowned Kinglets and a couple of Golden-crowned Kinglets. We then parked in the visitor center lot and checked out the path behind the lodge. Lots of Fox Sparrows and a Field Sparrow were found here but no Vespers. We ran into Paul and Janice Sweet and Al Stokie who said that they didn't see much, so Jim and I parted ways. I stopped back at the deciduous woods on the way out and checked the east side of the road. Another good call. I picked up my FOY HERMIT THRUSH!

                                   Winter Wren

                                          Hermit Thrush

                                          Eastern Towhee

  Turned out to be a pretty awesome day of birding. Thanks to Jim for finding the Winter Wren and giving me the heads up on that one!

Spring Break '12 - Florida Keys

Wow. That's about all I can say. If you've never been to the Keys, GO! It's beautiful and surrounded by everything you could want in a vacation spot. Needless to say, most of my interests had to do with finding lifers. It was a tough week on that front, though. I put in a lot of time searching but only got 6 and 4 were on the Dry Tortugas boat trip. Not my best total, but still got to see lots of great birds.

Day 1: Upon leaving the airport, Michelle and I headed out to look for Red-whiskered Bulbul and Spot-breasted Oriole. Drove to a couple of well-publicized spots but came up empty. Did see some Mitred Parakeets, though.

Day 2:
  Today was snail kite day. I drove to Shark Valley on Rt. 41 and got to the Indian Restaurant roost site at 7am. Unfortunately I never saw the kites there. I think I was too far east. I did hear my lifer Chuck-Will's-Widow calling right next to me, though. As the sun came up bird activity increased. I had these guys in the parking lot.

                                      Purple Gallinule

                                            Black Vulture

As the park opened, I sought the wisdom of one of the park rangers who told me that my best chance of seeing a kite was to walk the levee and look into the miles of sawgrass. So this I did. After about 15 minutes I saw this lovely female:

                                          Lifer SNAIL KITE!

Day 3:
Michelle and I took a day trip to the Everglades today. Unfortunately we got rained on a bit and the deer flies were so bad that we didn't do much trail walking but we still saw some good birds:

                                       Lifer Swallow-tailed Kite

                                  Common Gallinule

                                       Black-necked Stilt

                                         Roseate Spoonbill
Day 4:
  Today my goal was to find a White-crowned Pigeon in Key Largo. I went to the Botanical Garden, which is supposed to be a great spot for them. Unfortunately there were 15-20mph winds so birds were staying low. Consequently I saw nothing......except lots of Northern Cardinals.

Day 5:
Today was our trip by boat to Dry Tortugas National Park. It's a series of keys with lots of birds. One of the top 5 birding destinations in the country. And once again it rained on us. This time for a significant period of time, say 2 hrs. So birding/snorkeling time was severely diminished. I did get 4 lifers out of the trip, though:
1. Masked Booby- Hospital Key
2. Sooty Tern
3. Brown Noddy
4. Magnificent frigatebird

Also saw some other cool birds:
1. Cave Swallow
2. Worm-eating warbler
3. Hooded Warbler
4. Black-and-White Warbler
5. Am. Kestrel

                                                  Brown Noddy

                                    Sooty Terns

                                  Magnificent Frigatebird

Day 6:
Our last day in the Keys I spent looking for shorebirds, which I found, and a Wilson's Plover, which I did NOT find. Had the following shorebirds:

6 Black-bellied Plovers
12 Western Sandpipers
7 Willets
4 Semipalmated Sandpipers
8 Ruddy Turnstones
6 Semipalmated Plovers
15 Least Sandpipers
16 Short-billed Dowitchers

     It truly was a little slice of heaven. Can't wait to get back and get those birds I missed :)!

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!

The Winter Wren!

  This weekend I got 3 new birds to put me at 106. I'm a little perturbed that I've missed both Snow Geese and Greater White-fronted Geese. Jim had both of those on flyovers. I haven't seen hardly any geese in the air at all this spring and they have all been Canadas. Frustrating but that's birding.
  Saturday morning after returning from the grocery store at 5:30am, I passed an area in Old Mill Creek on Rt.45 just north of Grass Lake Rd. that had some wet meadow near a forest edge. Seeing as there was no traffic here at this time. I pulled off the road, turned my car off and rolled the window down. Almost immediately heard 2 distinct and separate "peent"s and the twittering noise of a display flight. AMERICAN WOODCOCK! Awesome. Unfortunately, I had to get home and didn't have time to see if I could get a visual on the performers. Here's a great youtube clip on the mating call and display: American Woodcock
   This morning, Sunday 3/11, I headed out to the lakefront to try and find geese or Black Scoters on the move. I started at Van Patten Woods where I saw some waterfowl in the distance but they weren't geese so I didn't bother with them. I then went to the Point at NPM and scanned the lake for birds. The regulars were there along with 2 female-type WHITE-WINGED SCOTERS. Also at NPM was my first flock of BROWN-HEADED COWBIRDS this spring. The weather was beautiful with temps in the 50's and light south winds, so it was a great day to be out.
   The next stop was the South Unit of IBSP where a marsh wren was heard yesterday. I checked the pond where the bird was heard, but I got nothin'. Tons of SONG SPARROWS were out and about.
  The bird of the day, though, was identified by its twinkling flutelike song: Winter Wren
  The Winter Wren (#106) is a little brown fluffball of a bird but it has a beautiful voice! I heard this bird while walking on the road at the South Unit near the lodge. It was singing in a small woodlot with many logs and shrubs. I could never get a visual, though. It just kept moving away from me.

Pulaski Day weekend 3/3-3/5

After a beautiful week of balmy 60's and upper 50's, Friday brought with it the promise of a 3-day weekend combined with the din and numbness of winter winds. For the 2nd week in a row we got significant snowfall accumulations on a Friday right before the weekend followed by a series of days with cold NNW winds. Not good for spring migrants, so my hopes weren't very high Saturday when I left practice around 11:45am to head west and hopefully find some geese. I headed out to Dowell, Neville, Darrell, and Fisher roads in far NW Lake County but saw nil except for a couple of HORNED LARKS. I continued north toward Volo Bog and stopped at Sullivan Lake when I saw what looked like a dark-billed non-Mute swan. I got out of the car into the stiff 20mph winds and was
able to get nice looks at a beautiful TRUMPETER SWAN (#99).

Trumpeter Swans have a large black bill that completely encloses the eye as you can see above. The similar Tundra Swan has a smaller bill that pinches off the eye:

There's also usually a yellow spot near the eye which you can kind of see in this picture. Anyway, that was a great bird and only my 3rd in Lake County. From here I headed over to COLSP to look for a Turkey Vulture. I headed down the Goldfinch trail and lo-and-behold there was a TURKEY VULTURE (#100) soaring right along the trail!

From hear I headed home quite pleased with the day's findings.

  Sunday I had trouble deciding where to go, as usual, so I started on the lakefront at 6:30 am hoping to find a Black Scoter. I saw a few birds moving north around 7am that were definitely dark-winged scoters. Unfortunately, as is usually the case with me, they were too distant to accurately ID. Other than that nothing was moving on the lake, so I headed to Van Patten Woods where I also had nothing. I had gotten a call earlier from Jim that he had some birds behind the citgo station on 41, so I decided I would head over there. I took a detour by way of Delaney Rd. so I could scan the skies for any passing Golden Eagle (one can always dream :). Never saw any raptors, but I flushed a group of sparrows on the road as I drove past, so I pulled over to check them out. Good thing cuz #101 WHITE-CROWNED SPARROW was playing right alongside the American Tree Sparrows.

There were 2 juvenile birds along with a beautiful adult. As I finally pulled into the Citgo Station I could see that the wetland area had a few birds. There were 6 NORTHERN SHOVELERS, 2 NORTHERN PINTAIL, and #102 GREEN-WINGED TEAL

Nice! Last stop was Rollins Savanna where I added namesake SAVANNAH SPARROW (#103) along with the Song and Tree Sparrows. Ended up the morning with 21 sp. of waterfowl which is not too shabby!

3/1/12 Independence Grove

It's been a rough week for birding. I started coaching baseball on 2/27 and haven't had a lot of time to get out. I went out Wednesday 2/29 but the wind was blowing at 35mph and it was about 30 degrees and raining. Needless to say, I didn't stay out long. I went out for about an hour yesterday and had my first new bird in over a week, a Killdeer. Woohoo!!!!

Starting to feel like my chances for a Greater White-fronted Goose are slipping away. Hopefully I'll be able to get out and see some good birds this weekend!