Bring on the Warblers!!!

8/31/14
  Yesterday ace photographer, Nat Carmichael, and I embarked upon my August Big Day for 2014. Last year August proved to be a troubling month for me. I had some time management and planning issues due to less sunlight time that I forgot to take into consideration. So this year I fixed the route planning, but not the time management issues.....though for a different reason. I haven't been out birding in 6 days, which is an eternity for me. Since I started school on the 18th, it's been very busy around my house, so I haven't been able to get out much. So yesterday I was basically chomping at the bit to just get out and see some birds. Consequently I spent WAY too much time gawking at my favorite birds, the warblers. Yes, THEY'RE BACK! Woohoo! As we all know, finding warblers is challenge number 1 as they dart back-and-forth willy nilly through the foliage. This requires time. Challenge number 2 is ID'ing them after finding them. Some first year female birds can have odd color variations, usually muted but sometimes bright yellow, which make birds look very confusing, indeed. For example, I had a first year female ORANGE-CROWNED WARBLER (early, I know) that looked like the bird in The Warbler Guide (Peterson) p. 50, except the the throat and chest (which is all that I saw) were the brightest yellow I have ever seen on an Orange-crowned. The head was gray-green, but hooded, with a nicely-broken bold eye-ring. So I'm thinking, Is this a MacGillivray's Warbler!?! I don't think it was, but I had to search repeatedly for the bird, which never sat still long enough for a pic. This was definitely a time suck. I also wanted to get some nice pictures for the blog and take advantage of Nat's photo skills. This also put us behind a bit. But, whatever. It was fun. So anyway, it was a great day, as always, but we missed going to 4 spots that would definitely have added birds, and we missed.....this is really embarrassing......a ROCK PIGEON! Are you kidding me!? Yes, that's right, I didn't get to either of the 2 good spots in Lake County for Rock Pigeon. That's the kind of day it was.

   Nat and I began our BirdQuest at 2:00am at Rollins. Have I ever said that I love this place? I do. Got a whining juvenile GREAT HORNED OWL for bird #1 followed closely by a bird we missed last month, a SORA, squeaking from the east trail marsh. Interestingly we had 3 Soras on the day. I'm guessing these were juveniles exercising their calling capabilities or running around in plain sight because juveniles think they're invincible. Wait, are we talking people or birds?

  Next stop was our Barred Owl spot.....and our first disappointment of the night. Alas, my Barred Owl friend, who has been with us all year so far, failed to come out and play last night. We were a little downtrodden after this unfortunate event. To add insult to injury we got no new birds at either Volo or COLSP either. These places have both been money in the past so this was especially difficult to swallow. Next stop was our favorite private residence, which has an incredible cattail marsh, and also has delivered for us on our Big Days. Fortunately, today was no exception or I might have quit and gone home......just kidding. We had a grunting VIRGINIA RAIL and a distant whinnying EASTERN SCREECH OWL to give us two big birds for the evening. High fives were exchanged and an immediate lifting of the spirits commenced. The last nocturnal bird we were hoping for was a whippoorwill. We missed this bird last year in August, so I wasn't confident of our chances, but as soon as we got out of the car at IBSP we had a roadside calling WHIPPOORWILL, no taping required. How 'bout it! So we ended our nocturnal sojourn with all the owls, including an amazing 12 Great Horned Owls, save our Barred Owl, all the rails, a spontaneously calling Whippoorwill, and some nice mojo coming into daybreak.

  Usually I start on the Des Plaines River for songbirds and then hit the lakefront. This time, however, I decided to start at Waukegan. The thing about Waukegan is that if you're not the first person there, the birds often flush and sometimes are not seen again. I was determined to get there first, so Nat and I were there ready to go at 6am.....and we STILL weren't first. People were there before sunrise for cryin' out loud. We didn't miss anything, though, and had nice looks at an adult BLACK-BELLIED PLOVER as we walked down the beach.

                                      (all photos in this blog post courtesy of Nat Carmichael)

 Also had some SANDERLINGS and a SEMIPALMATED SANDPIPER but no Ruddy Turnstone or Red Knot. Walking the beach takes time, though, so we were pushing to get to the pines and check for songbirds. As we were walking back to the parking lot a pair of BREWER'S BLACKBIRDS flew by us given away by the all black male and gray female combination. Nice bird. In the pines the best birds were a group of juvenile BROWN-HEADED COWBIRDS foraging on the lawn and our only dirty bird of the day, a RED-BREASTED NUTHATCH which Nat saw but would not show its face for me. There were warblers in the air but the only one we could ID in a tree was a BLACKPOLL.

  We headed to IBSP South next which was the most time-consuming stop of the day other than Rollins. We were at the South Unit for close to 2 hours. We checked 3 places along the beach for Buffies but were shut out. We had a nice pocket of warblers, though, along with multiple SWAINSON'S THRUSHES and a VEERY. We definitely had lots of nice birds but the loss of time hurt us in the end. Other highlights:

Best warbler spots: IBSP South and the south ravine at Ft. Sheridan. We ended with 12 sp. of warblers. The best being the aforementioned Orange-crowned at Lyons Woods. Lyons also gave us a nice BLACK-BILLED CUCKOO.

Best Shorebird/waterbird spot: Rollins as usual, though we got PIED-BILLED GREBE at Almond Marsh. Here's a few shots from Rollins:

                                  Female Northern Pintail and juvenile Short-billed Dowitcher

                                  2 Stilt Sandpipers (bottom birds) with Lesser Yellowlegs

                                  Lesser Yellowlegs with Baird's Sandpiper

                                 Great Egrets, Great Blue Heron, and Northern Shoveler

Most People- COLSP and Fairmont Shores. The goldfinch trail literally had a person come by every 30 seconds to a minute for the first 5 minutes we were on the trail. OK that's an exaggeration, but it SEEMED like it was that many. We got the LAST parking spot at Fairmont Shores to check for Bald Eagle, which we whiffed on, but I've never seen that place crowded on a Sunday night before, though I guess Monday being Labor Day would make a difference. Here's a couple of nice shots from COLSP.

                                                   Not-so-Common Nighthawk

                                                                       Osprey

Unleashed dogs- only 2. both at Ft. Sheridan. We had good luck with dogs.

Constant Companions: American Goldfinches. They were everywhere and in most spots were the only vocalizing birds. Cedar Waxwings were a close second.

Wader Heaven- At Almond Marsh, we had all 4 waders, which isn't big news, but it's still cool. Here's a nice Black-crown shot:

  Unfortunately, the big misses were glaring:

Rock Pigeon, Chipping Sparrow, Dickcissel, Purple Martin, Brown Thrasher, Horned Lark, Barred Owl, Solitary Sandpiper, Bald Eagle, Cooper's Hawk, Belted Kingfisher, Scarlet Tanager, Yellow-throated Vireo, Rose-breasted Grosbeak, Henslow's Sparrow, Hooded Merganser, Sedge Wren, Eastern Meadowlark, Common Grackle........yikes.

 But it was great to be out birding with Nat, the weather was fantastic for a change, and the warblers are back. We finished with 105 sp. which was 6 better than last year, so I reached goal #1. All is good with the world.

  See you in September!

Here's the List:

105 species

Canada Goose  1
Mute Swan  1
Wood Duck  1
Gadwall  1
Mallard  1
Blue-winged Teal  1
Northern Shoveler  1
Northern Pintail  1
Green-winged Teal  1
Wild Turkey  1
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
Sora  1
Sandhill Crane  1
Black-bellied Plover  1
Semipalmated Plover  1
Killdeer  1
Spotted Sandpiper  1
Lesser Yellowlegs  1
Stilt Sandpiper  1
Sanderling  1
Baird's Sandpiper  1
Least Sandpiper  1
Pectoral Sandpiper  1
Semipalmated Sandpiper  1
Short-billed Dowitcher  1
Ring-billed Gull  1
Herring Gull  1
Caspian Tern  1
Mourning Dove  1
Black-billed Cuckoo  1
Eastern Screech-Owl  1
Great Horned Owl  1
Common Nighthawk  1
Eastern Whip-poor-will  1
Chimney Swift  1
Ruby-throated Hummingbird  1
Red-headed Woodpecker  1
Red-bellied Woodpecker  1
Downy Woodpecker  1
Hairy Woodpecker  1
Northern Flicker  1
American Kestrel  1
Eastern Wood-Pewee  1
Willow Flycatcher  1
Least Flycatcher  1
Eastern Phoebe  1
Eastern Kingbird  1
Warbling Vireo  1
Philadelphia Vireo  1
Red-eyed Vireo  1
Blue Jay  1
American Crow  1
Tree Swallow  1
Bank 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
Eastern Bluebird  1
Veery  1
Swainson's Thrush  1
American Robin  1
Gray Catbird  1
European Starling  1
Cedar Waxwing  1
Black-and-white Warbler  1
Tennessee Warbler  1
Orange-crowned Warbler  1
Common Yellowthroat  1
American Redstart  1
Magnolia Warbler  1
Blackburnian Warbler  1
Chestnut-sided Warbler  1
Blackpoll Warbler  1
Palm Warbler  1
Black-throated Green Warbler  1
Wilson's Warbler  1
Eastern Towhee  1
Field Sparrow  1
Savannah Sparrow  1
Song Sparrow  1
Swamp Sparrow  1
Northern Cardinal  1
Indigo Bunting  1
Bobolink  1
Red-winged Blackbird  1
Brewer's Blackbird  1
Brown-headed Cowbird  1
Baltimore Oriole  1
House Finch  1
American Goldfinch  1
House Sparrow  1

Ya Just Never Know What Ur Gonna Get.....

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

Hello, Summer!.........Goodbye, Migrants!

  It was finally here. No more freezing to death looking for birds. Praise God. It was a balmy 65 degrees for much of the night and 90+ on Sunday, June 1 when Andy Stewart and I did our Lake County Big Day for June 2014. Unfortunately what I thought would be a great blessing turned out to be a great source of frustration and consternation. I also made a bad logistical decision that cost us a few birds. As always, live and learn.
  We started at 12:11 at our favorite Barred Owl spot at Lakewood Forest Preserve. As we opened the car doors, we immediately heard what sounded like a big party in the woods. Whaaa?! It was not deafening but definitely loud enough to wonder how nobody had called the cops at 12:15 at night. Andy and I looked at each other like "yeah, this isn't good." In the past, our Barred has called almost immediately in response to my call, but today I called a good 4 times and got nothing. We gave up at that point and started driving away. I hate giving up, though, so I thought we would just pull down the road a little further from the racket and try again. It worked. I called and My Boy called back. Beautiful. Failure averted, but it was close. Unfortunately this theme of failure and working hard for birds would be a recurring theme for the next 19 hours.
  One of the things, besides the exciting possibility of finding uncommon and rare birds, that I enjoy about monthly Big Days is that you can see how bird populations change, not only from month to month, but from week to week, and day to day. I did about 6 hours of scouting on Saturday to find some breeders. I thought I had 3 good ones, Pine Warbler, RB Nuthatch, and Green Heron, as well as other birds that I had seen for months, and others had seen recently like Vesper Sparrow, Lark Sparrow, Grasshopper Sparrow, Black Tern, and Blue Grosbeak. These were all absent from sight and sound yesterday. It was both disturbing and interesting at the same time. There must have been a reason why ALL of these birds were no shows. Part of it might be that some of the sites were hit later in the day, but I had a number of them in the morning that were AWOL as well, so there must be something else. I know the warm south winds had sent migrants packing, but it must have been other things as well since breeders don't care about south winds. And just 2 weeks ago, the area was crawling with birds. Yesterday, most everyplace we went, save for Daniel Wright, places were very quiet. Could it be that breeding territories were already established so birds were silent? Maybe, but last year Jeff Sundberg and I had 123 species and had 12 warbler species and 7 shorebird species on JUNE 2. We had 7 and 3 of these respectfully yesterday. Some points to ponder.
  After getting My Boy, the Barred Owl, we headed to COLSP to see my favorite gate ranger who still asks me what I'm doing there at 12:45am even though I've seen and chatted with him at least 10 times in the past 2 years. It's like Groundhog Day for this guy. It's amazing. We got EASTERN SCREECH OWL at our favorite spot then headed west into the marsh. The number of calling MARSH WRENS during our nocturnal forays was astounding. 15-20 would be a good estimate. Even better, though was that we had multiple (3) calling SEDGE WRENS which had been virtually absent from the county so far this spring. Changing marshes, we headed east and tried for our rails. There was a ton of noise, most of it from Blarney's Island, the floating bar and nightclub in Grass Lake. However, there were also deafening Marsh Wren calls. We seriously had no rails for like 5-10 minutes before we finally heard a single grunting VIRGINIA RAIL. Seriously? I've rarely had trouble getting a Virginia during breeding season. Something weird was going on. AND we got NO SORA. That's even more ridiculous. They're usually the first birds to call. Incredible. We next visited a private residence we have permission to bird on and were welcomed with a PIED-BILLED GREBE (our only one of the day) and another SEDGE WREN, but no common gallinule which breeds here.
As we hit the lakefront our luck changed a bit. At NPM we drove along the entrance road and immediately heard multiple WHIPPOORWILLS and a peenting AMERICAN WOODCOCK. We tried for Least Bittern to no avail, but while doing so we heard a hooting GREAT HORNED OWL. So we did get all 3 owls yesterday, which was nice. Still no Sora, though. At the South Unit we had more Whips and Marsh Wrens, and, FINALLY, 2 SORAs. Whew! That was another close call.
We still felt good about our night birds as we headed into daybreak despite missing gallinule.
  My plan for daybreak was to start at Waukegan for late shorebirds, gulls, terns, and waterfowl of any type. I knew Waukegan would be useless soon after the hordes of beachgoers arrived, so we had to hit it early. Then I wanted to hit Ft. Sheridan for grassland sparrows, RH Woodpecker, possibly some migrant warblers like the 10 sp. Jeff Sanders had on Friday, or some cuckoos before heading west and getting all the woodland birds at Ryerson and D. Wright. After that it was "play it by ear" depending on how it was at Waukegan and Ft. Sheridan.
  Well, suffice it to say, it didn't go well. Waukegan was dead as a doornail. 2 gull species, Mallards and Canadas, and 0 migrant shorebirds. The retention pond had nothing but swallows, Killdeer, and a Spotted Sandpiper (breeder). Yikes. We got out of there quickly and headed to Ft. Sheridan where we biked the trail loop. I think that may have been a mistake. I think we may have missed birds, like RH Woodpecker because we covered ground TOO FAST. Biking is good in some situations, but bad in others. I will change this next time. Anyway, we stopped at the traditional Grasshopper Sparrow spot and got nothing, though we did hear at least 3 HENSLOW'S SPARROWS. We saw nothing in the air, nothing on the beach, and heard only common birds. No migrant warblers to speak of, though I think biking would hurt there as well. So we left Ft. Sheridan with not much from the lakefront. I had pretty much made my decision to go west and get birds, which probably was a big mistake and the reason for missing Lark Sparrow and Blue grosbeak for sure, as well as others probably.
  I've already droned on about our difficulties yesterday but we did see some nice birds and finished with 104 sp., which was honestly way more than I thought we had. Our best birds:
RYERSON- GREEN HERON (only one of the day), and a LINCOLN'S SPARROW showing its buffiness nicely. 0 migrant warblers......again.
D.WRIGHT WOODS- best spot; singing VEERY behind south washrooms, a singing BLACK-THROATED GREEN, 2 OVENBIRDS, a WOOD THRUSH, and a "peet-SAH"ing ACADIAN FLYCATCHER near the parking lot. Also a calling YB CUCKOO doing its accelerating cow-cow-cow call.
St. MARY'S- no RB Nuthatch which I had Saturday and the previous week; HAIRY WOODPECKER
LAKEWOOD- CLAY-COLORED SPARROW, PURPLE MARTIN
GRANT WOODS NORTH- BLUE-WINGED WARBLER, ALDER FLYCATCHER, no pine warbler which I had Saturday.
FAIRMONT SHORES- BALD EAGLE
COLSP- OSPREY, no pelican, no turkey
PRIVATE RESIDENCE- YH BLACKBIRD
CRAWFORD RD.- no vesper, HORNED LARK
ROLLINS- HOODED MERGANSER (thanks, Al!), WB NUTHATCH (only one!)
ALMOND MARSH- BLACK-CROWNED NIGHT HERON
Lakefront- BREWER'S BLACKBIRD, no Lark Sparrow, CASPIAN TERN (NPM)

Biggest misses:
There were many but other than those previously mentioned were:
Belted Kingfisher, American Kestrel, Cooper's Hawk

  The weather was great, the jokes were great, and it's always good to be birding. Thanks for all your ebird lists, IBET posts, and for returning my emails, phone calls, and texts with lots of helpful info. It wouldn't be that much fun without all your help. See you in July!

the list

The BiggEST Day

  Ah, the May Big Day. The BIGGEST of Big Days. The day where visions of myriad shorebirds, raptors, and songbirds dance around in one's head and make one dizzy with expectation and possibilities. The anticipation was exciting for me to say the least. Last year my team and I were able to glean 147 sp. from the lakes, treetops, grasslands, and shrublands of Lake County. I was happy with my first May Big Day ever. It can always be better, though, and I have my sights set on the Lake County record of 163 some day soon. This year I tweaked the route a bit, listened to some well-placed advice by my teammate, and veteran big day birder, Jeff Sundberg, and we, along with eagle-eye Andy Stewart, were able to nab 151 sp. on Sunday. My goal for the day was 150, so I was pretty happy with our efforts. Of course, learning that 2 birds were seen at Waukegan and 5 birds at Ft. Sheridan that we missed was a tad frustrating, but such things happen. Judging by the number of different birds Steve Bailey and Sheryl DeVore had Saturday, the tier 1 birds we missed, birds we missed that others had on Sunday, and birds we missed due to route issues, 160+ sp. is definitely possible in Lake County on a good weather day without flooding. I think the flooding definitely hurt our shorebirds by dispersing birds all over the area to suitable habitat. Better shorebirding by what we had last year would have given us 157 sp. So there are many opportunities to break the 160 mark next year given no flooding. Having said that the actual weather on the Big Day was fabulous, though a tad windier than expected mid-morning.
  We started the day at my house to pack up the car at about 11:50pm Sat. night. Having just warmed up with a little Central Park Effect on Netflix, Opposable Chums on DVD, Birding Adventures TV on my laptop, and 2 cups of coffee, I was chomping at the bit to get out and find some birds. We started our journey at Lakewood FP to get, what has proven to be, a very consistent BARRED OWL.
From here we went to Volo Bog to get SORA, VIRGINIA RAILs, SWAMP SPARROW, and MARSH WREN but missed Sedge Wren and Screech Owl. At COLSP we had a nice chat with the gate officer who always wants to know what we're doing there in the middle of the night. I always tell him but he apparently doesn't believe me because he looks confused every time he sees us. Anyway, at COLSP we got EASTERN SCREECH OWL at a very reliable location along with some more rails but that was it. Then on to the lakefront where EASTERN WHIPPOORWILL was calling on its own at IBSP South at 3:30am. We also had GREAT HORNED OWL calling on its own and a couple of AMERICAN WOODCOCK. So far the day was playing out nicely with all expected nocturnal species save for Sedge Wren and Wilson's Snipe, two birds that eluded us for the entire 20+ hours.
  We began our daylight hours predawn at Fort Sheridan circa 4:30am. We walked the west trail primarily to get some sparrows. HENSLOW'S and SAVANNAH SPARROWS were easy to hear, but my target GRASSHOPPER SPARROW was proving to be very difficult indeed. Finally it gave its characteristic high-pitched tic-tac zeeeeeee "song" along with a little "tinkling" for good measure, and we were on our way.
Grasshopper Sparrow
Other good birds seen/heard here were ORCHARD ORIOLE (3), 2 flushed AMERICAN PIPITS, COMMON NIGHTHAWK, and an OVENBIRD. From Here we headed to Ryerson for the dawn chorus. On our way to Ryerson, I was driving down Old Elm Rd. at about 35 mph and listening to bird song out the window. "Hey, there's a HOUSE WREN.........there's a NORTHERN PARULA.........and a  BLACKBURNIAN WARBLER...." I wasn't really thinking of pulling over, but Jeff yelled out to stop the car, so I pulled over right across from a house on Old Elm as a cyclist and a jogger were both passing us wondering who these weirdos were. There was a hedge on both sides of the road with lots of warblers in it. We nabbed CAPE MAY, BLACKBURNIAN, N. PARULA, BT GREEN, B and W, CHESTNUT-SIDED, etc. In about 10 min. we had 10 sp. of warbler and were off. We pulled in to Ryerson, checked the old bridge for Prothonotary but whiffed, and then headed down warbler alley. It was crawling with birds. We nabbed all the vireos, including great looks at a PHILADELPHIA VIREO, and had all the regular sp. of warbler one would expect. On our way back to the lot, a COOPER'S HAWK did a nice pass right in front of us to give us another good bird. The Brushwood lot and Smith Cabin gave us no Olive-sided, so we headed to Daniel Wright for the HOODED WARBLER. As soon as we exited the car in the parking lot, we heard the Hooded singing off to the NW. We quickly trotted over only to have the bird become silent. A Chestnut-sided was also singing, so I started to doubt myself on the song. We decided to headed over to the pond for a quick loop and then come back. This added a CANADA WARBLER, TRAILL'S FLYCATCHER, YELLOW-BELLIED FLYCATCHER, and MOURNING WARBLER before returning back to the Hooded Warbler, who was singing his head off. We got real close and were able to confirm for sure that it was a Hooded before Andy was finally able to get a good look, and we headed out quickly to Waukegan.  On the way there we were commenting on lack of Am. Kestrel stakeouts when Andy yells out, "Slow down. I think I have a Kestrel." "You're kidding me, right????" "No".  So we pull into this factory lot of some sort on MLKing Dr. and sure enough there is a Kestrel pair nesting in some old vent on the side of the building. Heckuva spot, Andy! Onward to Waukegan.
  It was Ternfest at Waukegan Beach with hundreds of COMMON TERNS and a few less FORSTER'S TERNS. The retention pond gave us flyby LESSER Y'LEGS, DUNLIN, SEMI-PLOVER, and LEAST S'PIPER. Unfortunately close scanning of gulls on the beach failed to reveal any LBB Gull which was frustratingly found later by someone else. The water was completely empty of waterfowl, the pines were dead, 0 Purple Martins were in the Martin house, and no shorebirds were on the beach, so we headed out to cover the rest of the lakefront. By the time we left Waukegan it was pretty late at around 9:30, but I think our time spent early in the Des Plaines River Valley was worth it. My only regret is that we should probably have added Middlefork before hitting the lakefront. We didn't get virtually any migrants on the lakefront that one more hour would have changed anyway.
The Rest of the Story:
Com Ed- no peregrine.......again. I don't think it exists. Just sayin'. I'm 0-93 on this bird this year.
Lyons- no RB Nuthatch. Or anything else. Really?
South Unit- We checked for ET Sparrow and got zippo, but while looking we noticed a lot of warblers in the hedge right across the entrance drive. We started picking through them and had some nice, but ordinary, warblers. Andy and I started heading back to the car to keep us moving, when Jeff yells out, "PRAIRIE!!!!" WHAAAAAT!?! So we sprint our butts over there, and I struggle to find the  bird after Andy gets it in about 3 sec. Finally, I get a sweet look at a fantastic bird.

Prairie Warbler

Nicely done, Jeff!
Andy also finds another CANADA in that clump and then we head to the Dead River Trail, which was aptly named this day. Not a stinking bird on this trail except the ever-present FIELD SPARROW, and a nicely floating headless SHARP-SHINNED HAWK, which was a much-needed raptor.
At the end of the trail, though, we nab LARK SPARROW and BREWER'S BLACKBIRD in nesting territories before heading back to the car. A quick check of the lake from the office added HORNED GREBE in nice breeding attire. The campgrounds were quiet and nothing new was in the deciduous woods near the creek, so we headed out.
North Unit- CLAY-COLORED SPARROW seen and heard north of Sand Pond Rd. bridge along the gravel trail. No YB Chat, however.
NPM- Cliff Swallow colony but nothing else of note. No Willow Flycatcher calling.
Headed west:
Crawford Rd.- HORNED LARK, VESPER SPARROW
Private Residence- YELLOW-HEADED BLACKBIRD, COMMON GALLINULE
COLSP- WILD TURKEY, OSPREY, AM. WHITE PELICAN, WOOD THRUSH
East Loon Lake- BLACK TERN
Rollins- N. SHOVELER, PB GREBE, RUDDY DUCK, COMMON NIGHTHAWK
Almond Marsh- RING-NECKED DUCK, HOODED MERGANSER, BC NIGHT-HERON
I. Grove- PURPLE MARTIN
Then we drove to Butler Lake to look for the elusive Green Heron, which we never found, before finishing our night at 8:10 at Fairmont Shores checking out the BALD EAGLE nest as the sun disappeared over the horizon.
  It was a great day birding.....again. Thanks to Jeff and Andy for all the great birds, as always, good stories, patience, and chocolate chip cookies. It's a pleasure to hang with you guys.

Biggest misses: Green Heron, Sedge Wren, Wilson's Snipe, WT Sparrow, Solitary Sandpiper, BTB Warbler, LBB Gull. If anyone knows a consistent easily accessible spot for Green Heron in Lake County, please let me know. It's becoming quite a challenge for me to find them except by accident.
Summary:
26 Warbler sp. (my all-time high in Lake County), 13 sparrow sp., 11 waterfowl sp., 2 grebes, 7 shorebird sp.
  Thanks for reading. See you in June. It's coming quickly!

Here's the List:
http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S18458099

Is it Spring Yet?

4/26/14
  So yesterday Andy Stewart and I embarked on my 3rd Lake County Big Day for 2014 (did the Everglades in March). It was challenging to say the least. The weather was difficult in that winds were strong and cold out of the northeast, which is not favorable for movement of birds. As the day wore on and it became colder, birds were tough to find. I'm starting to wonder if the average temp is ever going to get to 70 degrees.
  This was in stark contrast to the way the day began, however.
  At 11:45pm, Andy arrived at my house and we headed for Rollins Savanna. I had never started a big day at Rollins before, so I was not sure what to expect. Shortly after we began to head toward the observation deck we heard the "peenting" of an AMERICAN WOODCOCK. I was actually worried about finding this bird on our day yesterday. Silly me. I think we heard/saw around 15 woodcocks during our nocturnal foray last night. Most were at Rollins and Fort Sheridan preserves. Just to help you get the feel for what it was like to be there, here's our most familiar sound from last night:
       woodcock peenting
  Rollins turned out to be very birdy at night as we listened to sounds of GREAT HORNED OWL,  VIRGINIA RAIL, multiple SORAS, 4 HENSLOW'S SPARROWS, GADWALL, and GREEN-WINGED TEAL. The evening was awesome weather-wise as well. It was warm and there was very little wind. We had a great night and ended up with 15 species before sunrise. No bitterns, gallinule, or Sedge Wren unfortunately, but just about every other night species I was hoping to get. The best bird of the starlit night, though was a "tic-tac-zeeeeee"ing GRASSHOPPER SPARROW at Fort Sheridan. I have never had this bird in April before, and it was tough to get last year, so I was happy to hear it last night.
  Daylight came around 5:45am and we headed to Ryerson to start our day. It was still calm and temps were mild. We birded the entrance rd. and then meandered down "warbler alley" which is the far western trail running parallel to the river. The entrance rd. didn't have much but the alley was hoppin'.
It was more like "sparrow alley" but active nonetheless. Best birds here were an ORANGE-CROWNED WARBLER and a SWAINSON'S THRUSH. Nothing much save for an EASTERN BLUEBIRD at the Brushwood lot, so we booked over to Daniel Wright. We biked around the main pond area and got nothing of note so we left to begin the long and torturous journey along the Lake County lakefront.
  Understand that usually this is one of my favorite places to bird. There's varied habitat, and during migration, usually lots of birds to look at. Yesterday, however, was very, very different. When we left the Des Plaines River area it was nice and balmy. When we got to the lakefront, there was a stiff 20-30mph NE wind blowing right in our faces off the lake. It was brutal, I was FREEZING, and, for about the 15th time this spring, I was muttering about when in the world spring was actually going to get here. It wasn't pleasant. And there were no birds on the beach, save for the usual gulls, and none in the water. Having said all that, we actually had 2 real good birds on Seahorse Dr. BEFORE we got on the beach. In the retention pond on the fenced in construction site at the turn were 4 shorebirds. 1 looked big, so I got the scope on it and we had nice looks at a WILLET!

     This was probably our best bird of the day. In the same spot were 2 LESSER YELLOWLEGS and 1 GREATER YELLOWLEGS, and our other good bird, 3 BREWER'S BLACKBIRDS.

                                male

                                  female
    Other than those lovelies, Waukegan gave us our only BROWN THRASHER of the day, buuuuut.......we only had 2 species of waterfowl, 1 grebe (our only HORNED GREBE), 0 warblers, and 0 new sparrows. Not very promising. The South Unit gave us some nice waterfowl (AMERICAN WIGEON, both SCAUP sp.) and RED-HEADED WOODPECKER, and HERMIT THRUSH, but no warblers or new sparrows AND no wrens. Here's a couple of IBSP shots:

                       2 Lesser Scaup (left) with at least 2 Greater Scaup (male-top, female- far right)

                                   Red-headed Woodpeckers
     As always, it's always a great day to be out birding with friends, but the weather made it tough yesterday. We finished with 108 which could easily have been 115 with some foresight. Given the strong NE winds, I should have stayed inland early and finished at a couple of lakefront stops. Anyway, here are some of my highlights:
  Best Bird: WILLET
  Best site: IBSP South or Ryerson
  Biggest Surprise Site: Sullivan Lake. While we missed the Trumpeter Swan that has been there since forever, but not YESTERDAY, the small stand of trees and shrubs next to the road had the sun shining on it and was alive with birds. Andy deftly picks out a TENNESSEE WARBLER from the flock as we listen to a zeeeeeee-UP'ing NORTHERN PARULA. Very nice birds at a time when we weren't finding much.
  Funniest  You-Had-To-Be-There Bird Moment: So I'm lamenting about the fact that I never get a COOPER'S HAWK on my big days while we are driving past Rollins to Third Lake. Andy says in response to me that he usually sees his Cooper's at Rollins in the trees at the back of the parking area right HERE as he points while we drive past. He hadn't quite finished speaking when he suddenly blurts out, "THERE IT IS!" I look quickly and can't see anything. I'm not about to miss another Cooper's on a big day, so I quickly turn into the median and throw it in reverse. It still took me a minute, but perched right there next to the road was a beautiful adult Coop. Nicely done, Andy. Sorry about the creative driving.
  Warbler sp: 5 (yr, palm, oc, tenn, parula)
  Sparrow sp: 11
  COOL SIGHTING: Andy finds a GREAT HORNED OWL nest with an adult sitting on it. Been looking for one of those for quite a while. Another attaboy for that one, Andy. Sweet.
  Biggest misses: Cedar Waxwing, Vesper Sparrow on Crawford Rd, Rusty Blackbird on Goldfinch Trail, Common Loon, no wrens of any kind.
  Thanks, Andy, for awesome finds, great jokes, and a hazelnut latte.
  Thanks everyone for reading. Here's to some warmth in May......please!
The List

Big Day in the Sea of Grass

  My usual pattern of doing a Lake County Big Day had to be interrupted this month since my lovely wife and I took a much-needed vacation over spring break to the Florida Keys. There are a few more people down here than I would like, but the scenery, the weather, and the birds are awesome. A vacation from the sub-arctic of northern Illinois does NOT mean a vacation from Big Day birding, however, and my wife graciously agreed to be my partner for a big day excursion in the Everglades. Now, one of the things I like most, aside from the birds, about big days is the challenge of route planning. This is really difficult for me because I am an inherent perfectionist, so it's easy for me to get frustrated with my decisions. Picking a route through a place you have only been to twice before isn't easy, so I predictably made a few logistical errors which, no doubt, cost us some good birds, but we saw some pretty cool birds, also, so that made up for it.
  My wife, being the saintly individual that she is, was highly sacrificial in her love yesterday, as well, seeing that she is not a birder AND she enjoys sleep......a lot. For her to stay up for 18+ hours in a row and help me find birds aint really her thang, but she was great and still amazes me after 22 years. She was my official photographer yesterday, so she took some pics of the more easily-viewed birds and a nice selfie for reference :

  So, anyway, we started our adventure in Homestead, Fla. at the 24 hr. Starbucks with a nice Hazelnut Latte for the road around 12:15am and headed down SR 9336 toward the glades. 

   Night birding is also one of my favorite parts of big day birding. The sounds you hear are awesome and even ones you may hear during the day sound so much cooler at night, especially in the Glades. As mentioned in previous blogs, I'm not a big fan of the dark, and venturing into the Everglades with its Florida Panthers, black bears, and large alligators carried with it a certain amount of irrational anxiety, especially since my wife was with me, and I feel the inherent need to protect her from such beasts. Normally I travel in the dark with other men much bigger than I so no worries. If I'm the biggest one in the group at a towering 5'8 150, that makes me worry a bit. It all turned out fine, of course, but there were some "strange-walking -and-rustling-in-grasses-sound" moments that made us quicken our steps a bit. The experience was very cool, though. Unfortunately the bird sounds, while high in number, were very low in diversity. I think we only had 6 night species, and we covered the area from Ernest Coe all the way to the Coastal Prairie Trail at the west end of Flamingo. It's also difficult at night without using playback. Since the use of playback is outlawed at ENP, and all NP's, we had to just listen and pish once in a while. This makes it tough. These were the 6 species we had at night:

1. Chuck-Will's-Widow- the numbers were astounding. 21 birds is a conservative estimate. They were calling everywhere in the pinelands. No whips unfortunately.

2. Clapper/King Rails- also very numerous in the sawgrass areas to the NE. Not sure which of these it was. The habitat favored King Rail, and the calls could have been the first part of "chick-burr" calls, but the sounds were "chick-chick-chick", etc. with no "burr" ever, so it could have been the Kek-kek-kek" of clapper rails, which it actually sounded more like. There were a lot of them, though, probably 8 or 9.

3. Barred owl- had 2 calling adults and 2 fledglings in a known nesting area:

4. grunting Great Blue Heron
5. screaming Osprey
6. Black-crowned Night Heron- quawking
7. saw a Roseate Spoonbill at Eco Pond.
  That was it for night birds. The Coastal Prairie Trail, though we only walked out about 100 yes into the prairie yielded nothing but silence.
  Once daylight hit, the first conundrum was where to start. I wanted to hear the Seaside Sparrows at Mahogany Hammock, but you need to catch them early. This was my first mistake. Never sacrifice many birds for 1 bird. While I did hear the SEASIDE SPARROWS, but never saw them (they must have been sitting low in the grass), I can't help thinking that hitting Eco Pond and Snake Bight early would have yielded a few migrant warblers and sparrows, of which I had virtually none for the day and was probably my biggest disappointment. In any case, we quickly sped from Flamingo to the main rd. just south of Mahogany to hear the sparrows, then journeyed over to Gate 15 mound. This was my next error. Doing this side route was a total time suck. The biggest problem was that I had never been to this spot before, but the birds seen and heard here according to ebird were awesome, so I thought I might get lucky. Wrong. Though we did have a nice cruising black SHORT-TAILED HAWK on this overcast morning, we got nothing else of note, and since I had no idea where exactly to go, we stopped and turned around. Next visit I will have to get some intel on this area.
  From here we went to Research Rd. and had a few good birds, including EASTERN MEADOWLARK, NORTHERN HARRIER, and GRASSHOPPER SPARROW, but no other sparrows, which I was hoping for. From here we headed to the Anhinga Trail where I was hoping for a Bittern or two and some gallinules, but we incredibly whiffed on all of them. I should also say that it has been a really wet year down here, so water levels were high and habitat for rails near the trails was not good. We had 1 COMMON GALLINULE at the end of the day at Nine-mile Pond, but we whiffed on Purple Gallinule. This still amazes me. I've always seen multiple numbers of Purple's on my previous visits here. Can't beat the photo ops of waders and the namesake bird, though, so here's a couple nice ones:

                             
                                                                Tricolored Heron

Little Blue Heron

Anhinga

     There were a lot of gators as well. Many were doing a lot of grunting and sounding very prehistoric. A couple were seriously big:

And seriously CLOSE

  By now it was 11:00ish and starting to get warm. The bird activity was definitely decreasing, so as we headed to Flamingo, I knew our productivity would decrease. At Eco Pond we saw the usual waders but virtually 0 warblers, save for Yellow-rumps, and no sparrows at all. Best bird here was a basic plumage AMERICAN AVOCET, but that was the only shorebird other than the resident BLAC K-NECKED STILTS. Tough to complain about dozens of Black-necked Stilts, though. Gorgeous birds.

And a couple nice waders:

                                         Tricolored Heron (left) and imm Little Blue Heron (right)

Also, the numbers of singing WHITE-EYED VIREOS here and everywhere else was astounding. We probably had 25 of these birds on they day. These guys along with singing PRAIRIE WARBLERS, and NORTHERN CARDINALS made up almost all of the birdsong on the day.
  So, we're starting to get a little warm right now, so we decide to get in the water and take a canoe trip to Snake Bight. It's about 1:00pm and low tide is at 5:00 so I think we have plenty of time, which we did, but we only paid for a 3 hr. trip. I sorely underestimated the time it would take to get out there. I figured about an hour each way, but it would be more like 1.5 each way. This may seem like a long time but you're usually looking at birds along the way, or at least we were the last time we did this. Today was a different story. There were virtually no birds at all near the visitor center and Flamingo Bay was similarly an avian desert. Very unexpected and not well understood......by me anyway. The trip out was long and arduous, but this is really the only way to see the shorebirds well in Snake Bight. This brings up the second problem: I chickened out. As we were paddling out, I noticed that I was hitting ground, and as we entered Florida Bay, the canoe bottom was actually hitting sand. I immediately had visions of us stranded in the bay at low tide and told my wife that we needed to abort the mission and head back. I learned two things from this poorly-informed decision: 1. the water is deeper near the shore next to the mangroves. I saw both kayakers and boats out in the bay at low tide near the shore; and 2. You can't see the shorebirds well without getting out into the bight by canoe. I only saw 4 shorebirds yesterday and this was largely why. Here's me laboring while my wife is shooting pics :)

Best bird of our kayak trip was a nice red phase REDDISH EGRET. Very Sweet bird, but too distant for a photo.

  We were pretty hot, tired, and famished at this point so we had a nice leisurely late lunch at the Flamingo Cafe which is seriously understaffed and has your basic greasy diner food, but it definitely hit the spot, and our waitress was very sweet despite being mercilessly overworked (the whole place was packed with people and there were 2 waitresses and 0 busboys).
  Now that we were fully sated with tasty food and at least somewhat rested, I thought I would make my worst decision of the day. Lets walk down Snake Bight and back. Understand that Snake Bight is 1.5 miles each way and makes the Bataan Death March of walking down to the Dead River at IBSP and back seem like a party. The main difference between the 2 is that at IBSP you can watch for flyover birds on the lake AND you can see how far away the Dead River is. The Snake Bight Trail, at least when we were on it yesterday, had no birds to hear or look at and the scenery rarely changes. You can't see the end and it makes me crazy wondering how far I still have to walk. Compound that by the fact that it was hot, I had to wear rain gear, a hood, and netting on my head to keep from being eating by the hordes of mosquitoes, and you've got yourself a recipe for a really good torture sequence. It was brutal. I had to apologize profusely for making my wife, who never complained once (and she HATES bugs) endure that trek. And swore I would never make her suffer that hell again. There are also 0 shorebirds visible well enough to ID from the end of the trail at low tide. You can definitely see that there are many out there however, and I thought I saw a Whimbrel, but heat shimmer was too distorting.
  At this point, I still wanted to see if I could get some more shorebirds/terns so we headed back to the Flamingo visitor Center and I scanned the water for more birds. Best birds were 2 COMMON LOONS out in the bay, but not much else. There was a spit of sand that held many BLACK SKIMMERS and LAUGHING GULLS but the only terns were CASPIAN and ROYAL TERNS and there were 0 shorebirds. Really?.....0? Yes, 0.  Also had 1 AM. WHITE PELICAN which was a good bird for the day. Then I headed to the Amphitheatre which I had never been to before but which had some great ebird data. Unfortunately the only shorebird there was 1 WILLET, and the only other bird of note was my only SAVANNAH SPARROW of the day. My wife was cashed by this time, understandably, and we had pretty much seen every site in Flamingo. It was around 6pm at this point, so we began the trek back home to Islamorada. Here's where I made my best decision of the day to stop at all the roadside stops on the way back that required little to no walking. This allowed me to pick up my lifer WHITE-CROWNED PIGEONS on the far side of Nine-mile Pond. Identifiable but cruddy looks even through my scope, but a lifer nonetheless. Also had COMMON GALLINULE, BLUE-WINGED TEAL, and probably the best bird of the day, a GREATER SCAUP with its large forehead, on West Lake. Along the way we also stopped at Paurotis Pond with its large WOOD STORK colony, and got a nice shot of a guy in the parking lot:

  We ended up with 80 sp. on the day which was, as always, below my goal of 100, and there were numerous misses, but the biggest misses were Painted Bunting and Purple Gallinule, which are both signature birds. Didn't even HEAR a bunting clearly. Thought I had one at one point but only heard part of a non-repeated song. Bummer.

   As in any good Disney movie, though, there must be a happy ending, and the highlights were many, so I will end with those, especially after all my griping about misses and mistakes.

Highlights other than those previously mentioned, were these:

1. a personal best for raptors other than at the hawk watch with these birds:

         a. Short-tailed Hawk

         b. Red-shouldered Hawk- everywhere

         c. Cooper's Hawk- not common here, so this was nice

         d. Both vultures

         e. Northern Harrier

         f. Swallow-tailed Kite- had about 12, but most while driving and all while the camera was not       available of course.

        g. Bald Eagle

        h. Osprey- these are everywhere at Flamingo. And VERY vocal.

     i. Am. Kestrel

2. This place is famous for waders and we had many. Can't beat killer looks at ROSEATE SPOONBILLS, REDDISH EGRETS, and WOOD STORKS. WHITE IBISES are trash birds here. We also had a WURDEMANN'S HERON (white morph Great Blue) in Florida Bay.

3. Many BROWN-HEADED NUTHATCHES

4. 4 PILEATED WOODPECKERS

And others I'm sure I missed......

  It was really a great experience. Heck, it's the Everglades. And I obviously learned a lot from my mistakes. Hopefully I helped you a little bit if you plan on going there to look for some birds. Thanks for reading, now lets see if I can find that Lake County Barrow's Goldeneye that I missed while basking in the glory of the Everglades......

Here's the list:

Everglades Big Day

See you in April!