One More Time!

So today, July 7, Jim Solum and I took another canoe trip out to the Tube in Grass Lake. The Ring-billed Gulls weren't nearly as numerous or raucous as last week. It was a warm morning but pretty calm. A cold front is coming through later today, so I thought some new shorebirds may show up today. Unfortunately that wasn't the case but we still had great looks at GREATER YELLOWLEGS, LEAST SANDPIPERS, SHORT-BILLED DOWITCHERS, and 1 STILT SANDPIPER. On the way back in to the dock we had 7 or 8 BLACK TERNS flying around us as well, which was cool.

                                 Short-billed Dowitcher

                                       Least Sandpipers

                                       Stilt Sandpiper

July 2: Shorebird Season Begins

July is pretty much a month of decreasing activity on the songbird front. Though they're still pretty active with feeding fledglings, they don't sing much, so it's tough to find them. It's also the month for "post breeding dispersal" where juveniles and non-breeding adults spread out and occupy new areas. I'm hoping this will give me a better chance to find a Black-billed Cuckoo this month.
  Mostly, though, July signifies the beginning of shorebird season when shorebirds start heading south toward wintering grounds. Shorebird migration will last from July to the end of October. I love shorebirds. I mean I love ALL birds, but looking for shorebirds is especially fun for me probably because they are so difficult to find and challenging to ID at times.
  So today, my lovely wife, Michelle, and I headed out to our favorite shorebird spot in Lake County, the Geotube in Grass Lake. This place is the closest thing to Emiquon in Northern Ill. Absolutely awesome mudflats unless we've had a ton of rain and the flats are flooded. Obviously not the case these days, so the habitat was excellent. It's still a little early, so I wasn't really expecting much but, once again, the Tube failed to disappoint.
We saw 7 shorebird sp. as well as a few other nice birds.
  The trip began with a nice sighting of a 1st yr. FORSTER'S TERN.

Then we headed toward the island where you are immediately met by screaming RING-BILLED GULLS.

After adjusting to the gulls, we checked out the mudflats and saw LEAST SANDPIPERS

Killdeer, SPOTTED SANDPIPERS

GREATER YELLOWLEGS

 Lesser Yellowlegs, SHORT-BILLED DOWITCHER

and STILT SANDPIPER (#241)

Also had some nice looks at CASPIAN TERNS

and an AMERICAN WHITE PELICAN!

A truly great place :)

Breeding Bird Survey #2 Lakewood

Summer is the time of breeding bird surveys. For the most part there is little migration in June so the focus is on breeding birds. There are lots of interesting birds breeding here in Lake County and for the past couple of summers I have been helping out my friend, Gary Glowacki, the wildlife biologist for the Lake County Forest Preserve District, with doing the summer surveys. This year I was assigned Lakewood Forest Preserve in Wauconda. Lakewood is a great place to bird mostly because it has a wide variety of habitats, though the woodland areas are rather sparse and disturbed. There are a nice variety of wetland, scrubland, and grassland species, however. I do 2 surveys a summer. One at the beginning of June and one at the end of June/beginning of July. So today was my 2nd survey. I did my first on June 3rd and had 67 sp. which is pretty awesome for 1 forest preserve. Today it was a little less mostly because birds are singing less and the morning was pretty foggy early. Of note in its absence was Sedge Wren, which I had multiple numbers of earlier. However, taking its place was the HENSLOW'S SPARROW. I had 4 singing in various spots and got looks at 1 of them:

They're very small sparrows, and can be tough to find. Fortunately they sing pretty persistently even through July. Another highlight was multiple GRASSHOPPER SPARROWS:

I had 7 sparrow species on the day, which was cool. Here's a Savannah:

Aside from sparrows there was also the ever-present DICKCISSELS:

Other less common birds were 3 ORCHARD ORIOLES and 2 BLACK-CROWNED NIGHT HERONS.
  Another great morning of birding. Tomorrow out to look for some shorebirds!

COLSP 6/22

  Beautiful day to be out today. After 3 consecutive days of 25-35mph winds, it seemed like nirvana to have a calm morning with lots of bird song. Mild temps in the 60's were nice as well.
  I started at the boat launch area to see if I could get Black Terns or Least Bitterns. Whiffed on both of those but had great looks at a pair of RED-HEADED WOODPECKERS which were probably nesting, though I didn't stick around long enough to confirm.

A big bonus at the same site was a "peet-zah!"-ing ACADIAN FLYCATCHER. Unfortunately I couldn't get a visual but the call was pretty distinctive and given multiple times.
acadian flycatcher
  Then I headed over to James Rd. behind the park office to the west. Every time I've been here since May (4 times) I have seen at least one WILD TURKEY and today was no different. Also heard a couple of ORCHARD ORIOLES orchard oriole song. Not much else of note, though, so I headed down the Goldfinch Trail. Along the trail I had a nice look at an OSPREY on the platform nest.

Not the best pic but you can see the black-and-white raptor on the platform. I continued further down the path hearing regulars like FIELD SPARROW and YELLOW WARBLER, but then I heard a call that I don't hear in the summer usually, the che-BEK! che-BEK! of a LEAST FLYCATCHER call. I actually heard 2 of them calling simultaneously on opposite sides of the trail. Very cool! A few more of the regular birds and then I headed over to the Deerpath lot to walk the Deerpath Trail. As soon as I pulled in I heard the song of the CERULEAN WARBLER song. I got out of the car and tried to find the little bugger. They have this annoying habit of singing at the very tops of trees, so it's really tough to see them usually. I got lucky this time and actually got a couple of decent pics:

Love that bird! I then headed down the trail toward the grassy marsh area and heard 4 SEDGE WRENS. I got a couple of nice looks but couldn't get good pics due to overexposure from the sun.

  The rest of the trip found more of the regulars but the number of AMERICAN REDSTARTS was phenomenal-12! Also good numbers of YELLOW-THROATED VIREOS (6), SCARLET TANAGERS (6), and ROSE-BREASTED GROSBEAKS (5).

Another great day to be birding!

 
 

Nemesis No More!

The "nemesis" bird is that one bird that you spend hours looking for but just can't seem to find even though everyone else around you can find them seemingly in your own backyard. Such has been the case for me with 2 birds in my short birding career: the Broad-winged Hawk and the Black-billed Cuckoo. The Broad-wing has been seen in Lake County by at least 4 different people since May and more than that since April this year. For some reason I can never seem to find them during migration even though my neighbor (literally!), Rich Biss, will report seeing over 100 of them streaming by his house! Since I started birding pretty seriously in '07, I have seen Broad-wings in Lake County twice, but not since '09. Interestingly, both of those sightings were at Grant Woods North. If I were smart, I would have concentrated my energy on finding them there this year as well. Those sightings were in the fall, though, so I wasn't thinking they would be around in the summer here. Well, Barbi Fotland and her husband, Skip, fortunately are ebirders and record their sightings on ebird. I was able to see Barbi's report, and so I went there this morning to see if I could find some Broad-wings. I got to the the Grant Woods North parking area at 5:24am and was on the trail quickly. I made the circuit once, heard a few good birds like a PINE WARBLER and an OVENBIRD, then got my bike and rode around back to the west to work off-trail. I stopped at an open area just past the bridge and parked my bike. I noticed a few birds in the air, mostly Tree Swallows and Ring-billed Gulls, but 2 of the birds looked a little different.....HAWKS! I got my bins on them as they circled overhead and had beautiful looks at 2 adult BROAD-WINGED HAWKS....WOOOHOOO!!! Finally, after tracking this bird for almost 3 years, I got some great looks. You just can't beat the exhilaration at that moment. I tried to get photos, but since I'm very clumsy with the camera, and the birds were steadily drifting north, I came up empty. Still a memorable experience. Thanks again to the Fotlands for posting their sightings!

Wadley Wing Haven 6/19

I just recently had the pleasure of accompanying my birding friend, Donnie Dann, on a wetland survey at the residence of Searle Wadley and his wife. They live northwest of Antioch near the Fox River and have wetland and woodland edge habitat that is very extensive. Needless to say, the birding is good there, and Mr. Wadley and his wife are extremely sweet people. They both opened up their property to my birding adventures, so I took advantage of this yesterday and headed over there to look for cuckoos. Unfortunately, I wasn't prepared for the onslaught of deer flies that waged war on my head as I walked the grassy trail back into the woodland, so I headed hastily back to my car to grab my head net. By this time, I had been here an hour and wanted to check out the wetland, so I went there instead of back to the woods. Good move. The wetland was hopping with waders. I had 4 sp. of waders and there were over 100 GBHerons and GEgrets combined. Astonishing. I searched hard for a snowy but no luck.

As I was watching the waders, I heard the wailing call of a Common Gallinule. Now I have heard them before and seen one at Almond Marsh, but these birds are hard to come by, so any looks are good ones. A few moments later, 1 bird ventured into the open.

  I heard another gallinule calling a few minutes later, as well.

I also spotted a pair of RING-NECKED DUCK, which is rather odd for June. Anyway, another great morning of birding :)

Warblers, Waders, and Western Kingbird

Fortunately for me my in-laws live in Collinsville, IL, which is just outside of St.Louis and is midway between Carlyle Lake and the Shawnee National Forest. My wife and I, and sometimes our teenage kids, make the trip about twice a year usually- once in the summer and once around Christmas. Each summer my goal is to find all the southern breeding warblers that are really difficult to find in Lake County (Kentucky, Prairie, Worm-eating, Yellow-throated, Cerulean, Louisiana Waterthrush) and to see the waders that also are tough to get in N. IL (cattle egret, YC Night Heron, Snowy Egret, Little Blue Heron). In addition, there has been a nesting WESTERN KINGBIRD in Granite City that I try to find each year as well.
  This year I was pretty lucky and got all the birds I was looking for with the exception of Louisiana Waterthrush. I started on Monday morning 6/11 at 5:45am on a side street in the Shawnee that sounded good for warblers. I was right. In a few minutes I had nice looks at a YELLOW-THROATED WARBLER and a beautiful KENTUCKY WARBLER.

                                   Kentucky Warbler

                                 Yellow-throated Warbler
Also in this area were many WHITE-EYED VIREOS, CAROLINA WRENS, and a couple of SUMMER TANAGERS.
I then headed toward the Cache River and Michael Wolff wetlands to check for Anhingas. On the way I stopped at a shrubby area on Eden Rd. where I heard then saw a nice male PRAIRIE WARBLER.

Unfortunately the Anhingas were a no-show, but they don't usually come in until mid to late afternoon and it was still mid-morning so it wasn't totally unexpected for them to be AWOL. A nice day nonetheless.
  Tuesday morning I tried to hit Larue-Pine Hills, which is supposed to be a great place, but I turned on the wrong road and was driving a gravel road to nowhere for 30 min. Once I recovered from that mishap, I headed to Pomona and Natural Bridges Rd. This place is superb. There were warblers singing everywhere and this has been my most reliable spot for seeing WORM-EATING WARBLERS right next to the road.

Also singing here were Yellow-throated, Cerulean, Kentucky, and Prothonotary Warblers.
  Wednesday was wader and kingbird day. I started at Cahokia Mounds State Park which is also an amazing place. It doesn't really look like much of a natural area. It has a couple of ponds and a lot of open grassy areas. If the grass is being mowed, however, these grassy areas become egret magnets. CATTLE EGRETS love following the tractor around and eating the insects chopped up by the tractor.

Other than cattle egrets, there was also a SNOWY EGRET and a LITTLE BLUE HERON in the back pond.

From here I headed to Granite City to find the WESTERN KINGBIRD waiting patiently for me on a telephone wire right at the Niedringhaus 7/11 store.

It vocalized briefly, then flew down to a post:

 Nice! I still needed Yellow-crown, though, so I headed to Wilson Park to check on the nests. I saw none, so I decided to head back to Cahokia since that it is the only place that I know of to find them reliably. I drove in a checked the ponds. Nothing. I walked around a bit, took some NORTHERN MOCKINGBIRD photos, then checked the ponds again. There next to the road was a beautiful YELLOW-CROWNED NIGHT HERON!

Gotta love S. IL!