Oak Park Bird Walks & a bit of scouting
Cook County, IL
Wednesday 14 June 2023
70 °F
Now that I’m back in Chicago, I have catching up to do on bird walk & big day scouting posts! Here goes:
THURSDAY, MAY 25:
This unseasonably chilly first bird walk of the season for me yielded a few things such as EASTERN KINGBIRDS right off the bat:
A nicely cooperative WARBLING VIREO:
NORTHERN FLICKER:
YELLOW-BELLIED FLYCATCHER:
Juvenile AMERICAN ROBIN:
Male HOUSE FINCH:
Warbling Vireo on its nest!
SWAINSON’S THRUSH:
RED-EYED VIREO:
GREEN HERON:
Female AMERICAN REDSTART:
WHITE-CROWNED SPARROW:
A cool and rather quiet walk, with bird-of-the-day to an unphotographed GOLDEN-WINGED WARBLER with runner-up to the Yellow-bellied Flycatcher.
FRIDAY, MAY 26:
Today, I led a bird walk at Thatcher Woods — starting off with this AMERICAN REDSTART:
HOUSE WREN:
A huge surprise was finding a pair of uncommon BROWN CREEPERS on territory north of Chicago Ave — I’ve never had this bird breeding at Thatcher before!
Beautiful iridescence on this TREE SWALLOW:
Another nice find was this RED-HEADED WOODPECKER:
And YELLOW-BELLIED FLYCATCHER:
Male BALTIMORE ORIOLE:
WOOD DUCKS:
CEDAR WAXWING:
EASTERN WOOD-PEWEE:
A bit of scouting for my upcoming June Big Day at Lakeshore East Park downtown yielded a couple things such as an unphotographed LEAST FLYCATCHER, and this OVENBIRD:
And this LINCOLN’S SPARROW:
Bird-of-the-day to the Brown Creepers with runner-up to the Red-headed Woodpecker.
SATURDAY, MAY 27:
Today Oak Park Bird Walks returned to Columbus Park where we started off with this BLACK-CROWNED NIGHT-HERON doing its best to tackle a large catfish for its meal!
Brilliant make AMERICAN GOLDFINCH:
And a YELLOW WARBLER nearby, a good lesson in warbler vs finch ID.
WARBLING VIREO again:
And TREE SWALLOW:
GREAT BLUE HERON with a few RING-BILLED GULLS:
And a larger HERRING GULL, a pretty nice bird for Columbus Park:
Closer look at the juvenile Robin from two days ago:
COOPER’S HAWK!
And a nicer look at the two Ring-billed Gulls:
WILSON’S WARBLER:
BLUE-GRAY GNATCATCHER:
Heron again:
Male WOOD DUCK:
PHILADELPHIA VIREO was really nice:
And even better was this extremely (about a month!) late YELLOW-RUMPED WARBLER, my bird-of-the-day! Awesome!
Closer look at the Night-Herons:
Beautiful flowers at the pond:
Female American Bullfrog:
And successfully found the Cooper’s Hawk nest a few blocks north of my house, good to know!
More to come!
Happy birding,
Henry
World Life List: 1151 Species
Fun to see the close ups of the Night Heron. The Stilts a treat, too.
by Mary McCutchan