January Big Day: The Quest for 77

TUESDAY, JANUARY 2:

Another day to which I look forward annually…the Cook County January Big Day! This would be our first five-person big day, as my buddies Simon, Peter, Henry, and Ethan all piled into the xterra and I drove us around the county in a methodical search to break 76 species in one day.

We started at Miller Meadow Forest Preserve at 4:45am and nailed our first bird of the day, an owl! EASTERN SCREECH-OWL was a wonderful way to start the day and getting this bird here allowed us to skip the next to stops and speed down to Palos to search for the larger owl species.

Unfortunately, the second part of the owling was uneventful and we didn’t turn up any new species until it started to get light at Cap Sauer Holding Forest Preserve. Here, we had a few growling RED-HEADED WOODPECKERS which are very common here this winter:

Bergman Slough held CANADA GEESE and another important pick-up for the day: TRUMPETER SWANS!

As well as a local rarity, an immature TUNDRA SWAN! It was great to get this species which usually would be nearly unthinkable to get on a January big day — the mild winter so far was already proving to be a blessing for this day.

Note the difference in size between the Tundra on the right and the Trumpeters to the left.

The boys pointed out a distant NORTHERN FLICKER which I initially had trouble getting on as it was alllll the way across the slough and field, what a spot, and our only one of the day!

We cleaned up BALD EAGLE at our next stop McGinnis Slough, which was unfortunately iced over from the sub-freezing temps the night before. Rats! There goes our chance at Pintail for the day.

Luckily, the 143rd St Pond was open and held a great diversity of ducks including this beautiful drake WOOD DUCK, also our only one of the day:

As well as MALLARDS and a couple NORTHERN SHOVELERS in the middle:

Can you spot the AMERICAN BLACK DUCK hiding in the back?

RUDDY DUCK, our only one of the day, among the Geese:

Our next stop was Sagawau Canyon where we picked up common feeder species like DOWNY WOODPECKER:

And a great pick-up for the day, two female PURPLE FINCHES along with a male HOUSE FINCH:

Saganashkee Slough brought its usual handful of waterbirds, including COMMON MERGANSERS and RING-BILLED GULLS:

LESSER SCAUP:

COMMON GOLDENEYE:

RED-BREASTED MERGANSER:

YELLOW-RUMPED WARBLER, our only of the day, was a great spot by Simon at Little Red Schoolhouse:

As well as the continuing RING-NECKED DUCKS:

Chicago Portage Woods netted us GOLDEN-CROWNED KINGLET and BROWN CREEPER (though we missed Fox Sparrow, Winter Wren, and Green-winged Teal that I had yesterday), and Jefferson Park immediately got us our only EURASIAN COLLARED-DOVES of the day:

This immature BLACK-CROWNED NIGHT-HERON was a quick, easy pickup at Ronan Park (unless you count the driving along the way):

Montrose was beautiful but unfortunately extremely dead and sucked a lot of time out of our day. Rats.

It only got us the continuing hen LONG-TAILED DUCK in the harbor:

Lincoln Park Zoo got us a (yes, wild!) GREEN-WINGED TEAL:

And these two HOODED MERGANSERS on the way out were awesome to snag for our list:

Unfortunately, Museum Campus was dead, but we did pickup BUFFLEHEAD for our day list at Rainbow Beach:

Along with a bunch of AMERICAN COOTS which we also had earlier at North Ave turning basin:

HORNED GREBE, one of only two seen today:

Us in front of the skyline at Rainbow Beach:

RED-SHOULDERED HAWK on the way out of Rainbow was incredibly lucky:

Next stop was Steelworkers Park which unfortunately was dead.

Calumet Park got us an immediate CACKLING GOOSE among the Canadas:

And the continuing three ROSS’ GEESE from Thanksgiving!!!

Next, we picked up MONK PARAKEETS at their usual southside location and then continued on to WOLF LAKE where we had our only MUTE SWANS of the day:

And on the way to Indian Ridge, we scanned towers were PEREGRINE FALCONS hang out sometimes and sure enough, they were there! At this point, the target of 77 species seemed within reach as we were about five birds away from that!

GREAT BLUE HERON was a nice pickup at Indian Ridge Marsh:

Big Marsh was pretty quiet but got us WHITE-CROWNED SPARROW.

Harborside Golf Course, miraculously, was open despite them saying on the phone it would be closed! Yay! This would give us a much better shot at the record.

NORTHERN HARRIER was great to get there, our 73rd bird of the day!

And GADWALL, 74!

GREATER SCAUP:

CANVASBACK were #75 along with MALLARDS:

And our tying bird was this drake AMERICAN WIGEON (left), pictured here departing Lake Calumet along with two GADWALL (right). Amazing! Our tying bird on last year’s big day was also at Harborside, and within five minutes of this bird!

Happy birders eager for our tie-breaking bird:

After some brief discussion on whether to chase a Marsh Wren at O’Brien Lock and Dam or Double-crested Cormorants at Bend of the Little Calumet River, we decided the Cormorants, though less of an interesting species, they were more reliable for the day count. So, we arrived at the Bend—

And got our record-breaking bird, #77, DOUBLE-CRESTED CORMORANT! Last year, our record-breaking 76th bird, the Pied-billed Grebe, was also within five minutes of this same exact time, at this same location! A great testament to our reliable, productive big day route! (even with the aforementioned midday slump in activity)

An adult BLACK-CROWNED NIGHT-HERON was also present, meaning we could have skipped the earlier twitch of the Ronan Park bird and saved a decent amount of time, though there is really never any way to know how things will pan out, and if we would have missed other things that way.

Unfortunately, there were no Larks, Longspurs, or Buntings present at the Ridgeland Ave fields, though we did pick up HORNED LARK, #78, as a flyover at our last daylight stop, Killdeer Wetlands. Our final species of the day, #79, turned out to be this beautiful SHORT-EARED OWL that posed for us in the sunset. Incredible!

Happy record-breaking birders!

Unfortunately, owling the rest of the night turned out to be unproductive yet again, but no matter as we had broken the previous January record (which we also set) by three whole birds! It was a day for the books and a wonderful time with friends I don’t get to see a whole lot these days anymore.

Bird-of-the-day to the Tundra Swan and runner-up to the Red-shouldered Hawks. Lots of goodies from which to choose today!

Stay tuned: I am publishing this post from Brussels, Belgium, where I will be until January 12, followed by Paris until January 16! I will definitely fit in a day or two of birding between sightseeing, tagging along the CSO tour, and seeing friends!

Happy birding,
Henry
World Life List: 1174 Species