March Big Day

SATURDAY, MARCH 28:

Wow, I am just hilariously (months!) behind in posting!!! I actually did a fair bit of intense, focused birding this spring and so have a lot to post but just haven’t had a second to put it all in writing until now.

Anyway, the rest of this post will be written in the present-tense, as if it were still March 28! Man, with this heat, I kind of wish it were.

Henry Meade, Peter Tolzmann, and I headed out today to try to break the past March big day record of 92 species. Our full eBird trip report is attached here so if you want to spoil it for yourself, click this link now. If not, read my (and parts of Henry Meade’s) narrative below.
https://ebird.org/tripreport/493360

Our day started off, as usual, at Plum and as Henry M described, “A 3:30am alarm and productive night birding on the southeastern part of the county resulted in 3 owl species, American Woodcock and roosting Wild Turkeys.” It was a great start to the day.

Here was one of our first birds of the day, a BARRED OWL deftly spotted by Henry M:

Roosting WILD TURKEY in a tree at Plum was crazy:

A dimly-lit NORTHERN FLICKER at 5:47am:

Roosting WOOD DUCKS:

That blob in the center of this photo is a staked-out GREAT HORNED OWL we tracked down at the preserve, always an important tick for a big day:

White-tailed Deer on the trek out through the parking lot:

Our shadows in said parking lot.

Our first RED-TAILED HAWK of the day:

Then, we headed over to Centennial Park in Orland Park for a few pickups for the day such as Caspian Tern. AMERICAN TREE SPARROW in the parking lot:

And a crazy roosting flock of TREE SWALLOWS huddled together in the brisk morning air:

RING-BILLED GULL:

Our hoped-for CASPIAN TERNS:

HORNED GREBE:

CANADA GEESE:

We followed that up with some incredibly productive morning hours, highlighted by a blitz through Palos that resulted in roughly 80 species before 11am.” - Henry M

Our first Palos stop was McGinnis Slough Forest Preserve where we picked up AMERICAN COOT:

PIED-BILLED GREBES:

GADWALL:

Drake GREEN-WINGED TEAL:

Many, many RING-NECKED DUCKS with a few LESSER SCAUP:

BUFFLEHEAD:

NORTHERN SHOVELERS:

SONG SPARROW:

McClaughry Springs Forest Preserve brought a few pickups such as this RUBY-CROWNED KINGLET:

Swallow Cliff South produced our first-of-the-year CHIPPING SPARROW:

The OSPREYS had returned to the nesting platform at Bergman Slough:

We picked up a few ticks in the slough such as EASTERN MEADOWLARK, SAVANNAH SPARROW, and HORNED LARK. Across the street, we enjoyed looks at RED-HEADED WOODPECKER:

And BROWN CREEPER:

The platform feeders at Little Red had a few pickups for the day like DOWNY WOODPECKER, HOUSE SPARROW, and RED-WINGED BLACKBIRD.

And DARK-EYED JUNCO:

TRUMPETER SWANS in Long John Slough (along with a WOOD DUCK):

More Bufflehead:

Male COMMON MERGANSER:

After that, the inevitable midday lull hit us like a brick wall, and we were left hoping that the Southside would be as productive as we knew it could be. Despite this, we picked up a few birds such as these LONG-TAILED DUCKS which were basically our only addition of note at Montrose:

The dunes have really grown dramatically in recent years at Montrose, great news for our lakefront native flora and fauna.

We also saw an incredible cloud formation over Montrose here.

Lincoln Park Zoo added BLACK-CROWNED NIGHT-HERON to our list:

And these wild HOODED MERGANSERS:

We tried in vain to identify distant migrating ducks over Lake Shore Drive in hopes of picking up a Greater White-fronted or Snow, but they were just too distant.

SWAMP SPARROW at Rainbow Beach:

As well as one of the local AMERICAN KESTRELS:

Flyover DOUBLE-CRESTED CORMORANTS:

Steelworkers Park was an extremely productive stop in terms of water birds, with pick-ups for the day such as COMMON GOLDENEYE:

COMMON LOON:

Another Long-tailed Duck:

GREATER SCAUP:

And a beautiful RED-THROATED LOON, among many here:

Another Horned Grebe:

Possibly the best find here was this super-cooperative SURF SCOTER within spitting distance of where we were scoping:

Male WHITE-WINGED SCOTER was also an important addition here:

Calumet brought a few additions to our list for the day, mainly at Harborside International Golfcourse where we added AMERICAN WHITE PELICANS among the cormorants, gulls, and mergansers:

As well as MUTE SWAN:

More Shovelers:

And the trusty CANVASBACK:

AMERICAN WIGEON and REDHEAD were great additions as well:

GREEN-WINGED TEAL across from Big Marsh:

And a GREAT EGRET at Indian Ridge Marsh:

As well as Gadwall:

O’Brien Lock and Dam came through with the reliable WHITE-CROWNED SPARROWS who somehow always pick that spot as their wintering ground in Cook County:

Continuing further south, Sand Ridge Nature Center added RED-BREASTED NUTHATCH:

And down in far South Cook, the Ridgeland Avenue fields produced HORNED LARK as well as these BLUE-WINGED TEAL:

And this surprise NORTHERN HARRIER:

RUSTY BLACKBIRD was a great addition there, and we had them at our next and second-to-last stop for the day, Helmick Nature Preserve, as well:

And a quick selfie at our final stop of the day, Killdeer Wetland:

As you may guess by now, we did quite well today. We got 107 species which broke the previous March record by 15 birds, even though we missed several — see Henry’s note below.

From Henry M: “We did miss several easy birds, on a different day I'm sure Hermit Thrush, Red-shouldered Hawk, Greater White-fronted Goose and Northern Pintail would've been in the picture. An early season Barn Swallow or Brown Thrasher didn't feel out of the question either, maybe if the wind setup was a bit different leading up to the day. 115+ definitely feels possible, maybe that'll be next year's goal!”

It was an awesome day of birding all the same!!! Bird-of-the-day to the Surf Scoter with runner-up to the Red-throated Loons. Cool to do some hardcore March birding for once, and with great friends!

Happy birding,
Henry
World Life List: 1504 Species