6th Oak Park Bird Walk of Autumn
Saturday 3 October 2015
55 °F
Today I led six steadfast birders on the sixth Oak Park Bird Walk of the season in damp, chilly weather with misty rain showers and temperatures in the lower 50's. The avian turnover that has happened over the last few days was strikingly evident this morning as pockets of warblers and Swainson's Thrush that were here just a few days ago have been replaced with late-fall migrants such as YELLOW-BELLIED SAPSUCKER, WHITE-THROATED SPARROW, and abundant GOLDEN-CROWNED KINGLETS.
The best bird of the walk; however, was my first-of-the-season DARK-EYED JUNCO, a typical wintertime bird for Chicago so although this was nice to see, it sadly signals yet another Chicago winter is on the way.
To get on the email list for Oak Park Bird Walks, email me at: [email protected]
To learn more information about the walks, please visit: sites.google.com/site/opbirdwalks/
On a completely different note, last Sunday night, my parents and I admired the "blood moon" lunar eclipse, a once-in-a-generation, spectacular phenomenon where (as you may guess) a blood moon coincides with a lunar eclipse. The next time this particular event will happen will be in 2033. I had never even seen a regular eclipse before, so this was really cool!
The full list for today's Oak Oark Bird Walk is attached below.
Good birding,
Henry
World Life List: 865 Species (no recent life birds)
21 species (+1 other taxa)
Canada Goose 2
Ring-billed Gull 1
Rock Pigeon (Feral Pigeon) 5
Mourning Dove 1
Chimney Swift 6
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker 4
Downy Woodpecker 1
Black-capped Chickadee 1
White-breasted Nuthatch 2
Golden-crowned Kinglet 10
American Robin 20
European Starling 2
American Redstart 1
Cape May Warbler 1
Yellow-rumped Warbler 2
warbler sp. (Parulidae sp.) 1
Dark-eyed Junco 1
White-throated Sparrow 1
Northern Cardinal 7
House Finch 2
American Goldfinch 3
House Sparrow 15
