8th Oak Park Bird Walk of Autumn
Saturday 10 October 2015
66 °F
This morning I led the second-to-last Oak Park Bird Walk of this fall. A nice group of birders enjoyed this walk, which turned out to be rather productive - especially for this late in the migration season - and despite the crisp temperatures in the mid-40s.
There were a lot of small passerines (songbirds) flitting about, but they were very challenging to identify because they were foraging quite frenetically due to the cool temperatures, making binocular and camera views a bit of a struggle.
Immature WHITE-CROWNED SPARROW that hadn't grown its white crown feathers yet:
A very late SWAINSON'S THRUSH - the average departure date for these guys from northeast Illinois is September 30, not October 10!
Male DARK-EYED JUNCO, a characteristic winter bird that clearly had a large influx into the area recently:
Near the end of the walk, both GOLDEN- and RUBY-CROWNED KINGLETS treated the group to mouth-watering views just feet away; however, they were moving so fast that I only managed these terrible photos!
RUBY-CROWNED KINGLET:
GOLDEN-CROWNED KINGLET:
It was a fantastic walk! Bird-of-the-day to the very late SWAINSON'S THRUSH. The full avian species list is attached below.
Good birding,
Henry
World Life List: 865 Species (no recent life birds)
23 species (+2 other taxa)
Canada Goose 9
Cooper's Hawk 1
Mourning Dove 1
Chimney Swift 6
Blue Jay 1
American Crow 13
Black-capped Chickadee 3
White-breasted Nuthatch 4
Golden-crowned Kinglet 10
Ruby-crowned Kinglet 8
Swainson's Thrush 1
American Robin 35
thrush sp. 2
Cedar Waxwing 1
American Redstart 1
Palm Warbler 1
Yellow-rumped Warbler 15
warbler sp. (Parulidae sp.) 15
Dark-eyed Junco 5
White-crowned Sparrow 1
White-throated Sparrow 5
Northern Cardinal 8
Common Grackle 2
House Finch 1
House Sparrow 25
