Miller Meadows Bird Walk & Columbus Park

Tuesday 31 May 2016 82 °F

Today, I led a bird walk at Miller Meadows Forest Preserve in Maywood, IL and then did a bit of birding in Columbus Park, IL.

Eight birders showed up for the bird walk, which turned out to be quite productive. The best non-photographed bird we had was a pair of YELLOW-BILLED CUCKOOS, a great species, that simply moved through the vegetation too quickly for photos.

BLUE-GRAY GNATCATCHER at the beginning of the walk:

Male EASTERN MEADOWLARK:

Male SAVANNAH SPARROW:

TREE SWALLOW:

Male DICKCISSELS:

NORTHERN ROUGH-WINGED SWALLOW:

One of at least six GREAT BLUE HERONS seen on the walk:

WILLOW FLYCATCHER:

First-year male ORCHARD ORIOLE, a nice find:

It was a great walk! Here is the full species list for the walk:

38 species (+1 other taxa)

Canada Goose 5
Wood Duck 2
Great Blue Heron 6 Conservative count, probably 7 or 8. Two birds were seen perched in the trees on the edge of the north meadow and the others were all flyovers.
Red-tailed Hawk 1
Ring-billed Gull 20
Mourning Dove 4
Yellow-billed Cuckoo 2 Seen briefly in some small trees on the east side of the meadows.
Red-bellied Woodpecker 1
Downy Woodpecker 1
Willow Flycatcher 1
Great Crested Flycatcher 2
Eastern Kingbird 2
Warbling Vireo 3
Blue Jay 1
Northern Rough-winged Swallow 3
Tree Swallow 2
Barn Swallow 4
House Wren 2
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 3
American Robin 15
European Starling 2
Cedar Waxwing 2
Common Yellowthroat 2
Yellow Warbler 2
Savannah Sparrow 3
Song Sparrow 5
Northern Cardinal 2
Indigo Bunting 1
Dickcissel 3
Bobolink 1
Red-winged Blackbird 10
Eastern Meadowlark 4
Common Grackle 5
Brown-headed Cowbird 2
Orchard Oriole 1
Baltimore Oriole 1
blackbird sp. 2
American Goldfinch 1
House Sparrow 1

Following the walk, Aerin Tedesco and I birded Columbus Park where it was overall quiet but nice to get out for a walk on a nice summer morning.

There were a few birds; however, including this EASTERN WOOD-PEWEE:

And a good number of WOOD DUCKS:

Thanks to Aerin Tedesco for giving me a ride home from the birding.

Bird-of-the-day for today goes to the first-year male Orchard Oriole identified first by Aerin at Miller Meadows. Usually the Yellow-billed Cuckoo would get bird-of-the-day, but they wil have to settle for runner-up since they didn't allow for photographs!

The next Miller Meadows bird walks will both take place at 8:00am on June 4 & June 25 - meet at the west parking lot off of 1st Ave.

Good birding,

Henry
World Life List: 885 Species (no life birds today)

Posted by skwclar 21:12 Archived in USA Tagged me lakes people trees animals birds sky