Orland Grassland

Wednesday 8 June 2016 69 °F

Yesterday I birded Orland Grasslands South near Orland Park in southern Cook County, Illinois. I decided to go because the preserve hosts many quality breeding birds, and it was forecast to be a pleasantly cool day in the upper 60's - perfect weather for birding in a grassland area, and an anomaly for June weather which is usually in at least the lower 80's.

It turned out to be a gorgeous day with very good birding. I happened to meet quite a few bird photographers, including someone from Chicago and a few photographers from the west coast with whom I birded extensively.

Right when I arrived at the preserve, I found a pair of Killdeer doing their "broken-wing display" on the trail ahead...obviously there was a nest nearby, but I didn't try to find it because I didn't want to disturb them any further.

Then, the photographers and I found a good number of grassland species including the most cooperative HENSLOW'S SPARROWS I have ever seen:

As well as a singing male EASTERN MEADOWLARK:

It was great meeting everyone!

On the way out, I found a few good things including this EASTERN KINGBIRD:

Female CEDAR WAXWING:

FIELD SPARROW:

And, like last post, I'll end this post with a photo of a deer...this time, it was a beautiful young fawn!

Bird-of-the-day goes to the Henslow's Sparrow, which luckily was two photographers' #1 target bird of their trip! Runner-up to the Eastern Meadowlark. Honorable mention to the adorable fawn deer, although that isn't a bird!

The full list from yesterday is included below.

Good birding,

Henry
World Life List: 887 Species (no life birds yesterday)

30 species (+1 other taxa):

Wood Duck 4
Great Blue Heron 1
Great Egret 1
Turkey Vulture 2
Killdeer 2 Broken-wing display by both parents of an assumed nest nearby.
Mourning Dove 8
Chimney Swift 1
Downy Woodpecker 1
Eastern Kingbird 2
flycatcher sp. (Tyrannidae sp.) 1
Blue Jay 1
Tree Swallow 1
Black-capped Chickadee 1
House Wren 1
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 1
American Robin 2
Gray Catbird 1
Brown Thrasher 2
European Starling 2
Cedar Waxwing 4
Common Yellowthroat 1
Yellow Warbler 1
Henslow's Sparrow 2 Conservative count, probably 3 or 4 simply in the small patch of grassland I covered.
Field Sparrow 4 Conservative count.
Song Sparrow 1
Indigo Bunting 1
Red-winged Blackbird 2
Common Grackle 10
Brown-headed Cowbird 1
Baltimore Oriole 1
House Sparrow 2