Last walk before New York
Oak Park, IL
Tuesday 27 August 2019
80 °F
Between rounds of packing for my flight back to Manhattan tomorrow, I was luckily able to write up a quick report for this morning’s Oak Park Bird Walk. The birding was slow, but there was great conversation and it was a beautiful day to be out and about.
Once again, for the most part we were forced to observe common species because it seems like the migrants really haven’t started coming through Oak Park yet. Here is a male DOWNY WOODPECKER:
And a CHIMNEY SWIFT, one of the individuals that probably roost up at Fair Oaks Presbyterian Church in their chimney:
A single RING-BILLED GULL flew over:
Once again, we found the BLUE-GRAY GNATCATCHERS. Nice! And this time, it was a family group — we saw at least one juvenile begging & being fed from multiple adults. Very, very cool to prove their breeding status in Oak Park, something I have suspected for quite a while now.
MOURNING DOVE:
Towards the end of the walk, I spotted this interesting-looking insect caught in a cobweb. What is it?
And the walk ended with a female AMERICAN GOLDFINCH posing high in a large Elm tree across the alley from my house that unfortunately seems to have died. Too bad; the stand of elms across from my house is the single most productive place for migrants in my neighborhood, so I really hope the other trees won’t follow the same fate.
Bird-of-the-day to the Blue-gray Gnatcatchers, now officially breeding birds in Oak Park. Stay tuned — tomorrow I fly to Manhattan, and I will surely go birding there within the next week!
Happy birding,
Henry
World Life List: 975 Species
