Columbus Park Bird Walk
Chicago, IL
Wednesday 20 May 2020
59 °F
Today, I led an Oak Park Bird Walk at Columbus Park for a nice showing of enthusiastic birders! We started the walk around the lagoon at 7am where a BLACK-CROWNED NIGHT-HERON was roosting:
As well as a GREEN:
And there were many warblers in the wooded sanctuary area, with the obvious highlight being a nice (but characteristically shy) male MOURNING WARBLER:
There were also PALM:
ORANGE-CROWNED:
And spotting the resident WOOD DUCK family was nice.
A huge highlight of the walk was seeing and hearing two SORA rails in the tiny little marsh just east of the wooded sanctuary. So cool that they might be possibly breeding in such a tiny area! True to their nature, they were extremely skidding and avoided decent photos.
MAGNOLIA WARBLERS abounded today.
Thrushes were also present, including SWAINSON’S:
And GRAY-CHEEKED:
And once the walk had dwindled down to two other birders, Ann and Joanne and I, we tracked down a male HOODED WARBLER that Eric Gyllenhaal had told me about in the Austin Woods. SO AWESOME! My favorite warbler, and I’m happy to finally get a decent photo of it.
I was also stoked to see a BAY-BREASTED:
And a female CAPE MAY:
To end the walk, Joanne and I admired a TENNESSEE WARBLER.
Another great day of migration birding! Bird-of-the-day to the Hooded with runner-up to the Mourning Warbler — 18 warbler species were seen/heard on the walk. Just need a Connecticut in order to get the “warbler slam” for this spring!
Good birding,
Henry
World Life List: 1115 Species
