May 12-15: Indiana Dunes!

WARNING — LONG & LONG OVERDUE POST! On May 12-16, Kim, Susie, and I birded northern Indiana for basically three full days of intense birding in conjunction with the Indiana Dunes Birding Festival. Kim and I started the day on thursday at the Heron Rookery Preserve of Indiana Dunes National Park where there was a medium diversity of birds but an incredible amount of birdsong overall. We started off with a female BALTIMORE ORIOLE in the parking lot:

WOOD THRUSH:

SONG SPARROW:

A variety of warblers were present, too, but evaded successful photography for the most part due to the thick foliage and their retiring nature. So, we headed out to Reynolds Creek Gamebird Area to hopefully have some better shots at some openland species. And that we did! We quickly netted Kim two life birds: VESPER SPARROW—

And a HORNED LARK showing its horns which we found super cool.

SOLITARY SANDPIPER:

Later in the afternoon we headed over to the state park to find some warblers. Male YELLOW:

A nice lead-back phase of an Eastern Red-backed Salamander which was Kim’s lifer salamander of any type!

We also found Kim’s lifer YELLOW-THROATED WARBLER:

LEAST FLYCATCHER:

We had nice looks at the usual PROTHONOTARY WARBLER that returns to its trusty nest box every year. This is always a fan favorite and garners a crowd of dozens to admire from the boardwalk a short distance away:

SWAINSON’S THRUSH:

VEERY:

YELLOW-RUMPED WARBLER:

Friday started off quietly at Cowles Bog, but slowly picked up throughout the morning.

TENNESSEE WARBLER:

MAGNOLIA WARBLER:

NASHVILLE WARBLER:

BLACKBURNIAN WARBLER:

Green Frog:

AMERICAN REDSTART:

GREAT CRESTED FLYCATCHER:

SWAMP SPARROW:

Kim and Susie left to take a mid-day break while I stayed in the state park to see what else I could find. Although I dipped on finding a hoped-for Eastern Hognose Snake, I did get some good looks at a few birds like GRAY-CHEEKED THRUSH:

An incredible look at a SCARLET TANAGER:

CAPE MAY WARBLER:

BLACK-THROATED GREEN WARBLER:

RUBY-THROATED HUMMINGBIRD:

SWAINSON’S THRUSH:

We all took an afternoon warbler tour which started off very slowly but once again picked up throughout the hike. Here is a YELLOW-THROATED VIREO the group admired:

A really nice male BAY-BREASTED WARBLER:

RED-HEADED WOODPECKER:

The star of the hike was this gorgeous adult male CERULEAN WARBLER on Trail 2 which is their most reliable location in the park. We had dipped on them the last couple days so it was great to finally catch up with one.

Icing on the cake was a crazy-late WINTER WREN that was singing its heart out, even though at that point it should have been hundreds of miles north.

We ended the day with an evening “safari” where we quickly racked up a calling EASTERN WHIP-POOR-WILL and this SOLITARY SANDPIPER in the quickly-fading light:

We tagged along with a couple of other birders and ended up with some sweet views of an AMERICAN WOODCOCK which would fly high into the sky, display and do its “twitter” call, then drop back down to the ground and “peent!” What awesome, dorky birds. We got some decent close views of it in the grass just off the road, illuminated by flashlight:

Saturday morning was at the observation tower for me as there were finally southerly winds forecast for the night before. The vismig (visible migration) did not disappoint as we recorded the year’s high count of migrating BLUE JAYS (over 4600!) and the tower’s all time high of GREEN HERONS (I think 26), one of which can be seen here:

Passerines were constantly flying over in the early morning hours as they hit Lake Michigan and immediately have to choose a direction in which to fly. Here is a female SCARLET TANAGER migrating over:

BLACKPOLLL WARBLER:

AMERICAN REDSTART:

PHILADELPHIA VIREO:

BLACKBURNIAN WARBLER:

CHESTNUT-SIDED WARBLER:

PILEATED WOODPECKER clinging to a nearby suet feeder:

INDIGO BUNTING:

A migrating RED-HEADED WOODPECKER — yep, this is a migratory species!

BROWN THRASHER:

TENNESSEE WARBLER:

A huge treat was this LARK SPARROW with a female RED-WINGED BLACKBIRD. Super cool!

And a CLAY-COLORED SPARROW was great.

Then, we headed back out to Reynolds Creek Gamebird Area to chase Smith’s and Lapland Longspurs that had been reported the day earlier. We had a few WILD TURKEY along the road on the way there:

GRASSHOPPER SPARROW was great as we were searching for the longspurs:

Juvenile HORNED LARK:

DICKCISSEL:

SAVANNAH SPARROWS:

BREWER’S BLACKBIRD was a huge treat spotted by Adam S way out on the field. Great find! This was another lifer for Kim and an Indiana lifer for me.

VESPER SPARROW:

We ended up flushing two longspurs: one LAPLAND (Kim got a diagnostic photo showing its white belly) and one unidentified longspur. Both rattled, confirming their ID as longspurs, but it was frustrating not to get better views of them. Still, the Lapland was a lifer for Kim! Longspurs (particularly Smith’s) are notoriously tough birds to get views of as they tend to flush directly from your feet and then quickly drop down into other grassy areas, making them pretty impossible to see most of the time.

So, I continued on to Three Oaks, MI where I tried and dipped on the Fish Crow population that is there (though frustratingly enough I did find four unidentified crows that just wouldn’t call). The sewage ponds did have a good number of birds including RUDDY DUCK:

LEAST SANDPIPER:

NORTHERN ROUGH-WINGED SWALLOW:

AMERICAN KESTREL:

So, I continued on to the New Buffalo, MI harbor where across the strait I spotted some birds like SANDERLING, SPOTTED SANDPIPER and CASPIAN TERN.

The bird I was most hoping for was a long-lingering Long-tailed Duck that seems to have been injured but has been diving and feeding in the area for months now. In the meantime, I saw a DUNLIN:

And after a bit of searching, I found the female LONG-TAILED DUCK swimming and diving in the harbor:

It was a great weekend of birds! Thanks so much to Kim for having me stay with her in Michiana — it was just super and so great to finally hang with vaccinated friends.

Good birding,
Henry
World Life List: 1126 Species