Finishing up May
IL
Tuesday 6 July 2021
May ended fairly strongly for me, with the usual high doses of birds and smattering of herps. The bird walks were a big success. Here is a male SCARLET TANAGER:
Intermediate/darkish morph BROAD-WINGED HAWK, a very cool looking bird:
TENNESSEE WARBLERS predominated on one of the neighborhood walks:
One afternoon I headed down to the Kankakee Sands with the Tolzmanns to stay at my new friend Dave’s property to find a few lifer snakes such as Bullsnake, Hognose Snake, or a lifer subspecies which would be Blue Racer. As you can see, we fairly quickly flipped an amazingly beautiful Racer — I had seen this species before in Southern Illinois, but they are Black Racers down there so technically a different subspecies. Very cool to see its bluer cousin! Here is Peter holding it.
Simon also snatched up my visual lifer Boreal Chorus Frog:
A bird walk I led the following morning at Douglass Park turned out to be a huge success. GREEN HERON:
A huge highlight was this MOURNING WARBLER which was a species I was not able to get a decent photo of last season. At least this one is identifiable!
YELLOW-BELLIED FLYCATCHER was also very nice to see:
As well as GREAT CRESTED — flycatchers predominate in late May:
OLIVE-SIDED was a huge treat:
A classic late-May warbler is the BLACKPOLL. This one is a breeding male due to the black markings — all other forms of this species are streaked grayish — female, immature, and nonbreeding male.
COOPER’S HAWK:
Male BAY-BREASTED WARBLER:
YELLOW-BILLED CUCKOO:
BLUE-GRAY GNATCATCHER:
I led a wonderful walk with Ed W at Jurgensen Woods — we had a brief but nice look at this YELLOW-BELLIED FLYCATCHER:
And a PILEATED WOODPECKER male by its nest hole:
Afterwards I headed to Plum Creek Forest Preserve with Kris G where we admired grassland birds such as this HENSLOW’S SPARROW:
CEDAR WAXWINGS on a walk closer to home:
Isoo, Ethan and I ran our nearly-annual June Big Day on June 1, so I did a bit of scouting the day before in the Palos area with the highlight being this LOUISIANA WATERTHRUSH at Swallow Cliff Woods in a ravine there:
So May was a success! More catch-up posts to come, including about our June Big Day!
Good birding,
Henry
World Life List: 1126 Species
thanks once again for great pics - a big help for me in learning how to identify !
by Mary Stevens