New Year Birds!

Cook County, IL

Thursday 5 January 2023 46 °F

SUNDAY, JANUARY 1:

My friends Simon and Peter T wanted to start off the year right with a solid Cook County list of year birds! So, I joined them for the afternoon and we birded the Palos and Bartel region of Illinois.

We started off at Maple Lake where my first photo of the year was of this male RED-BELLIED WOODPECKER (though my first bird of the year earlier in the day was a singing NORTHERN CARDINAL!).

This Coyote gave amazing point-blank views feasting on peanuts somebody had spread out in the back parking lot (which is now closed due to some idiot hand-feeding the Coyote hot dogs later that day)

Here is Simon — showing how close this animal was.

Another Cardinal — had to take a photo since it was my first bird ID this year!

And the obligatory “backyard birder” shot of the Cardinal and BLUE JAY together:

TUFTED TITMOUSE is a common bird across the eastern US but a good one for Cook County, so we were happy to get good views today.

DOWNY WOODPECKER:

WHITE-BREASTED NUTHATCH:

At our next stop, Cap Sauer Holding, we had a great bird for the winter: BROWN CREEPER:

And later after a quick bite to eat, we picked up our last target for the day: a distant SHORT-EARED OWL at Killdeer Wetlands which will be my bird-of-the-day since I ended last year with owl sightings and began this year with the same!!