Twitch: Prairie Falcon
Coles County, IL
Saturday 7 January 2023
33 °F
This morning, Simon picked me up at 5:30 to head down with his family to Coles County, IL to search for our Illinois lifer Prairie Falcon.
On the way, we did a bit of birding in Champaign while his dad was in a business meeting and misssd our secondary target, Snow Goose, but got point-blank views of a BARRED OWL right alongside the car!
Soon, it flew to a nearby tree in the treeline:
So within an hour, we were down at Coles County criss-crossing the country roads near the Magic Stump, a random stump in the middle of a random cornfield that has hosted overwintering Prairie Falcons (the only in Illinois) for the last ten years!
No falcons yet…
We heard what we thought were Snow Geese overhead, but upon further inspection they turned out to be GREATER WHITE-FRONTED GEESE:
AMERICAN KESTREL female that kept tricking us throughout the day because they are also a falcon species:
A “gray ghost” NORTHERN HARRIER:
Unfortunately, despite a LOT of effort, we dipped on Prairie Falcon. You win some, you lose some — and we had a rollicking good time at that. Stay tuned, on tuesday I return back to NYC for my last semester of my undergrad!
Bird-of-the-day to the Barred Owl with runner-up to the Greater White-fronted Geese.
Happy birding,
Henry
World Life List: 1143 Species
