March 2020

I woke up again this morning to the sound of FOX SPARROWS — a pleasant surprise:

A pretty female cardinal was in the yard too:

Cardinal mating ritual — the male grabs a seed from the feeder and feeds it to the female. How chivalrous!

Later today, I birded Thatcher Woods in hopes of any new migrants. It was cold and windy but there were a few birds around. I quickly found the trail to be flooded from the recent rains — this is truly a “floodplain forest!”

Migrants were evident — BROWN CREEPER:

EASTERN PHOEBE:

More Fox Sparrows:

Their relative the DARK-EYED JUNCO:

Probably the “best” bird today was this juvenile BALD EAGLE which made a quick pass overhead at one point. My first for Thatcher Woods!

WOOD DUCK — they appear to be nesting in the floodplain:

White-tailed Deer:

COMMON GRACKLE among many. Unfortunately, no Rusty Blackbirds seemed to be present despite a thorough search of the grackle flock.

Another surprise was a BUFFLEHEAD just across 1st Ave in Silver Creek. Another first for the Thatcher area!

Bird-of-the-day to the Bald Eagle with runner-up to the Bufflehead. Stay tuned for many more days of solitary birding...

Good birding,
Henry
World Life List: 1111 Species

A good showing of raptors from the neighborhood early this afternoon inspired me to get out further afield in the early evening.

On my midday walk with Tian, two immature COOPER’S HAWKS shot over like rockets at one point. Note the bright white rump:

Then, I heard the piercing cry of a Buteo and looked up to see an immature RED-SHOULDERED HAWK, a first sighting of this species in Oak Park for me!!! Awesome! I suspect that, unless this is a migrant, it is the immature bird I saw at Columbus Park the other day. I wouldn’t be surprised if that hawk ranges far into Oak Park since Columbus borders Oak Park.

Later, I caught wind of a gaggle of Wild Turkeys at Glenwood Woods Forest Preserve in southern Cook County. So, of course I hopped in the car and made the hour-long drive south in hopes of finding my first Cook County Turkey. When I arrived, it was fairly birdy but the birds were flighty. So, songbird-wise, I only ended up getting a photo of this HERMIT THRUSH, probably a recent arrival:

I spent a good while looking but unfortunately failed to find the Turkeys. Shucks! It was a shame because these had just been seen by others just two hours prior. Probably the nearby fast-moving freight trains didn’t help my situation. I couldn’t stay overly long because I had parked the car in a pull-off that didn’t quite official (if you know what I mean )

So, since I had already made the long drive, I set my hopes on a nearby hotspot called Zander Woods recently visited by my friend Isoo O’Brien where I was hoping to find some specialty woodland birds at the preserve. I arrived and immediately flushed up a sparrow flock which of course included SONG:

And some gorgeous FOX:

And this FIELD:

As I had hoped, RED-HEADED WOODPECKERS abounded! It was perfect habitat for them: open oak savanna. Nice! Birders love oak savanna.

NORTHERN FLICKER:

White-tailed Deer:

I had a nice hawk trifecta including a RED-TAILED, a calling RED-SHOULDERED (another species I was hoping to find down here, yay!) and this tiny SHARP-SHINNED which sat briefly between terrorizing the forest birds. Awesome! My first “Sharpie” of the year!

Across the road on Wampum Lake, I was stoked to find a mixed raft of AMERICAN COOT, PIED-BILLED & HORNED GREBES — this is the first time in a long time I can recall seeing Horned Grebes in their breeding plumage! Awesome!

RED-BREASTED MERGANSERS with CANADA GEESE in the background, and the blob in the foreground is a TREE SWALLOW, believe it or not!

Bird-of-the-day to the Oak Park Red-shouldered Hawk and runner-up to the Sharp-shinned Hawk & Red-headed Woodpeckers at Zander Woods. No awards to the missing Turkeys, but it was still a great day! And it was particularly nice to get out of this depressing quarantine. The cases everywhere, including here in Illinois, are multiplying by an exponential scale — things are not looking good.

STAY SAFE and good socially-distant birding,
Henry
World Life List: 1111 Species

My “alarm clock” this saturday AM: a wonderful male FOX SPARROW! New yard bird for me!! I immediately ran downstairs & outside, and snapped these pics:

Its sparrow-family relative the DARK-EYED JUNCO was also present. At this point, it is probably a migrant junco from points further south rather than one of the birds that overwintered in the area.

Bird-of-the-day to the Fox Sparrow! Now for my rant-of-the-day: although they will probably never read this, I just needed to write down somewhere how thankful I am towards our essential workers: firefighters, policemen and women, our armed forces, sanitation workers, anyone with medical-related professions, and anyone out there risking their lives for the right thing. How absolutely brave, patriotic, and giving of you to be out there, working for others, during a time of such danger. Furthermore, I am extremely ashamed to live in a country where for weeks, not only the president, but many other government leaders downplayed the threat of Coronavirus. This is the SAME treatment they give about our climate — not giving a damn! As an American, a Christian, a birder, and a human being, I am so incredibly disgusted. What filth. How dare it take thousands of American deaths for some politicians to wake up to the need to fight this virus with all of our might. I shall say we should take China as a good example of (of course not perfect, but) a fast, aggressive, continuous response to the epidemic. Please, I beg of you, do ANYTHING to slow the spread of this nasty bug: social distancing as well as common-sense ways of avoiding germs.

Good birding. And PLEASE, stay safe!!!
Henry
World Life List: 1111 Species

After checking the forecast for tomorrow, I saw that it would be quite stormy so I decided to get out before classes today. I decided to head somewhere close: Thatcher Woods.

Some mammalian life in my backyard before leaving — Eastern Cottontail, native around here (they are invasive in some parts of the continent):

Eastern Chipmunk — these mammals have, in the last decade, made a huge insurgence into Oak Park.

Upon arriving at Thatcher, I immediately noticed that many birds were around. Here is a HAIRY WOODPECKER:

But, as the title of this post suggests, so many of the birds I saw today only allowed for quick looks! They were busy foraging before the rains arrived this afternoon, I think.

RED-BELLIED:

COMMON GRACKLE. Unfortunately I once again failed to find any Rusty Blackbirds.

Many FOX SPARROWS were singing around the preserve, but not a single one allowed for a decent picture! Thatcher Woods is where I remember getting my life bird Fox Sparrow a number of years ago.

Then, all the sudden I flushed a huge GREAT HORNED OWL which flew over the Des Plaines River and into a thick grove of trees, out of sight. Dang! I tried hooting a few times, but it was to no avail — no photos.

There were a few WOOD DUCKS on the river though, nice to see:

MOURNING DOVE:

Then, I heard a familiar, tingling song and sure enough there was a beautiful BROWN CREEPER!

Another nice singer in the area which was a CAROLINA WREN which was a great surprise since this species is actually quite uncommon this far north in Cook County. This is the first time I’ve ever had this species in Thatcher Woods. Again, no photos — disappointing!

WHITE-THROATED SPARROW.

The COOPER’S HAWK is also active on “birdy” mornings of course!

Off to hunt!

Then, I drove over to the northern parking lot where I found my first-of-the-year KILLDEER on the lawn:

In fact, there were three:

Bye!

Nice DARK-EYED JUNCO. We probably have a little less than a month left of admiring these winter birds now. Bring it on, migration!

One unsettling sight was a couple of young adults for whom I stepped to the side to give a proper “social distance” and they continued to plow through the center of the path, causing me to traipse into some bushes to avoid contact with them. So inconsiderate! Why can’t you just step to the opposite side of the trail to be “better safe than sorry?” Some people just don’t care, unfortunately — that’s why it’s up to us to be as careful as possible with regards to how we lead our lives as to not spread the Coronavirus. Stay safe everyone!

Bird-of-the-day to the Carolina Wren with runner-up to the Great Horned Owl.

Good anti-social birding,
Henry
World Life List: 1111 Species

Thanks to a tip from my friend Jill Anderson, Tian and I headed to Miller Meadow Forest Preserve in Hines, IL to look for Wilson’s Snipe which have been seen in the marshy grassland there the last few days. Upon arrival, I spotted my “spark bird” which first got me interested in birding: COOPER’S HAWK:

Then, I pointed out an opossum to Tian which she found extremely cool.

We even tracked it all the way to its den which was in a large man-made depression in the ground. Awesome!

I hope this RED-TAILED HAWK doesn’t find it though:

SONG SPARROW:

BROWN-HEADED COWBIRD:

DOWNY WOODPECKER:

Sure enough, I soon flushed a total of eight WILSON’S SNIPE in the marsh Jill said they were in! These guys are nearly impossible to photograph at most times due to their affinity for tallgrass marshes and their tendency to fly away as fast as they can as soon as they sense your presence. Unlike the Woodcock at Montrose yesterday (which happen to be an extremely similar species), I was able to snap a couple recognizable shots of these birds in flight. Bird-of-the-day! Thanks for the heads-up, Jill.

Stay tuned — this is just the beginning trickle of spring migration. It just gets better and better as the temperatures warm up! (and hopefully the virus will, too)

Good birding,
Henry
World Life List: 1111 Species