Elaenia Mania

The bird of the hour (millennium probably). (Tim Wallace)

In 45 years of birding in the Chicago area I had never been to Douglas Park, one of the large and elegant parks on the city’s west side. Fortunately, however, the Gyllenhaals (dad Eric and the family’s two birding dynamos, Aaron and Ethan) do cover it on occasion. One such day was April 17. Aaron and Ethan encountered and photographed a small bird in some willows on the shore of a small lake. The most likely possibility was an Empidonax flycatcher, probably a least given the early date. But it just did not look right and so the photo was posted on the Illinois Birder’s forum. Another young birder, Nathan Goldberg, had just returned from a birding trip to Ecuador and thus was emboldened to suggest, “How about an Elaenia?” This is another genus of nondescript flycatcher, but one that resides in South America and only one species of which has ever been recorded in the ABA area (and that single record was from Texas). Then the experts weighed in and there was unanimity that it was indeed an Eleania. I asked my longtime friend Tom Schulenberg, an expert on neo-tropical birds at Cornell, what he thought of the photos. His reply: “F’ing obvious its an Elaenia.” And so began “Elaenia Mania”, as local birder Jeff Skrentny called it.

The bird was first seen on a Tuesday, and it took all day Wednesday for word to spread, so by Thursday people were primed. I arrived first, a half-hour before sunlight. (In answer to the obvious question, the best I can come up with is I wanted to beat the rush hour on the region’s most notorious expressway, the Eisenhower.) More and more people began to show up. My friend Andy Sigler was there. David Scott introduced himself: he was in a birding course I had taught in the early 1980s and he had recently sent me a Facebook message thanking me for introducing him to birding and local natural history. Notes like that keep you going, and I was so very touched. It was nice seeing David after all these years. Then another young man, Sean, said hello. He is a playwright and actor I met at Montrose last spring.  He is dating a fashion model, and since I don’t know anyone who makes their living being good- looking, it was a unique opportunity to learn something about a foreign realm.

And of course we were birding. After hours covering the same small area with a large crowd of people, there is a tendency to chat. But Sean, David, and I had an unexpected vesper sparrow fly up out of the cattails and provide us with a good view. The horned grebe that had been lazily floating in the center of the pond since at least first light apparently did not like the changing neighborhood and took off, flying low over us. There was also my season’s first solitary sandpiper and a common snipe. A sharp-shinned hawk darted across the lake and one of the birder’s found a Cooper’s hawk nest. Plenty of reasons to explain why the Elaenia might not be around.

After five hours or so, no one had even glimpsed a candidate so I headed back home, as did Andy. Not too long before we left, Doug Stotz and Nick Block arrived, which would be akin to moving big artillery into range of a fort that mere mortals can not breach. Not too surprisingly, I was home for about thirty minutes when Andy called that Doug had relocated the bird. So I was about to make my second visit to Douglas Park.

Upon arriving, there were many more birders but alas no bird. A few people had seen it after Doug, but an hour or so had elapsed since the last sighting. Looking for a bird like this is really not that much fun: there is a lot of dead time, as you stay in a very small area within sight of your colleagues. Larry Balch made the mistake of being ambitious and wondered off to check a few areas slightly more remote, only to look back where the group was and found we were gone. He hurried back frantically and finally found everyone looking at the bird.

The bird mostly stayed in the canopy as people clustered around a given bird trying to get a view. Andy, birding tactician par excellence, tried to move away from the birder clots so he could be in a better position to follow the bird when it continued on its way. The bird was followed for quite a while, allowing everyone to eventually see it. It would have been amusing if an aerial movie could have been taken showing all these people scurrying about in a seemingly random way.

Our local Elaenia hung around for several more days, and most everyone who made the trip during that period apparently saw it. National media outlets reported the story. Numerous photos of every part of the bird’s anatomy were taken by the legions of photographers. And yet a big question remains: was the bird a small-billed elaenia or a white-crested elaenia? The former breeds from southern Brazil to Argentina, while the latter has a broader range going all the way to Tierra del Fuego. The small-billed has never been recorded in the ABA area before and the white-crested was documented once from Texas. I would encourage interested readers to check out the 17 page discussion on the Illinois Birders Forum. Opinions have been proffered by experts and non-experts alike, including South American ornithologists who submitted thoughtful comments in Spanish. As far as I know, as of this moment there does not seem to be a definitive answer. The possibility of netting the bird has passed as the visitor seems to have departed.

Ethan and Aaron without whom this birding event would never have occurred. Behind them is the willow where they first photographed the bird.

          

Blogger, Lindsay, and Fox in front of the Goose Lake Prairie Visitor Center

After such a long absence, where to begin? I have working exclusively on Project Passenger Pigeon (P3): preparing a draft of the book manuscript, working on web-site content, and doing some traveling to places like New England, Pittsburgh, and Louisiana. Future blogs will detail some my peregrinations pursuing P3 (P5). Although I have not really been out to enjoy it much, we have had an extraordinarily early spring, with blooms, insects, and frogs active considerably earlier than usual. I hope that the phenological synchronization that leads to the availability of insects for arriving birds is not broken. If flowers and pollinators are out this early, what will happen to the neo-tropical migrants that won’t show up for another month or month and a half?

Yesterday, though, a convergence of events drove me into the field for a most lovely day. Although we exist in the same general world and even actually crossed paths it would seem, Brian “Fox” Ellis and I were not really aware of each other until he contacted the P3 web-site. Fox is involved in all aspects of natural history education and outreach, most notably performances where he portrays either John Audubon (mostly), Charles Darwin, Walt Whitman, or Gregor Mendel. His repertoire represents a truly rich and broad series of roles. Audubon’s prose is among the most powerful of any in regards to describing the life history of the passenger pigeon. Many authors noted the sun being darkened for hours at a time as the big flocks of pigeons crossed the sky, but Audubon’s record of such an eclipse lasting for three straight days is unique. As part of their participation in P3, it would be great if venues would enlist Fox to elaborate on the passenger pigeon story and broader themes of P3 in his engaging manner. But because, we had never actually met, we arranged for a joint outing at Goose Lake Prairie, a spot somewhat between his home in Peoria and mine.

After those plans were made, another person with whom I had met briefly last spring birding at Montrose and then again a month ago at a talk I gave for the Chicago Ornithological Society, called to say she would like to get together. Lindsay Wilkes is an attorney who has been active with the COS and one of the groups that monitors and rescues bird collisions. She has never been to Goose Lake Prairie so I invited her to join us. She took the train from downtown the night before, and I met her at the Westmont station a few minutes from where I live. I always find it extra special to meet someone coming off a train. There is the discharge of people and you pick out the person you are waiting for, as if they were a western in a sea of semipalmated sandpipers. I learned, as the pictures attest, she is also an excellent photographer.

My first field sparrow of the spring (Lindsay Wilkes)

The day was sunny, with a brisk wind. Given the company, I would have had a great time whether we saw anything or not, but, fortunately for the sake of the blog, the birds were terrific. A prairie this time of year is not hopping with passerines, but there were plenty of field sparrows, eastern meadowlarks, and tree swallows but what we saw was memorable. We were greeted by the trumpeting of cranes, and one did arise from the marsh to give us nice views. Brian spotted an adult bald eagle, which later coursed low over a pond and then caught a fish. A young eagle, to far too age, also put in an appearance. A closer pond hosted blue-winged teal, northern shovelers, and a greater yellowlegs. Several flocks of white pelicans, the second heaviest flying bird of the continent, circled over head. Fox pointed out the phenomenon where flying birds can seemingly disappear when they are at a certain angle in strong sunlight. A small pond by the cabin yielded not only two pied-billed grebes but a horned grebe as well.  Several northern harriers, though none adult males, hunted low over the grasses.

At one point during our conversation on the way home, Lindsay and I shared our respective pessimism for the future of the planet. Lindsay pointed to the small victories that come with saving individual birds as part of her bird collision monitoring. And then there were the avian highlights of our day. In the 1930s, sandhill cranes were on a trajectory that seemed headed towards extinction (read the account in Bent). Bald eagles and white pelicans are more common in northeastern Illinois then they probably ever were. In an 1833 copy of the Chicago Democrat, the city’s first newspaper, there is the mention that a pelican was killed near the city. Now many hundreds, if not thousands, of white pelicans use the upper Illinois River: for the first time in history they now nest in Illinois and at least two places in Wisconsin. Thank the Clean Water Act and other government actions that have lead to these oases of hope and joy.

One of many white pelicans that kettled overhead (Lindsay WIlkes)

A pair of tree swallows acting like tree swallows (Lindsay WIlkes)

A tree swallow impersonating a warbler (Lindsay Wilkes)

          

Purple finch (John Cassady)

The skies above the White Hen Pantry wehre I was meeting Lizzie Condon for the Evanston North Shore were clear and calm in lovely contrast to last year when we had trouble finding a parking place without getting stuck. Our first stop is a water treatment facility that usually hosts hordes of ducks when no other water is open. Given the mild temperatures, the ducks opted not to concentrate as they had many other places offering unfrozen water. The yellow-rumped warblers I had a few days earlier were no where to be found but we did get a kingfisher and as we drove by a little later in the day Lizzie identified what would prove to be the count’s only rough-legged hawk.

Most of the spots that usually produce good birds for us failed to come through. Mid-afternoon we came to the wood residential areas south of Ryerson Woods. These can be very productive but I don’t really like birding there, because you have deal with curious or at times even hostile residents. But this is where we had our barred owl last year so it was imperative that we try for it. We played the call repeatedly to no avail- at least with respect to the owl. But robins, chickadees, w-b nuthatches, and a couple of species of woodpeckers flew in. And then two purple finches appeared, the only ones to be seen on the count. I was pleased of course but disappointed we had struck out on the owl. Both Lizzie and I were ready to call it quits when the familiar hoots started up and then the bird itself flew in. This kept us covering some other territories in the same area, and we found another barred owl- which flushed silently when I played a screech owl- and three redpolls, also the only ones on the count.

An exaltation of counters.

The post count tabulation revealed that our efforts resulted in a total of about 71 species- on the low side of average. But Geoff Williamson, Ari Rice, and Sulli Gibson had two tremendous birds at Fort Sheridan. Actually, the objects of my awe are pretty diminutive: a Le Conte’s sparrow and, a first for northern Illinois CBCs, a Henslow’s sparrow. The latter would not provide any kind of a view while on the ground or perched. But fortunately Ari snapped a shot of it in flight, and it was on the basis of that photo that the bird was identified.

Evanston North Shore CBC countdown.

New Year’s Day, and the Waukegan CBC, provided an opportunity to experience every kind of liquid that could fall from the sky in this region at this time of year. Along with wind gusts of 40 mph, discharges included rain, sleet, snow pellets, snow flakes, and snow globs. Fortunately, although varied in its manifestations, the precipitation was not heavy so we could still bird.

After two hours of owling, Tim Wallace and I located one lone screech owl- probably the only one on the count. Tim had to work that day so I was joined by two birders I had not met before. Nick Minor (Josh Engel put us together) and his friend Patrick Palmer, both high school freshmen. We worked our way along the Des Plaines River in the longest walk of the day. Our bird highlights were probably a kingfisher, multiple brown creepers and yellow-rumped warblers: no winter wrens or hermit thrushes that we often find.

Belted kingfisher (Paul Massey)

In the afternoon, we were joined by Tim and we had some good birds. Four sandhill cranes flew our us as we birded at the North Shore Sanitary District’s Gurnee water works. This is the first time I had ever seen cranes in this region in January- I now have encountered them in every month. At a lake that had some open water we added three northern shovelers, also not seen elsewhere.

What I will remember most from that day though was listening to Nick and Patrick talking among them selves as we hiked in the morning. They were discussing the need to learn bird geography- the proper names of the various feathers- and gull identification. The word clade was used on occasion. At one point I asked them if there was a particular sport they played or watches. Nick answered without hesitation: “Birding is my sport.”  And an old guy’s heart was buoyed.

Patrick and Nick on the Long March.

          

Long-eared owl hiding on Chicago Lakefront CBC (Aaron Gyllenhaal)

My Christmas Bird Count season ended with the January 1 Waukegan CBC. I went on four this year, including the Arboretum Lisle CBC which is mostly a social thing for me as I get to spend time with John Leonard, whom I see little of the rest of the year. So this post will focus on the three counts I compile and or organize.

Chicago Lakefront and December 25 go together like Chinese food and December 24. This year we broke our all time high in number of participants with 18 and probably the total number of species as well with about forty. And once again I was pleased that Kelly McKay spent the day with us as part of his annual CBC marathon, whereby he participates in counts every day of the period. (And given that this is the only one on Christmas day, it fills the one gap he would otherwise have.) It is difficult to say whether it was the best Chicago Lake Front  count ever: how does one measure an ivory gull or a tufted duck (both seen on this count in previous years) against the never ending array of high qulatiy birds that we had this year? A long-eared owl had been discovered in a tract of pines on the lakefront and the finder generously agreed to join the count. He showed us where the bird had been: there were pellets and whitewash but no birds. We examined nearby conifers and were drawing a blank until Stefanie Altneu somehow managed to see the head silhouetted against the tiniest of openings.

Gull variety could hardly have been better. As we chummed for gulls in Burnham Harbor, an adult Thayer’s flew over. Here we were joined by the other team of regulars headed by Chris and Geoff Williamson and we headed to the aquarium where more chumming took place. There were glaucous, Thayers, and lesser black-backed. Then, amidst the swarming, birds Josh Engel spotted an adult California gull. At one time this was my greatest jinx bird in the state: it took eight visits to finally see the bird that had been hanging out at North Point Marina a few springs ago.

Adult California gull on Chicago Lakefront CBC, Dec 25, 2011 (Tim Wallace)

But more was to come, We saw the red-necked grebe that Geoff’s group had observed earlier. Dave Johnson organized a third group of birders whom we did not see but they found a red-throated loon and an amazing indigo bunting, probably the first time the species has been seen on a northern IL CBC. We did not see that. But at our second to last spot, Jarvis Bird Sanctuary, Aaron Gyllenhaal decided to take a peak at the lake, and found a female harlequin duck. The joy dissipated a bit when two jet-skiers deliberately flushed the birds. The last bird was at the Montrose- a gorgeous not-quite mature snowy owl.

Harlequin duck on Chicago Lake Front CBC (Aaron Gyllenhaal)

The most extraordinary event of the day, though, did not have anything to do with birds. Our very first stop of the day is at La Rabida Childrens Hostpial, on the base of a peninsula across the road from Jackson Park on Chicago’s south side. The ten of us were milling about looking for birds when one birder looked down to scan the rocks below him: there he saw a curled up, purplish naked  man who had been in the water a while. I was part of a group that fond a corpse floating in the lake back in 1972 but this was right below where we stood. We called the police and they came in large numbers. Over the course of the day, I did not notice anyone seeming to have their day spoiled by the unfortunate victime but subsequent asking revealed that people did react differently.  A number of us felt that since he had been dead for well before we arrived, there was no  reason to for us to be forlorn, save for tinges of concern for his family.  A few people lingered more on that aspect, haunted by thoughts of how family and the others who knew him would be affected. (Police determined the event  was a drowning, most probably an accident or suicide). The creep factor imposed itself on one person as we entered the dark underpass that allows us to access the lake at Promentory Point.

To be among the few out of doors at first light of a Christmas morning: you never know what you might discover.

Southern crew of 2011 Lake Front CBC with birds and more on their minds.

          

Sandhill cranes a comin' . . . (Tim Wallace)

Readers of this blog know of my fondness for sandhill cranes and there is no place within two hours of where I live that is better to revel in cranedom than Jasper Pulaski Fish and Wildlife Area. The region I inhabit offers spectacular avian displays but with one exception they are highly weather dependent. Three or four days a fall hundreds of hawks fly over the Illinois Beach Hawk Watch and there are days in May when warblers drip from the trees. But those special times that stick out like black print on a white page. The day before or after might be too early or too late. But if you visit Jas Pulas from late October through period preceding the first bitter cold spell you will see many thousands of sandhill cranes. They spread out in front of you as they forage in the closely cropped field that is managed for their benefit. Other flocks pass close overhead as they find the spot that draws them to a landing. All the while glorius crane music emanates from wherever there are birds, which can be almost every place. So not only is it a place from which I personally derive undneding pleasure but I can guarantee others the same treat. And so every fall I try to organize at least a couple of outings- some for birders and some with more general interests.

The first of the visits was on November 12. This one was for birders. Tim Wallace and I drove down to Kanakee Fish and Wildlife Area, east of Jas Pulas, which almost always has a nice collection of waterfowl, often including tundra swans and white-fronted geese. The parking lot is in front of the office; if you walk around the building and stand behind it you get a good view of the site. There is open water, marsh, and flats that draw large numbers of birds. Most striking off the bat was the flock of snow geese, mostly blue morphs with a scattering of white ones. Lots of Canada’s too, but we failed to pick out any white-fronts or Ross’s. Pintails, wigeon, gadwalls, green-winged teal galore, canvasback, and a fine assortment of other ducks bobbed on the water.

Periodically, Tim or I would check the parking lot to see if our companions had arrived yet: Jeanette Jaskula was coming from Rensellear to the west while Steve Sass lives in New Carlisle to the east, although it turns out he had made a stop on the Indiana lakefront to look for a barn owl found the day before feeding on a deer carcass. Amazingly he relocated the bird. So I am hereby suggesting that everyone retrieves the next roadkilled deer they encounter and put it in their backyard: next to the thistle feeder. Steve appeared and Jeanette seems to have arrived moments after our last check so she waited a bit before she too joined the group. And then our numbers were nearly doubled when Yu “Shrike” Zhang and two colleagues joined us. They are graduate students studying neuroscience at my alma mater Washington University and drove from St. Louis to look at cranes and other birds.

The seven of us were milling around looking at the waterfowl when a large, dark, and clunky bird appeared as it flew towards us. Jeanette spoke the words before anyone else did: “Black vulture!” Three of us were well armed with cameras but the only decent shots were taken by Shrike. Ken Brock told me later that this is the only the second record for Starke County, the previous sighting dating back to May 7, 1985. While it is exciting to see rare birds, even if it is well after their discovery, it is particularly satisfying to be a participant at the moment.

Black vulture (photo by Yu "Shrike" Zhan)

We then headed to Jas Pulas where the latest count tallied 8,000 cranes. It was a little early so we walked a mile or so to a lake that often has birds. Most of the year you can drive to the water but during hunting season, access of all kinds is limited. Our destination proved largely devoid of birds, with a few pied-billed grebe and some kind of duck that landed in the glaring water of a low sun. But we did encounter a long-time friend Randy Schietzelt, who was leading a field trip for the McHenry County Audubon Society. We also heard from another unexpected friend: Jeanette pointed out the notes of a spring peeper. (Not to be confused with the imaginary “Fall Peeper.”) In botany, there is a term for when a spring plant also blooms in fall “remantant blooming.”  Does anyone know what herpetologists call the parallel phenomenon we heard?

The viewing stand was filled with people, as is to be expected on warm Saturday nights in November. And is almost always the case, there was no one from the state providing any interpretation. Here you have masses of people from throughout the Midwest, a teaching moment if there ever was one, and no one to answer questions, which many people have since I wind up answering many of them.

The cranes were there too of course but the closest birds were farther away than usual. But squadrons of various sizes poured in from various directions, a few making the high pitch sounds that mark them  as immatures. Evantually, the flow of birds reverses, and large flocks ascend and head to the marshes where they spend the night. By then, most of the observers had also retreated.

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But one visit to Jas Pulas can hardly sate the crane within. If Project Passenger Pigeon does nothing else, it has brought me in touch with really neat people from across the country. One such person who lives but twenty or so minutes away is Dan Winter, Regional Director of the World Wildlife Fund. He tried to recruit some folks he knows for a trip but in the end it was only the two of us. I took the train into downtown Chicago. (At one point I was admonished by a transit employee that I could not put my scope and tripod on the platform as I waited for the train, but it would be ok if I held it.) It was pouring but fortunately over the two hours it took us to arrive at J-P, the precipitation was a light drizzle and then that subsided altogether.

Very different circumstances awaited us. A Tuesday evening of threatening weather drew less than ten visitors. But the cranes seemed to have increased and they occupied ground very close to the viewing platform. There were few large patches of field that lacked birds. While I could not find any the week before, flocks of turkey meandered amongst their taller neighbors. And again, there came the time when clouds of cranes arose, near the trees that mark the far border of the field, and began milling in the sky preparatory for the short flight to their nocturnal resting grounds. We turned and headed for dinner.

Blogger and Dan Winter on crane platform- dusk is settling in.

Another view of black vulture, second record for Starke County (Yu "Shrike" Zhang)

          

Female mountain bluebird at Illinois Beach Hawk Watch (Nathan Goldberg)

I have not been to the Illinois Beach State Park hawk watch yet this year. There was one terrific stretch of three or four straight days in October when the sharp-shins and falcons were almost non-stop. But November usually produces some good flights as well, dominated by red-tails with a smattering of rough-legs, harriers, and red-shoulders. And if you spend enough time looking, you will likely be treated to one or more golden eagles and goshawks, with the possibility of something really rare (like a certain northern falcon of hefty dimensions). All the raptor prognosticators pointed to the weather maps and indicated that Thursday would potentially be a very good day. Sulli Gibson called me to say he had Thursday off and was heading up there- we talked about doing some hawk or lakewatching on propitious days- and since I needed a break anyway I decided to make a visit.

As I was heading north on I-94, I encountered the season’s first noticeable snow fall. That petered out but was followed by a far heavier snow squall- it would make hawk watching challenging, even if there were birds moving. As I approached the picnic shelter from which the operation is maintained, I could see lots of people- another reason actually to have come: there are folks whose company I enjoy but rarely see any other time. (Indeed, given I spend most of the day in a small room staring at a screen, I rarely see anyone any time, save of course Dearest Cindy.) Walking towards me in the parking lot was Nathan Goldberg who was there with his mom Lynne Remington (I did not forget the “e” this time). It seems that every high school in northern Illinois was holding a teacher institute or conference day: all the high school birders I know, including Aaron and Ethan Gyllenhaal, were on site ready to see and photograph hawks. It was an impromptu meeting of the Young Birders Club. Twenty-three people were officially tabulated as having visited that day, although I would not be surprised if it was more.

Sulli, Nathan, Ethan, and Aaron: the Four Hawkseteers.

Before I even left the car, Nathan told me that there had been a female mountain bluebird in the area since at least the night before. A number of briders, including Lynne, were scattered about looking for it. I headed to the hawk watchers and learned that hawk watching was slow, although it was only about 9am. Vic Berardi, the founder of the watch at Illinois Beach, said he would be satisfied if, by the end of the day, there were more hawks than observers. I suggested we might have to start sending people away but fortunately the hawks did pick up.

I am not sure who among us at the hawk watching site first noticed, but a group in the parking lot began staring at something. The something flew to the top of the outhouse and by golly it was the mountain bluebird. As we watched it, it flew directly towards us and perched on the shelter just feet away. From there, it sat for a while on the barbeque grill (I understand that some cultures really covet braised bluebirds doused with a sweet tomato based sauce- it also relieves the heartbreak of restless leg syndrome). Absolutely dynamite views were had by all. There were also lots of great pictures taken, not really surprising given all the watchers heavily armed with prodigious lenses. (And should there prove to be any curious high-tech types, Nathan collected some fecal matter: plenty of DNA to go around. I was running around having him show off the sample: further proof that the high school birders I know are probably all more mature than I am.) The bluebird eventually tired of the crowd- perhaps embarrassed- and flew off to the east, presumably to work her circuit.

The hawks, though overshadowed for a while, were not to be denied. Adult red-shouldered are simply stunning creatures and I see way too few of them for my taste. So it was a highlight seeing one slowly moving south. It veered to the west so it did not pass right overhead but he provided great scope views. The light rough-legged was my first of that species for the fall: it did fly right overhead. And later there was a dark bird. Josh Engel spotted an approaching Lapland longspur, always a treat.

I left just after noon, and by the day’s end 85 raptors of nine species migrated over the site. Highlights included osprey (1), bald eagle (1), northern harrier (10), red-shouldered (3), red-tailed (56), and rough-legged (4).

Adult red-shouldered hawk (John Cassady)

Study this photo and you too can now identify with certainty every female mountrain bluebird flying away into a gray sky. (Nathan Goldberg)

So many hawk watchers, there was need for overflow parking.

          

Red crossbill, Nathan's lifer (Nathan Goldberg)

Cindy said, “You are too wrapped up in your passenger pigeon stuff. You need a hobby.” “Hey,” I said.  “How about birding?”

Birders in northern Illinois often, for very good reason, complain about the lack of good birds that are readily accessible. Last weekend, though, offered a nice variety of exciting choices. The outstanding bird is a sage thrasher that has been at Montrose for well over a week now. Most people who have looked succeed in their quest, although the bird can be difficult, and some have missed it. It is probably only the second time in recorded history that a sage thrasher has lingered in Illinois so that most everyone who cares can add it to their list. I was fortunate- ok old enough- to have seen the first one to have blessed us with its prolonged presence: that was back in 1969-1970. Now a new generation can have the same pleasure.

Among the new generation of young birders here is high school sophomore Nathan Goldberg, whose birding prowess and temperament seem beyond his years. (Nathan, by the way, holds a distinction unique among the seven some billion Homo sapiens who currently inhabit this planet and likely all those who have ever lived before: the only person whose first observed hummingbird in Illinois was an Anna’s.)  Despite the lamentations regarding nature deficit disorder (as coined by Richard Louv), there are probably as many serious young birders now as there have ever been: it is fantasy to think there were ever very many at one time. And with the internet, kids physically distant from one another can interact and forge friendships of long duration. It can be lonely and even painful being a youngster with a passion for birds, and now it is easier to know that others share your malady.

Nathan lives a bit too far away from Montrose to have made it in time to see the thrasher the day it was found. Chris Williamson, one of his three principal birding mentors (“my birding mom”), called to tell him about the sighting and when he said he had no way to get there, she picked him up and he saw it. I had seen his posts but we had not crossed paths until one of my obscure comments on Facebook prompted him to contact me and a birding trip was born. He and his mom, Lynn Remington, met me at the Skokie Lagoons. But where to go?  Should we look for wigeon and greater yellowlegs which Nathan needed for his year list, or to Montrose to look for his lifer common redpoll, or to head north to Van Patton forest preserve near the Wisconsin border where another lifer, red crossbill, had been found the day before. We decided on the last option.

Lynn and Nathan at Rollins Savanna.

Our first stop was at Osprey Lake to look for widgeon. We found a leucistic coot (among hundreds), gadwall, pintail, green-winged teal, but alas not the duck we were looking for. Then a quick look at Wadsworth where I have not been all fall and though no birds, I was distressed to see duck hunters: the area is not open for hunting.

Soon we arrived at Van Patton, Parking Lot C. My rule of thumb in looking for rare birds is to look first for the birders. A license plate proclaiming “nuthatch” demonstrated that at least one group was nearby. We ran into them quickly, as they had tarried to enjoy the four red crossbills. Nathan put the scope on the birds and we had frame-filling views. Nathan not only took some lovely photos but also some neat video. Our two companions left and we continued our observations. I joked that we could not leave until we handed the birds off to the next birders. Minutes after the birds flew off to the west, two birders did show up. This allowed us to leave but we later learned that they never located the birds. (Still later in the day, other birders did succeed) A quick check of the lake that is also part of Van Patton netted a Bonaparte’s gull (great find by Lynn), a common loon, redheads, ring-necks, ruddy ducks, and a couple of horned grebes.

Bonaparte's gull giving a show (Nathan Goldberg)

Then off to Rollins Savanna to look for waterfowl. We found shovellers and a female harrier coursing over the marsh, but still no wigeon. The highlight was a pair of very tame sandhill cranes. These were birds were obviously accustomed to people as they allowed a bicycle to pass close by and even a pedestrian, ears plugged with listening a listening device. But the birds did not let us get anywhere near as close. (I suggested that they might be anti-Semitic. But more likely it was something we said.)

Lynn and Joel spook the cranes (Nathan Goldberg)

Independence Grove had been hosting a red-necked grebe for over a week as well. Nathan had already seen one this fall at Montrose but it would have been a county bird for me. We had also heard that earlier in the day, amidst all the Canada geese, was a small flock of cackling geese, which would have been new for Nathan. The former quarry was covered with geese, but try as we might, none proved to be particularly small (there were some false alarms but the runty appearance proved to be merely an artifice of the bird’s positioning). Nathan pulled out the red-necked grebe, easily hidden by its comparatively gargantuan neighbors.

And I later learned that on their way home, Lynn and Nathan stopped at Montrose and found the common redpoll. Multiple lifers all within an hour or so of home- ah, to be young again.

          

Blackpoll overhead (shot from cannons) and identified with precision by skilled observers like Tom Johnson (Photo by Tom Johnson)

The charrette ended on Friday and the next chapter of my adventure began. I stood on the corner of Broad and Pine for about thirty minutes (the humanity that passes a busy street corner of a huge city is quite interesting to one who spends most of his time in a small room in front of a computer or out in the field at first light) waiting for David Soll to scoop me up for a trip to Cape May. If I have known Rick for decades, my time with David amounted to a few hours at a conference three years ago. David is an environmental historian who is currently teaching at Lafayette University in  Easton, PA, about 50 miles from Philly, but will be starting a tenure track position at the University of Wisconsin (Eau Claire) next fall.

There are some places where the roadside signs of solicitation promote gambling, gentlemen’s clubs, and fireworks. A drive through Cape May yields information on birding tours. It surely ranks as one of the continent’s great destinations for birders- it has both the birds, vast numbers of birders, and bird identification being conducted at the very highest level. And this visit even coincided with Cape May’s annual Lima Bean Festival: where else can you sample the pureed legume sweetened, heavily spiced with nutmeg, and served in a pie crust.

Saturday morning we headed out to Higbee Beach towards the end of Cape May. The bird flight was weak but Tom Johnson was counting what there was of it. Tom is a joy: highly personable, he is one of those amazing young birders whose skill level epitomizes Cape May. He was identifying warblers flying overhead including Connecticut (long yellow undertail coverts), blackpoll, and parula. (Of such performances, Rich Horwitz joked they leave the rest of us wondering what we have been doing the past forty plus years) The ability to know the subtle differences, process that information and to actually discern how they apply to the bird under observation during a mere speck of time is remarkable. Sometimes the identifications are aided by chip notes, and some birds are not possible to nail down with certainty. And I have not the slightest doubt that Tom is scrupulous. Digital photography, samples of which Tom generously shared, allow confirmation and study. It was an honor to witness this.

Higbee Beach lookout seen from dike across the road.

Now, unfortunately, for those who actually want to see birds well, the dike that morning did not provide a lot of opportunities. So David and I visited several other locations including a fruitless search for what would have been a lifer, a salt marsh sparrow. With the all the details required to make this trip work, I plumb forgot about this bird whose split into speciesdom occurred after my last visit to the east coast. Tom gave us a place to look but we failed to find it.

Salt marsh sparrow habitat that failed to yield its prize but was still interesting with swarms of crabs on the exposed mud.

The area around the hawk watch  was next on our agenda. First, we went in search of a long-time local hawkwatching friend Liza Gray. She and a group, who call themselves the Riff-Raff, scan the skies just behind the official observation platform. The day before she had observed a white pelican, a noteworthy bird on the east coast. There they were, and indeed it was one of her cohorts who provided samples of the lima bean pie. Hawks were not gushing overhead but birds were milling about constantly. Sharp-shins and red-tails were always in view. We also saw Coopers, a few broad-wings, merlins, peregrines, black vultures, and bald eagles. A delightful array of raptors without feeling overwhelmed by endless torrents.

Sunday we rejoined Tom for a brief period and then headed back to Philly where David was going to drop me off at John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge at Tinicum. Tinicum has been a place on my radar since the early 1970s when Ted Parker used to tell stories of birding there. Rich agreed to meet us there and I was once again in his hands (I  imagine him feeling like the custodian of an unwanted third cousin). We took a three mile hike around the site, with the highlight being my first black-throated blue warbler of the year. Rich also pointed out some fruiting wild rice which I have never seen before.

He dropped me off at the airport in plenty of time.

David Soll, my birding companion at Cape May and soon to be Midwesterner.

Connecticut warbler providing leisurely views (Tom Johnson)

An eastern meadowlark: give praise for the larger passerines that flyover- it gives the rest of us a chance. (Tom Johnson)

This is the season for yellow-rumps. (Tom Johnson)

          

The passenger pigeon diorama at the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences is one of the finest I know of and one of very few that shows a bird with its wings extended. (Photo by Polly McKenna-Cress)

Philadelphia is a city of firsts. They opened the first zoo in the country a couples of months before Cincinnati. The Academy of Natural Sciences was founded in 1812 and was hosting visitors by 1828. “The first drudgery of settling new colonies is now pretty well over,” wrote Benjamin Franklin in 1743, “and there are many in every province in circumstances that set them at ease, and afford leisure to cultivate the finer arts, and improve the common stock of knowledge.” The scholarly society he advocated became a reality that year and the American Philosophical Society is still going strong. The Wagner Free Institute of Science was founded in 1855 by William Wagner, a notable merchant, philanthropist, and gentleman scientist of the time, who sought to offer free educational courses to all who would seek to learn about the natural world.  To illustrate the lectures, he drew on a collection of specimens he had gathered since his boyhood. All of the classes were offered with an open admission policy that allowed women as well as men to attend. (I can not help but think how innovative he was and how backwards some of our contemporaries are: the vicious attack being mounted on the public schools would leave Wagner appalled.)

Philadelphia is also home to the University of the Arts, a fine institution of much more recent vintage. It offers one of the premier museum studies programs in the country and Professor Polly McKenna-Kress decided to have Project Passenger Pigeon be the theme of the annual charrette for graduate students. She divided the students into four groups, each assigned to one of the above mentioned institutions. I was invited to join the event and it proved to be an exciting and enjoyable experience. A charrette is a brainstorming session usually associated with artists and architects to come up with planning ideas in a very short time. So the students, from all over the world by the way, were provided with written and spoken information (from me) on Thursday morning and then spent a few hours at their assigned venue before getting together again. At least one group stayed up until 2 the next morning working on the presentations they would make Friday afternoon.

Students working on their charrette assignments.

The plans that they came up with were really wonderful. For the zoo, there was a house of extinction, where you remove pieces to make the point that if enough elements are removed the ecosystem/house collapses. For the Wagner, where space is particularly limited, the proposal incorporated the nest-like structures of artist Patrick Dockery, who enlists the community to construct them. The mother nest would be at Wagner with satellite nests acting as kiosks with information scattered through the city. The academy has a display on disappearing fish and one idea would be for origami pigeons leading the way to the exhibit- and visitors would be asked to pluck a paper pigeon so that time lapse photography would show their disappearance. And the APS has a strong interest in Thomas Jefferson who had an ongoing debate with the French zoologist Georges Cuvier as to whether extinction was even possible (extinction would mean god goofed). The team suggested an exhibit centered on that controversy.

One charrette team presenting their exhibit and programming designs.

All inspiring stuff and I hope that much of it gets implemented but like so many other things, it probably depends on the availability of funds.

When I knew I was going to Philly, I contacted my friend Rich Horwitz, who holds a singular place in my life. On a cold Saturday morning in November 1967 he followed through on a promise he had made earlier and called me to ask if I wanted to go birding. This was my first time, and he showed me a flock of long-eared owls ensconced in a spruce on a front lawn in the Chicago suburb of Northbrook. I have, of course, been hooked ever since. As for Rich, he graduated from Cornell and then moved back to this area where he entered the University of Chicago’s Evolutionary Biology program and graduated four years later with his doctorate. He has spent his career at the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences as an aquatic ecologist but one who is also expert in such terrestrial taxa as birds and plants. It was fun staying with him and his wife Jane, and I was able to hang out at the academy and soak up their wonderful bird collection, which possesses some of the rarest of specimens, including those of great auks and Labrador ducks.

Unlike the passenger pigeon, there are very few specimens of the great auk (?-1844) and Labrador duck (?-1875).

Clare Flemming, Archivist of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences, and Rich Horwitz, ecologist extraordinaire in front of original Audubon plates.

          

Our newest family member.

One of the joys of my passenger pigeon activities has been meeting people all over the country who share my interest in this long extinct bird. (Readers of this blog have met a number of them.) Garrie Landry is such a person, the authority on passenger pigeon artifacts with a superb network of people who actually own specimens. A survey conducted around 1960 determined that were about 1500 dead passenger pigeons in the nuseum of the world, more than that of any other extinct bird. Garrie thinks it is possible that as many as 500 more have come to light since Hahn’s search fifty years ago. For example, not long ago, Garrie received an e-mail from a citizen of the Netherlands saying he had just acquired one.

About two months ago now, Garrie informed me that two adult male ppigeons shot in November 1874 in Papillion Nebraska were being offered for sale on E-bay. He thought that based on the price that a bird had fetched the previous year and the state of the economy, the two ought not to break the thrity-five hundred mark. My goal was not so much to own one in fee, as to have it for 2014 when I expect to be giving numerous talks. Gary and I pooled our resources and he handled the actual placing of the bid. The bidding closed late on a Friday night, past my bed time. But there was the phone call, about an hour after I turned it and it was Gary informing me that we were outbid by two thousand dollars! A disappointment but at least we had not lost by a couple of hundred bucks.

Meanwhile, Gary had been in conversation with a couple in New Hampshire who had a an adult male they were looking to sell. The bird had some damage on the neck and it lacked provenance, which is common for ppigeon specimens. All they knew was that the previous owner had him for over fifty years, while it was in their possession for eight. It was mounted by Lincoln Daniels, a taxidermist in Portland, ME in the 1870s or 80s.

Eventually, Gary was able to purchase the bird, with the idea that he would lend it to me for 2014. But when he received it, he though the specimen was a little wobbly on the mount and the mount was unsecured to the glass container. So rather than lend it to me he said he would sell it for the same amount he had paid, which was but a fraction of what the NE birds had brought. The opportunity to obtain a ppigeon for less money and hassle would never arise, and, since Cindy and I were getting tired of our imaginary children anyway, we bought ourselves a passenger pigeon.

Garrie gave careful instructions to the NH folks on how to wrap and send the bird. It was packed inside an insulated Styrofoam ice chest which was inside a big box. When he worked his way through the various containers, Garrie discovered that the head had become largely detached from the body, being connected by very little. He fixed it up and wrapped it in the most meticulous way, creating what looked like a mummy (as featured in an earlier blog post). As befitting a passenger pigeon, its scientific name means “wandering migrant”, this individual had been traveling a lot and was about to embark on the final leg of its journey.

Heinrich under glass- his original bell jar case. (Photo by Garrie Landry)

Meanwhile, my friends at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum in Chicago agreed to look at the bird and give me guidance on the appropriate cases for it. Cindy and I headed to our post office to retrieve the huge box and we placed it in, where else, in the passenger seat, where we secured it with the seat belt. I was afraid to open it, and then have to repack it for our trip into Chicago so for two days I was able to admire the big card board box. Cindy raised the possibility that there was nothing in the box. In that case I would tape a picture to the box and take it along on lectures: if someone asked why I did not display the bird, I would say, “Have we become so cynical as a people that trust is dead?” Etc.

There is a reason they call it the passenger seat (aka Ectopistes seat).

The day came when we headed off to Notebaert with our box. David Mrazek met us there with his movie camera to film the opening. Steve Sullivan of Notrebaert handed my a pocket knife to cut the tape but beyond that initial incision I left the unpacking to him. The big box was stuffed with “peanuts,” wherein the glass container and the cooler were placed. Inside of the cooler were more peanuts and our bird. We have decided, by the way, to call him Heinrich, after the American composer whose master work is a nine movement symphony depicting the life of the passenger pigeon.

Steve and Alvaro evaluate Heinrich.

Steve and his colleague Alvaro Ramos examined the bird closely, and we discussed how to proceed. Steve thought the bird should be frozen to eliminate any chance of insects and Alvaro suggested the appropriate containers for him: the bird would be placed in plexiglass and that in turn would go inside a snug carrying case. For a modest fee, they agreed to arrange everything. And boy they did a great job!

There have been moments in my life that caused me to shake my head in amazement: all things considered, I would never have dreamt that the event would actually happen. Two earlier examples of this would be watching gorillas in Rwanda or birding in Central Sulawesi. These are things and places I read about as a child but, again, could not have imagined ever visiting or doing. Owning a passenger pigeon- the stuff beyond dreams.

If only passenger pigeons were this well protected in the nineteenth century.