Lesser yellowlegs photographed by Carolyn Fields
By late July, breeding birds have largely truncated their singing and most of them are the same old suspects anyway. It is a time when post-breeding birds and their progeny do wander, so the possibility of rarities is something to keep in mind. Last week, for example, Andy Sigler found a young royal tern at the LaSalle Nuclear Power Plant near Seneca, Illinois. One of his companions had a cell phone and they called me from the site. Unfortunately, although I was very thankful they contacted me, their directions lacked some key details. When I arrived at the site an hour and a half later, I focused on some ponds close to where the royal was but not THE pond. Fortunately, after a frustrating hour looking at Caspian terns, other birders arrived, some of whom possessed more refined information. The bird was quickly located- you had to step on the floor board of the car and look through phragmities to the see the wet concavity that hosted the bird of honor. Eventually, Bruce Heimer showed up with his pick-up truck so we were all able to get excellent views through a scope. (As many of us, neither trim nor lithe, struggled to get into the back of the truck and then onto our feet, Wes Seraphin couldn’t help pointing out how pathetic most of us had become: oh, but for the ravages of age and a surfeit of calories.)
But you can’t count on the occasional vagrant to keep the folks engaged for days on end. Nope this time of year, all eyes turn to sandpipers. The single most reliable spot in northeastern Illinois is the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District’s Calumet Water Reclamation Plant. Over the decades, this series of ponds has attracted 34 species of shorebirds, including such rarities as sharp-tailed sandpiper, red phalarope, and curlew sandpiper. (The most recent addition was a black-necked stilt in the spring of 2008.) In fact, the only missing shorebirds with a likelihood of appearing here are piping plover and American woodcock (the latter undoubtedly shows up but no birder has ever been here on a spring evening, when the species is most noticeable).
Birders have to make special arrangements far in advance to gain access to the plant, so birding here is always a noteworthy event. This past Sunday (July 19) was the first of two such trips that the Evanston North Shore Bird Club scheduled. We had a nice group of about 11 people. The birding wasn’t sensational- ok not really even that good- but interesting enough to keep everyone happy. (To paraphrase the Oscar winning song of a few years back, it’s hard out here for a peep.) We totaled about 200 individuals, most of which were killdeer, least sandpiper, lesser yellowlegs, spotted sandpiper, and solitary sandpiper. Adding some variety were the short-billed dowitchers, semipalmated plover, semipalmated sandpiper, and pectoral sandpiper. Two young soras sauntered out of the cattails to allow excellent views of themselves and an osprey soared overhead (no doubt one of those local nesters I talked about in an earlier post).
Least sandpiper photographed in Racine, WI by Carolyn Fields
Tags: sandpiper, shorebirds