Passing Through: A Day of Birds and Birders

Basic plumage American avocet photographed at Miller Beach, IN by John Cassady.

The field trip I co-led  two Sundays ago (September 13) allows me to introduce two important parts of my life that I have not yet mentioned in these blogs. The most important of which is spouse Cindy Kerchmar, who likes natural history very much but seems to have avoided going on any outings that I have covered in a blog. (As I have written elsewhere, her hard work as a teacher makes it much easier for me to pursue my non-lucrative passions; I know this will disillusion many, but even in the high powered world of bird blogging, it helps to have a patron.) The second has been an element of my life since 1966 when I first started birding: the Evanston North Shore Bird Club which is celebrating its 90^th birthday. Over the years, there has been a proliferation of bird groups in the Chicago region, but Evanston remains as a stalwart.

I co-led Sunday’s trip with Ari Rice, another of our great crop of teenage birders. Ari is a high school junior, who spent much of the summer volunteering in the bird department of the Field Museum. He also went to Camp Cascade, a VENT offering for young birders. His dad dropped him off at our meeting place, a McDonald’s in Waukegan, and then Cindy and I took him home.

That weekend was also the two days when the Illinois Audubon Society (IAS) was meeting in Lake County. We ran into their groups twice, along with a person looking for the group and a group leader on his way home. The fifteen or so members of my group made our first location Waukegan Beach. We scanned the flock of gulls spread out on the sand and saw only ring-billed and herring. Someone asked about one particular gull that seemed to him a little larger and darker. It proved to be merely a first-year herring but by focusing on it I saw another bird farther south wading in the water that had previously been obscured by the gulls: a winter plumaged female avocet. We all watched this stately bird as it walked out onto the beach. And then someone noticed the IAS group standing on the pier to the north and that they were also observing the avocet. (They had watched the avocet fly in, shortly before we arrived.) Unfortunately, there was also a third “group” present: consisting of a single individual oblivious to birds, he walked from the sidewalk towards the gull flock, flushing everything in the process. The avocet, an odd- looking configuration of very long legs and forequarters of neck and head with comparatively stubby wings in the middle, flew out over the lake and beyond the folks on the pier before dropping down very close to where they stood. We joined them and had marvelous views of the bird.

On to Illinois Beach State Park. I knew Sullie Gibson was leading a group for IAS and so we arranged to talk to make sure our respective birder flocks would not be walking together down the same path. (A digression and question for readers: the English language provides a range of fascinating names for avian aggregations: an exaltation of larks, a siege of herons, and a murder of crows are three favorites. What would a modern day Shakespeare call a gaggle of birders? Suggestions encouraged.) A call revealed that we were unlikely to get in each others way so we picked a trail and began looking at warblers. In the fall warblers appear in small pockets, allowing but a brief time to identify the species present. We wound up with ten species: bay-breast, blackpoll, black-and-white, Blackburnian, magnolia, American redstart, ovenbird, Tennessee, Wilson’s, and black-throated green.

 When we left the oaks and headed into the open heath (this lovely habitat of low shrubs interspersed with grasses and forbs no longer occurs anywhere else in Illinois), we spotted two raptors soaring to the south, one dwarfing the other. The larger bird proved to be an immature bald eagle, which wasn’t really serious about migrating, for it drifted north towards where I thought Sulli’s group ought to be. I called him to keep an eye out and they did wind up seeing the eagle. The smaller hawk showed a translucent crescent at the base of its primaries making it a red-shouldered, a fairly uncommon species in these parts. But moving south was on its agenda so it disappeared in a hurry. A third hawk that was even smaller vanished before we could identify it. Given that we had already seen a couple of sharp-shins, it probably was a sharpie.

By the time we reached our final stop for the day, the group had dwindled to Ari, Cindy, and me. We stopped at the shorebird spot I have written about here before, a newly created wetland near Wadsworth, Illinois. We met Tom Lally returning home from having led an IAS walk. He pointed out a snowy egret he had located earlier. And Ari made a great find when he picked out a golden plover. It was the last good bird on a day that had more than its fair share.

Evanston North Shore Bird Club field trip at Illinois Beach State Park, September 12, 2009 (Photographed by Cindy Kerchmar).

          

Tags: American avocet, Evanston North Shore Bird Club, Illinois Beach State Park, Red-shouldered hawk