Ring-billed gulls lining up for attack on bread at Montrose Harbor, Chicago.
Mid April is an odd time of the Chicago area birding calendar. The mass of waterfowl have passed, although a fair number of species are still around in favored locations, but the big waves of passerines are mere expectations. And I think that is part of the problem: we are being teased by yellow-rumped warbler and the barest smattering of palms and others. White-throated and chipping sparrows have arrived with a few swamps but not the more sought after Ammodramus genus, including Henslow’s, LeConte’s and Nelson’s.
This hit home as I made my first visit to Montrose on Thursday. Strong east winds did not help any, as they push migrants way from the lakefront to disburse hither and yon. My principal reason for the trip, though, was to meet Doug Taron and Steve Sullivan of the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum (Chicago Academy of Sciences) for a bigger meeting at the museum later in the day. More on that in a little bit.
I arrived at Montrose early, since I leave the house around 5 for the 45 minute trip so I can avoid traffic. Mallards and ring-billed gulls were clustered around a pile of bread that some patron had just deposited. Many of the bushes were in bloom so it was quite pretty but the most common birds were grackles and red-wings. Most of the red-wings I have seen this spring have been in the marshes at Wadsworth, so they seem out of place in an urban park. Two calling Caspian terns flew over, providing me with a first for the year.
Doug and Steve arrived and we penetrated further into the site. A tiny sprite of a bird hopped up in a branch and proved to be a ruby-crowned kinglet. Golden-crowns are heartier and come through earlier in the spring and stay later in the fall, occasionally into early winter. Sometimes I need reminding that just because I am not out in the field observing the phenological changes doesn’t mean time has frozen. So the ruby-crowned is a good indication that I have missed the golden-crowns this spring. Another April migrant is the yellow-bellied sapsucker. They too have a fairly narrow window through which they pass in the spring. By the fast-approaching spring bird count, we will be lucky if someone records the species. We had already seen a few downy woodpeckers, but we only found one sapsucker. Steve spotted it and most of the time it was on the opposite side of a trunk, only rarely twisting its neck far enough for us to see it. Alex Bloss, a Montrose regular, had returned from the beach without seeing anything noteworthy. His principal addition was a swamp sparrow.
Ruby-crowned kinglet photographed by John Cassady.
From there we headed to the Peggy Notebaert Museum. I can not say this enough: living in a huge metropolitan area may have its drawbacks, but being within an hour’s drive of two first rate nature museums and two equally high quality zoos is a priceless amenity. (And I must add the Morton Arboretum, Museum of Science and Industry, the forest preserves, numerous universities, and myriad nature centers) Not only do these institutions offer incredible learning and research opportunities, but they provide employment to a small army of people passionate about natural history in all of its forms. That they are in our midst enriches all of us. Really, imagine living some place where no one else knew or cared about passenger pigeons (or American burying beetles, or pirate perch, or Thismia.)
Doug Taron and Steve Sullivan at Montrose.
Both Doug and Steve are urban ecologists, with Doug focusing on butterflies and Steve more on mammals and herps. Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum is part of the Chicago Academy of Science which was founded in 1857. Most of the early ornithologists of the area contributed to their collection and so they have a number of passenger pigeons, including a couple of specimens taken in Evanston and the north side of Chicago in the late 1890s, making them among the last birds known.
In a few earlier conversations Doug and Steve indicated strong interest in marking the 2014 anniversary of the ppigeon extinction. The Nature Museum has focused on local subjects and the need to engage more people in appreciating and knowing about their regional environments. I was excited when Steve offered to set up a meeting between the three of us plus Donna Gustafsson (museum’s president), Deborah Lahey (museum’s executive vice-president), and Leslie Coolidge (museum board member). Leslie participated via phone, as she was on her way up to the International Crane Foundation. The results of the get together were thrilling- everyone agreed that being involved in anniversary activities could hold great promise. More internal discussions would follow. We kicked around all sorts of ideas including Steve’s brilliant suggestion that Congress should declare 2014 the year of the passenger pigeon.
Butterfly garden at Peggy Notaebart Nature Museum.
Tags: Chicago Academy of Science, Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, Ruby-crowned Kinglet