Tis the Season to be Counting: CBC One

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.