Screech owl enjoying the weather photographed by John Cassady.
There is so much to write about I am almost overwhelmed. In preparation for the spring Bird Count on May 8, I devoted May 6 to scouting my territory in northwest Lake County, IL. I see scouting outings differently than most birding excursions. My goal is to check areas more than to find birds. There is an obvious overlap when it comes to marginal sites that might or might not be covered on the day of the count. Where I know we will be spending time on the count I don’t even bother to check it, except to drive by to make sure it is still there and accessible. Some of these places I only visit once a year and this is on the count day. Mostly when I scout I do it for logistical reasons: it enables me to write out a clear itinerary, listing the order in which we will hit places and the routes that we will use. This way on the day of the count, I don’t have to fiddle with a map or devote energy to navigation.
One area my group used to cover was Sun Lake in Lake Villa. A Pacific loon took up residence here one late spring many years ago. It is the only lake in Lake County Illinois that had no road leading to it. It also boasted a unique boardwalk through the cattails leading to the open water: rotting pallets with an occasional washing machine and other appliance filling in any gaps. To reach the boardwalk you had to drive by a creepy looking mansion with way too many windows that looked like it had been built by gangsters. (I do admit, that with restoration under new public ownership the building looks a lot more wholesome). The last couple of times I tried to scout out the lake, I was turned away by site workers. Well, this time, with all the work completed, I tried again. Garbage littered the place and downed trees were used to obliterate traces of the trail but I think I found it. At one point I reached for the narrow trunk of a buckthorn to help get over some piled wood. Unfortunately, the portion of trunk I grasped was studded with the long sharp projectiles which earned the plant its name, and I wound up carving a small cavity in the base of my thumb. Alas, all of this effort was for naught, however, as the cattail wall seemed impenetrable and I never could even glimpse open water. One less spot to examine for count day.
Overall, though, I was pleased with the results of my scouting. My best bird was a Wilson’s phalarope on a drying mudflat that held only three other birds, all lesser yellowlegs. But I also had success with some late ducks: a pair of ruddy ducks on East Loon Lake, a pair of ring-necked ducks at Prairie Crossing subdivision, and a green-winged teal in a large flooded field, I had never covered before.
The following day, May 7, it poured. I joined friends for an Evanston North Shore Bird Club walk at Skokie Lagoons. We had to wait an hour for the rain to subside. The wait was worth it, though, as we had a total of 23 species of warblers, four vireos, and four Catharus thrushes. The highlight for me was a mourning warbler, one of the late arriving Opporornis. It is probably the earliest I have seen the species, whose numbers around here peak in the third week in May.
The weather for the spring count was supposed to be cold and windy, with some rain. The cold and windy part I could stand, as discomfort and the failure to find birds is something one becomes accustomed too in this line of work, such as it is. But the prospect of standing in a marsh in the dark with 40 degree temperatures, 20 mph winds, and the kind of rain that plagued us Friday morning enters the realm of “please, for the love of all that is holy, put an end to my misery.” (Jennifer e-mailed me later asking if it is ever warm and dry on the spring bird count. I think it was in 2006.)
Dan Ludwig, Jennifer Schmidt, and Tim Earle enjoying the November weather of this year's spring bird count (taken at Deer Lake)
My crew of three met Saturday morning at 3:30. Jennifer Schmidt, Dan Ludwig, and Tim Earle had all been on the spring count with me before so they knew what to expect. The wind was strong and the temperatures were as predicted. Fortunately, there was nor precipitation. Our first stop is Deer Lake where we spend maybe five hours, the first of which is in the dark as we wait for the wetland to wake up.
Owls have long captured the human imagination through their mysterious ways. For a birder, one of the great mysteries is why on a perfectly lovely calm night, the persistent playing of their calls will yield no response while on another night, cold with a wind rushing through the trees with such force as to drown out most other ambient sounds, a mere whinny or two will engage a screech owl at the tail end of his work day. Pondering the whims of an owl is beyond this blog, but suffice it to say that we were thrilled when the owl promptly answered.
The first birds whose voices arose from the marsh were swamp sparrows. After the owl, I started playing the voices of the two bitterns, as well as Virginia rail, and king rail. Soras usually will call at some point on their own initiative. Just as enough light had seeped through the thick clouds to enable Homo sapiens to see, an American bittern flew up and across the large expanse of cattails. It never vocalized, however, and its “unk-a-chunk” is one of my favorite avian utterances. But a lovely sight none the less. Another mystery to me is that we often miss both bitterns, and some years we will get the least and others the American. But we have never had both species in the same day.
As the morning unfolded, the birding remained productive. A highly unexpected flock of black-bellied plovers flew over. (Likely to be the only ones seen on the count by anyone.) The number of places where black terns still nest in northern Illinois varies from one to two. Deer Lake is one of the places and is a bird we kind of expect. But it wasn’t until the tail end when Dan spotted a flock of four. Soras did eventually call (we had a total of five) but for the first time ever we left Deer Lake without a single Virginia rail. Repeated scanning of the lake did reveal a flock of gadwalls and one wigeon. Yellow-rumped warblers also responded to the screech owl tape, with a flock of about 30 fluttering around one low tree. But they were not alone as we pulled out orange-crowned, black and white, palm, golden-winged, and others.
It drizzled a bit but the cold and wind never let up. I wore but a light jacket, and was on the cusp of being chilled, but I attribute my having donned a second tee shirt as keeping me from crossing the line. Everyone had gloves but me, so my hands began to hurt. These weather conditions remained throughout the day except there were a few times when the rain was heavy and at least twice we were pelted by hail. Fortunately, during those periods of heavy precipitation, we were close to the car.
The rapids of Mill Creek in northern Lake County, Illinois.
Our next important site is along Mill Creek, one of the principal tributaries of the Des Plaines River. Tim had a vesper sparrow, and at one point we had maybe five northern waterthrushes calling at the same time. We always see a eastern phoebe, and although it took some looking, we were not disappointed. Barn swallows were acting strange in that they were resting on the rocks in the creek.
Jennifer and Dan had to leave early so Tim and I carried on. We had such gems as yellow-headed blackbird, redhead, and ruddy ducks. After Tim left at 4, I checked one last spot that kept me out until six. I ended the day at Wadsworth where I added such species to the list as American pipit, eastern bluebird, and several species of shorebirds. For the day we had a total of 97 species. I should also say that of the birds that I scouted out two days earlier, three were not seen at all (phalarope, green-winged teal and ring-necked duck) and two were absent from where they had been (ruddy duck and wigeon). But at least the places remained.
Finally, this ends a year’s worth of blogging. I have enjoyed it a great deal and I hope you have as well. I greatly appreciate Mr. Crowe for his giving me this opportunity.
Yellow-rumped warbler photographed by John Cassady.
The ever changing weather of this year's spring bird count- from challenging to more challenging.
Tags: deer lake, eastern screech owl, Mill Creek, spring bird count, sun lake
Woodcock success story: Dawn Keller of Flint Creek Wildlife Rehabilitation releasing once injured bird. (Photo by Phil Hampel)
Only a seven minute drive away, the closest spot to where I live for good woodcocking is a fascinating place named Wolf Road Prairie in the town of Westchester. Wolf Road Prairie consists of a core area of about 80 acres of virgin prairie. It is not particularly birdy, but it is most convenient when I need a quick prairie fix. What makes it unique, though, is that crisscrossing the site are sidewalks. It seems that the site was platted for development in the 1920s and the sidewalks were installed as a first step. But then, like a hero untying the damsel from the railroad tracks at the last second, the Great Depression hit, putting an end to any further development. People had bought lots and some still harbored dreams of building into the 1980s. But conservationists launched an effective campaign to save the property and a deal was worked out whereby the state and county would each buy out half the lots. It is now a dedicated nature preserve and watched over carefully by the citizens group, Save the Prairie Society.
Wolf Road doesn’t have the number of woodcock that Middle Fork Savanna does, nor does it have the snipe. It is also the case that the woodcocks tend to be between the observers and a strip mall. I have seen birds doing their aerial gyrations with a California Tanning Salon in the background. But you do have a much better chance of actually seeing the woodcock in that very narrow window between when it first begins its nuptial dance and it becomes too dark to see. And it is also easily accessible at night.
I was joined by two friends, Lynn Rotunno and David Mrazak. Lynn is a graphic designer by trade who spends a great deal of her time working on environmental issues. David is a documentary film maker who co-wrote and co-directed the movie, “Principal’s Story”, a remarkable study of two urban high school principals that aired last fall on PBS. Hopefully, the funding will come through for him to make a documentary on that most riveting of subjects, the passenger pigeon. Both Lynn and David live close by.
Our meeting time was a little on the early side, but not nearly as much as the season’s previous woodcock try. Not much is in bloom yet on the prairie. There were a few golden Alexander, pussy toes, and bastard toadflax (David wondered if there is a legitimate toadflax).
Eventually though, I heard the first buzzy “peent” of the night. There was one bird very close. Although the bird was clearly in the same location, some peents would be louder than others, which prompted David to suggest it might be turning around when it vocalized. I don’t know if that is true but it would explain the variation. Then we heard the flight noise so we knew it was airborne. The twittering and squeaks were clear but nobody could pick it up against the eastern sky. We decided to move towards where the bird had been- if you are lucky, the bird might land on the ground right in front of you. I once was able to observe a bird that way that was totally at ease as it fed. We could actually see the flexible tip to the bill as it probed the soft ground. We did not have that kind of success this night, but we were fortunate enough to get decent looks as the bird descended. A couple of more sequences and we called it a night.
The photo of the release was kindly provided by Dawn Keller and Phil Hampel of Flint Creek Wildlife Rehabilitation Center. They have helped organize a dedicated cadre of bird monitors who venture forth during migration periods recovering injured birds, some of which are nursed back to a state where they can be released. Woodcock show up quite often as victims. Fortunately, there are happy endings such as the bird depicted.
David Mrazek and Lynn Rotunno at Wolf Road Prairie in the glare of blogger's flash.
Tags: Flint Creek Wildlife Center, Wolf Road Prairie, woodcock
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
Hopewell Mounds near Chillicothe, Ohio.
Wednesday Cindy and I left Columbus bright and early for a trip south to Piketon, Ohio to meet Geoffrey Sea. Geoffrey has spent years studying passenger pigeons and the Hopewell Mounds, that occur in several places in Ohio. To familiarize ourselves with the mounds we stopped at Chillicothe to visit the National Historic Park which features some of the best preserved examples. Finding it was a bit of a challenge as none of the locals knew of it. (Particularly sad since the mounds are probably the only thing of enduring importance that exists in Chillicothe) The mounds have intrigued archeologists because their functions are not readily discernable. For example they are not burial grounds, but they are astronomically aligned. Many now believe they provided places for people to gather to observe celestial phenomenon.
Geoffrey lives in a remarkable house built in 1833 and then added onto in the 1870s. It is just down the road from where young Press Southworth shot the passenger pigeon that would become Buttons. It is also notable for having hosted Abraham Lincoln for a night in the 1840s. Geoffrey is still in the process of completing his vision for the house- a room to memorialize each of its important aspects. So there is a Lincoln room and there is a passenger pigeon room. He actually possesses a beautiful mounted pair of ppigeons. (He would like to see the Sargent’s pigeon housed here.)
Passenger pigeon room in Geoffrey Sea's historical house in Piketon, Ohio.
His house is also full of books on a wide variety of subjects. His theory is that this part of Ohio attracted huge numbers of the pigeons and that the mound builders saw the birds as the repository of human souls. Marking this importance of the bird to their spiritual life, the humans built the mounds for the pigeons. There are mounds to the north in perfect geographic alignment to the mounds of Piketon, and he thinks they follow the migration route of the birds. He has also collected a wonderful quantity of ppigeon lore for a book he is writing on the pigeons, the mounds, and the nuclear facility nearby that brought him to south-central Ohio. His paper published in the American Scholar is online and worth reading. We spent a thoroughly enjoyable day with him as he explained his work and showed us local landmarks.
Blanche Barnes, the taxidermist who stuffed the last wild passenger pigeon for whom there is an extatnt speciemen. She replaced her eyes with buttons, thereby providing the bird with its well-known sobriquet.
Our final day started again in Columbus. We were aiming for the Cincinnati Zoo and a meeting with several people at 10am. When we completed out stay, we were going to go directly back to Chicago. Unfortunately, when we arrived at the zoo, we discovered we left several things behind in Columbus, including a camera and bra. The former was important enough to warrant changing our route home to include Columbus.
The Cincinnati Zoo, as surely everyone knows, is the place that housed Martha, the last surviving ppigeon, whose death on September 1, 1914 brought the bird to extinction. The zoo has a wonderful memorial to her. Some years ago the building was threatened with destruction, when it came to the attention of John Ruthven, an internationally acclaimed wildlife painter and ppigeon aficionado of the first order. John painted a gorgeous portrait of the species from which prints were made. The selling of those prints raised enough money to enable the zoo to move the memorial fifty feet to its current location. John also donated an antique shotgun to the exhibit, never dreaming that someone would break in, steal the weapon, saw off most of the barrel, load it with modern shells, and attempt a robbery. Fortunately for the assailant, he never squeezed the trigger for the shell would likely have exploded. The guy was caught and at his trial John had to testify that it was indeed his gun and explain how it wound up as the weapon. The gun was returned and John filled the barrel with lead so it could never be used again, except possibly as a club. And that is the gun that you see today.
The meeting at the zoo could not have gone better. My friend Stan Hedeen, a native of Evanston, IL and long-time participant on the Evanston North Shore Christmas Bird Count, has been on the faculty of Xavier University for decades and gave me the name of Dan Marsh, education director of the zoo. I had called him months ago and we talked about the need to mark the anniversary of Martha’s passing. It would not only bring attention to the story of the bird and its extinction (a story unlike any other in human history: how human activities reduced a bird with a population in the billions in 1800 to zero by 1914) but would provide a portal to current issues related to the preservation of biodiversity.
Dan and his colleague Deb Zurieck, with whom I had also talked, set up the meeting and had invited Stan, Gary Denzler (wildlife sculptor), Thane Maynard (zoo director), and John Ruthven (who told me the story related earlier). It was truly thrilling. John started by saying how excited he was with the prospect of a major effort to mark the anniversary. He had already conceived of a painting which he was prepared to draw for the zoo’s activities. He showed us a sketch which depicted a large flight of the birds and it was lovely. I have been working to get institutions involved (see the blog post on my trip to the Field Museum) and the enthusiasm expressed by everyone gives me hope that the unique opportunity to spread the conservation message presented by September 1, 1914 will not be squandered.
Inside the memorial to Martha, the last passenger pigeon, at the Cincinnati Zoo where she spent most of her life. Photo by Deb Zurieck.
Deb, Dan, Cindy, Blogger, Stan, John, and Gary in front of the Martha Memorial. Photo by anonymous visitor.
Tags: Cincinnati Zoo, Hopewell Mounds, Martha, Piketon OH
Sargent's pigeon (aka Buttons), the last wild passenger pigeon for which there is an extant specimen.
In the world of passenger pigeons, Ohio is a special place, being the site of some of the most iconic locations and objects related to the species. Cindy had spring break and was planning on seeing her family in Columbus. I came along on my own personal haj to visit these shrines and talk with people who know them. I had made arrangements ahead of time with Bill Whan, a top Ohio birder, who set up Monday for me to meet Paul Gardner of the Archeological Conservancy and Bob Glotzhober, the Senior Curator of Natural History at the Ohio Historical Society. We even managed to do a little birding.
As part of my ppigeon research last fall, I posted requests for information on numerous birding listserves throughout the eastern US. Bill Whan responded with lots of great historical material and we developed a correspondence over the months. Cindy and I picked Bill up at his house and we headed over to Paul’s to talk about Native Americans and their relationship with ppigeons. Some have claimed that competion with Native Americans kept pigeon numbers low and it wasn’t until the collapse in the human population due either to the Mini Ice Age or the arrival of Europeans considerably later did the birds attain their great abundance. The competition would be over the mast- specifically tree nuts- that the pigeons depended on and that native people also used in their diets. Paul doubted that this competion would have been very intense because the people utilized hickories most heavily while the pigeons preferred beech and oak. Indians also used oaks, but their favorites were acorns from the white oak types because they had were sweeter due to less tannin. The pigeons, on the other hand, concentrated on the red oak types because it took two years for their acorns to develop, and thus they could feed on them while still attached to the trees (by falling to the ground in the fall, acorns from white oaks were likely to have germinated by spring nesting season; once germinated, the acorn loses much of its food quality.)
From Paul, we headed to Bob’s office. The Ohio Historical Society has a lovely museum as well as a complex of warehouses where artifacts are stored some distance away. Bob’s office was at the latter. For ppigeonites, the critical item in their possession is Buttons, purportedly the last wild ppigoen shot. It occurred in March 1900 in Sargent’s, Ohio. (No one will ever know when the last wild bird died, and I know of a very strong claimant that was killed two years later in Indiana, although it is likely the specimen is no longer extant) Button’s story was mined in great depth by Christopher Kokinos in his Hope is a Thing With Feathers but Bob provided us with more information and we arranged to meet him a few hours later at the museum to see Buttons. Because of funding issues, the museum is open only on Thursdays, and given this was Monday the lights might not be on so we had to bring flashlights.
One of only two yellow-crowned night-heron nests known in Ohio photographed by Bob Baran.
This gave us a chance to do a tiny bit of birding (“Yes, Virginia, there are other birds than passenger pigeons.”) and lunch. Bill had mentioned that the only known nests of the yellow-crowned night-heron in Ohio occur in a snazzy part of Columbus and that the birds had returned. I have a fondness for this species so we drove over there. Palatial homes lined either side of the street. And over that street were the branches of two trees, each with a rickety nest occupied a pair of night-herons. They were not very neat builders as the street had a little pile of branches under the nests, not to mention the white splotches of excrement. Yellow-crowned night-heron numbers have been steadily declining in inland areas so it is not surprising to me that Ohio has only one known nesting location, but what does amaze me is that in the whole state there is no river bottom swamp, say, that is more appealing to the species than this residential neighborhood. Birders had been coming here for years, and they have made it a point to show the birds to locals to build good will. A young lady walked by with her dog looking perplexed as to why we were there, and so we offered her a look through the scope. As we made ready to leave, a car pulled up right under the nest and the birders inside asked where the night-herons were.
Yellow-crowned night-herons in Columbus prefer the nicer parts of town.
We picked up some Middle Eastern food and took it to Bill’s house for lunch. We met his charming wife and browsed through some of his wonderful library. As I headed to the bathroom on the second floor, I spied on a bookshelf a most striking title of an anthology of detective stories “Hard Boiled Dicks.” (And no the editor was not Jeff Daumer.) After some more chatting, Bill reminded us that our window to see Buttons was waning so we dashed off to the museum. Armed with flashlights, we waited for Bob who did arrive. We were qauite surprised to that although the intereiror was largely unlit, the display of extinct birds was lit. And there was Buttons, or Sargent’s Pigeon as some prefer. Button’s was long thought to be a young male but is in fact a female. She earned her sobriquet by virtue of the fact that the young taxidermist who stuffed her, replaced her eyes with buttons.
Bob Glotzhober, Bill Whan, and Cindy Kerchmar at the Ohio Historical Society Center.
Tags: Buttons, Columbus OH, Ohio Historical Society, Sargent's pigeon, yellow-crowned night-heron
Common snipe by Tim Wallace.
A favorite spring activity of mine is woodcocking. It wasn’t until the early1980s that I discovered woodcock enacted their marvelous nuptial displays just a short walk from where I grew up. Perhaps, the connection was a consequence of reading Aldo Leopold’s “Sky Dance,” his lovely account of the display in Sand County Almanac. (The first few times Cindy and I went in pursuit of the birds we did not see any so she was convinced that the promise of woodcock, like snipe, was merely a ruse concocted by nature nerds to get girls to join them in the woods at night. To which the socially inept young naturalist might have replied, “Yucch. This is about a really neat bird.”) It is also one of those excursions where you can recruit non-birders and wrap it up with a nice dinner package.
One local challenge is that fewer and fewer sites are accessible at night but fortunately some still are. In recent years most of my woodcock outings have been at Wolf Road Prairie, a fascinating prairie just seven minutes from where I live. Last Saturday, the focus of our attention was Middle Fork Savanna, in Lake Forest, Illinois. High quality savanna, prairie, and marsh form a preserve of great biological diversity. I had never looked for woodcock here but I was told where the birds have been dancing.
Due to the pressures of ppigeons, there are a number of people I have not seen for awhile and I thought this would be a good chance. So Cindy and I were joined by Jim Brown and his six-year old Stephen, Tim Wallace, and documentary filmmaker David McGowan. I told everyone to meet at 4:30, which was probably about two hours early. We arrived first and scoped out the location. The highlight of our walk was four common snipe. When everyone assembled we decided to have dinner at a very conveniently located spot called the Silo.
Can't start 'em too young! Stephen Brown, with binos, and Jim Brown.
Back in the field, we lined up along the trail and I strained to hear the first buzzy peent of an amorous male woodcock. As much as I love the sounds of chorus frogs, geese, and other springtime choristers, they actually were making it difficult to hear the more subtle vocalizations of the woodcock. If there is one thing about Middle Fork that detracts from this sort of activity it is the busy train track that forms its western boundary and its contributions to the ambient noise level was most definitely not appreciated.
While still on the ground the male woodcock issues the peent. Then he launches himself skyward, producing a low twitter. On the descent, he glides earthward, a point in the proceedings announced by yet a different sound, that of the air through the wings. This to me sounds like a squeegee across wet glass. There is a relatively narrow window when the birds take to flight and it gets too dark to see them. At best you can watch the silhouettes against the rapidly darkening western sky. We eventually did hear some but never saw them.
Far louder, and taking me a moment to place it, were the other worldly sounds of the common snipe as it too engages in its aerial courtship ritual. It lacks the nuances of the woodcock but is really more dramatic, at least the noise is. Imagine tying an object to the end of a rope and twirling it vigorously- the loud woo, woo, who approximates the snipe. “One is both thrilled and puzzled when he hears it for the first time, for it seems like a disembodied sound, the sighing of some wandering spirit,” wrote Arthur Cleveland Bent. They were crisscrossing the sky right over our heads at times. And as Bent suggests, the notes can be almost be spooky. Unfortunately, we never could see them despite their closeness. In comparison to woodcock, there are many fewer places around here where you can hear snipe so I was thrilled.
If you fancy another and want to suggest a pleasant place to fraternize on an early spring night, I would heartily recommend Middle Fork Savanna. But you may not find the privacy you seek- those dang birders.
American woodcock photo by Darlene Friedman.
Tim, Stephen, Jim, David, and Cindy
Common merganser photographed by Darlene Friedman.
Now the difference two weeks makes this time of year is great: the phenological changes have been striking. Yesterday I was at Wadsworth and all sorts of taxa were up and about. The vegetation is greening up, and even clots of algae are forming in shallow water, all of which is now melted.(The appearance of pond scum is always a harbinger of spring in my book.) I saw my first insect, some sort of diptera. A chipmunk bolted across the road and a particularly large beaver swam upstream at the surface of the Des Plaines River (if this were a Scottish lake, I might have another guess). New puddle ducks for the year included green-winged teal, wigeon, shoveller, and gadwall. Cranes were flying very high such that it was difficult to tease out their calls from the very wind itself- they were closely woven together into one ethereal sound of antiquity.
If there was one great scene, though, it was at my last site, a large grassy expanse that over the course of the year can be dry, a marsh, or a lake. This time it was in between a marsh and a lake, but whatever else it was, it was birdless. Then one of the great songs of spring caught my ear- I thought it was a bit early but no mistaking the notes of that great spring chorister, the western chorus frog (by far the most abundant of our spring frogs, although many people call them spring peepers, a woodland species much less common around here, though maybe on the increase). As I stood listening, my season’s first turkey vulture drifted over and beyond it was a crane with a clear destination in mind.
The quarry lake I referred to last week was indeed ice free, but fortunately not duck free. No loon, but this time the common mergansers and hooded mergansers were joined by a red-breasted merganser making a hat trick of gorgeous birds. It did put me in the mind to check out other local lakes when I was finished at Wadsworth.
Illinois has two principal aggregations of natural lakes- those connected to the Illinois River (many of which have been filled in over the years) and the hundreds of glacial lakes that either formed in morainal basins or when chunks of glacial ice became imbedded in the ground and melted. Most of these are in the Lake and McHenry Counties, and are in the Fox River watershed, although a few are in t he Des Plaines. But none of the latter are east of the Des Plaines so all three of the lakes I looked at wre former quarries; another may have been a quarry too.
After leaving Wadsworth I headed to Sterling Lake, part of the Lake County Forest Preserve District. It usually has loons, but I could not find any, if they were present. Instead, there were two large rafts of ducks segregated as to composition. One of the flocks was entirely red-breasted mergansers while the other was dominated by lesser scaup, with a few ring-necked ducks and bufflehead thrown in.
Osprey Lake lies between a large housing complex and the Des Plaines River. I claim to have discovered it; ok, I am only referring to birders here, and thus am ignoring all the people who live and visit there. There are a series of dikes and small lakes fringed by extensive marsh. I bird it a few times a year, and it always has a fine selection of waterfowl in season- well except for yesterday when all it harbored were a couple of mallards and some herring gulls. I really am at a loss as to why there no birds. (One time four of us visited the site when it was heavily flooded. The water was almost at the top of a bridge railing. We waded the trails which reached our waste at places. At one point two tiny dead baby mink floated by, one of which is in my freezer.
The highlight of the lakes was Independence Grove, also a Lake Count Forest Preserve District property. It is adjacent to the Des Plaines and we birded it on the Waukegan Christmas Count before it was open to the public. But there are now broad grassy areas, extensive trails, picnic tables, and other facilities. There were about 200 birds on the water: in declining order of abundance, lesser scaup, common goldeneye, redhead, red-breasted mergansers, and bufflehead. I rarely see that many redheads in one place.
Then the wind picked up and my single coat was inadequate. Looking at the goldeneyes made me think I was on Lake Michigan in January. What was that about spring?
Drake redhead photographed by Darlene Friedman.
Lesser scaup photographed by Darlene Freidman
Tags: common goldeneye, lesser scaup, quarries, redhead
Why did the Canada goose cross the road? To go with the flow. (Photo at Wadsworth Wetlands by Tim Wallace)
As I write this Saturday morning, winter appears to have returned as a reminder that mid-March around here is not immune from its influence. Temperatures are in the high twenties and the falling snow is accumulating. Fortunately, though, this act of meteorological petulance is not likely to last long, as temperatures will soon rise into the low forties.
But this past week was lovely. (Cindy wonders what the working class ever did to so offend the Great Spirits that they save the nice weather for weekdays.) On Tuesday (March 16) Tim Wallace and I covered Wadsworth again. The piles of snow that blocked the internal roads and the ice that made them difficult to walk were all gone. Jerry Curran, site supervisor, warned us that one portion of the road was under water so we took an alternative route.
Many of the ponds were still frozen but the river was in flood so some of our marshes had morphed into lakes. Places that we cover by foot could only be reached by wading. Anyone who has been in the field with me knows that I am not at all adverse to getting wet, but as I get older the prospects of being waist deep in icy water is just less appealing that it was but a few short years ago.
This week saw more bird activity than last. Ducks were moving around in small flocks and represented a greater range of species. Mallards predominated but we saw a couple groups of pintails. I am very fond of ducks (as a reader of this blog might surmise) for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that the drakes in alternate plumage tend to be easy to identify. And among the ducks, pintails rank high. They are elegant in plumage and distinctive in shape. They are also among the less common here and tend to be among the first wave of waterfowl to move through in spring, so unless one is active in March it is possible to miss them. (Another early spring migrant which I have yet to see at Wadsworth in five years of surveys is the greater white-fronted goose.) At another pond, I spotted two black ducks, my first of the season. Three buffleheads nearby were also new year birds.
One section of the survey area is a relatively large and deep lake connected to the Des Plaines River. It used to be a quarry. The lake rarely hosts birds except for one brief period in the spring. That period occurs during the narrow window when it is partially open and partially frozen; and I don’t really know why that is. Over the years I have found a wide range of diving birds, including common loon (during one year when the ice remained into the beginning of the loons migration period through here), horned grebe, redhead, canvasback, and all three mergansers. On this day, the ice to water ratio was perfect but the birds were limited to a couple of hooded mergansers and a flock of about 25 common mergansers. (Later in the day we made a quick stop at the lakefront where we encountered red-breasted mergansers, thereby seeing half of the world’s merganser species.) When I visit next, the lake will probably be completely open and the hot moment will have passed with few rewards. I have made special efforts in the fall to catch the quarry lake when it is partially frozen but that window is even narrower than in the spring, for I don’t think I have ever quite succeeded.
After completing our birding at Wadsworth, Tim and I made a quick foray to Northpoint Marina on the Lake Michigan shore, just south of the Wisconsin border. An area that is usually rife with ducks was bare- a workman said it’s because of repair work being done on an adjacent pier. We did see common goldeneye, greater scaup, bufflehead, and the aforementioned red-breasted merganser.
And as I pulled into my driveway, I was greeted by the mesmerizing calls of cranes. They were flying high, so it took me a while to find them, but directly overhead 125 circled to the northwest and disappeared. I wonder how they are faring today.
A tad too icy to wade (Wadsworth Wetlands by Tim Wallace)
A slowly thawing pond at dawn (Wadsworth Wetlands by Tim Wallace)
Tags: birdzilla.com, Canada goose, ducks, ice, joel greenberg's blog, pintails
Killdeer are of a hardy breed that arrive here early in the spring (Photo by John Cassady)
I finally broke my winter birding drought by going out on Tuesday with friend Tim Wallace to begin my surveys at the Des Plaines River Wetlands Demonstration project at Wadsworth, Illinois (Lake County). I usually begin the spring water bird surveys in early March but so long as all the water is frozen there is not much of a point. Well it turns out most of the water was frozen and for the first few hours there was heavy fog. The internal roads, which I usually drive, were not passable by vehicle and barely by foot. They were covered by thick ice, which if had been colder would have too slick for a biped to negotiate. As it was, the ice was spongy so that your foot sunk enough to provide some friction. (Muscles tight from months of dormancy ached before and after the hike was over.)
One of the first ponds we came to had a tiny patch of open water in one corner. Fog-shrouded though it was, I could make out two ducks floating. Through Tim’s scope, I could see that they were a pair of wood ducks. Vision being as limited as it was, I am glad they were species as well-marked as wood ducks. It might have been difficult nailing the identification of, say. a hen gadwall: a gray bird made even more non-descript by the dense ether.
Even as the sun was being thwarted, the birds knew that it was still time to vocalize. Most conspicuous were the songs of the red-winged blackbird and cardinal. Goldfinch, robins, song sparrows, and downy woodpeckers chimed in on occasion. A few flocks of Canada geese announced their arrival, their forms barely discernable as they cruised low overhead. Not anything remotely exciting from a birders perspective, although the first “konk-ka- rees” of spring always convey pleasure, but given that these sounds seemingly emanated from the void, their effect was felt. I was also reminded of a lovely line from what is my favorite of the standard ornithology texts, Joel Carl Welty’s Life of the Birds. In his discussion of why birds sing he includes this reason: “To perfect song through practice—and the possibility that some birds sing for the joy of it should not be arbitrarily ruled out!”
Over the course of our birding, the sun began to burn off the fog and the temperatures rose. The icy roads became slushy, which made it a little easier to walk. Once the shroud lifted, it actually seemed more like winter. The smooth white surface of a pond was broken only by several muskrat houses. Once the cattails sprout, the houses would become invisible. We saw a red-hawk perched low in a tree and a female goldeneye zoomed by, probably flying between open spots in the river.
Tim and I headed back to the parking lot where his car was. He packed his stuff and left, at which point the birding really picked up. As I lingered to take care of one last little task, I heard a killdeer. It was circling the pond near the cars and then aimed south. The parking lot leads to Wadsworth Road, a very short ride to the west hits US 41, and then its south towards home. Just as I turned onto 41, I saw a large bird cross the road and fly south over the wetlands. As it banked I could see it was a young bald eagle. Fortunately, there was not much traffic, so I easily pulled onto the shoulder to watch the eagle move off into the distance. But then I caught sight of two more large birds- surely not a flock of eagles. They were a pair of sandhill cranes, perhaps one of the two pair that spends the summer. Spring is definitely here.
Tags: bird song, birdzilla, joel greenberg's blog, killdeer, spring
A poor choice of background sounds for a scene taking place in the California desert (Common loon by John Cassady)
I am sure that everyone is enthralled with learning how the mind of the blogger works- what are the steps that lead to a given post. Well today (Saturday March 6), I started out on a post about red-tailed hawks, three of which came to my attention this week in interesting circumstances. As I began a little research, I learned that their calls are used in movies more than any other raptor, regardless of which bird is actually being shown on screen (imagine an avian Mel Blanc or Gilbert Gottfried). In sharing that tidbit with Cindy, she reminded me that tomorrow was the Academy Awards night and I ought to do a post on birds and movies. Voila!
The more you know about a subject the more critical you can be of popular portrayals of it. I liked the movie “The Verdict” very much except for one thing: Paul Newman rejects a large settlement offer without consulting his clients! He may be doing it for principles but the poor shmoes he is trying to help might well have preferred the principal. He should have been disciplined if not disbarred.
Most of my beefs though have been natural history related. Michael Cimino made one acclaimed movie called “The Deer Hunter”, an examination of the effects that the Vietnam War had on some of its participants. It is filled with grim imagery and heart wrenching scenes. My companion was in tears. Then the screen flashes to some of the protagonists hunting deer above snowline in the mountains of Pennsylvania (a red flag right there). All of a sudden there appears a magnificent buck- lovely picture. Except that the deer is a European roe deer, not a native white-tailed. I was wrenched from the movie-induced melancholy and flung into animation: “But it is a roe deer! It is a roe deer!” (As for my friend, let us just say she was courteous.)
One of the best movies I have seen in recent years was the poorly distributed and bleak “The Dead Girl” (2006). (Not be confused with “Dead Girl”, released two years later.) Directed by Karen Moncreiff, it received a little attention over the past month or two when leading lady Brittany Murphy moved from being a dead girl in reel life to a dead girl in real life, such as it is. Anyway, two socially inept young people wind up the evening in the California desert where they are serenaded by the calls of common loons! Given the overall feel of the film, the creepiness of certain native owls would have worked much better artistically, as well.
PBS some years ago aired a magisterial production on the history of the Jewish people, backed by the dulcet tones of Abba Eban. A dhow plying the waters of the upper Nile- wait can that be? Yep, there is a singing mourning warbler! And then there is an early scene in of “Raiders of the Lost Ark” where the tropical jungle comes alive with the truly wacky sounds of the willow ptarmigan. I can also think of numerous occasions of cockatoos appearing in South America and macaws in Africa, and old world vultures showing up in the American west. And when an actual turkey vulture is shown soaring overhead, the sound is that of a red-tailed hawk. (Really, when was the last time you heard a turkey vulture?)
Cindy says that I ought to end this with a warning: Don’t accompany me to a movie that features characters out of doors. (Some of the movies we have enjoyed together include “My Dinner With Andre,” “Das Boot,” and “Saw.”) But please send me your favorite feathered film faux pas. I promise to share them.
Have a nice Oscar night.
Tags: "Deer Hunter", Academy Awards, common loon, Karen Moncreiff, Michael Cimino, movies, Oscar night, willow ptarmigan