Killdeer sitting on nest at Wadsworth (photo by Jeff van den Scott)
Lisa-Jo, blogger, and killdeer nest at Wadsworth (photo by Jeff van den Scott)
I visited Wadsworth nine times this spring. Although there were days of mild temperatures I seemed to select the cold ones. Several outings in mid-April were so chilly the chorus frogs did not begin singing until noon, about the same time I took off my gloves. The wind and low temperatures also kept me from plunging into waist deep water which I used to do without thinking. Also, if you are wearing long-johns to protect from the ambient air, the prospects of wearing sopping wet long underwear in that same air is a nasty exercise.
On my first visit I saw two randy mink. They were chasing each other on the banks of Mill Creek, a major tributary that enters the Des Plaines River on the site. One headed into the water only to be followed by the other; a few seconds later they emerged on the other side. For whatever reason, I had not seen mink for a while.
Fast forward to the second to last visit. I was with Jeff and Lisa-Jo van den Scott, two graduate students at Northwestern. (She is a sociologist and he a musicologist). There was a muddy flat with a killdeer running just in front of us. The bird was not feigning injury to lure us away as they usually do. Then, in the one bit of gravel on the otherwise dark soil, she plopped down. She kept her ground until we approached within a few feet and she walked off revealing four eggs.
On the very last visit Tim Wallace and I spied one of the rarer birds we have come across at Wadsworth. On a backwater of the Des Plaines, a common moorhen foraged in cattails. The species used to nest on the property but not in that marsh and it has been years since one was last seen. It is virtually gone from Lake County. I so wanted to see it the following week on the spring bird count, but alas I never did, despite wading through the area it had been. Andy Sigler admonished me for not having tried to tape it out. He said they can sit tight and won’t flush even if you get right on them.
The most interesting ongoing drama involved the sandhill crane pair that may have nested. Area 5 is a long marsh area stretching north and south. On March 27, I was approaching the northwest corner when a crane fluttered out of the tall vegetation. He was squawking loudly and came closer than a bird would ordinarily approach. A second bird became visible in the grass but she hung back, relying on the bluster of the male. (Distinguishing the birds by gender makes this easier to write and seems to make sense but Lizzie Condon who later saw the birds as well, and has worked extensively with cranes, said that the aggressive individual could just as easily have been the female.) I retreated as I did not want to bother them anymore.
The nest visit yielded but a single crane. But this bird was on a nest and as she stood up, I could see two eggs. A week or so later, we were deluged with rain and I was concerned that the nest might have become inundated. Indeed, Area 5 held a great deal more water and I became increasingly pessimistic. When a great-blue heron flushed from where I thought the nest was, I became convinced that the cranes had failed. Why would the adult crane tolerate an omnivore like a great-blue hanging so close? But amazingly, the crane was still on the nest, as water lapped at its edges. More rain descended and when I returned, this time with Lisa-Jo and Jeff, we gave the nest area a wide berth but found a nearby berm from where we could see the patient parent continue to brood. The final visit of the spring (May 1) revealed both adults, which I had not seen since back in March. We never saw any babies but they could have been around. I guess I will know when I start the breeding bird surveys.
Sandhill crane sitting on eggs at Wadsworth (Jeff van den Scott)
Trout Park, Illinois' only wooded fen, in spring.
Marsh marigolds in Trout Park in May.
It had been a couple of years since I have visited the two fens of Elgin and even longer since I have made the pilgrimage in spring. My friend Sara Russell lives in that general vicinity so it was a great opportunity for a joint field outing in her neck of the woods. (For an introduction to fens, see my August 19, 2009 posting.)
We met at Trout Park on May 11. The place never fails to captivate me. Thick leaves of skunk cabbage outline the mineral rich springs that cascade down the steep slopes of the ravine. We were a little past prime for the marsh marigolds that flank the skunk cabbage but rather than ribbons of gold there were splotches. Sara commented on the textures and shades of green as we descended on the board walk. The white cedars that are so characteristic of the site seem to me to be getting fewer but numbers still stand, testaments to the boreal flavor of the shadowed ravines.
Sara in Trout Park.
I have yet to hit Trout Park when it was birdy but that is probably due to the infrequency with which I bird it. There were yellow-rumps, ruby-crowned kinglets, and gnatcatchers but the paucity of warblers was striking. We did encounter another birder, a young man named Matt Keating. I exchanged e-mails with him and he later told me we were the first birders he had run into in the several months that he has been birding. Further confirmation of how rare birders are at Trout Park, even in the spring. It also illustrates how many areas never host birders at all; as a people, we tend to congregate in some choice locations.
Orchard oriole courtesy of John Cassady.
Sara and I headed off to Bluff Spring Fen. The kame-dominated landscape of Bluff Spring always makes for a fun trip. The old burr oaks scattered about define the prairie fen here almost as much as the streams. A chattering in one tree proved to be an adult male orchard oriole. This is yet another species with southern affinities that is becoming increasingly common in our region. I had seen an immature male at Montrose a week before, but an adult male on what is probably breeding territory is a joy.
One of my favorite spots at Bluff Spring is on the main kame, a deposition of earth created when a gravel laden stream broke through the thinning ice sheets of the last glacier. It was here that a friend took my picture that was used for A Natural History of the Chicago Region. And it was here also that Sara and I decided to rest a while on this hot sunny day. She is the Education Coordinator of a museum, which, as far as I know, is one of only three institutions in northeastern Illinois that has a passenger pigeon: always a mark of distinction.
She was commenting on the research she has done on oaks as part of the programs she gives, and how much feeling she has for them. This immediately prompted me to launch into my favorite oak quote, a terrific combination of natural history and morbid violence. More amazingly, she was familiar with it. (These are the kind of things on which friendships are built.) In his magnificent and sprawling The Golden Bough, Sir James George Frazier tells of how deeply the ancient Germans venerated Quercus and the “ferocious” penalty that awaited any who defaced the sacred trees: “The culprit’s navel was to cut out and nailed to the part of the tree which he had peeled, and was to be driven round and round the tree till all his guts were about its trunk. . . [I]t was a life for a life, the life of a man for the life of a tree.” Ah, the good ol’ days.
Sara and the oaks of Bluff Spring Fen.
Gadwall courtesy of John Cassady.
Organizing spring and Christmas bird counts in Lake County, IL requires getting permission from an array of organizations. Great Lakes Naval Training Center is always our most challenging location, ease of access varying as security fears ebb and flow. Last year, we learned that visits on weekends were impossible. This year, though, we thought we had an in: one of our regular counters helps the Illinois Department of Conservation perform habit enhancement work on the property and thus has a permit to enter. Great, we were all set. But then President Obama had to go and authorize the bin Ladin raid. Some have suggested that the timing reflected concerns that the mission might have pre-empted the royal wedding and thus was delayed to give the British monarchy the attention they expected. There was however no consideration to the Illinois Spring Bird Count scheduled for May 7. Heightened security meant that Great Lakes was closed to everyone. So I want everyone to know that I am miffed.
Back to reality, or at least some semblance of reality. This year’s spring bird count, unlike most recent counts, boasted weather that was pretty comfortable. My accompanists were regulars Tim Earle and Jennifer Schmidt, and even Jennifer thought the temperatures were tolerable. Earlier in the week, prognostications were for precipitation and even I balk at the idea of standing in the chilly dark while being pelted by constant rain.
The first bird of the day was a peenting woodcock that I heard while struggling with the lock of the gate. Soras whinnied more than often than I can recall. We counted maybe nine birds total. They were joined by swamp sparrows. It happens every year but I don’t quite understand it: despite the pitch black skies, tree swallows call from above. Catching insects in total darkness would seem to be a challenge. The screech owl proved to be difficult. We stood in our favored spot playing the call for what seemed like ages before all three of us heard a couple of responses in the far distance.
We failed to find anything rare but two groups of birds proved to be well represented. Our territory is not usuall one rich in warblers but there were heavy numbers of various species, not just yellow-rumped. In fact the extra time it took to scrutinize the mites meant there were a couple of areas we had to drop at the end of the day. (Ah, the ideal Big Day or Spring Bird Count is one where the birds are so few you can cover all your areas in the time allotted.) We had a total of 13 species including 34 palm, 4 black and white, 20 black-throated green, 132 yellow-rumped, and 12 nashville. I don’t recall seeing so many Nashvilles in a day before. But other groups had many more; indeed, most of the possible species were reported.
Of greater significance to the overall count results were our exceptional duck numbers. We had eleven species of ducks, with green-winged teal and wigeon the only puddlers we missed. And I know that Andy Sigler’s group found the former. Buffleheads (35), ruddies (14) ring-necks (16) redheads (4), gadwall (12), and northern shoveller (8) were, with the exception of the redheads, found in multiple places.
The totals have not been tabulated yet- that I have seen- but the prospects are for a good count. A paucity of shorebirds will lower the final number but, ironically perhaps, the one remarkable rarity were two black-necked stilts at Chain of Lakes State Park. They were not seen again.
Nashville warbler courtesy of John Cassady.
Ed Meyer and passenger pigeon memorial at the Michigan State Fish Hatchery at Oden, MI.
We spent the night in Traverse City for our appointment the next morning with Mary Cummings. Mary hosted us in their recently renovated museum and we learned that a board member had approached a gentleman in town asking if he would like to contribute to the museum. He replied only if they had a passenger pigeon exhibit. It was nice knowing there were more pp enthusiasts out there.
Mary introduced us to another board member, Ed Meyer, who is a retired boat builder and authority on local history. Ed had agreed to be our guide. He took us to the bluff that overlooked the still ice-choked harbor. Back in the 1870s and before, the pigeons would migrate in vast flocks along the shore line and the hunters would cluster on the lip of the bluff to shoot as many as they could. Women and children retreated to the houses below so the shot would not rain upon them. I have been immersed in the pigeon story for almost two years and to stand at a place where they were slaughtered made the written images even more vivid.
From there we headed to Crooked Lake which was one of the sites where the vast hordes of 1878 nested. According to one witness, a billion birds were killed that summer at the tip of the mitt, and even if he was wildly off, the birds surely numbered in the many millions. But that was it- no huge nestings would be recorded again and in just about twenty years the species ceased to exist as a flying organism. A few still survived in zoos. But the locals remembered, and nearby is a fish hatchery that boasts one of only three passenger pigeon memorials in the country (the others being in WI and PA).
We made East Lansing in plenty of time for dinner where we joined Pam, Monirul Khan, and Gene Dillenburg. Monirul is a professor from Jahangirnagar University in Bangladesh. He promised to give a lecture on passenger pigeons sometime during 2014, so our international effort continues to grow. Gene is a scholar of Museum Studies and the list he gave me of institutions in MI enabled Pam and me to organize this effort.
At nine the next morning everyone gathered and we had a fruitful discussion for three hours. Gene talked of his plans to create an online passenger pigeon exhibit that can be down loaded by museums to create their own displays. The MSU Museum wants to create a traveling exhibit. Two representatives from Grand Valley State University, the third largest of MI’s public universities, came because they were interested in Etta Wilson, an amazing woman who grew up in a family that hunted passenger pigeons. Wilson wrote two memoirs of her experience that were published in the Auk and she eventually went to work for the National Audubon Society. Kyle Bagnall of the Chippewa Nature Center agreed to be the MI coordinator.
Text side of passenger pigeon memorial at Oden, MI.
Tags: harbor springs historical museum, passenger pigeon memorial
P3ers in front of passenger pigeon and Lewis Cross painting at Lake Shore Museum in Muskegon, MI.
At the Chicago Project Passenger Pigeon (P3) meeting I suggested to Pam Rasmussen of the Michigan State University Museum that we ought to hold a similar meeting at her shop to help organize Michigan. Michigan is one of the most important states in ppigeon history, being that it hosted many of the last large nestings in the 1870s and the first book length account of the species was written by W.B. Mershon who served as mayor of Saginaw. She liked the idea and we started contacting people from across the state, some of whom were very interested but could not make the meeting. Of particular interest to me were the staff of the Lakeshore Museum in Muskegon that has both a passenger pigeon and an amazing painting by a local artist who knew the birds as a child, Lewis Cross. The other spot I wanted to visit was the Petoskey area where the last large nesting occurred in 1878. Mary Cummings of the Harbor Springs Area Historical Society and Museum had provided me with some very helpful information and lined up a guide to take us around to show us where the pigeons used to gather.
The P3 meeting in Chicago worked as well as it did in part because we had some folks who agreed to be helpers making sure that all the little details were attended to. Lizzie Condon, who was up in Baraboo working with the International Crane Foundation said she would be pleased to join the meeting as a note taker, which is a critical task in insuring that a meeting lives beyond its adjournment. So she was well informed on things passenger pigeon. Lizzie’s tenure at ICF ended in the beginning of April. She was headed to Brazil to do ornithological research and then on to graduate school. But, fortunately for me, she had a block of time in the Chicago area where her family lives.
I asked her if she would want to accompany me on a three day tour of Michigan that was to culminate in the big meeting at MSU. At 6am on April she pulled up to my house, we packed her stuff in my car, and we headed off. David Mrazek had given me a video camera to record the trip for a trailer he was making to promote the documentary. While I was certain that I would somehow ruin the highfalutin equipment, Lizzie turned out to be an experienced and talented videographer. She started shooting as I pulled out of the subdivision, with me explaining the purpose of the trip. Unfortunately, multi tasking is not for me and I became so wrapped up in the story I aimed the car in the wrong direction.
Once we righted ourselves, our first stop was at best only tangentially related to ppigeons. I have shared the beauty of Warren Woods (Berrien County, MI) with you dear readers before but Lizzie had never been there. The towering beech trees no doubt once hosted ppigeons; some of these arboreal giants might have begun life as an undigested nut when a foraging bird died too soon for the gastrointestinal system to work its magic. A few flowers like blood root were in bloom and the forest floor was covered in the luxuriant green of Allium tricoccum or ramp. The highlight though was a pair of dueling Louisiana waterthrushes. (I saw my lifers at the very same place in June of 1968). Two males were trying to out sing each other, as they flew around us while a pileated woodpecker called from the distance.
Louisiana waterthrush courtesy of Paul Dacko.
Our appointment at Muskegon was for two o’clock and we entered the museum a few minutes early. Several members of their staff, including Beryl Gabel with whom I had set up the meeting, had gathered at the entrance. Above their heads were the stunning Cross painting and the stuffed pigeon he had shot. As lovely a beginning as that was, the talk and tour that ensued was even better. Director John McGarry joined us. Everyone had great ideas and the museum is a joy. In these times when culture, art, and science are under vicious and well-funded attack by the know nothings, I am heartened that people still care about these things and support first rate institutions like the Lake Shore Museum Center.
Lizzie and beech at Warren Woods.
Tags: beech, lake shore museum, muskegon, warren woods
The mountain bluebird that graced Illinois birders with its presence for a few days, photographed by its discover Mathew Winks.
It was late Saturday afternoon on April 9 and I had already made arrangements with Tim Wallace to meet him early the next morning to cover Wadsworth. Then the phone rang. Andy Sigler was at the other end telling me that he was watching a mountain bluebird, a species that has certainly occurred in Illinois on several occasions but which few birders have on their state list. Andy had been birding in central Illinois and was about to pack it in when he had been called that the bluebird was just outside of Towanda in MacLean County. Detouring on his way home, he followed the dirctions and saw one of the easierst to find rarities he has observerd in a while: the gorgeous male was perched on the same sign that enabled Mathew Winks to first find it.
Andy’s call was just late enough for me to doubt whether I could get there in time so I resolved to go the next day. In spring, when the hormones are churning, most rarities are apt to be restless and hardly ever stay in the same place. Indeed, this would be the first state bird in quite a few years that either Andy or I have seen before June. Almost all are in late summer or fall.
MacLean County is also home to Angelo Caparella and Gretchen Knapp, two of my favorite people. The reports were that both of them had seen the bird so I called, always looking for an excuse to get together, and they graciously agreed to meet us at the gas station in the metropolis that is Towanda. We reached the bridge where a stream meandered amid seemingly endless corn fields. Some short trees and other greenery flanked the waterway and a line of trees broke up the horizon. A few birders had already assembled and the number grew to about 15 when Greg Niece saw the bird land on the favored sign and then headed into the field. It was a windy day so the bird preferred to forage low. Even knowing roughly where it was, locating him was a challenge but with thirty eyes straining he could not hide in a dirt field for long. 392 bird!
The back story as told by Mathew Winks on the Illinois Birders Forum is worth quoting:
“When I got my binoculars on the bird I realized it was a bluebird showing no rufous color and probably a Mountain Bluebird. I hung up the phone and called [good birding friend Matt] Fraker and he said “I’m on the way!”
I stayed with the bird while taking some photos for what seemed like an eternity. I was completely freaking out and had the shakes. I was trying to call other area birders to get out there. I had the bird very close to the bridge for a while, but then it decided to start moving south into the corn field getting further and further away. I was afraid nobody was going to every see this bird but me at one point.
The other twisted part of the story is the fact that I’ve been without a Lumix camera for over a month. I left it in Sam Burckhardt’s car while birding the lakefront in early March. He sent it to me via USPS Priority Mail just before departing for Switzerland. It was supposed to arrive March 21st, but I never received it. The post office said they sent it back because it was undeliverable and have been no help in locating it. Sam won’t be returning until the end of April. Although I’m not a big photographer, I had been growing increasingly uncomfortable without having a camera in case I came across something crazy. I had been hounding Fraker to borrow his Lumix for the last few days since he has graduated to the Nikon SLR. I grabbed the Lumix Saturday morning and threw it in my car. And now I’m so glad that I did.”
Tags: mountain bluebird
The spirit of Ectopistes abides.
The long blog hiatus is over. The lack of posts has not been due to any paucity of material but because so much has been going on. And most of it is related to Project Passenger Pigeon.
P3 is an effort involving institutions and individuals from around ppigeon range and beyond to both expose the widest possible number of people to the story of this amazing bird and then to use that story as a portal into consideration of current issues relating to extinction and biodiversity. There are three major components to this effort: the book I am writing (under contract with Bloomsbury/Walker), a documentary film we are trying to raise funds for, and a major outreach campaign based on a web-site, programming, and exhibits.
In late February there was a meeting here in Chicago hosted by the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum. We drew about thirty people from around the eastern half of the United States and had representatives from such institutions as the Smithsonian, Cornell University, Michigan State University Museum, Indiana State Museum, Wesleyan University, and the Philadelphia Academy of Sciences. Film maker David Mrazak filmed interviews with some of the folks for the documentary. And in a display case was a mounted passenger pigeon looking over all the proceedings.
Cindy, once again, proved to be the most cooperative of spouses in agreeing to share our house with two of the participants and picking one of them up at O’Hare airport while many of the rest of us were having a pre-conference dinner. All of the beds in our home were occupied. Our two guests were delightful. Arriving the day before, Garrie Landry is a botany professor at University of Louisiana in Lafayette. He is also a long time passenger pigeon buff, having created and operated www.passengerpigoen.org for a number of years now. (He has graciously given P3 the use of his domain name and the current iteration of the web-site is largely based on the work he did.) He is the guy to whom Ectopistesphiles have come for information and fellowship (Ppigeons belong to the monotypic genus Ectopistes). For example, a Swedish artist sent him photos of the Stockholm subway whose walls are adorned with murals. One celebrates passenger pigeons.
In the early evening, Neely Bruce was met by Cindy from whence they headed to the restaurant. Neely is a musicologist, musician, composer, and conductor on the faculty of Wesleyan University. His principal interest in our project revolves around Anthony Phillip Heinrich. Heinrich was the first full-time composer in America, working in the early part of the 1800s. His music was so complex it was beyond the capacity of most American musicians at the time to play it. He wrote something like five symphonies devoted to the passenger pigeon, including his eight movement master work, “The Migration of the American Passenger Pigeon” which was played once in Prague (Czech Republic). As part of P3, we want orchestras to perform Heinrich.
Those who read this blog know that I am a Luddite at heart, spurning all these new fangled gadgets that keep people connected constantly. But one of the highlights of the meeting was Neely’s announcement that minutes after he just posted on his Face Book where he was, the world famous composer Michael Nyman (best know for his scores for the movie The Piano and various works by director Peter Greenaway) just responded from London, saying P3 sounded interesting and he would like to help.
One other person who represents the diversity of talent is Todd McGrain. Todd is a sculptor on the faculty of Cornell University’s art department. His long time effort is the Last Bird Project (google the name for his web-site) whereby he creates five foot or so tall sculptures of extinct birds and then places them where the species was last seen. So one of his heath hens is on Martha’s Vineyard and a passenger pigeon is on the banks of the Scioto River outside Columbus, Ohio. He is interested in working with art museums and galleries to put one art works dealing with passenger pigeons and extinction.
Environmental historian Curt Meine makes sure the meeting runs smoothly.
Steve Sullivan, Lizzie Condon, Brian Anderson, Cindy Kerchmar, and Pam Rasmussen pretending to be pollen rich flowers in the Notebaert Nature Museum's butterfly garden.
Tags: michael nyman, Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, project passenger pigeon
American crow on the Chicago lakefront just before the storm. (Photo by Steve Spitzer)
I have been present for five of the ten worst snow storms in Chicago history, missing only one that occurred in my lifetime. This one just recently departed deposited 20.2 inches on O’Hare, making it the third heaviest ever. My area, to the south of the airport, received closer to 22 inches (Illinois Beach State Park received 24 inches.) But I don’t recall that any of the previous blizzards had this kind of build up. So we battened down the proverbial hatches and hoped that we would not lose our electricity.
Tuesday night I went outside and felt the snow sting my face as it was propelled by a howling wind. Wind speeds exceeded 60 mph. Snow swirled, as lightening and thunder added to the meteorological spectacle. During an earlier period, when polytheistic hunters and gatherers dominated the ranks of Homo sapiens, the severity and unusual mix of conditions would surely have caused deep dread. There probably would have been a sacrifice or two and some incantations to supplicate the gods. We beg Thee, O Powerful Ones, please spare us.
Well, it is 5am Thursday morning, so I must have made it since blogs don’t write themselves.
Cindy, like most every other employed person, did not have to appear at work yesterday, so she went out to do battle with the accumulated snow. (Our neighbor works at a flower shop and had a delivery later in the day to a funeral, but having fought his way out of the subdivision, found the main streets impassable.) I, on the other hand, worked on the passenger pigeon manuscript, writing about Margaret Fuller’s account of the birds she saw near Oregon, Illinois in 1843. One great sentence: “Had I been a musician, such as Mendelssohn, I felt that I would have improvised a music quite peculiar, from the sound they made, which should have indicated all the beauty over which their wings bore them.” Fuller was an early feminist and a leading figure among the Transcendentalists. Her traveling companion during this trip was Sarah Freeman Clarke, who was obviously related in some way to James Freeman Clarke, a Unitarian minister and abolitionist who also wrote a remarkable account related to passenger pigeons. But I did not know in what way. So while I searched the internet for the answer to my pressing question, Cindy and tens of millions of others shoveled their way to vehicular liberation.
Now I had fully intended to help and set a period before lunch as my first shift. (There was enough shoveling needed to keep the entire population of Monaco busy, should they have been present.) By the time, I came upon the information I sought (James and Sarah were siblings), Cindy had abandoned her toils to rest, so I joined her down stairs. A little later she informed me that the neighbors to our north, with whom we share a portion of our drive way, were out shoveling the common area. Not wanting them to proceed unassisted, we joined them. I commented that this was the closest thing you could find to a suburban barn raising.
The first thing, though, that met my ears when I first ventured forth was the sound of a Cooper’s hawk. The bird was at some distance, but its calling was insistent. We have a small and not particularly birdie back yard, but a junco put in an appearance, And a white-breasted nuthatch also added to the sounds of life. It is obvious that after sitting tight during the winds and snow, they were out doing the best they could to forage.
Extreme weather like this leads me to wonder how it does affect birds. Bird populations in this region are at their lowest now anyway. It seems certain that they shift their location in search of food but does it prompt a mass exodus or is mortality seriously increased? Or something else? Woodpeckers and nuthatches don’t seem likely to be blocked from reaching their food sources. Robins, waxwings, and other such species hopefully have access to buckthorn or other fruit-bearing shrubs. The seed eaters are probably most at risk, as their food is most likely to be buried. They would concentrate at feeders where the Cooper’s hawks would be lying in wait. Perhaps that was what our neighborhood hawk was celebrating.
Post script: The Chicago Sun-Times reported that several inmates of the Cook County jail scheduled to be released on Wednesday opted to spend an extra night behind bars because of the weather. And finally, what may now be the nation’s premier source of news, The Onion, pointed to the greatest hardship imposed by the storm: power outages across the country denied many people their dose of internet porn. But, like the Cooper’s hawk, Americans are resilient.
Legless blogger.
Dark eyed junco in the cold white stuff. (Photo by John Cassady)
Tags: blizzard, Cooper's hawk, snow
Black duck photographed by Paul Massey.
Sunday morning dawned snowy. I arrived 45 minutes early at the strip mall in southern Lake County where I was meeting Lizzie Condon. There was a great deal more snow on the ground that were I live an hour to the south. And more descended from the black sky. The parking lot blanketed and a few snow plows began the task of clearing. Fortunately, there was a space right in front of the 7-11 neatly cleaned that accommodate several cars. But as I sat, the store manager came out a few times and gave me a dirty look as if to ask, “What was I doing taking up a valuable space?” I was hoping that by the time Lizzie arrived there would be enough clearing to drop a car off.
A few days before, I had done some scouting. One of my two significant finds was that a series of water treatment ponds exists very close to our first stop. What was even more amazing is that everyone I met who worked for the relevant agency was extremely nice. This included the manager of the plant, who said he had no problem with our visiting but since the plant was closed on count day, only one person would access the plant that day. He might only be there for an hour or so, and there was no set time for his visit. I decided it would be too tough to work through those logistical difficulties so I did not pursue it further. I knew the agency owned a tract of woods that surrounded the facilities and I asked about accessing that land. He told me how to accomplish that and I left with those instructions. I entered the low woods and found a white-throated sparrow, before coming to a road that led inside an open gate where the ponds were. I decided to investigate and discovered they were packed with ducks, all but three of which were mallards and th exceptions were the most likely non-mallards this time of year, black ducks. It was obvious I needed to make an effort to get in on count day. I stopped and talked to yet another worker who knew the fellow who was going to be stopping at the site on Sunday. And as we talked, that person appeared and I was able to talk with him. He was going to be there early but would leave the gate open for us. I was amazed to find such cooperative folks in this day and age. I stopped by the manager again who said he was fine with the arrangements.
When Lizzie did appear, we found a spot for her car and instead of covering the place we usually do, first we headed off to the treatment plant. Only to find it locked and snowed in. But yet another worker was plowing, and plowed a path for us, before opening the gate. We examined the ponds and observed hundreds of mallards and again just a few black ducks with them. We wound up the day with 2,200 mallards, dwarfing the totals of every other party.
Heading back to our usual route, one of the first birds to appear was a yellow-rumped warbler. Then Lizzie, spotted a great-blue heron. A belted-kingfisher chattered and we wound up with most of the better birds we expect from that location.
Next on the agenda is our most arduous walk, made especially so by the deep snow. We walk along a narrow pathway hemmed in by the west fork of the North Branch of the Chicago River (no more than a ditch that accepts the discharge of yet another water treatment plant) on one side and fenced-in back yards on the other. Many households dump lawn waste over their fence so you never know what lies under a rise in the snow: solid ground, or a jumble of branches and other garbage. So as we proceeded, clods of snows from disturbed branches fell on binoculars and down coats. As I led the way, with binos impaired by lenses wet from melted snow, I reached a buckthorn thicket that required fighting at the same time my feet were “trapped” in discarded branches. While I worked my way through that woody morass, Lizzy spied a blackbird in a tree on the other side of the ditch. It was silhouetted against the sky, so for me to see it well I had to backtrack through the mess I has just escaped. The bird turned and we could see it was a red-winged. It would be the only one of the day.
The best forest in the count circle is Ryerson Woods Forest Preserve. A team went in at 5am to look for a barred owl that had been seen there recently. It turns out they had no luck; the heavy snowfall of early morning did not help. Lizzie and I drove some wooded subdivisions a little south of Ryerson playing screech owl tapes. I was using an I-pod and speaker combo that Sully Gibson has assembled for me last spring but I have not used it much. It is not difficult but occasionally it proved too much for me. It was good to have Lizzie there to make an adjustment so that even a mental defective could use it. And by golly I was able to! There is one spot where I know a barred is often seen. We played the barred call and the bird flapped into view. We even had excellent looks through the scope.
The count down dinner is held in Evanston. It turns out, Lizzie and I saw the only red-winged blackbird and barred owl. We split our territory with another group and with their totals we had the most kingfishers, most golden-crowned kinglets, one of only two great-blue herons, and a lion’s share of pine siskins. A total of 70 species were seen by all the parties.
When it was time to go home, I had the biggest surprise of the day: someone had taken my boots. There was an unclaimed pair that was of a different size and appearance so it clearly was an inadvertent pilfering. Everyone was amazed that you could put on such different foot gear and not notice it. A plea for my boots was posted on IBET, Illinois’ birders list serve, to no avail. (I considered threatening cutting off a segment of lace every day my boots were being held.) Eventually I tracked down the culprit, who was still clueless he had worn the wrong shoes. The IBET post did prompt this limerick from Chris Cudsworth, a terrific writer and painter from Kane County (no need to hide this from the kids: there is no mention of Nantucket nor any word that rhymes with it):
Joel Greenberg’s Boots
On a birding hike one never knows
If your boots will hold up in the snows
First goes one then the other
Which spell trouble then, brother
As birding sans boots really blows.
Water treatment plant covered on Evanston North Shore Count (photo by Lizzie Condon)
Different set of settling ponds, with a few mallards. Makes you wonder whether you should eat wild ducks. (Photo by Lizzie Condon)
A glimpse of how much snow had fallen the night before. (Photo by Tim Wallace)
Tags: barred owl, black duck, limerick
Chicago Lakefront CBC prides itself in being one of the very counts that is actually held on Christmas day. If you are Jewish, it’s a good way to work off the egg foo young and moo goo gai pan you had the night before. And for those without family and friends, what better away to avoid hours of introspection than birding with fellow members of the misbegotten? Actually, a lot of the participants bird for half a day and then peel off to join loved ones for more traditional activities. This year fourteen people partook in the joy of staring into the teeth of a 25 mph wind from the northeast. Two top-notch birders had planned to come along but circumstance intervened. Josh Engle let me know that Christmas day this year was the only day everyone in his family could have a Hanukah Party (and that holiday ended over three weeks ago). Much more serious, Kelly McKay was planning on doing another of his patented CBC marathons which means he helps us out. But tragically a fire on Thanksgiving Day severely damaged his house. Fortunately, no one was hurt, but Kelly had to scrap his original plans.
My group started out at LaRabida childrens hospital which is situated on a peninsula south of Jackson Park. Most it was frozen but there was some open water in the harbor, and of course more on the open lake. Ethan Gyllenal spotted a sleeping male canvasback, which was one of our better birds of the day.
Much of the lake was in the nature of slush. There were chunks of ice heaving with the movement of the water. Gulls, herring and ring-bill, perched on the larger chunks and ducks managed to find enough spaces to settle in. One of my favorite vocalizations is that of the common goldeneye. We were at La Rabida when I heard it: a nasal buzzy peent reminiscent of a woodcock or nighthawk. Of course, it helps knowing that neither of these two species would be on Lake Michigan, particularly in late December. But either Ethan or his brother Erin told me that someone had recently reported nighthawks in Wisconsin. Other readers of WISBIRD quickly disabused him of his error.
We did not really get anything particularly rare. The open water between Adler Planetarium (part of the museum campus on Chicago’s beautiful lakefront) and Navy Pier was covered with common mergansers. There were many more than usual and assigning a number to them was difficult. We came up with about 1,500, an amount similar to what someone else had calculated a few days earlier.
A bit of new information that proved helpful, and confirmed why Christmas day is the best for this count, related to Navy Pier. We usually drive down the north side of it until barriers stop us from going any farther. Then one person stays with the car while others walk to the end to scan the break waters. We learned that on this one day, parking in the indoor lots are free. So we were able to leisurely cover the area, with an emphasis on the harlequin duck that Geoff Williamson and his crew of five saw earlier in the morning. Although we did not find the duck we did find the Williamsons and the Rices trying to locate the Harlequin. But to no avail. They also bested us in gulls finding both Thayer’s and Iceland.
Erin, Ethan, dad Eric, and I ended the day at Montrose where a redpoll had been seen by a non-praticpant earlier in the day. The harbor had a pair of hooded mergansers and a peregrine streaked over head. The redpoll was no where to be found.
More snow was predicted over night. I did a little shoveling when I got home so I would have no difficulty getting out for the Evanston North Shore Count scheduled the very next day. I was meeting Lizzie Condon in Lake County at 6:45 and I did not want to be late . . .
Iceland gull photographed by John Cassady.
Red-tailed hawk at McCormick Place on Dec 25 Lake Front CBC (Tim Wallace)
Tags: Christmas Bird Count