The outing of July 28 was really spawned by a desire to see some friends I had not birded with all summer: Carolyn Fields (whose gorgeous photographs have greatly enhanced this blog), Tim Wallace (ditto), Amar Ayyash (a mathematician living in “far away” Will County), and Sullie Gibson (one of the state’s premier high school birders who spent two weeks this summer in Costa Rica as an intern/ guide at a nature lodge). I picked up Sulli at 5:45 and met the rest of the group in Waukegan at 6:30.

Of all the Illinois beaches fronting on Lake Michigan, Waukegan’s may be the best for shorebirds (it would be even better if local dog owners adhered to city laws requiring that pet canids must be leashed). It was here, back in 1973, that piping plover are generally thought to have last nested in the state. On this day, though, the beach was stingy, offering up but a few sanderlings,  the quintessential beach sandpiper, and an impatient northern harrier heading south well before the rest of harrierdom.

 Our next stop was Illinois Beach State Park (IBSP) , a truly extraordinary place that has long been one of my favorites. (I am actually surprised I have gone this long as a blogger without mentioning it.) When the Illinois Natural Areas Inventory completed its work in 1978 it determined that IBSP had more high quality natural communities than anywhere else in the state. The park even harbors an animal found nowhere else in the world, the leafhopper  Paraphlepsius lupalus.

 We decided to take the Dead River trail (Dead River is the only Illinois river still flowing into Lake Michigan that is not channelized or dammed). Our first interesting bird was a black-billed cuckoo that flashed by and then proceeded to call. Tim had earlier made me promise that we would find one this summer, so the appearance of his lifer took a lot of pressure off my weary shoulders (“the blog, the blog”). Then Sulli spotted one of the day’s two best birds- a blue grosbeak. He saw the male fly into the top of a black oak where it regaled us with song and excellent scope views (our crack photographers obtained great shots). Returning via a different but nearby trail, we met a pair of blue grosbeaks, the female of which carried food.

 Blue grosbeaks until recently were extremely rare in northeast Illinois. I had only seen it once before in Lake County but they are among those southern species that are expanding their ranges northward. Although there is a tendency in some circles to attribute all of this to climate change, I am reluctant to do so because during any period in the past, some species or other is expanding or contracting its range. Cardinals, for example, moved into the region over the first half of the twentieth century while red-bellied woodpeckers arrived during the middle half.

Male blue grosbeak photographed at Illinois Beach State Park by Carolyn Fields.

The day’s big challenge was figuring out what to do (and maintaining alertness) until we shifted our attention to Almond Road Marsh, where for much of the summer a neo-tropical cormorant would appear at dusk to roost with the double-cresteds. It would be a lifer for Sulli, a state bird for Carolyn, and a county bird for me (I have only seen it once in Illinois, and that was a while ago). I had made an earlier try for the bird, spending two and a half hours looking in vain. I later learned that if instead of leaving at 6:30 I had stayed until 7:30, I would have seen it. Amar had to leave us to drive the hour and a half to the community college where he had a class to teach.

 We looked at some shorebird spots and then stopped for dinner and chilled ambient air. More than hungry we were parched. My order raised eyebrows: one tall glass of carbonated water, one milk shake, and an empty glass in which to mix them. Ah the creamy richness of the shake combined with the refreshing tingle of the seltzer hit the spot. Manifesting some concern that he didn’t see it on the menu, Tim was relieved to learn that he could obtain a chocolate malt. Sulli raised the possibility of ordering a milkshake incorporating all the flavors offered by the restaurant, but settled on a vanilla. Carolyn’s thought process and choice were so devoid of drama I can’t even recall what she ordered.

 With everyone fortified by cold fluids rich in calories (and even some actual food), we headed to Almond Road Marsh. Common moorhens called and Sulli spotted two juveniles as they ventured out of the cattails for a few minutes. As time went on, the number of egrets returning to the roost grew to eventually 97. Unfortunately, the number of double-crested cormorants had declined to 20, many fewer than what had been there a few weeks earlier. And indeed the neo-corm never did show up, but my picking out a first year little blue heron among the egrets buoyed spirits (and Carolyn’s county list). At eight we left confident that the neo-corm was gone. (Only to learn in subsequent days that the bird reappeared in a nearby marsh- darn that bird, I guess I will have to look again.) I dropped Sulli off at 9, and arrived at my place at 10. It took a 30 minute nap in the car before I had the energy to enter the house and go to sleep.

Double-crested cormorant at Almond Road Marsh photographed by Carolyn Fields.