Entries from December 2006 ↓

The past year, like many, has had its ups and downs. The birding was about average the whole year, with lifebirds scattered throughout the year. It was the first year in the last five that I did not go on a “big” trip. I did get a few days to head to the U.P. of Michigan and found one of my new favorite places - Seney NWR. We went to Baraboo, WI and had an excellent time birding and checking out the International Crane Foundation.

Some of the highlights at our backyard nature preserve were Indigo Buntings, our first Baltimore Orioles and the big cheese, a singing Connecticut Warbler. Some of the local parks and preserves brought sightings of nesting Blue-winged, Golden-winged, and Cerulean Warblers. This year was loaded with Warblers.

This Red-headed Woodpecker was sighted on a trip that netted me both American and Least Bitterns at one time.  Way cool!

I also purchased my new bins, Swarovski EL 10×42s. They are part of the reason I found so many Warblers. I have become more involved in my local birding club, North Central Illinois Ornithological Society (NCIOS), and plan on big things for the upcoming year.

I feel that our natural world is in serious danger if we don’t make a big move as soon as possible (like, now!). But I can’t subscribe to the doom and gloom that I hear from some of our local bird club members. All is not bad and a positive attitude and a lot of hard work is what it will take to make the upcoming year a great one for conservation and birding!

I love the New Year because it is a good way to start fresh on a lot of things. I don’t do resolutions, but it is fun to try and set goals even if they don’t last that long. My top goals are to keep blogging like crazy, see tons of birds, contribute to eBird with my checklists, and promote conservation more than I’ve ever done before.

Happy New Year and I know 2007 will be awesome!!

It’s already been a month of blogging. (Ok, it hasn’t been fully a month, but I plan on a Year in Review tomorrow before all the partying begins). Wow the time goes by fast. I won’t go through all the posts and pick any favorites although I have no problem with votes in the comments section. I’ve already learned tons about Wordpress, blogging, and have met a bunch of people (even in just the internet form).

I will continue to blog as often as possible and the Birdfreaks have loads of ideas in store for the upcoming year. I have a personal goal to meet as many birders as possible and build the community of birders across the nation and world. I’ll have more information on this in the very near future.

I do have one favorite bloglet (post) of the last month and you can read it here.

I came across a website known as the Chicago Wilderness Habitat Project. According to the site there are 48 Important Bird Areas (IBAs) that have been designated thus far for the state of Illinois. The list has some impressive sites but is really lacking when it comes to IBAs in Winnebago County (zero sites). I have been reading through the nomination criteria and continue to read about the details in how to nominate and what not. Kind of reminds me of government papers at work.

Part of the problem is Winnebago is overshadowed on both sides - the west having the awesome Mississippi River a couple hours away and to the east, Chicago with its loads of birders and limited, but well-known birdspots. However, Winnebago rests in a unique area where four rivers converge and numerous protected areas exist. A migrating bird flies past miles of farm fields before making it to our well forested and heavily riparian county.

I will be posting in the near future about some of my favorite birdspots that I will try and get nominated for IBAs. Maybe they aren’t actually qualified, but I have a feeling some are. The most well known is Rock Cut State Park, a place I have birded often and am usually rewarded with nice finds - Cerulean, Yellow-throated, Blue-winged, Golden-winged, and Prothonotary Warblers to name a few.

Other sites such as Sugar River Forest Preserve, Pecatonica Wetlands and the Kishwaukee River Corridor (a series of forest preserves) are all loaded with birds. I guess it’s up to me to prove if they are worthy of being labeled an IBA.

Why does all this matter? According to Audubon:

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Audubon, as the Partner for BirdLife International, is working to identify a network of sites that provide critical habitat for birds. This effort known as the Important Bird Areas Program (IBA) recognizes that habitat loss and fragmentation are the most serious threats facing populations of birds across America and around the world. By working through partnerships, principally the North American Bird Conservation Initiative, to identify those places that are critical to birds during some part of their life cycle (breeding, wintering, feeding, migrating) we hope to minimize the effects that habitat loss, and degradation have on bird populations. Unless we can slow the rapid destruction and degradation of habitat, populations of many birds may decline to dangerously low levels. The IBA program is a global effort to identify areas that are most important for maintaining bird populations, and focus conservation efforts at protecting these sites. In the U.S. the IBA program has become a key component of many bird conservation efforts, for example: Partners in Flight, North American Waterbird Conservation Plan, and the U.S. Shorebird Conservation Plan.

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Kevin from NaturalVisions Photography & Birding Blog provided an excellent Christmas edition of I and the Bird.  Sandy Claws traversed the world bringing gifts to bloggers.

This is such a joyous time of year and birding and enjoying our natural world just makes things so much brighter!

I would like you all to welcome my two sisters to the Birdfreak Birding Blog.  There real names are Jennie and Susie, but for the blog they are going by Veery (Jennie) and Snowy Owl (Susie).

Veery is starting her new major at Northern Illinois University (NIU) in De Kalb, Illinois.  She has decided on Geography because it is the category where natural environmental systems falls under.  Her goal is habitat restoration, hopefully with a place like the Nature Conservancy or the likes.  She will be posting tons of cool stuff about how the topics in her major relate to birds and conservation (and other fun stuff).
Snowy Owl is a graduate from NIU (as am I) and has an English degree.  She is a super writer and I am hoping she will have lots of time to write detailed bird and nature book reviews as well as insightful ideas about conservation and birding.

Part 1 featured seven wonderful cranes found at the International Crane Foundation near Baraboo, Wisconsin. Here are seven more species. I missed one crane when I was there, the Red-crowned Crane.

#8 - Black-crowned Crane

#9 - Eurasian Crane

#10 - Sandhill Crane (I have pictures of them in the wild, but this bird was being friendly and deserved our attention)

#11 - Hooded Crane

#12 - Grey-crowned Crane

#13 - Wattled Crane

#14 - Whooping Crane

I’m not sure what kind of crane this is. (OK, he’s my nephew and at age 9, already a fine birder!)

Every year we get a real tree and usually we put a garish silvery thing on top of our tree. This year we changed it up by putting a Pileated Woodpecker at the top. (There is also a Red-headed Woodpecker.)