Entries from February 2007 ↓

The snow is coming down at a fair rate and I can’t wait till Spring. I’ve been busy creating a website for the Rockford Bird Club including a Winnebago Birding Guide so haven’t had as much time to post. When those projects are further along, I’ll post about them. Northern Illinois has some suprisingly good birding.

I’m looking forward to when our backyard visitors return:

Earth, Wind & Water hosts I and the Bird #43 - an excellent film festival! Enjoy the show!

The American Redstart is flashy and great fun to watch.

Their range extends as far as northern South America up to Canada.

Finding this crazy warbler is the easy part, it’s keeping them in your bins that can be rather difficult. They move constantly, catching insects, zipping around and fanning their tail.

Their numbers are declining along with many neotropical birds. There are studies being done by organizations such as Smithsonian’s Migratory Bird Center and the North American Bird Conservation Initiative researching the status of songbirds such as the American Redstart.

When a group’s religious practices require the killing of a protected bird species, the result is a never-ending debate. Some Native American tribes use eagle feathers, heads and talons in certain ceremonies. (There are also many tribes that protect birds and think that endangered birds should not be killed.)

This debate is very tricky because you are taking two important issues: freedom of religion and protection of endangered species and one of them is not going to win.

A Wyoming man was arrested Friday for shooting a Bald Eagle for a sacred Sun Dance ceremony. He is a Northern Arapaho and believes that it was his religious duty and had no choice even though he knew it was illegal. (The shooting occured in March of 2005). A federal judge dismissed the charges, but the case will be appealed.

The government collects bodies of eagles that die naturally, and they also give out special permits for killing a Bald Eagle for religious reasons. But, according to a Washington Post article, few tribes are aware of the permits, and they can’t use the collected eagles because they aren’t fresh. (It can take up to 3.5 years to obtain one)

Protecting religious freedom is important, but not at the cost of the protection of our birds.

We had a below average list of birds for this year’s count.

Total of 59 birds of 12 species seen.  Notables were a Cooper’s and Red-tailed Hawk.

Our backyard hasn’t been producing the greatest amounts of birds of late. We have had thirty or more American Goldfinches at one time and 50-75 House Finches but these numbers were 4 and 12 respectively. No Black-capped Chickadee which is very odd but at least the Red-bellied Woodpecker showed up for peanuts. The Blue Jays were not around and the Red-breasted Nuthatch that made a brief appearance last Monday was no where to be found.

Last year we had a pair of White-throated Sparrows but alas, those too were missing.

Winnebago County rests in a zone of transition. Part one of this series discussed the Dissected Till Plains. This is part 2 of 3 of this series.

The Prairie Peninsula, according to Partners In Flight, is located in Missouri, much of Illinois, and parts of Indiana and Ohio. This is the area that once earned Illinois the nickname The Prairie State. Nearly all of the prairie is gone now, but what remains is vital for many bird species.

Some of the birds that are declining in this area include: Greater Prairie-Chicken, Henslow’s Sparrow, & Dickcissel in the grassland areas; Bell’s Vireo in scrubland; Black Rail in wetland areas; and Cerulean Warbler & Red-headed Woodpecker in the savanna areas. Of these birds, the Henslow’s Sparrow, Dickcissel, Bell’s Vireo, Cerulean Warbler, and Red-headed Woodpecker all nest in Winnebago County.

Many of these birds are the same as found in the Dissected Till Plains, but the mix of savanna add woodland birds. Surprising, the Eastern Wood-Pewee is a bird of concern in this area because the reproductive numbers are too low to sustain a healthy population. The birds are relatively common, but it is presumed this is from birds migrating from other habitats with sustainable populations.

The full report and plan for this area can be found here.

Birder’s… start your tallying! This year’s Great Backyard Bird Count officially began (at midnight I suppose) but unfortunately there’s a little thing called “work” and “school” that are getting in the way of counting. Hopefully the weekend will bring loads of birds!

Our tally will be posted on Monday!