June 2007

At first glance, the Locks & Dams along the Mississippi River look like monstrous slabs of concrete and metal and not a place to bird. However, these are excellent fishing grounds for Bald Eagles, American White Pelicans, and Double-crested Cormorants.

We could have spent many hours admiring the Pelicans and Cormorants, but alas, our birding day [...]

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Born on June 12, 1864, Frank M. Chapman was an American ornithologist who studied North and South American birds. He wrote the Handbook of Birds in Eastern North America in 1895. Frank M. Chapman also founded a magazine called Bird-Lore in 1899 (which later was renamed Audubon).
Frank M. Chapman also wrote The Distribution [...]

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The Lost Mound Unit of the Upper Mississippi National Wildlife Refuge has a storied history and excellent birdlife. This was the former location for the Savanna Army Depot, a bustling ammunitions recycling, storage, and testing facility. In 2000, the depot was closed and over 9,000 acres signed over to various agencies to convert into a [...]

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Born in Switzerland on June 11, 1829, Alfred Newton was a key player in Parliment’s first acts to protect birds. His most important work was A Dictionary of Birds (four volumes) he finished in 1896 which grew from his articles on birds published in the Encyclopaedia Britannica. He studied birds in Iceland, the West [...]

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The Birdfreak Team (Kestrel & Birdfreak) spent Saturday birding along the mighty Mississippi River in northwestern Illinois. Our first stop was Mississippi Palisades State Park. Warblers were a plenty, but hard to photograph in the dark, ferny woods.

Kentucky Warbler

After quite a bit of hiking we returned to the parking lot and the bird activity picked [...]

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