Entries Tagged 'Bird Counts' ↓

The final part of three recounting our May 10th Spring Bird Count. We went in search of Clay-colored Sparrows and a variety of marsh and night birds.

Our initial search for Clay-colored Sparrow was a bust. Luckily, we were invited to check out another area with a couple of world-class birders and within a half hour we had a highly energized Clay-colored Sparrow defending his territory. This sparrow was our 11th species of sparrow for the day!

Our next stop was a marshy area where we went in search of rails and bitterns. We found four Soras and four Virginia Rails plus a Green Heron. It is amazing how well rails can hide even after they flush in plain view.

Before night fell, we headed back to one of our original areas with Dan Williams (who is the definition of expert birder) to get set up for some night birding. As we waited for darkness, we heard Grasshopper and Lark Sparrows.

We had moderate hopes of finding out if any Barn Owls resided in the area but the tape playback went unanswered. However, we did add American Woodcock and Whip-poor-will and heard a fairly close Barred Owl.

To round out our day we headed to a farm where we had permission to drive down a grass-track between farm fields and out to a marshy area where we were wishful for Yellow or Black Rails. Unfortunately, neither were found but the excitement of our 16th hour of birding, standing in the dark in an unfamiliar area in the middle of nowhere was exhilarating.

For the day we tallied 105 species of birds, 8 more than last year and our new goal to beat. We counted 1,349 individual birds but probably missed one or two.

Part two of three of our Spring Bird Count wrap-up we recount the wonderful birds we found over a 4+ hour hike at a way cool preserve called Sugar River Alder.

Before heading to our next stop, Sugar River Alder Forest Preserve, we had a quick lunch break by the Sugar River. A Baltimore Oriole sang the entire time and we had our first Eastern Towhee of the day.

Sugar River Alder is a wonderful preserve with a lot of miles of trails to cover. We were keyed up to cover the majority of them but the going was slow as we observed a wide variety of species. Some of the main highlights were our one and only American Redstart (!) and four Red-headed Woodpeckers.

There were several times during our trek that we were wishing the camera wasn’t in the car. Scarlet Tanagers perched twenty feet away, Indigo Buntings sang recklessly in our faces, and a pair of Lark Sparrows mated unabashedly in full view.

Baltimore Orioles were everywhere creating a few odd remarks:
“Just another oriole.”
“I can’t hear that warbler over the oriole!”
“Are there any ‘non-orioles’ in that tree?”
Of course, we can’t complain since they are such beautiful birds!

As 5:00 rolled around, 1/2 of our team headed home but we (Birdfreak and Veery) still had a few more hours so we went off in search of Clay-colored Sparrows before hitting some marshes and night-time spots.

Stay tuned for part three to find out if we were successful on the sparrow and what night birds we found, plus totals from our 16 hour day!

In part one of three we discuss the morning highlights of the 2008 Spring Bird Count which took place May 10th in the entire state of Illinois.

We began the long day of birding by getting up at 0400 and were at our first stop at around 0530. Last year we began here earlier but with plans of a late night, we decided the extra sleep was a good thing. Our goal was to see what was about at Nygren Wetlands, a property belonging to the Natural Land Institute, a local organization that does wonderful things for conservation.

Nygren Wetlands

The Birdfreakmobile at Nygren

We had a wonderful mix of birds at Nygren, our first of the day being a Common Yellowthroat. By the time we had left, we had seen or heard nearly 40 species including a few that were only seen there.

Our next stop was a road with a mix of flooded farm fields and mud flats. We were looking for American White Pelicans (no luck) and intended for a quick stop which turned into over an hour of some really interesting finds.

Best finds along this road were an American Pipit, Pectoral Sandpipers, Lesser Yellowlegs, Sandhill Cranes (pair), and a group of Bobolinks!

American Pipit

The biggest highlight though was a flock of 12 Cattle Egrets, a first for us in our county and a pretty unusual find (and something we were unsure about until we found out another group had the same flock!).

We eventually pulled ourselves away from this area and made it to our next stop, Sugar River Forest Preserve. We had high hopes of a lot of warblers but with numerous flooded trails, we were not so lucky. We were able to add Golden-winged, Yellow-throated, Chestnut-sided, and Cerulean Warblers to our list, so it was still successful.

Stay tuned for part two of our Spring Bird Count - more warblers and some other nice finds (although we took no more photos the rest of the day).

While scouting for our upcoming Spring Bird Count (Sat, May 10) we checked out a cool area that we’ve never been - Rockton Bog. This “bog” is actually a sedge meadow but it was plenty wet, yet a bit devoid of birds.

Cool fern at the Rockton Bog

We checked out a few other areas to get our bearings for tomorrow’s big day before heading to a local gem, Severson Dells Forest Preserve, where there were reports of Harris’s Sparrow and Summer Tanager (both rather rare in our area).

There was no sign of a Summer Tanager but the Harris’s Sparrow showed up immediately!

This was through a window so the quality wasn’t so great

This is a lifer for Birdfreak and will hopefully stick around for tomorrow’s count (although this is actually not in our counting area so hopefully someone else finds it).

We plan on being thoroughly exhausted after tomorrow but hopefully will have tons of birds to report (although perhaps not many photos since we will be “extreme” birding).

Today was the 2008 International Crane Foundation Crane Count and we were positioned in a wonderful location known as Moody Marsh. We began our count at 5:30 in the morning, a perfect time for birdsong, especially during migration.

Moody Marsh (taken with the video camera)

Our first birds were a group of Northern Shovelers that were not pleased to be disturbed and took off in annoyance. As we settled in for our two-hour count, we were delighted to hear Soras and American Bittern. Of course, we were supposed to be counting cranes and there were plenty to count!

Sandhill Cranes

The goal was to determine how many pairs of Sandhill Cranes were “unison” calling. We heard six pairs, a pretty good number for our area. In all, we saw or heard 40 cranes.

Sandhill Cranes

We spent the rest of the morning birding which we’ll talk about tomorrow!!

Birding is important on many levels and on Saturday it provided a great escape from the terrible happenings at NIU on Valentine’s Day. We were signed up to lead visitors around the roads of Nygren Wetlands, a spectacular natural area in the northern part of Winnebago County. The Natural Land Institute was holding a Winter Festival to coincide with the Great Backyard Bird Count, so our “backyard” was over 700 acres of some fine habitat.

The weather was cold but the sun was out and despite a general lack of birds, it was a fun time. Only a handful of people showed up but to be out at Nygren in the winter provided a unique look of a place normally teeming with wildlife. The water was mostly frozen and the prairie was snow-packed, but the clean snow provided great opportunities to track the various animals passing through - coyotes, foxes, mice, rabbits, deer, and pheasants.

We found the remains of a Ring-necked Pheasant

The top birds we found were two that we never see in our own backyard - a Rough-legged Hawk and a 1st year Bald Eagle.

Rough-legged Hawk

Bald Eagle

Since the nearby DeKalb Christmas Bird Count was on the same day as the Rockford Christmas Bird Count, December 15th, it was one we had to miss. Mike Andrews, compiler for the count, let us know how their day went.

They had 21 people out in the field and 4 feeder watchers this year. There was a White-winged Crossbill in the area earlier in the week (rare!), but it did not make an appearance for the count day. It’s not fair!

Photo taken at Northern Illinois University’s Davis Hall in DeKalb, Illinois

The weather matched Rockford, snow, snow snow! They did, however, come up with a record 55 species including a Sandhill Crane, a Northern Mockingbird, Winter Wren, Northern Shrike, and one Brown-headed Cowbird. Missing from the count were Lapland Longspurs, Ring-billed Gulls, Black Ducks, and Snow Geese.

All-in-all, the count went well and we hope they have even more counters for 2008.