Most of the time I see American Kestrels on wires while driving. Well, while someone else is driving. These small falcons hunt from high perches which make the wires very useful to them. They also hover over fields to search for their prey. They eat large insects and small mammals, birds and reptiles. I have noticed them eating insects and once trying to catch a bird.
American Kestrel
We were birding along the road in Northwest Ohio and we spotted the American Kestrel perched on a wire. After my Mom pulled over I got a picture before it flew. According to the Lives of North American Birds by Kenn Kaufman this species is declining in the Northeast but elsewhere the populations are still healthy.
Yesterday we went to Severson Dells Forest Preserve on a field trip with the NCIOS bird club. There are feeders outside of the education center building and we watched the many birds there.
Here are some of the birds we saw:
White-breasted Nuthatch
Tufted Titmouse
Downy Woodpecker
Brown Creeper
Purple Finch
House Finch
American Goldfinch
Dark-eyed Junco
Black-capped Chickadee
Red-bellied Woodpecker
White-throated Sparrow
Fox Sparrow
Oregon Junco - LIFE BIRD!!!
The Oregon Junco is found in the west usually but they have been seen at Severson Dells before. This is my first time ever seeing one AND I got it with the camera too! The male has a slaty to blackish hood, rufous brown to buffy brown back and sides and the female has a duller hood color. It is neat to see such a rare bird.
I got some new photos of a Tennessee Warbler last weekend. This is my 11th bird on my photo life list. I also added this post to the Bird Photography Weekly.
Tennessee Warbler
Tennessee Warbler - Preening
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My Mom got a phone call about a Mississippi Kite spotted a couple miles away from my house. We decided to try to find it because it is pretty rare around northern Illinois.
When we got there we found a group of people pointing in to the sky. That is how we found where the Mississippi Kite was. This is a really cool LIFER for me!
There was two of them and they were soaring around and they flew really low and we got a great view. I got some really cool photos.
The American Robin is such a common bird that birders don’t seem to notice it sometimes. But in the winter, an American Robin is really exciting to see and when they first arrive in your yard, it is great.
It is fun seeming them eat worms, especially when they bite a worm and start hopping around to pull it out of the ground. I love to see the baby birds because they are cute and different from the adult.
The robin’s song is heard really early in the morning and really late at night. I love to hear them when I am camping. Their song is the best to wake up to.
My uncle Eddie made a video of an American Robin with music and let me add it to my post. I think this video is very funny.
I saw this Yellow-breasted Chat at Rock Cut State Park as a storm was beginning. There was a lot of lightning which scared Bandit, my aunt Susie’s dog that we were dog-sitting. The chat was flying around and it landed two times allowing me and my uncle Eddie to get really cool photos of it.
It hovered in one place which was cool to see. I think it was neat that we saw the Yellow-breasted Chat from the car. We never did hike much because of the storm. I also got a Yellow Warbler photo on this same trip.
The first time I saw a Yellow Warbler was at Horicon Marsh in Wisconsin. It was a really neat sighting because it was really close to me in a bush. Today I went to Rock Cut State Park and saw a lot of Yellow Warblers. One was bonking around in a tree and I got photos of it.
The Yellow Warbler song is hard to tell from other warblers, but easy to tell by looking at it. It is all yellow and has reddish streaks on the belly. It is hard to get pictures of it because it keeps flitting around. I am happy I got pictures of it.
On April 12, 2008 it snowed, which is unusual. We went out to Rock Cut State Park to look for birds and saw 10 Common Loons on the lake. I posted about this trip back in April. (Birding in the Treacherous Weather!)
I was able to get my first Common Loon photo. I have seen Common Loons in northern Wisconsin and at Seney National Wildlife Refuge in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. In Illinois, Rock Cut State Park is the only place I have ever seen them.
This is another bird I photographed while at the Midwest Birding Symposium. We were on a boat ride in Iowa with other birders. It was a juvenile Pileated Woodpecker and it was fascinating to watch him.
And then he was gone!
I am glad I got a photo of it both flying and sitting on a tree leaning in the water. I feel lucky to have gotten a photo of a Pileated Woodpecker.
I am a young birder in northwest Ohio. These are my birding and traveling stories. I am learning photography and all photos are mine unless otherwise noted.
