Swamp Sparrow
I gave in to the prospect of the only nice weekend weather Saturday morning before my dentist appointment and went to McGinnis Slough. Reports of waterfowl seen a day or two before reminded me it was time to renew my relationship with this favorite destination, and the prospect of fall colors made it even more enticing. So now it will be a month or longer, looking back on fall from winter soon, by the time I get around to the last organized bird walk weekend.
The moment I got out of the car I felt restored. I was the only human and could temporarily forget about the whir of traffic noise nearby.
There were still a few Red-Winged Blackbirds hanging out, singing.
In addition to a lot of Swamp Sparrows, there was my first American Tree Sparrow of the season, the arrival of which always reminds me of winter coming…
I was not expecting to see Yellow-Rumped Warblers…or orange conifers…but apparently both exist together. I think the tree is an American Larch or something like that, which turns yellow or orange in the fall.
And of course the waterfowl. Below, a view of only a couple hundred of 850 American Coots. Or so I calculated…
And here are two cute Coots up closer.
There was a nice little group of Green-Winged Teal…
and quite a few Northern Shovelers, although I could not seem to get a good photo of the flashier male
At one point two Mute Swans flew overhead. The second time they weren’t entirely mute and I thought they sounded a bit like Snow Geese so they had me fooled for a minute, but my photographs later said Swans.
The Coot below was enjoying the early sunshine, and so was I, but the clouds started to move in quickly after that.
Plant life taking on fall form…
A Wood Duck was close enough for a photo but by then the sun was hiding.
A few more of the Yellow-Rumpeds and the tree they were in.
Another Shoveler…
The trees looking windswept and leafless…
Sunday morning the choir sang two services, singing “Somebody Prayed for Peace” and “Sweet Freedom” which is based on the national anthem. Afterward I went to city hall for early voting, deciding that it might not be such a bad thing to try, even though I live half a block from my polling place. As I sat in the gallery section of council chambers waiting my turn at the voting machine, I was reminded of sitting in a church pew and struck by the metaphor of voting as a form of prayer.
Random contributions from my new cell phone…the leaves are from one of the towering Sycamore trees I passed this morning on my way to the train, the salad consumed yesterday features the last of my cherry tomatoes, and beneath all that, one experiment in my new Saturday tradition which is to have one midday meal of scrambled eggs and onions and whatever else I’m looking to use up…in this instance, even some stale pita chips. Food as a form of prayer.
One more landscape from McGinnis and a Red-Winged Blackbird looking thoughtful.
This coming weekend will be very busy with the choir tour. I hope to return to this page soon afterward.
I had no plans to go out yesterday. I slept in and so did my birds, even after one or two Zebra Finches announced theoretical sunrise around 6:28 a.m., because it was dark and cloudy. But then the sun broke out during breakfast and after I checked the radar it looked like we had a two-hour rainless window so I decided to see what was happening at the Portage. No sooner did I leave than the sun went behind the clouds.
The bird had a long, skinny twig caught in its primaries. I put my camera down to help, but when I reached for the bird it flitted a few inches to avoid me. I managed to grab the offending plant matter and the Kinglet immediately wrested itself free. Glad I could help this little bird continue, and it gave some purpose beyond my need to escape the “other reality” for a while. After the encounter, it seemed I was seeing more Golden-Crowned Kinglets than anything else. Unfortunately they move so quickly they were hard to capture in low light.
I still have images from the previous weekend’s last organized walk…and then I’d better be focused on preparation for the choir’s three-day tour to St. Louis. I may not be seeing many wild birds for a few weeks. Maybe I can recruit the indoor crowd.
The Yellow-Rumpeds were foraging in the duckweed.
I’ll be on a mission to get through my photos from this past weekend… Our weather seems to have calmed down a bit and we are in a crisp but sunny period. I love fall, maybe for its nostalgia…!
And very early on we had a solitary back-lit Downy Woodpecker trying to preen in the wind…
Then here are a couple more birds from 311 South Wacker … a Hermit Thrush, finally! They inevitably seem to engage with me, as if to say, “May I help you find something?”
And then when I did eventually find a bird and tried to enlarge the photograph enough for identification purposes…
and a couple days earlier, from the park at 311 South Wacker, a block away from my office. Notice all the sap-holes in the bark!
Even though Red-Winged Blackbirds don’t migrate far, I think we’ve seen the last of them in these parts until they return to nest in the spring.
Another off-site but maybe not off-topic bird is the Ovenbird below. One or two of these have been hanging out at 311 South Wacker. I think I had eight of them at one time in the spring.
And the large pond that attracts so much waterfowl…
Then I was intrigued by the fungus that had adopted a tree stump.
We saw the Great Blue Heron early on and then later when it was trying to negotiate a slippery fish.
I am going to Thatcher Woods tomorrow morning for the last walk there, and I have absolutely no idea what to expect. We are currently experiencing cold, cloudy weather. The forecast for tomorrow is sunny and moderately cool. I plan to get in as much birding as possible before I tend to my weekend chores because Sunday is going to be challenging. The choir sings in the morning, and in the afternoon I’m attending a “Soul Connections” group I joined several months ago, then directly after that, my first attendance at a writer’s workshop, led by one of the SC group’s participants – an activity I haven’t attempted in many, many years. I think I’ve come to the conclusion that we have to connect with each other on multiple levels if we’re going to get through this. 🙂
On September 9, I spent a sunny Sunday afternoon in the backyard. We are presently flirting with a three-day return to summer-like temperatures, but the blooms, the pollinators, and the visiting warblers have already left. I am sharing the memory of that afternoon in photographs.
Nashvilles were still present last weekend with the Yellow-Rumpeds and Palm Warblers for the tail end of an up-and-down fall warbler migration. With luck I will be back sooner than later with a report from last Saturday’s walk at Columbus Park.
There is water enough to bathe in as this female Red-Winged Blackbird was finding out.
Tennessee Warblers and Orange-Crowned Warblers often get confused in the spring but these two made it easier for me.
I almost thought I had missed all the Indigo Buntings but there were still a few youngsters left.
The Des Plaines was so low, this Great Egret was wading out into it quite a ways from the shoreline.
After hearing and rarely seeing Eastern Wood-Pewees all summer, it was nice to get good looks at this one.
