Here’s a little roundup of a few places I’ve been the last couple of months that are only slightly off my beaten track.

The last Oak Park Migration Bird Walk in the fall was at Thatcher Woods on October 11. I didn’t get a lot of photos, but I am taking this opportunity to note the presence of a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker and an Eastern Bluebird.

The next day, I joined Steve and Joann on a Chicago Bird Alliance walk at Steelworkers Park on the south side of the lakefront. The land has been reclaimed from industry, thus the name. We soon found a Blue-headed Vireo.

A Red-breasted Nuthatch was also available.

And I took a look at a Swamp Sparrow.

There were other birds too far away to photograph adequately. Maybe next time… After Steelworkers, the three of us went to nearby Rainbow Beach, which I have heard about for years but never visited. I was immediately attracted to the grasses and flowering plants that grow in the sand dunes.

We saw a Common Buyckeye butterfly, which prefers this habitat. That could explain why I had never seen one up until now. I look forward to revisiting this place.

Then, on a whim, I visited McGinnis Slough on November 12. I arrived rather late in the morning and didn’t know what to expect. After taking ample time putting on my binoculars and strapping the camera on my shoulder for my usual perusal routine, I walked toward the center area that juts out from the parking lot and was immediately greeted by a small flock of Rusty Blackbirds. They didn’t stay long, but I managed a couple photos and I was glad, after having Rusties evade me for a couple weeks.

Out on the biggest stretch of the slough, a distant gathering of Great Egrets and Great Blue Herons was taking place. Notice they’re standing up in the middle of the deepest part. Water levels have been low for a long time.

Then on November 15, Chicago Bird Alliance hosted a walk at Thatcher Woods and we decided to attend. We walked in the opposite direction from where we normally conduct the Oak Park walks, so it was interesting to me to see more of Thatcher.

We saw a White-breasted Nuthatch well.

A Red-bellied Woodpecker took off from the tree where I had been watching it.

A beautiful Eastern Phoebe was busy still finding insects to catch and eat. This is the same bird at the top of the post.

A Black-capped Chickadee was busy cracking open a seed.

The Brown Creeper below was rather far away, but I got clear views.

We saw some White-throated Sparrows.

I liked the way this Dark-eyed Junco looked among the spent boneset seeds.

A Red-tailed Hawk flew overhead.

Toward the end of the walk, we parked by the river bank to watch Cedar Waxwings and other birds foraging and bathing on the other side.

The birds were rather far away and the light was poor, so I didn’t know until I got home that one of the birds we thought was a House Finch actually turned out to be a Pine Siskin.

Joanne spotted a Rusty Blackbird foraging along the river bank, and I finally located it after several tries to see the bird in the leaves.

In addition to more recent recaps, I will be back soon with the first of perhaps a few posts of previously “unattached” photos which I am now slowly but surely deleting from my media stash on WordPress. They date back to the earliest years of this blog project when I didn’t know what I was doing, uploaded photos randomly and gave no thought to how much space I was using… until I was politely threatened by WordPress a week or so ago that I was running out of space. Given the continuing saga of digital photography and what-do-you-do-with-all-those-photographs, I should not have been surprised. The positive side of freeing up some space is that I have been taking a trip down memory lane, so to speak. It has been entertaining to see a lot of the old photos, from trips I took to other countries to rare birds showing up on the lakefront. To be continued…