Just about once every fall, the Golden-crowned Kinglets come down to knee level to feed and, if I get lucky, I can capture one. October 17 at the Chicago Portage presented this opportunity.
Except for a Yellow-rumped Warbler here and there, fall warbler migration is pretty much over, so Kinglets rule, and sparrows are starting to appear more frequently. I have a backlog of warbler photos for future posts but the Golden-crowned Kinglets insisted I write a more timely post first.
Below is a look over the water at the Portage on a sunny, dry day, which seems to be the theme this October.
Golden-crowned Kinglets appeared early.
Then I managed to find a couple Yellow-rumped Warblers in the hackberry leaves.
I spotted an American Kestrel perched over the water. It was at quite a distance so it was hard for me to focus even in that bright light.
I found another Yellow-rumped Warbler.
I was pleased to see a White-throated Sparrow, albeit hidden in the branches.
Northern Cardinals aren’t used to receiving any attention from my lens as I’ve been focusing on migrants, so this one didn’t try to move, he just knew the shadows and branches would make him less photogenic.
I was on my way back along the paved trail when I suddenly had Golden-crowned Kinglets low to the ground.
There were some Ruby-crowned Kinglets present too, although not as many, and this one preferred to remain backlit.
Here are a few more close shots of the Golden-crowned Kinglet at the top of the post.
Another Yellow-rumped Warbler paused long enough.
I was almost surprised to see some Mallards in the duckweed. The water level is barely existent.
Here’s my last Golden-crowned Kinglet photo from Thursday.
I hope to be back much sooner with more photos from a very busy migration season. While the number of birds flying over the region is diminishing, there are still opportunities to see less common species before winter settles in. Who knows when that will be? I remember hearing or reading somewhere years ago that we could expect to see something like 8-10 months of summer with climate change and I found it hard to imagine. Yet now it seems nearly possible. As I write this on October 21, we are in the middle of a drought and the temperature is 80 degrees F. I can pray for rain if not snow.
Fall warblers are starting to arrive here and there. These pictures were taken at the Chicago Portage. The winds were from the north the past few nights, making easier flights for the migrating birds and blissful sleeping weather for me. But we are going to have another warm spell which started today. I’m still coasting by with open windows and the standing oscillating fans, but we’ll likely go back to the air conditioning tomorrow.
This is a little roundup of a few warblers I’ve been able to photograph over the last week and a half. The first warbler I saw was on August 13, a first-year male American Redstart.
Then this past Tuesday just as I was leaving the Portage, having seen very little and being quite sure I wasn’t going to see anything more… I saw a little movement in the trees by the south entrance and found a couple Bay-breasted Warblers.
I also saw a Blackpoll Warbler.
Two days later, my camera found a Cape May Warbler.
And I spent some time with a Magnolia Warbler that didn’t seem to mind my attention. The same individual is at the top of the post.
I have seen Tennessee Warblers here and there, first one on the 18th…
and then one on the 22nd.
I’ll be back with more birds I’ve been seeing lately, but I just wanted to share the few warblers I’ve encountered in the past week and a half. Now that the winds have shifted and are coming from the south, things might slow down a bit, but absent strong winds or storms, more warblers, the jewels of migration, will likely start to trickle in.
It has been a busy week. Last Saturday, I got up early to participate in Loonapaloonza 2024, led by my birding friend and mentor David J. for the Illinois Ornithological Society. I had been to two or three of these treks around the Chain of Lakes years ago but had not managed to participate again until this year. Although the focus is on finding numbers of Common Loons, there are invariably lots of American White Pelicans and ducks to see. Unfortunately, I had to leave early for an extra choir rehearsal in the afternoon. If I had stuck around to the end with Dave I would have seen a number of Wilson’s Snipe, which would have been awesome, but I am glad I made the rehearsal as it was a good drill for our upcoming choir Sunday on April 14th. No matter how sophisticated our technology, we will never really be able satisfy any desire to be in two places at once.
It was a bright, sunny, chilly day with Thursday’s snowfall still on the ground. The first birds we saw were two Bald Eagles overhead. I could not resist capturing images.
Then we saw a few Common Loons quite distant, but eventually we managed to see some a little closer. They were spread out over Diamond Lake. The distance and backlighting made decent captures difficult. But the lake is huge and we went to several spots to get better views. Next time I do this trip I will have to pay more attention to where we are going. Because I had to leave early, I was unable to carpool.
I persisted and managed to get a few closer.
American White Pelicans were in abundance.
The majority of the pelicans were gathered sitting on an island across the lake. I also managed to capture a group spread out on a sandbar.
2 Pelicans and a LoonDouble-crested Cormorant and American White Pelican
There were gulls here and there but nothing out of the ordinary . Still, I was still tempted by a Ring-billed Gull flying overhead.
A huge number of ducks were suddenly in the air. Most of them were Greater and Lesser Scaup. We were looking for a Long-tailed Duck that Dave had seen the day before, but we didn’t see it.
I did manage to find a pair of Bufflehead closer.
And a Common Merganser flew by.
If you click on the photos below you might be able to see they are of Red-breasted Mergansers.
Then there were the Greater and Lesser Scaup. At this distance, they are more easily discernible in flight, the Greater having more white on the wing.
We may have been at Channel Lake when we were briefly visited by a few American Crows. I could not resist.
And now for the ongoing story. My friend Linda (we go back to junior high school) has been in town for five weeks from California, to be with her mother Eleanor who was in hospital. To be close to her, Linda was staying in Eleanor’s apartment at an assisted living facility. After several complications, Eleanor was put in hospice last week. She died on March 20 at the age of 102. Her next birthday would have been in June.
Linda has been staying with me since Monday when we moved her out of her mother’s apartment. The funeral was yesterday. The service was a beautiful tribute to an amazing woman. Mourning continues in the form of shiva which began after the internment and extends this afternoon and on Saturday after sundown.
It will be a while before I am birding in the mornings but things will settle down and I will be back as spring migration unfolds.
I started this post 7 days ago. A lot has happened in the past week… But I’ve had time to go back through some of last year’s photos because it’s been noticeably bird-less lately. There were not so many birds on the Hebron Trail on August 5, 2023, either, but by comparison it was a lot more than I’ve seen lately.
August was too late for Yellow-headed Blackbirds that breed there, which is the big draw, but last year was difficult whenever I ventured that far due to drought conditions. On this visit, the landscape became dominant. In particular I found the abundance of Great Mullein interesting.
It was cloudy. I just checked my journal notes from that day and I was disappointed that I had not seen more birds for suitable photographs. Maybe the cardinal below wanted to give me something to look at.
Northern Cardinal
Later on I noticed a Downy Woodpecker having a good time with the Great Mullein.
I saw a Field Sparrow that sat still long enough for a few photos.
There was a young, disheveled-looking Gray Catbird.
I always see American Crows here, but there weren’t many that day. I managed one photo.
Red-winged Blackbird and Common Grackle
Red-winged Blackbirds were predictably abundant, but for the most part distant as well.
An Indigo Bunting provided some color.
A Song-Sparrow sat for me in the gloom.
There was also a small group of House Finches, which I was surprised to see.
Cedar Waxwings are always interesting, and I did not expect to find them here.
I always look for Willow Flycatchers. I barely managed to capture the one below.
It was while photographing this group of birds that I inadvertently captured a female Blue Grosbeak.
Blue Grosbeak (female) and 2 Cedar Waxwings
Some closer-cropped photos of the Blue Grosbeak are below.
The male House Finch below and the female at the very top of the post were in the group I encountered.
So that’s about it for a not-too-spectacular blast from the past. I look forward to getting up to the Hebron Trail this spring. There has been enough rain and snow over the past few months, maybe it will be a better year to see the Yellow-headed Blackbirds.
I will be back with something more local (and brief) soon.
Apologies for the fuzzy appearance of most of the photos in this post, but it’s been a week of huddling indoors and watching the birds through the screened porch windows. The few times I’ve gone out back to try to capture anything, it’s been cloudy or the birds have been obscured by branches, which is understandably their strategy in this weather. It’s been too cold to go for a walk anywhere else. We are supposed to get a warm up, but with it will come snow and rain, so I may be off the trails for a while yet.
The feeders have been popular.
There was sunshine that day, at least. But I barely captured a few cold-looking House Finches.
The American Goldfinches are back in full force. This is the one time of year I see more of them in the yard.
It’s good to see more of the Black-capped Chickadees too.
I bought a couple new feeders this year to try and confuse the squirrels. The birds are definitely not confused by them. Their favorite is extremely messy, which could be why they like it so much.
This other feeder has only 4 ports, but it hasn’t stopped the House Sparrows from emptying it.
I have been very happy to see some American Tree Sparrows in the yard.
I see one American Robin on occasion.
More feeder action.
I tried going outside a couple times, to no avail.
American Tree Sparrow
I went back inside for more fuzzy glimpses.
Downy WoodpeckerCooper’s Hawk
Then Friday on my way to the pool I decided to take a look at the Des Plaines River, which had been under a flood watch for a couple days, due to an ice jam. The ice was starting to break up.
My last effort was to go outside yesterday in the sunshine to see if I could wait for the birds to come back to the feeders. They weren’t buying it.
I settled for a Gray Squirrel and some Milkweed.
It might be a good time to go back in time to warmer weather photos until things improve around here.
For the record, I drove to Fullersburg Monday morning with the intent of looking One More Time for the Limpkin. After parking, I opened the hatchback of my car and found my backpack in its usual spot, but No Camera. This was the second or third time in the past week I have forgotten something and gone back for it. I have gone so far as to put a post-it on the front door to remind me of things I might be taking with me, but what good was it if I didn’t look at it?
When I returned the second time with the camera, it was already 10:10. I took the long way along the Riverbend Trail to the Rainbow Bridge where the Limpkin has been seen so often. That was a bit of extra walking. When I reached the famous bridge, no one else was there. I scanned the riverbanks and saw no Limpkin.
I started to walk a little dirt footpath that runs along the river on the other side of the bridge and much to my surprise, I saw something with white spots sitting in the tangle of branches that were as brown as the rest of it was. I had found the Limpkin. This was not how I wanted to see the bird, but after two unsuccessful visits, I had to stick around for a little while.
I began by talking softly to it (why do we do these things?) apologizing for my presence, but taking photos. You can see the second photo where the bird closed its eye as if to say “if I stop looking at you, will you disappear?” When I didn’t disappear, it was patient after that for the most part and endured my taking photos. I couldn’t find a spot that was a little farther away to capture the entire bird, so I finally decided to go back out onto the bridge to see if I could find it in the tangle from that perspective and maybe see if it would come out and do something.
When I relocated the Limpkin from the bridge and started taking photos, I realized it was only because I knew where it had to be that I was finding it because it was pretty well hidden. This is in contrast to others who have seen it and posted photos where the bird is out in the open, capturing mussels and snails and eating them. You’ll have to use your imagination about that, or else go lookup Fullersburg Woods on ebird and check their pictures.
Shortly after I found the Limpkin and started trying to get some photos, two men, and then a third, came onto the bridge. I told them where the Limpkin was, and we exchanged stories for a short time. It turns out that it was my third attempt and also one of the others’ third attempts, so we had that in common.
The Limpkin was not interested in coming out from its hiding place.
I don’t think the Limpkin was too happy with me pointing it out to other people. It finally managed to disappear into the thickness of the branches. I will not go back again to find this bird. I was content with reporting it once with photos so that everyone would know it was still there. I guess it will just boil down to enough birders keeping track of its occurrence until it leaves. I think a lot of people assumed it might start leaving because of the drop in temperature. But it hadn’t become cold enough to freeze the water yet, and for as long as this bird has been around, there may be no incentive to leave as long as it is feeding well.
It wasn’t feeding while I was there. I got the impression that it had done its foraging and feeding earlier and was taking a well-deserved rest.
A few brief captures of other birds seen that day. There weren’t many at all and the cloud cover made it even less interesting.
Looking back briefly on the two previous visits to Fullersburg, on 11-17, all I photographed was fungus.
On 11-15, there was a young Red-tailed Hawk.
For what it’s worth, it was good to reacquaint myself with Fullersburg Woods. I also got to meet up with a friend I haven’t seen in a long time, and that was very special. I likely won’t be going back soon, though. The temperatures are dropping into the freezing zone and snow is in the forecast for Sunday. I hope the Limpkin finds a more southerly location soon. As of this writing, a lot of people saw it today.
There are a lot of other places I haven’t been in a while and maybe I should just start checking them out every now and then.
View looking upstream from the Rainbow Bridge
To those of you who are celebrating, best wishes for a Happy Thanksgiving. People who have been asking me what I’m doing for Thanksgiving seemed delighted when I told them I am staying home with my 40 birds. I must admit we are having a beautiful day. I went out earlier to the Chicago Portage and it was quiet, but not entirely without birds. I’ve been cooking this afternoon, so the kitchen is warm. The sun is shining and that always makes the birds especially happy. I’ll be back soon.
One snowy day back in February – the 17th, to be exact – I wound up spending a lot of time with a male Belted Kingfisher that I have seen periodically all winter long. As reluctant as I might be to show photos with snowy backgrounds these days, we have snow now in our immediate forecast, and sunshine beats all the odds as far as I’m concerned.
The snow made a great contrasting background for the Belted Kingfisher and it was a delight to have time to focus on his comings and goings along the river that morning.
The Red-tailed Hawk was calmly surveying the scene.
Below, what the river looked like from the Joliet Avenue bridge, and the snowy footsteps preserved in ice on the paved path.
Four days earlier, on February 13, it was a sunny day but without snow cover yet. Sunshine was nice on this Red-bellied Woodpecker.
A Red-winged Blackbird was chasing the Red-tailed Hawk.
Ring-billed Gulls are returning to the area.
That was the last time I saw the Common Merganser couple that was lounging around the river just beyond the Hoffman Tower.
Two last photos of the Belted Kingfisher – your choice – tail up or down?
The weather has been off-and-on crappy and I have not gone out every morning for a walk, but the birds are still on schedule. I hope to be back a little sooner with a few more.
Apologies for the boredom of this post . I kept falling asleep while writing it.
I woke up yesterday morning to no internet connection. After spending an hour or so on the phone with my service provider it was determined that I need a new gateway router. It was shipped this morning so with luck I will receive it soon.
I birded Riverside Lawn yesterday and this morning I was at the Chicago Portage. There were plenty of birds yesterday, but today at the Portage was exceptionally quiet. The entire focus switched to leaves. I met two fall enthusiasts on their way out and we admired leaf colors.
I will see if I can manage to finish what was to be my next post with my cellphone and if so, it will follow shortly. Alternatively I can do more work in the yard and maybe read a good book.
The Zebra Finch that was just singing perched on my head left when I tried to record a video of him so that’s out. Either way I hope to be back soon.
My windshield looked like this, this morning, when I went out to start the car so I could sing with the choir for our first choir Sunday in two years.
It fits this post, which is a little collection of wintertime visits that I never managed to mention. The first was a visit to Columbus Park on 12-30-21.
I had gone to see if a Greater White-fronted Goose was still visible after it had been reported for several days. But by this time the water had frozen and so many Canada Geese were sitting on the ice it was too hard to tell.
Still, it was a beautiful, sunny day with lots of virgin snow.
Another beautiful sunny day a month later, on January 30, 2022, I decided to visit the Little Red Schoolhouse after another snowfall. Below is a view of Longjohn Slough which borders the trail starting at the Nature Center.
A few birds were visible.
American Tree SparrowBlue JayDark-eyed JuncoWhite-throated SparrowRed-bellied Woodpecker
As I walked the trail, I came across a sign denoting the original location of the school for which the forest preserve is named.
Then in my yard on February 15, a Cooper’s Hawk sat for a long time in the redbud tree right outside the porch windows. I could not resist taking too many pictures. Here are a few.
I miss a lot of beautiful sunsets and can barely see hints of them through my kitchen or porch windows, but I tried to commemorate the winter clouds anyway.
I am full of music from singing at the service which was devoted to the Spring Equinox. What began as a cold morning has turned into a beautiful day. The sun is shining brightly. I hope this is my last windshield ice for a while.
This will be short. I started writing it in between visits outside to shovel snow that just kept falling yesterday. it looked like at least 7 or 8 inches when I went out for the first round. By the time I was done another half inch had already fallen. I wound up shoveling three times total yesterday. The snow was heavier and wetter this time around. I went back out this morning and discovered the snow plows had come down the street last night, walling me in. I dug out my car and am thinking I will attempt a grocery round so I don’t have to do everything tomorrow. We might get some more snow, but it’s of the lake-effect variety and I am going in the opposite direction.
After waiting for what seemed like forever to see the berries on my hawthorn tree disappear, I managed to catch this robin feasting on some of what few were left last Saturday. Yesterday morning when I went out to the yard there were five robins in the same tree so they likely finished up the job.
Suffice it to say I was quite fascinated by the robin’s berry-fetching technique. I am sort of sorry I had a lot of branches loaded with berries trimmed off the tree back in November, but they were practically into my neighbor’s yard. I look forward to this year’s crop and anticipate waiting for February 2023 to see the berries disappear.
So I will go out now and do said grocery shopping while it seems safe. I get to park on my side of the street today which will make bringing the bags in easier. At least that’s my strategy. Stay safe and warm wherever you are.
