River Rounds

Posted on March 9, 2023 by Lisa Rest

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.

Disconnected

Posted on October 26, 2022 by Lisa Rest

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.

What? Winter? Left Overs

Posted on March 20, 2022 by Lisa Rest

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.

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.

Berries At Last

Posted on February 3, 2022 by Lisa Rest

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.

Snow – and a New Yard Bird

Posted on January 29, 2022 by Lisa Rest

Yesterday I devoted practically the entire day to dealing with the snow. It snowed overnight and didn’t stop until around 1:30 yesterday afternoon, although by that time it was pretty much down to flurries. I went out early to do the first shoveling of the walks and went out again a couple hours later, then picked up a camera every now and then to see if I could get any pictures. This is more snow than we got last week but not anything near what has transpired on the East Coast. I hope everyone stays safe and warm through the “Bomb Cyclone” Nor’easter.

Earlier I tried to get photographs with the mirrorless camera but it wouldn’t focus well. I apologize for those few fuzzies I have included here. Later I went out with the Canon and as I was still on the back porch, a nuthatch landed on the peanut feeder. I started taking photos through the screened windows and realized later that this was a Red-breasted Nuthatch and, to my knowledge, a new bird for my yard. I wonder how many other species come to the yard that I have never seen…

Two views of the snow in the yard – earlier, cloudy and through the windows, and later when the sun was shining and I was outside.

A few views of the snow in the front yard, courtesy of my cell phone camera, and a longer view of the back.

I continue to have American Goldfinches consistently in the yard with up to 40 or so of them in the early morning hours while the feeders are still fairly well-stocked. They stop by off and on all day until about an hour and a half before sunset.

Of course I have a lot of House Sparrows too…And there are House Finches and Cardinals but it’s been hard to capture them. I’ll keep trying.

I came in from the yard yesterday and found some of my Zebra Finches hanging out in the kitchen window where they like to sit and soak up the afternoon sun. I have closely cropped out as much of the dirty window as I can, but I will try to clean the window before I take any more pictures of them. My excuse for this is somewhat practical – nobody flies into the windows from either side of them.

I had no idea what I was going to do today until I got up, but it turned out to be a nice morning so I took a drive up to LaBagh Woods to see Common Redpolls. I will be back with a report later today or tomorrow.

Visit from a Leucistic Robin

Posted on July 5, 2021 by Lisa Rest

I was quite surprised to see this visitor through my kitchen window about a week ago. I have seen an occasional leucistic American Robin but never in my yard. It was a one-time experience. Since it was preoccupied with its preening in my dying Staghorn Sumac tree, I managed to take too many photographs.

Also through the window in unsatisfactory light I did manage to see a Downy Woodpecker exchanging food with its likely offspring. There are two suet feeders hanging off the Sumac and they are star attractions for the woodpeckers and House Sparrows who have been feeding suet to their youngsters as well.

Worth mentioning, perhaps, is the fact that in spite of all the Brown-headed Cowbirds in the yard earlier this year, I haven’t seen any overgrown fledglings.

Meanwhile, in the front yard, pollinators have been busy. Visiting butterflies were a special treat. The series is of a Spicebush Swallowtail on a Purple Coneflower

Monarch Butterfly on the Common Milkweed

This is all for today. As always I hope to return soon…

A Little Local Color

Posted on March 6, 2020 by Lisa Rest

The past two weeks have been challenging and I can’t seem to find a breather anywhere. Yet we race ahead into spring, even if temporarily yanked back to winter by strong winds, so I’m here with a few local images from a couple recent outings and the yard. This morning my cardinal was singing before sunrise… likely the same guy pictured below.

Male Red-Winged Blackbirds have been coming back to claim their breeding territories for the past couple weeks. The one below was at Miller Meadow.

Also at Miller Meadow, tossed around in the wind, was a distant Red-Tailed Hawk. These pictures are cropped extensively but I liked how they captured the hawk’s maneuvers and the confirming red tail.

There was a somewhat leucistic American Robin at Miller Meadow and it was really hard to get a picture of it but it seemed worthy of documentation. I’ve never seen this before.

Below is what the Chicago Portage and the Des Plaines River nearby looked like last weekend. There were maybe 60 Common Goldeneye on the Des Plaines. I managed to get a closer view of one through the trees at the back of the Portage.

I keep getting distracted by this shelf fungus every time I see it at the Portage.

Song Sparrows are returning to the Portage to set up territories too. I heard one singing, might have been this one.

Hadn’t run out of “winter” sparrows yet, there was a sizable flock of American Tree Sparrows at the Portage.

I will never run out of House Sparrows in my yard.

More windblown photos of my Cardinal visitors.

I never get tired of Canada Geese flying overhead in formation. People are reporting Sandhill Cranes and I hope to see some of them soon as well.

My plan is to get through a very busy weekend and return here soon! Something keeps pouring extra salt on my chaos… lately I’ve been surprised to land on two feet.

One more Downy Woodpecker at Miller Meadow…

Kouchibouguac Part 2

Posted on December 23, 2019 by Lisa Rest

I have been struggling to come up with a narrative for this post of pictures from the remainder of this day. Yesterday I would have finally managed it except I got sick, however briefly, and needed to sleep. Now that I’m fully recovered, it’s time to plunge into more holiday festivities.

So maybe it’s best just to let the pictures speak for themselves so I can move on to the next chapter.

Beach scenes… a sandbar full of Double-Crested Cormorants

The Northern Gannets were never close, but they were always distinctive.

Great Blue Heron, with two Commoners – a Loon and a Tern – in between

Pectoral Sandpiper wading with Ruddy Turnstone…

Happy Hanukah, Merry Christmas, Happy Solstice, whatever you are celebrating, and if I don’t get a chance before the 31st, Happy New Year…

Recycling the Unattached

Posted on June 15, 2017 by Lisa Rest

Some of my original Zebra Finches from years past (the cleaner pot rack alone dates the photo)

I’m almost totally over the rhino-plus virus, well enough to get through what seemed like endless commitments. Now as my mind clears along with my sinuses, I am feeling remiss in keeping up with this commitment, so when I remembered this morning there is always an opportunity to fall back on those “Unattached” photographs that clog up my media library, I decided to select a few at random just for fun. A couple from the Galapagos, not so long ago, which reminds me I still have a couple days left from my trip I never covered…

Yellow Warbler – Galapagos – July 2016

Magnificent Frigatebird, Galapagos, July 2016

The three below are from a trip to East Africa in 2013.

Gray-Crowned Cranes, November, 2013, Tanzaniya

Burchell’s Zebra, November 2013

Pearl-Spotted Owlet, November 2013

The sunset below probably happened in Belize at Crooked Tree in March of 2014…I’ll be back with more recent endeavors soon.. Thanks for following my meanderings. I hope you enjoyed this little blast from the past.

Singing Spring Sparrows

Posted on May 8, 2017 by Lisa Rest

Virtually every morning I go out to fill the bird feeders in my backyard before I leave for work, and I have been hearing White-Crowned and White-Throated Sparrows singing for weeks, but I never see them. Looking out the windows I am used to see them foraging around on the ground, but this has not happened. So yesterday afternoon, which was absolutely gorgeous and sunlit, when I went out to sit and dig up the patch of pigwort that has invaded one section of the yard, I took the camera with me, just in case.

I was rewarded with the presence of three White-Crowned Sparrows and two White-Throated Sparrows. The White-Throateds showed up first, digging around at the bottom of the compost pile and then sometimes in it. They didn’t stay very long, however.

Eventually I noticed something interesting: one White-Crowned Sparrow was nibbling on a piece of spray millet that I had just recently added to the compost bin. I realized some time last week that I have been throwing out chewed-up spray millet every day with the cage papers and waste from my indoor birds, which means it’s been going needlessly to the landfill. It never occurred to me that someone might find the uneaten portions of this delightful treat irresistible.

The other attraction seemed to be little leftover bits of shelled peanuts. The squirrels probably get the majority of them but the birds have been onto this use of the tree stump for a while. I keep hoping for crows but I’ll take White-Crowned Sparrows anytime.

In case you’re wondering what the back view of a White-Crowned Sparrow looks like, here’s one shot from under the feeder pole.

The weather is still unseasonably cool but that’s nothing for the sparrows. I’m hoping they’ll stick around maybe for another week so I can continue to hear their beautiful songs. Yesterday as I had to go back into the house to resume indoor duties, I was treated to a little late-afternoon/early evening chorus I wish I had been able to record. One White-Throated Sparrow started out singing in B-flat, then a mourning dove joined in, in the same key, and then a House Finch started carrying on with his busy song. No people noise interrupted their singing. This was likely a one-time experience I’ll have to keep in my head, but it will remind me to take the recorder with me next time.

WCSP 5-7-17-7762

Goldbird Variations

Why Birds Sing in Key with Music, or how I finally put perfect pitch to use.

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