Staying in Place in the Yard

Posted on May 5, 2020 by Lisa Rest

One nice thing about being stuck at home has been being able to see what’s going on in my yard. Although I have to get up and go into the kitchen and look out the windows in order to do this, it’s something I can do often. I get to see the birds that visit my feeders instead of wondering whether some of them ever show up. I have even been able to sit outside for a little while when the weather permits.

So it was with great delight that I witnessed the arrival of Baltimore Orioles during this pandemic spring. I put the feeder out weeks ago, along with the hummingbird feeders, if for no other reason than to bring some color into the yard. Last year I had an oriole come to the yard and try to drink out of a hummer feeder. He let me know under no uncertain terms that this was unacceptable. I invested in a couple feeders, oranges and grape jelly and even a sugar-water feeder for orioles.

White-throated Sparrows have been in the yard for weeks but I haven’t really seen them clearly until this past week.

I have heard Chipping Sparrows for weeks too so it was lovely to see one the day I got to sit out in the yard around noon. He was a bit far away.

The Mourning Doves are regular visitors. There seem to be three of them most of the time.

This is the time of year I begin discovering new plants in the yard. I’m not sure these were in the front yard last year and I’m too overwhelmed at the moment (sounds better than lazy, right?) to try and identify them, so if you know what they are please let me know! They have made themselves conspicuous being about the only things blooming right now.

It’s been hard to get a really good picture of a House Finch, but I probably don’t try very hard either because I know I’ll keep seeing them.

The day I was sitting down in the backyard I spotted this Field Mouse. Not the first one I’ve seen this spring. They are kind of cute and they don’t bother me.

Which reminds me, I wonder if it is premature to celebrate the fact that I haven’t seen the same black cat with white socks and white on her throat that has been in my yard for at least the last 15 years. There was a big orange cat a couple weeks ago that gave me pause, however, I haven’t seen it either. Not sure if maybe they are just staying away more during the lockdown.

There are still quite a few American Goldfinches although not as many as about a month ago. I think half of them have relocated to the Portage.

So I had three male Baltimore Orioles in the yard on Friday and haven’t seen any since. I don’t know if I will see any more, but I’ll leave the feeders out – and maybe attract a Gray Catbird or two. I had an Ovenbird in the yard Sunday when i came back from the Portage but inadvertently flushed it. It would really be nice to see a hummingbird or two soon… Yard Dreams.

Spring Comes to the Portage

Posted on May 4, 2020 by Lisa Rest

Too many birds, too many pictures and not enough time. How can that be? I give up, at least for the moment. Yesterday’s summery sunshiny weather produced some wonderful encounters with birds that simply cannot wait. Pushing all my other planned posts, aside, here we go!

Blue-Gray Gnatcatchers have arrived in abundance and were generally the first to distract me. They are notoriously difficult to photograph but yesterday was the exception. In the sequence below this perched bird, I happened upon a Blue-Gray at waist-level, focused on obtaining web filaments for its nest.

It was a treat to see this Swainson’s Thrush, however briefly..

Another skulker I don’t think I’ve ever seen here before was the Northern Waterthrush below. I was sitting down on a rock-like seat that looks over the water and noticed something moving.

Every year when I hear House Wrens I have to refigure them out, I don’t know why. And then they just sing ad infinitum before I ever see one. I managed to glimpse this one way up high in a treetop.

Not that I’m lacking for pictures, but this Tree Swallow didn’t make it into the last post and is here to represent the ones I saw yesterday but did not get a chance to photograph.

So now we come to the highlight of my day. It had been a sort of slow morning, actually, compared to the day before – which I hope to get around to in a not-too-distant future post – and I was a bit disappointed that I was seeing hardly any warblers. I speculated maybe the warm and calm winds on Saturday night were favorable to migrants continuing their voyages north and they weren’t stopping if they didn’t have to. So as I walked slowly back down the trail from where I’d seen the Waterthrush, I stopped when I heard a call that might be described as a sneezy trill followed by raspberries. It had been so long since I studied warbler calls, I wasn’t sure, so I checked the Sibley app on my phone as quietly as possible, and sure enough, I was in the presence of a Blue-Winged Warbler. I haven’t seen more than an unsatisfying glimpse of a Blue-Winged in years. So when two of them showed up in front of me, I was temporarily transported to bliss, away from the extra weight of being human lately. I could almost hear them saying “Hey, lady, nice Portage you got here.”

Among the other creatures coming back to life at the Portage, turtles and frogs.

There was this ~~Chorus Frog~~ American Toad crossing the trail. He sang for me. I have placed a brief recording of his song below him. Unfortunately, there’s a slow-moving freight train in the background. – Thanks to my friend Leslie, I have been corrected. I thought he looked more like a toad but I didn’t know toads sing!

In the sparrow department, a Chipping Sparrow, one of several elusive but very vocal Song Sparrows and a couple somewhat backlit photos of a Swamp Sparrow.

Most numerous at the moment are probably the White-Throated Sparrows but they’re just passing through.

Warbling Vireos are back in force. I heard more on Saturday than I did yesterday but I managed to slightly photograph this one.

Northern Cardinal in a nice spot, if distant

A Great Blue Heron flew right over my head.

Two common species of butterfly have been around this week, the Painted Lady and the Red Admiral.

Baltimore Orioles have arrived. I wonder if they’re possibly the same ones that visited my yard for the last time on Friday (I had three at once).

I was almost at the parking lot when I heard, and then saw, three Indigo Buntings – on the paved trail. They must have just arrived – getting their bearings, so to speak, because I have never seen them so tame. I’m sure I’ll be struggling to get any pictures of them the rest of the breeding season.

Here’s another Indigo Bunting I saw a bit earlier.

One of many singing male American Goldfinches

Ruby-Crowned Kinglets are still around, although I think these must be the females as I haven’t seen a red crown patch on any individuals for a week or more. But this one sure is a cutie.

A few views of the landscape.

The Portage is starting to green up. Pretty soon the water will be entirely green with duck weed.

This has to be my favorite photograph – the Blue-Winged showing off his worm.

Maybe you can tell I’ve been writing this post in fits and starts. It’s a bit disorganized because I inadvertently clicked on the “group” feature which seems to have cemented some unintended parts together, but I’m too lazy to start over again.

We have dropped thirty degrees back into cooler temperatures, and I guess that’s okay for Monday, but I want to hold onto the beauty of this past weekend as long as possible. I am thankful for spring migration and for my indoor birds, making it easier to get out of bed in the morning – albeit earlier and earlier as the days get longer!

Late April Goose Lake

Posted on April 30, 2020 by Lisa Rest

With the forecast of only one nice day this past weekend, I planned to go to Goose Lake Natural Area and the Hebron Trail, which has become one of my favorite, if distant, destinations. One doesn’t know what to expect when venturing out these days. I knew I could count on the absence of crowds, even if there were some people walking, riding bikes, running, birding. Luckily this is a vast expanse and I could still feel quite alone most of the time, however I now take that sentiment in current context.

The walk is long to the Goose Lake part – at least it seems to take forever. There were not a lot of birds along the way this early in the season to distract me, but there was certainly a lot of up-and-coming moss.

The main attraction to me, then, was the Yellow-Headed Blackbirds. The females haven’t started arriving yet as far as I can tell, but I wanted to be there when the males were setting up territories so I could hear them sing. With all the Red-Winged Blackbirds singing, they didn’t seem to vocalize in long phrases, but I did manage to get a recording, albeit with a lot of wind noise, of their characteristic rusty-crank-sounding song. The short song clip is below these photographs.

I might add that the Yellow-Headeds were far away and rather secretive. I want to go back in a few weeks to see if I can get a better look.

There were several Song Sparrows and I managed to get a few photographs of them. They had some lovely songs too. I almost wish I could have left the camera and recorded vocalizations, but it was windy that day anyway.

Another likely breeding sparrow in this habitat is the Swamp Sparrow. I was lucky to encounter the beauty below.

I miss Crows a lot. It’s been a chronic ache that started with my job location three years ago, made worse by the current situation banning visits to lakefront parks. So another thing I like about this location is that I always get to see Crows.

I confess I wasn’t paying an awful lot of attention to Red-Winged Blackbirds, but I did find this guy attractive. There’s a female in three photos below him.

I had to look hard to see the Goose on her nest below.

There were still a few Ruby-Crowned Kinglets here and there.

As I turned to go back, three crows were harassing a Red-Tailed Hawk.

I got distracted by a little more plant life and my first ladybug of the year.

There was an elusive Red-Bellied Woodpecker off the side of the wooded trail as I walked back.

I have been working harder than ever from home which was not at all what I expected when this whole pandemic thing began. As long as it’s raining I don’t mind so much. Oh well. Tomorrow is May 1.

Last Weekend at the Portage: Coming Back to Life

Posted on April 17, 2020 by Lisa Rest

I can’t believe another week has gone by already. While it seems like time should be moving slowly, I am finding it to be the opposite as my days at home fill up with work and chores. It’s as if I never left my schedule. And yet because I am home, it sometimes seems like I don’t have a schedule.

Winter returned twice this week and I was going to post a few pictures of birds in the snow but time got away from me and I’m not feeling too nostalgic for snow at the moment. It’s still chilly overnight but I think we are finally going to start warming up. And of course the question lurking right behind that is, Then What?

I went to the Portage last Saturday and Sunday mornings, because both days turned out fairly decent weather-wise. The variety of species differed somewhat between the two days, in that the Yellow-Rumped Warblers who posed for pictures and the one Ruby-Crowned Kinglet were present on Saturday but not detectable on Sunday. That sort of thing. On the other hand, I had the Bluebird on Sunday. So it goes.

I’ve been seeing Yellow-Bellied Sapsuckers (I call them “Sappies”) in the neighborhood all week, and had one in my yard last weekend, but this is the only one I’ve been able to sort of capture so far.

There were a lot of White-Throated Sparrows, or at least more of them than the other species. Below this grouping is a short recording of one of them singing. He had a really nice version of their song, which has always been one of my favorites.

I had no idea what was going on with these Red-Winged Blackbirds on the trail as I approached them on Saturday, but on Sunday I noticed that someone has been leaving a little pile of birdseed, so that explains the gathering and likely the behavior. Feeding the animals is a no-no. But I imagine there are more people walking the trails these days than normally do, and I think that’s a good thing. Maybe we will all treasure being outside more after our quarantine subsides.

The Tree Sparrow was seen on Saturday and not on Sunday. I don’t expect to see one again until late fall.

The female Red-Wingeds have now joined the males and everybody’s ready to start working on the next generation. On Saturday I must have had more than 50 Red-Winged Blackbirds at the Portage. I don’t think I ever saw that many last year. It could be some were passing through. It will be interesting to see how many remain to nest.

There was one male Blue-Winged Teal hanging out with a couple of Mallards.

I only got a glimpse of the crown on this Ruby-Crowned Kinglet.

Woodpeckers – there were a lot of Northern Flickers. And Downy Woodpeckers are always present. I always hear a Red-Bellied Woodpecker, but don’t always see one. It was also nice to see a Hairy Woodpecker. I keep hoping I will see a Red-Headed Woodpecker here again.

This looks like a young male Red-Winged Blackbird. He must be a late-bloomer.

Robins are everywhere.

As things are just starting to turn green, mosses were attractive.

People have been reporting Hermit Thrushes so I was happy to see one. I miss seeing half a dozen of them at once downtown in the city, but maybe it’s better to see one in the woods than a lot of them on turf grass.

There were two Turkey Vultures flying around, at then at one point they landed in the trees.

A lovely Mrs. Cowbird. What more can I say?

The trees are starting to bud and this will all burst into green soon.

If you click on the dove pictures you can see nesting material in its bill easier.

There are a lot of Cardinals at the Portage but they’re not always easy to capture, especially this time of year when they’re busy setting up territories.

So here is the Bluebird of Happiness. I don’t get to see Bluebirds too often, so this was a special treat.

I plan to go out this weekend and with any luck, there will be even more birds to see. Migration continues, and I suspect the birds are having a better time of it without so much human interruption.

Ravens, Willets and Kildeer, Oh My

Posted on April 10, 2020 by Lisa Rest

My love of corvids does not stop with crows. I tried to take advantage of any opportunity I had to photograph a Common Raven, a bird I never see at home. So I was delighted to discover the picture above. It’s not in sharp focus but that’s part of what I like about it. I think it looks more like a painting, and I credit the Raven with its artistic sense. There’s another slightly-different shot at the bottom of this post.

So even though most of these photographs from August 21, 2019, are of birds on land, so to speak, the presence of the sea in this part of the world is always dominant. I believe these were all taken on the island of Grand Manan.

Below is the habitat in which I was somehow able to find a Killdeer, followed by a series of photographs of the bird itself.

Later when we visited the beach, we spied a Willet which was even farther away and matching its surroundings.

More Ravens in flight…

Below is a lone Semi-Palmated Sandpiper, also barely distinguishable from the habitat. I love the scrubby vegetation and rocks and water and…

The group below is a few of many photographs that I took of a couple of Ravens on the beach. One Raven was foraging on a dead fish only to have another Raven crash-land in. I think they are young birds, because of the brownish cast to their head feathers, and they are probably siblings too, which accounts for their playful but non-threatening behavior.

A little flora break…

And the land and sea-scape…

A few images that didn’t make it into the last post are below. The upper left photo is a Double-Crested Cormorant, and the remainder of the photographs are of Common Eiders, birds I had never seen before this trip.

One problem with reviewing photos I took more than half a year ago is forgetting what they were of. I think these might be rosehips, related to the rose in the flora photos above. It looked like fruit to me but the leaves give it away.

Ravens in the mist…

Well, I may be back sooner with some more recent observations. Spring is sort of here. We had one or two very warm-like-summer days, then the winds shifted and we are chilly again, with snow in the forecast for next week although I expect it will not be substantial. It’s even hard to count on a forecast for the next few hours let alone next week. But sunshine is always welcome, and today we have had lots of it. Thanks for stopping by!

Back to Virtual Travel

Posted on April 7, 2020 by Lisa Rest

I didn’t go to The Gull Frolic this year. I decided not to when the invitations went out to Illinois Ornithological Society members last November. I was then looking forward to my trip to San Blas and the thought of coming back to stand on the lakefront in freezing temperatures after spending the early part of January in warm and sunny Mexico did not appeal to me. And anyway, my head was still full of images of Great Black-backed Gulls I had seen in New Brunswick and Grand Manan.

So this post features some of the Great Black-backeds and other species seen as we made our way from St. John to Grand Manan by ferry.

The photo below is actually a small section of a larger image. I was trying to focus on the White-Winged Scoters we were seeing from quite a distance. Or as Ann has now corrected me, they were Black Guillemots! We had some Scoters too. But this is sometimes the problem with processing photos half a year or more later.

More of the White-Winged Scoters. Oh they’re not, let’s fix this right now. They are Black Guillemots. I don’t know what happened to the Scoter. Maybe it’s in the third photograph on top — how far away we were at one point…

More Great Black-backed Gulls – and there’s likely a few Herring Gulls in the group shot, but it’s more like a warmer version of a Gull Frolic.

These Red-Necked Grebes were distant but delightful nonetheless.

Sooty Shearwaters don’t photograph particularly well at a distance.

A glimpse of a rugged landscape.

Great Shearwaters were abundant and easier to photograph than the Harbor Seals in the first two photographs below.

I thought this post needed a little color.

A few more Great Black-Backed Gulls.

Some of that lovely rugged stuff that grows on rock.

And an adult Herring Gull.

I will be back with the other half of this day’s photos. The focus will be on land birds. It took me a week to process the 740-or-so images on my recalcitrant pokey travel laptop. But I guess these days I can’t complain about how long it takes me to do anything.

Home is Where the Birds…Are!

Posted on March 30, 2020 by Lisa Rest

I thought I’d be returning to this page with pictures from my travels but my plans have been derailed by local distractions. It seems I cannot stand at the kitchen sink and look out the window for more than a minute before a Downy Woodpecker is on the suet feeder that hangs from the sumac tree.

I planned to go to the Portage yesterday, but the weather kept me home with 35 mph winds and gusts of up to 50 miles per hour and also flood warnings along the Des Plaines. I decided not to take the chance of being blown around the trail with the possibility of trees falling on me. The Portage is likely high enough above the Des Plaines River basin not to be affected too much by its flooding but I wasn’t all that curious either. Not sure if fear of catching or spreading a virus is making me more timid to take any chances at all. Combining the weather warnings with cloudy skies and birds predictably hunkered down, I decided it was advisable to stay home. But I would go out for a walk a little later, just to experience the wind at a safe distance.

As it turned out, soon after I was out the front door, three, possibly four, Turkey Vultures appeared, coasting about on the wind. They were sallying around the neighborhood for half an hour at least. Then when I returned to my front door, I heard a nearby Dark-Eyed Junco, and got lucky with one and then another perching in the little apple tree where they posed for a minute or two. I have been trying to take pictures of Juncos for months to no avail, but have managed the past couple days to photograph the ones that visit my yard. I wonder if the birds are more curious about me, now that they are relatively free of constant human activity.

Most of the photographs below are from one sunny day last week, March 25. I went out and sat in the back of the yard soaking up the sunshine. It was midday, not the optimum for light conditions, but outside was the place to be, relatively warm, hanging out with the feeder crowd.