City Migrants – Fall Migration 2016

Posted on October 3, 2016 by Lisa Rest

If I’d been thinking clearly I probably would have postponed the cataract removal until after fall migration, but I ventured anyway into the wilds of downtown Chicago after I convinced myself that with patience and practice I could temporarily look through the view finder on the Canon with my left eye… Anyway, I managed to find quite a few cooperative birds to photograph and have decided to share them now before I invite you back to the Galapagos. A couple more shots of the Chestnut-Sided Warbler below. Responding to my thoughts, as I’m taking pictures of him, of “what a beautiful bird you are.”

First-year male American Redstarts are always welcome.

Things didn’t seem to get really active until last week. There’s probably a whole lot more I could have done if I put my mind to it, but I’ll get my new prescription lens in a few days and with luck, all my kvetching will fade away. (Don’t hold me to it!)

Red-Winged Blackbirds breed in Millennium Park so these birds below likely hatched this year.

Below, a Canada Warbler on the left and a Wilson’s Warbler on the right, both at Lake Shore East Park a couple weeks ago. The Canada was shy.

Juvenile European Starlings in their in-between plumage, which I find fascinating. They look more like “Star”-lings to me. They’re not exactly migrants…unless they’re from another planet?

starlings-9-9-2016-lse-park-0604 I wonder if the Common Grackle below could be a molting adult, without its long tail.

cogr-9-16-2016-lse-molting-1005 Magnolia Warblers have been coming through for weeks.

cswa-9-27-2016-lse-park-1734

Not a lot of thrushes this year – sometimes they show up in large groups. A Gray-Cheeked Thrush that was at 155 N. Wacker on the left, and a Hermit Thrush on the right and below.

Hermit Thrush

Two views of an Orange-Crowned Warbler at the Boeing garden, below.

Two Blackpoll Warblers…

Similar to the Blackpoll but a bit different this time of year, a Bay-Breasted Warbler. I think! Confusing Fall Warblers redux.

Bay-Breasted Warbler…?

Two more Blackpolls below.

And now, signalling the tail end of warbler migration, Palm Warblers, below…

and Yellow-Rumped Warblers (Myrtle subspecies).

And the same two species in flight, Palm on the left, Yellow-Rumped (with the yellow rump showing), below. Note the similarities…and differences.

My prize discovery last week was a beautiful male Black-Throated Blue Warbler. I think we have been seeing more of this species the last couple years but it’s still not common and always special. Luckily this one liked to show off.

Black-Throated Blue Warbler

Golden-Crowned Kinglets are coming through but hard to capture in cloudy light. Or at least that’s my excuse.

gcki-9-29-2016-lse-park-1873 On the 29th I saw this presumably female Wilson’s Warbler, below, at Lake Shore East Park, and am glad I had pictures to prove it to ebird – apparently it’s late in the season to see a Wilson’s. Others reported seeing them too, in the area.

I always look forward to the return of the White-Throated Sparrows. I have seen a couple other species too and I’m hoping to take some pictures of them this week.

The Black-and-White below appears to be a female.

Black-and-White Warbler

A late Magnolia.

Magnolia Warbler

Red-Breasted Nuthatches are visible this year.

Red-Breasted Nuthatch

I have a new crop of juvenile Crows that look for me. We will hang out more over the winter months when there are no more migrants.

amcr-9-22-2016-loop-1301 amcr-9-27-2016-lse-park-1798

I had to run an errand on Friday all the way over to the river, and on the way back into the office, as I crossed the street at Wells and Madison, I heard a loud “caw-caw-caw.” I stopped and looked up but saw nothing. “Caw-caw-caw” again. I waited. People streamed by me on their way to wherever, I’m sure they did not hear the crow, and no one was curious about why I had stopped to look. Then, in the top branches of a locust tree planted in the sidewalk across the street, the crow moved. After we acknowledged each other’s presence, he was silent. I crossed the street to get a better look and he appeared to be fiddling with something dark but I can’t say what it was, a bat, shoe leather, hard to tell without binoculars. But how nice to be recognized by this super-intelligent creature. Made my day. 🙂

August at the Chicago Portage: Finale

Posted on August 25, 2014 by Lisa Rest

Green Heron

I did not make it to the Chicago Portage this past weekend to check on the possibility of hummingbirds again. But maybe it’s still worth commenting on the remaining creatures I encountered on the 17th.

Juvenile Red-Winged Blackbird

It’s that confusing time of year again. Young birds are as big as their parents, but distinguishing them is sometimes difficult, especially in poor light. Often I take a picture I know will be lousy just to blow it up later, adjust the exposure and see if I can figure out what it was I was looking at. As it is, the “sparrowy” looking birds all turned out to be Song Sparrows (except for the Red-Winged Blackbirds). There were several Indigo Buntings too but due to poor light and whatever else they hid themselves within, they did not make the cut.

Juvenile Song Sparrow

Now that you’ve seen both the juvenile Red-Winged Blackbird and the Song Sparrow, see if you can figure out what the bird is below. You could almost make a case for either one, I think.

What’s this?

Then there are the group photos. The birds don’t always cooperate but sometimes the challenge of how many you can fit in the frame takes over.

European Starling Tree

Cedar Waxwing Tree – too far away, really, but good enough for numbers.

Mourning Dove Tree

There was a group congregating in the water too. A family of Wood Ducks getting ready to depart.

Wood Ducks

Shorebird migration is in full force, but the Portage isn’t a hot spot. Still I had the two most likely suspects in attendance.

Solitary Sandpiper

Killdeer

I love the look of juvenile European Starlings. Until they turn mostly black, it’s possible to see they do have eyes.

Juvenile European Starling

Another black bird, but instead of a shiny navy blue head, this juvenile Common Grackle is a rich dark chocolate brown.

Juvenile Common Grackle

The Cedar Waxwing below strikes me as an adult, but chances are some of those in the Waxwing Tree above, if only we could see them, were youngsters.

Cedar Waxwing

Down by the second bridge was a very friendly Eastern Phoebe enjoying flying off his perch for insects,

Eastern Phoebe

Now comes the moment you’ve all been waiting for. The bugs that I cannot identify. This beetle looked to me like it would be easy to find in my Big Beetle Book (not the title) but so far I have been unable to identify it. While I don’t think I’ve discovered a new species, I am beginning to understand this confusion is often the way it is with insects. Period.

Unidentified Beetle

The ladybug could be the most common native species, but I’m not going out on any limb.

I know this is a Ladybug, but what kind I don’t know

More birds–and bugs — pardon me, insects — to come.

Juveniles

Posted on October 7, 2013 by Lisa Rest

Juvenile Sedge Wren, Springbrook Prairie

I’m entertaining a quick post here while I still have so many pictures to go through from maybe three weeks, wondering how I will ever do anything with them…as I archive months past onto the external hard drive to leave room for photographs to come on my trip next month.

Over the weekend I encountered two juvenile birds that proved interesting. The first was from Saturday morning, on Joe Suchecki’s DuPage Birding Club walk at Springbrook Prairie. Conditions were not ideal for photographs (birds buried in the grasses at a distance), but this very cooperative juvenile Sedge Wren was only a couple feet away from us, making us wonder if it was his first encounter with people. He had a very much “What do I do now?” look about him.

The second bird nearly stumped me when I was going through the pictures until I realized it had to be a juvenile European Starling. I took these at the Chicago Portage yesterday morning. I have seen my share of juvenile Starlings – indeed they used to visit me back in Oak Park on the window ledge, and I always found them fascinating because I could still see their eyes (the adults’ eyes, recessed into black feathers, often seemed to totally disappear). Juvenile Starlings always appeared brown to me, but I have never seen an evenly black and white one – leading me to think that this is a molting bird and/or somewhat melanistic. On the other hand I never saw its back which may have been browner, because I was distracted by something else by the time it left.

Anyway I will try to be back soon with more birds from a very interesting time of year. I love fall, and the weather has just turned abruptly cooler reminding me of it.

European Starling

The Starling pictures are coming up darker from some reason – click on them and the bird appears a bit lighter but I may have to come back and fix this later.

The Lakefront’s Juvenile Birds

Posted on August 23, 2013 by Lisa Rest

Monroe Harbor

I haven’t been down to the lakefront regularly, and I miss it. With the devastation of available park space it’s been difficult to motivate myself to get up an hour early.

Sculptures in Solti Garden

But last Friday I managed to go because it seemed like the best weather available (a distant memory after the heat and drought that followed) . I miss seeing the crows and I was curious to find out how many of them remain with the reduced habitat.

My first stop was at the Solti Garden just south of The Art Institute on Michigan Avenue where I was surprised to see the Chicago Park District had replaced the yews with what looks like native grasses, to accompany an installation of “Borders” by Steinunn Thorararinsdottir, an Icelandic artist.

Someone covered the sculpture above in sand and gravel from the walkway.

Monroe Harbor Spider

A bit later after finding nothing of interest north of Buckingham Fountain (except for a group of people led by the Field Museum’s ornithologist Doug Stotz–if there was anything interesting he would likely have reported it later to the local listserve, and he did not), I made it to the lakefront where spiders have set up webs between the metal dividers that support the sidewalk and protect it from the lake. I guess the lower lake levels are good news for them; they can lure all the bugs the swallows miss.

European Starling

While it wasn’t possible to get pictures of the swallows, no matter how hard I tried, there was a juvenile European Starling looking almost adult.

Red-Winged Blackbird

And the same can be said for this juvenile Red-Winged Blackbird. There were perhaps forty or so foraging in the grass right along the bicycle and footpaths that follow the lakefront.

A juvenile American Robin is always in order.

The Ring-Billed Gull below is probably a second-year. The light is always tricky this time of year, or at least that’s my excuse.

In all between three parks and half a mile of lakefront, I counted only 8 crows, of which one was the juvenile below.

I am looking forward to cooler weather, more rain and more birds!

A Day in the Yard

Posted on February 17, 2013 by Lisa Rest

Female Downy Woodpecker

This weekend is the Great Backyard Bird Count, and this is the first time there is worldwide participation. Although I counted birds in Millennium Park on Friday afternoon and at the Portage this morning, the most fun I had this weekend with the GBBC was counting the birds in my own backyard, simply because rather than glancing out the window now and then to see who was at the feeders, I paid closer attention to the visitors.

American Goldfinch

It took four hours of on-and-off vigilance to count numbers of all the species I expected to see, and I was still short on Northern Cardinals until today. I haven’t submitted a yard list yet today, but I will add a few more mourning doves and the Cardinals.

Overall, there were fewer Dark-Eyed Juncos than I have seen the last few weekends, so they may have started moving north. The big surprise was a flock of about 25 European Starlings that invaded the yard around 1:30 in the afternoon. They raided the feeders, but I don’t think they ate much, they just wanted to cause general commotion. They were more interested in the birdbaths and throwing a splash party.

Starling Splash Party

All the photographs except for the female Downy were taken through the back porch windows so they’re fuzzy at best. But that’s because I was trying to get photographs of the most interesting bird…a yellow male House Finch.

Yellow House Finch IMG_1033_1 Yellow House Finch IMG_1037_1 Yellow House Finch IMG_1035_1

Overall, the House Finches outnumbered every other species at 40+ individuals.

Bathing Crow

Posted on July 28, 2012 by Lisa Rest

We got a little more rain last week, complete with a pleasant drop in temperature on Tuesday, but I wasn’t able to get out to the park for lunch until the following day when it hit 100 degrees again. I walked slowly and sat down on a bench near the tree I’d put peanuts under for the young crows. It seemed like a pretty usual, hot day with nothing much going on, maybe too hot to even take a picture. The grass was noticeably greener from the last time I took pictures, but it’s grass.

Then I noticed some European Starlings bathing in a nice big puddle that was left from the rain the night before. I like to see birds bathing, even Starlings. To see anybody bathing after the prolonged drought and heat was good enough.

I wonder if one young crow was new to the idea though. I personally have never seen a crow bathe. I started taking pictures of this crow when he first stood in the water. I wondered if he’d gone to wash off a peanut or something, which is one way I’ve seen crows use puddles, but he seems to be contemplating his reflection instead.

Or maybe this was the moment of decision about whether to bathe or not, because after he tasted the water, the next thing he did was start bathing in it.

And he was so delighted with himself, he looked right at me as if to say, “yes, it’s as fun as it looks.”

Then he proceeded to bathe again. For the full demonstration, this is how it’s done.

Bend your knees (birds’ knees bend exactly the opposite of the way humans’ do, by the way – do not try this at home). Put your head face down in the water (reminiscent of your first swimming lesson, perhaps).

Down. (“Now put your head in the water.”)

Now start flapping your wings.

Voila!

Goldbird Variations

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

Tag Archives: European Starling