Swainson’s Thrush, LaBagh Woods

Every migration season is different, and if one species dominates this fall migration in Chicago, it has been Swainson’s Thrushes – I have seen them everywhere, almost every day, and this has been going on the entire month of September.

In the forest preserves I have counted so many they have sometimes seemed to outnumber the Robins. The second most numerous species in the preserves has perhaps been Northern Waterthrushes. But I have seen Swainson’s even in downtown Chicago.

155 N. Wacker

It has gotten to the point where I have stopped taking pictures of the Swainson’s Thrushes because it’s unnecessary just to document their presence. But then every once in a while there have been models that were hard to resist.

Today at LaBagh Woods, the Robins and the Swainson’s Thrushes were foraging from rocky shoals in the Chicago River.

Thrushes in the Chicago River