It’s so hard to leave, but preparation for it has also made it hard to do anything else. I’m leaving for the airport in less than 3 hours and I still have to buy fresh veggies for the indoor crowd and finish packing. So this will be a very, very quick post. The Cooper’s was in Grant Park last Friday when I managed to go down early before work.
Crows in Millennium Park
These pictures were taken over the last few days on my way to work or on a very brief lunch break. I managed to say goodbye to my crows in Millennium (there were about 20 overall) and on the way in to work, to my little friend Lincoln’s Sparrow who was still there as of yesterday. But I fully expect everyone at 155 N. Wacker to disappear over the next three weeks when I don’t show up to shower them with birdseed.
Crows with peanuts
The Hermit Thrush below was last seen a few days ago, but there were still some in Millennium Park as of Thursday.
Hermit Thrush, 155 N. Wacker Drive
Goodbye, little Lincoln’s. He’s been such a good friend. And he gave me an excuse to try out and learn how to use the flash attachment, bless his heart.
Lincoln’s Sparrow
The crows in Millennium have settled in as the crowds are dissipating. I hope I haven’t made them too tame.
I know the crows will be there for me when I return. I look forward to posting all about my trip when I get back.
Thanks to everyone for reading and following my blog!! I’m off on safari…!
Of necessity this will be short–I won’t go into my laundry list of excuses–but my theme today was inspired by the Barn Swallows above and below, sunning themselves on the platform at Emiquon National Wildlife Refuge, where I went with friends mainly to see shorebirds over the weekend.
Barn Swallow sunning itself
The Barn Swallow’s posture above reminded me of my Zebra Finches below who love to sit in the afternoon sunshine pouring through the kitchen window.
Zebra Finches in the sunny kitchen window
We visited Chautauqua National Wildlife Refuge first, which is where we saw the most shorebirds, and I’m still going through those distant photos. Even more challenging was trying to get a handle on how many American White Pelicans were enjoying the sunshine and each other’s company. Click on the picture below and tell me if you think it’s fair to estimate 600.
600 or so American White Pelicans at Chautauqua
We stopped by Banner Marsh after Emiquon to see what was up there. Not very much, but lots of Mute Swans, seemingly sunbathing near the shore.
5 Mute Swans at Banner Marsh
And lately on the hotter days downtown, Rock Pigeons have been plunking themselves down on the grass, sunbathing. I suspect many more birds strike this pose but we rarely get to see it. Pigeons living in the city take all public spaces as their living room. Although I did have a couple other pigeons who adjusted their posture to turn their backs on me when I raised my camera. Even a pigeon craves privacy.
Pigeon sunning in Millennium Park
The butterfly below is somewhat out of context but it was a nice addition to the Lurie Garden Purple Coneflowers this past week. Butterflies are getting a lot more attention from me lately because they are few and far between. I have started to see Monarchs, ever so few, but they are not stopping for photographs yet.
Black Swallowtail
I’ll be back. The days are getting shorter – that will force me back inside to my computer!
Okay, this is slightly off-topic, but I found it pretty interesting. I read an article in The New York Times science section about how bees get certain flowers to release their pollen by buzzing at a certain frequency which releases the pollen. It’s a fascinating article. At one point the researcher compares bees to “little tuning forks.” All that buzzing has a reason. Music to my ears.
Of course I have been bemoaning the lack of bees in my yard. Somebody else must be pollinating my tomato plants because they are bearing fruit, but I am not seeing the hoards of bees I used to have on my flowers. And my coneflowers don’t look as lush as usual. Now I know it must be because there are no bees to turn them on.
Another Bee
These pictures were taken yesterday afternoon at the Lurie Garden in Millennium Park. I confess I have been avoiding the parks since The Taste of Chicago began on Wednesday, but the weather was beautiful and I wanted to try out my new Canon 70-300mm lens. I sent the old one away to be fixed because it had stopped focusing after balking and acting up for about a year, but now I’m wondering if I’ll ever want to use it again. Never hurts to have a spare, but this new lens has spoiled me already.
I had to check and see how the new park is coming along…
Lurie was full of flowers, and here are some of my favorites. I also took pictures of the identification boards they update regularly, depending on the season. But the Compass Plant, one of which I photographed, doesn’t appear on either side of the board. Maybe there wasn’t room for everything and they had to leave the Compass Plants out, but they are big and blooming all over Lurie and on the restored prairies too.
Queen of the Prairie
Rusty Foxglove
Rattlesnake Master
Blazing Star
Pale Coneflower
Compass Plant
Not many breeding birds were available for photographs, but I did catch this female Red-Winged Blackbird running an errand, and when she flew away the camera caught her reddish epaulets which don’t show very often.
Maybe the subtitle of this post should be “Prairie in the City.”
At the south end of the park, the sculpture garden still blooms.
And as I waited for the light to change on Michigan Avenue on my way back to the office, a saxophonist I have never heard was playing very well with a band recording.
Summer in the City
There are no crows in this post, and that is no accident. They are keeping a very low profile with the summer crowds. But I bet they know where the Waste From The Taste is.
Nicer weather and the tourist influx makes Millennium Park challenging for birdwatching on my lunch hour, but it’s closer to where I work so when I don’t have a lot of time, the park beats sitting in the office. Sometimes having lower expectations brings surprises. One thing is certain: my beloved crows are not hanging out there too much. They are shy of most people and even avoid interacting with me in crowded situations. It’s certainly beneath them to beg along with the park’s summer residents that include Common Grackles and Ring-Billed Gulls in addition to Rock Pigeons and House Sparrows.
On Thursday I made my way over to the Lurie Garden at the south end of Millennium Park, which is in its first glorious phase of a full bloom cycle.
Lurie Garden
I am particularly fond of Prairie Smoke, which reminds me of cotton candy in its air-blown wispiness. It’s not in the photo above – the plants on the bottom right are Bergamot – but was elsewhere in the garden, and close up below. It’s one of the first flowers to bloom.
Prairie Smoke
On the way back I ran into a couple young Grackles,who had just fledged, by the appearance of their pin feathers.
Common Grackle Fledglings
And the Ring-Billed Gulls were still trying to drum up business. My friend Karen once called them “prima donnas.”
Ring-Billed Gull, begging
More to come from the City Parks. I was planning on birding the Portage this morning early, sort of doing a self-styled breeding bird survey, but one of my brake lines failed last night when I moved my car back to my side of the street, and my car is in the shop. It’s old and rusty, like its owner. 🙂
Still coming down from a weekend of intense but wonderful birding in Michigan. I might have managed a post Tuesday night were it not for a power outage around 8:00 p.m. that lasted three-plus hours. But it turned out to be an unexpected opportunity to catch up on some sleep, after whispering admonitions to the house birds to stay perched and sleep through the thunder and lightning.
Least Flycatcher, Millennium Park
So I got up early yesterday morning and went to Millennium Park, dodging the imminent rain drops. Flycatchers were abundant, as reported from other lakefront locations.
Alder Flycatcher?
Anyway here are some birds I encountered yesterday morning and later in the afternoon at Lake Shore East Park. I think the bird above is an Alder Flycatcher, but he didn’t say anything, so technically I should call him “Empidonax Species.”
The real surprises, or I suppose you could say wish-list possibilities, appeared in Lake Shore East Park yesterday afternoon. I went back this morning and could not find them… One was the prized Connecticut Warbler, skulking around in dark places: I guess the photograph below will have to do for now.
Connecticut Warbler, Lake Shore East Park
Add a female Common Yellowthroat. Perhaps she is the mate of the male who was singing yesterday and again this morning. She is the least uncommon of the three birds here, but lovely nonetheless, and easy to confuse with the other two.
Female Common Yellowthroat
The female Mourning Warbler below…
Female Mourning Warbler
and again here… is another less-commonly seen “skulker.”
Female Mourning Warbler
Thus we have three skulkers who all look quite a bit alike, and in most field guides they’re not far from each other, so you can make the comparisons and note the differences or throw up your hands in total confusion.
Eastern Wood Pewee, Lake Shore East Park
Not to skimp on flycatchers, the one above is at least recognizable as a Pewee. He sang a bit, too – always nice to hear. If I run into a Pewee song soon I’ll update this post.
Crow with Bat
On my way out, I walked through the back of the Aon Building where I have seen birds on occasion, and encountered this crow with its prey: I suspect it’s a little brown bat.
The crow took off with its bat soon after I shot a few more photos. I’m sure it didn’t want me to draw attention to its prize.
My last momentary offering is a recording of Beniamino, one of my Zebra Finch males, singing his heart out from atop a microphone while I’m practicing the prelude to the F major English Suite by Bach (it may take me a year, but I’ll get through these suites – 2 more to go after this one). Travel time has taken its toll on playing for the birds but I plan to stay put for a few months and get some more music in my fingers.
Endless thanks to all who follow me and to those I follow – I have some catching up to do! I’ll be back soon with reports from Michigan and the Kirtland’s Warbler.
While wading through weekend photos and recordings, I’m overdue getting caught up with the workday bird visitors who have proved so astonishingly cooperative. Whatever is this Field Sparrow doing hanging out with House Sparrows in the nicotine-stained bushes of the Thompson Center?
As I recall, he flew away when I first noticed him, and then after I stood there awhile, he came back and started finding excuses to forage close to me. I had to step back a bit to get these pictures.
The Chicago Loop/Lakefront welcome mat isn’t out like it used to be. The former Daley Bicentennial Plaza now looks like this:
Daley destruction
Millennium Park is under heavy maintenance, particularly in the bird-friendly areas, so that’s not a destination anymore. Northerly Island was designated habitat for a while, but the “temporary” Charter One pavilion is now being expanded to a concert arena for crowds of 22,000 people. Where’s a migrating bird to go, let alone a birder?
This Ring-Billed Gull was faring pretty well the last warm day I walked through Millennium.
There are other areas along the lakefront north and south of the city, of course, but they’re no longer part of the stretch that included downtown.
So on the way in to work I still stop by 155 North Wacker Drive. It has not been incredibly birdy lately, but there have been a few migrants, like this eager-to-please Common Yellowthroat (his initial reaction was the same as the Field Sparrow’s, and then he got curious, I guess).
Common Yellowthroat
Directly outside Union Station a few days ago, I saw this Wood Thrush.
Wood Thrush
I didn’t get to go out today for lunch, giving in to the threat of thunderstorms which have not occurred, a sudden burst of activity at work, and the need to leave early (thunderstorms be damned) to attend a DuPage Birding Club meeting. So I’ve spent my lunch finishing this post.
More to come from Lake Shore East Park, which has become my lunchtime refuge (and that of a couple crows I know as well).
I want to take a moment to thank you all for encouraging me to do this! Before I started the blog I was approaching a point in my life when I realized I had to make decisions about how I was going to be spending whatever “free” time I have, as there is so little of it left to my own discretion. Maybe in the back of my mind I did realize that keeping up the blog was going to consume a lot of that time. There was an “oh no” moment when I wondered what I had gotten myself into, but it didn’t last long.
And the blog took a different turn than I had originally planned. It has strayed more than a bit from the music and is often more about the birds, and in particular, pictures of birds. But in pursuit of those pictures, I find myself even more connected to the original conception.
I never set out to be a photographer: I only wanted to capture the birds’ images. Looking at them through the lens and later developing the images continues to inform me of the nuances in appearance and behavior, and reinforces what I remember from my encounters with them.
Indeed, they are encounters. One reason why I love to go looking for birds alone is because there are often one-on-one exchanges between us, when we both become creatures inhabiting the same space for a moment, and we acknowledge each other’s presence: it’s a form of recognition, of greeting, of communication that I find so special I am drawn to seek further encounters, wherever and whenever they may occur.
And therein lies the magic of it all. By making photography part of the obsession, I now go out more often, have more encounters, learn more, and feel inspired by the whole quest. And lately I have had this feeling, which I know I should distrust, but that I am becoming perhaps just a little bit better at it, with the sounds and the sights, of birds. I will never approach the level of those who have been searching after birds their entire lives, or certainly anyone who has years more of field experience than I do, but it is indeed a cumulative thing, and every year I feel more confident, more informed, and all the more curious. I have to keep reminding myself never to assume I know anything because a bird will surprise me when I least expect it to.
The birds are watching us all the time. They are curious about us too. We’re all in this together.
Please pardon this brief interruption.While I’ve been trying to get through other pictures for another post, I’ve been birding as usual on my infrequent lunch hours, interrupted by rain… (lots of it – maybe I should not have danced so hard through the drought?).
Chicago Loop in the rain
Yesterday on the way back from Millennium Park where I had basically seen nothing “new” and it started to rain again…I was carrying my 40D, an umbrella and the peanut bag, I had forgotten I had the camera on another setting for the rain pictures on the way in… and who should show up but my first-of-year Black-and-White Warbler, looking very bedraggled and wet, behaving like a Brown Creeper scaling the tree trunks, but definitely not a Brown Creeper.
In spite of the umbrella and the wrong setting a got a picture or two of the warbler anyway.
And here are a couple other volunteers from the park.
I went a different route at lunch yesterday, after realizing halfway to the park I’d forgotten the peanuts (can’t go out empty-handed). So after walking back to work to fetch my bag and start out again, I decided to try the Chicago River riverwalk to see how it’s faring, because Millennium Park soon will be too crowded and too crazy to visit every day, come warmer weather and passerine migration.
Not a lot to see yet on the way out to the lakefront, save the tile artwork inside the underpass that goes beneath Lake Shore Drive,
but when I got down to the harbor, there were Red-Breasted Mergansers everywhere.
There may have been a couple Coots, but it was otherwise Red-Breasted Merganserland. Except for people walking in the other direction which sometimes spooked the Mergansers,
I got close enough for some nice shots which is always lucky with the smaller lens and the 40D (my workday gear).
The female Red-Breasted Merganser below struggled quite a bit with her catch, until finally it was down the hatch.
On the way back, past Millennium’s north sculpture garden, I got a preview of the new exhibit. Colorful. Don’t know how the migrants will like it…
Reviewing my last couple weeks’ photos of winter birds, I realized I have accumulated a collection of cooperative Northern Cardinals – at least the males, the females still being rather shy. And often the pictures were taken in what seemed like the worst conditions – wind blowing so hard I wonder how the bird was staying perched. I can’t resist taking pictures of these bright, cheery fellows, especially this time of year when everything else looks less colorful.
Although I have never seen a group of more than perhaps four or five cardinals at a time, the most common group “name” is a college of cardinals. Since I don’t have a picture of a college, I decided upon collage instead.
Since I have started feeding the crows pretty regularly at Millennium Park, the cardinals have been showing up too. The male above was gutsy enough to get a peanut after much deliberation in the falling snow, a chorus of three crows watching him from above but (surprisingly) not chasing him away.
The wind sometimes makes a mess of crests…
Occasionally, a cardinal will engage the lens, rather than avoid it…
Below, a couple more photos from Crabtree Nature Center, where the cardinals were everpresent…
And my last cardinal looks to me like he’s smiling, on a sunny day.
