Tag Archives: Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker

Spring arrivals

Posted on by
2

FOY or FOS? I suppose it all depends on the distinction you want to make. FOY is First of Year, FOS is First of Season.

Yesterday in the park there were four new species of birds, first for my season or my year. Sneaking out of the office two afternoons in a row has paid off.

Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker

A Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker. No wait, I saw one a few days ago. Well, this one was new anyway.

Brown Creeper

A Brown Creeper.

Rusty Blackbird

A Rusty Blackbird. I was looking for these guys. There were about six of them yesterday, but today they were gone so I’m glad I got a chance to visit with them. I took so many pictures of this one he finally started singing, to break the monotony of his photo shoot.

Ruby-Crowned Kinglet

A Ruby-Crowned Kinglet. I saw another today who wouldn’t sit still long enough. Sometimes they’re very cooperative. Rarely do I see the Ruby Crown he’s named for.

Field Sparrow

and today, in addition to a better view of a Field Sparrow than that when I saw my first last week,

Chipping Sparrow

there was a beautiful Chipping Sparrow, as an added bonus. This was a FOY.

Red Admiral

The Red Admirals were big on sunshine today.

Song Sparrow

And although Song Sparrows have been around for weeks, you never know when you’re going to find a particularly handsome one.

More to come when I get a little less bogged down at work!

Winter in Chicago Part II

Posted on by
2

Well, winter caught up with us at last. How naive of me to take the forecasters at their word last week when they predicted warm weather would continue. By Monday they were predicting Snow. And snow it has. The storm actually started yesterday, and has tapered off into flurries.

"Sammy" Sapsucker, 1-12-12, Millennium Park

This Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker was still drilling and sipping through the snow yesterday afternoon, in the trees by the bicycle rental at Millennium Park. More pictures to come, as soon as I can go through them.

Winter in Chicago, then and now

Aside

This has been the warmest La Nina ever, and I have to wonder if this hasn’t been the warmest January in Chicago. Of course it’s early yet. Last year on January 13 we had snow and the lake had a think layer of ice on it.

Snowcrow 01-13-2011

Lake birds, 01-13-2011

But the prediction this coming Friday is for above-normal temperatures to continue.

The lakefront sunrise Wednesday morning was earlier, the days are getting ever so slightly longer.

The crows, of course, were in attendance.

A now very famous Black-Throated Blue Warbler hanging out by the bicycle rental at Millennium Park…

has been sipping sap from the trees the Sapsuckers have drilled into.

The Sapsuckers themselves are late to leave.

Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker

There was also a Cooper’s Hawk at Millennium Park that morning, and I annoyed him enough by taking his picture. He eventually moved on, leaving the warbler safe.

I woke up this morning with the prelude to the Bach A minor English Suite playing in my head. Only the purest silence eventually makes me aware. There was a little frost last night, but by the time I left the house it had melted off. I went to the Chicago Portage to see what exists. The tangled web of bare trees and dried vegetation offered winter views. All quiet, asleep, but potential lurks in that dormancy.

I did not get pictures of all 11 species that I saw. The first bird was a flyover Mallard duck. A little later I heard a constant sound that resembled a murmuring quack, or perhaps it was a squirrel sound. It turned out to be a Downy Woodpecker pecking away at the dried stems of Phragmites that grow by the water. I can’t imagine if the stems harbor dead bugs or some other delicacy but the Downy was persistent, until he flew up into the tree and gave me this nice photograph, one of several.

There were Mourning Doves sitting quietly in a tree.

Music in my head at the Portage was Albeniz, since I recently decided to revive the few pieces I once knew. The birds complied and remained in C#.

Female Northern Cardinal

On the path ahead there were several cardinals and goldfinches foraging.

American Goldfinches

It has been so warm, lichens are growing on this dead log.

I left the Portage and went to the grocery store, where by this time my head was playing the Tango by Albeniz which is in D major. I only remember this because the woman in line behind me thanked me for giving her my “tickets” – there’s some kind of promotion going on that I don’t have time for – and our conversation was in D. What would she think if I told her I had made her talk to me in the key of the music playing in my head? Was it worth the tickets I gave her?

I saw a Junco at the Portage but didn’t get a picture of one until I got home. This one is through the porch window.

Dark-Eyed Junco

Later this evening I counted 23 Mourning Doves under my feeder. It was too dark to take a picture, but I counted them three times to be sure. I had thought they were in decline because I wasn’t seeing them. I have never seen that many in my yard, ever! The new feeder must be doing a good job.

With a little luck I’ll have some musical excerpts coming up soon. So you won’t have to try so hard to hear the music playing in my head…

Roundup of a few more fall migrants in the park

Posted on by
2

Ruby-Crowned Kinglet on the lawn.

Looking for birds on my lunch hour, which I tried to take as late as possible. Birds are more likely to forage later in the afternoon than midday, and the light was more indirect. I was also trying to avoid the crowds of people, which only got worse as the warm weather persisted toward the end of the week.

Ruby-Crowned Kinglets were abundant all week. You rarely see the ruby crown for which this bird is named (it looks like a little dab of bright red nail polish on top of the head, and the bird has control over whether he shows it or not). Sometimes they’re in the grass, but more often they are nervously flitting about in the trees with a distinctive flutter of the wings. Sometimes they’re as curious to see me as I am to see them.

Ruby-Crowned Kinglet

There were Yellow-Bellied Sapsuckers flying quickly from tree to tree, landing upright. These trees are popular with the sapsuckers, as you can tell from all the holes in their bark. Sometimes the sapsuckers whine like little kittens, and I can whine back to them. This bird was silent but undeterred by my picture-taking.

Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker

Also fond of trees are the Brown Creepers, who fly to the bottom of the tree and start creeping up, looking for insects. Then they fly down to the bottom of the next tree.

Brown Creeper

They might seem like little “nothing” birds – nothing flashy, small, unassuming – which is to their advantage, I’m sure. They go unnoticed as they blend in with the bark. I like them because they seem very focused, which is a quality I’d like to cultivate.

Brown Creeper

In the middle of the park as I sat on a bench waiting for sparrows to show up, a juvenile White-Crowned Sparrow flew into the yews.

Juvenile White-Crowned Sparrow

There was a Palm Warbler down in the gutter by one of the tennis courts, characteristically bobbing its tail. This was a hot spot for sparrows for a few days, and it’s where I first saw the Black-Throated Blue Warbler from my last post before he moved to the less-photography-friendly location where I took his picture. But the cement background doesn’t do much for this bird either.

Palm Warbler