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| Birders scurried to Palos Park to see this Varied Thrush, a western species, in January. (photo by Bonnie Graham) |
(published 1-21-19)
Could it be that birding gets more interesting, and more exciting,
the longer we do it? Dedicated watchers know the answer is yes.
The 2018 birding year, officially The Year of the Bird, only
escalated our curiosity and passion for the hobby. It was remarkably newsy and birdy, filled with
feathery surprises, the latter including a plucky little plover, long out of season,
lingering on a frigid Chicago beach.
A major anniversary hovered over 2018, inspiring the Year of
the Bird celebration and calling attention to bird conservation at a critical
time. Ironically, just as the Migratory Bird Treaty Act turned 100, it came
under attack in Washington. A bill in Congress, HR 4239, would pull some key
enforcement teeth from MBTA, our country’s most important bird protection law.
National Audubon Society sued the Department of the Interior, with similar
suits filed by Attorneys General in eight states, including Illinois.
“State of the World’s Birds,” released in April, reported
that 40 percent of bird species worldwide are in decline, with one of every
eight threatened with extinction. BirdLife International issues the report
every five years.
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| This Long-tailed Jaeger was the first on record along Chicago's lakefront. (photo by Jake Cvetas) |
One of those potentially doomed species is the blue-throated
hillstar, an Ecuadorian hummingbird revealed to the world in September. An
estimated 750 individuals exist. Yes, amazingly, new birds are still being
discovered.
Northwestern University earned kudos in March for making its
glassy buildings along the lakefront less deadly for migrating birds. To reduce
collisions, the college applied patterned film to many existing windows and chose
glass with patterns visible to birds in some new construction. Chicago Bird
Collision Monitors advised.
Notes and scribblings
Bird Watcher’s Digest
celebrated 40 years of publishing and launched Redstart Birding, a gear company
out to fill the void left by Eagle Optics.
Julie Zickefoose, artist and author, spoke at Morton
Arboretum on back-to-back nights in June. Always the birder and keeping a trip
list, Zick observed a nesting killdeer at the Hyatt Regency Lisle—on the roof!
The gray jay is now the Canada jay. Remember that when you
visit the North Woods.
A yellow (not red) northern cardinal, spotted in Alabama,
went viral on Facebook. So did several hilarious photos of a high school golfer
in Michigan being attacked by a goose. Only his pride was hurt.
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| King Rails are usually elusive but this one awarded brief looks to patient birders in Chicago. (photo by Jackie Bowman) |
In March, I happened to be on the Wheaton College campus 90
minutes before the memorial service for Billy Graham. Hearing a mourning dove
calling, I looked around. The bird was on top of Graham’s namesake building.
Too perfect.
A white-tailed kite visited Porter County, Indiana, during the Indiana Dunes Birding
Festival in May. Found by Mark Welter, it was the third state record of the
species, the last being in 1994. Many festival attendees scored a highly
improbable lifer.
An out-of-range blue-footed booby sent birders scrambling to
Kane County in September. The Kane County in Utah, unfortunately.
But the Chicago region offered its own excitement for birders
in 2018, and plenty of it.
The year began with a mega rarity when Amar Ayyash bagged an
ivory gull at the Lake County Fairgrounds. Also in January, birders beat a
trail to Palos Park for a varied thrush in the yard of a birder-friendly
homeowner. Big Rock, Kane County, our
Kane County, would host a varied thrush in November.
Notable: Greater white-fronted geese were widespread in late
February; common loons were unusually prolific in March and April; numbers of
pine siskins were still around in late May; and black-bellied whistling ducks
turned up throughout the state from May to October.
DuPage highlights
The DuPage County Spring Bird Count on May 5 tallied a
record-high 188 species. Red-winged blackbird was the most numerous one by far,
followed by robin and palm warbler. A northern goshawk, spotted by Bob Fisher
in Woodridge, was the first SBC “gos” since 2000.
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| This Western Grebe on Lake Michigan was among many avian surprises in November. (photo by Tamima Itani) |
Morton Arboretum produced blue grosbeak, lark sparrow and
pileated woodpecker. Purple martins nested at the Arb for the first time after their
long-vacant house was relocated to Arbor Lake on the west side. Four martins
fledged.
St. James Farm featured worm-eating and hooded warblers in
May, and a bobwhite quail in July. Waterfall Glen hosted a wormie, too.
A neotropical cormorant appeared in Roselle, on the same
pond a neo visited in 2017. Same bird?
Joe Suchecki, bird monitor for Naperville’s Springbrook Prairie
Forest Preserve since 1994, added four birds to the site list: Carolina wren,
Brewer’s sparrow, whip-poor-will and willet. He’s now seen 236 species on the
property. With that total, just adding one
species takes some luck. But four in one year? As Joe told me, “pretty
amazing.”
Hawkwatchers completed their 13th fall season on
the hill at Greene Valley, counting migrating raptors almost every day for
three straight months. Northern goshawk, Swainson’s hawk and four golden eagles
were highlights. The team also witnessed a massive monarch butterfly migration
on Sept. 7, and 6,185 sandhill cranes on Nov. 10.
Kane County goodies, besides that varied thrush, included
yellow rail, red-necked phalarope, scissor-tailed flycatcher, Smith’s longspur
and a snowy egret in downtown Elgin. A pair of whooping cranes joined nine
sandies in a field near Hampshire in late October.
On the waterfront
You could fill a book with significant Cook and Lake County
sightings in 2018. The Lake Michigan shoreline combined with a higher density
of active birders once again delivered eye-popping results.
Parasitic and long-tailed jaegers, like avian fighter jets,
zipped past Wilmette’s Gillson Park in early September. A western grebe plied
Chicago and Evanston waters in November, with harlequin duck, red-throated loon
and red-necked grebe also making waves.
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| This female Great-tailed Grackle was a first for Lake County. (photo by Joan Campbell) |
Montrose beach and the Magic Hedge hosted barn owl, little
gull, least tern, red knot, loggerhead shrike, Bell’s vireo and yellow-headed
blackbird. King rail, a secretive marsh species, teased birders with brief but
regular appearances in June and July.
In May, Jon Grainger discovered and photographed a plumbeous vireo in Bolingbrook, a first state record.
Additional Cook treasures included black-belling whistling duck, cinnamon teal, cattle egret, snowy owl, Townsend’s solitaire, western tanager, prairie warbler and Harris’s sparrow.
In May, Jon Grainger discovered and photographed a plumbeous vireo in Bolingbrook, a first state record.
Additional Cook treasures included black-belling whistling duck, cinnamon teal, cattle egret, snowy owl, Townsend’s solitaire, western tanager, prairie warbler and Harris’s sparrow.
Great-tailed grackle was a premium find in Lake, discovered in
August by Bonnie Graham and Joan Campbell at Spring Bluff Forest Preserve.
They’d gone there looking for a reported whimbrel.
Al Stokie picked a hoary redpoll out of flock of 112 common
redpolls at Chicago Botanic Garden in January. In May, he located CBG’s
second-ever prairie warbler. The site surrendered a white-faced ibis for Amanda
Tichacek.
Also in May, a Hudsonsian godwit and glossy ibis shared the
same “fluddle” in Waukegan. Piping plover, a federally endangered species,
nested on a gravel parking lot at Waukegan Beach, and a colony of state-endangered
common terns set up shop in the dunes.
A mountain bluebird checked into Knox County in April. Chain
O’Lakes State Park, in McHenry, yielded black-necked stilt in May, and white
ibis in August.
In Springfield, where Governor Rauner proclaimed April 22-28
Bird Appreciation Week in Illinois, rarities included Swainson’s warbler,
Mississippi kite and little gull.
The roster of southern Illinois birds in 2018 felt Floridian,
with brown pelican, mottled duck, anhinga, white ibis and roseate spoonbill all
reported.
A Sabine’s gull at Dixon Waterfowl Refuge in Putnam County
was close enough for Chicago-area birders to chase in September. A second
Sabine’s turned up at Carlyle Lake two weeks later in downstate Clinton County.
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| This Yellow-throated Warbler in St. Charles was a most unlikely backyard visitor, given its arrival in late November. (photo by Chuck Berman) |
Home sweet home
Road trips, of course, are optional. In 2018, birders proved
once again that amazing things sometimes happen just outside the kitchen
window. A western tanager turned up at Springfield feeder in April, and Lombard
residents Rick and Mary Lingle noticed a summer tanager at their birdbath in
May. The snow and ice storm just after Thanksgiving delivered a chilly American
bittern to Diane Swaim’s yard in Aurora.
The most remarkable backyard visitor occurred in St. Charles,
where homeowner Jonathan Schuler attracted a yellow-throated warbler that
forgot to migrate. The bird appeared Nov. 22 and was still feasting on a hot
pepper seed cylinder at press time. On Dec. 15, it became the first yellow-throated
warbler ever recorded on the Fermilab Christmas Bird Count, an annual event
since 1976.
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| This chilly but resilient Piping Plover on Montrose Beach was the latest ever in Illinois. (photo by Fran Morel) |
The plover vanished for several days, then made history in
another state by appearing Dec. 15 on the beach at Indiana Dunes State Park,
just in time for that area’s CBC! Let’s hope the bird somehow survives the
winter or, better yet, moves on to a warmer climate.
Thanks for reading and may your 2019 be filled with
interesting birds!
Copyright 2019 by Jeff Reiter. All rights reserved.