A few pics from last night

My friend Amy posted these on facebook, but for those of you that aren't on it, here are just some snapshots from the other night.

Me, Katie, Paul, and Amy
Me, Anne, and Katie sitting on Amy's balcony overlooking downtown Chicago

Me sitting on Amy's balcony because we were 21 stories up and it was making me feel woozy (no jokes about the wine, please)

We were there for dinner, which was VERY good. Originally it was because Amy was leaving next weekend to move back to Baltimore, but she got her contract extended another month - Yay! (She's a traveling nurse).

Starved Rock again

I went to Starved Rock again on Saturday. I just went by myself to see the Bald Eagles. I did truly try to do research to confirm that they were actually there this time, but couldn't find any real-time info and everything said that they show up around mid-October. Well, the reason they come down here, turns out, is that when the rivers up in Wisconsin and Minnesota where they live freeze over, they come down the river to eat at the dam. Guess what hasn't frozen over yet? So no Bald Eagles, or really much anything else to speak of, but I had a lovely time hiking! And I'm sore to prove it! I did see a few new species and a few old however. I saw a Red-Bellied, Downy, and Hairy Woodpeckers. The Downy and Hairy are nearly identical except for size of both their body and beak. I saw them in the same clearing so it was easy to see the difference. I saw tons of Black-Capped Chickadees, Blue Jays, Grackles, and Starlings. There were these huge swarms of Starlings and Red-Winged Blackbirds flying overhead. Not as big as I saw in Oklahoma, but still. One swarm of Red-Winged Blackbirds went right over my head when I was up on one of the cliffs, and it looks so neat because of the uniform red patches on their wings. Hard to describe, I guess. I also saw a Brown Creeper, which behaves just like a White-Breasted Nuthatch and has the same body type. He was whistling at me for a long time and then just flew up to me essentially. Has a really high pitched, short whistle as a call. I also saw a few Tufted Titmouses (I really want to say Titmice for plural, but I know it's wrong). I think I saw one of those at Eagle Creek the other weekend, but this time the ID was more definite. They have a gray crown, amber belly going into white, and a little black spot right between their eyes. They are actually slightly larger than I thought. I thought they would be around the size of a chickadee, but they're almost as big as a Cardinal. Then as I was leaving the park I drove down another road that borders the opposite side of the Illinois River as Starved Rock and saw a hawk up in a tree. I turned around and parked across the road from him and looked through the car window and was able to see an American Kestrel. I was able to see him up close and not backlit so I could see his coloring and the markings on his face. That was very cool. I've been able to identify Kestrels due to behavior more than once, but never got to see their fancy coloring. Sorry the pictures aren't organized, I'm just tired and didn't feel like doing it :( So here are my birds, and then a few pictures of the park. The picture w/ the waterfall is one of the canyons, the one w/ the stairs is Council Overhang (where the Indians that lived in this area had meetings), and the one of the river is the view from Eagle Overlook. There are two islands in the picture which are Plum Island and another one that the Eagles nest on in the winter.

American Kestrel White-Throated Sparrow (saw it at Montrose Harbor - the only thing left there)

Brown Creeper

Tufted Titmouse

View from Eagle Overlook

Council Overhang

Birding 11/1/09

So, yesterday, actually, I walked out my front door to a peculiar sight. A dead bird was lying on my front sidewalk in the courtyard. And not just any bird, but one of the most peculiar birds I have ever seen. Very interesting black horizontal barring on the back of the head, eyes, way far back on the head, gray, black, brown and buff coloring, and about a 2 to 3 inch long, thin beak. Just lying there. Not a mark on him. No bugs, nothing. So, turns out that he is a rather shy shorebird called an American Woodcock. I took pictures that I have decided not to post because I'd rather look at pictures of live Woodcocks. So here's one, although the one outside my door had a much more amber colored breast. I'm not sure if it counts as "seeing" one, when it apparently drops out of the sky onto your doorstep. I hope to see a living one one day.

So then today I went to Montrose Point and saw quite a few new birds. I saw three Horned Larks out on the sandy beach where the grasses are. I've never seen any birds there. They were cute. They're actually the very last bird in my bird book, so it took me a while to figure out what they were. In the first picture, you can see his "horns". I didn't see them like that (it's a mating thing), so the second picture is more how I saw them. The ones I saw were 2 males and a female.

I saw a Fox Sparrow rummaging on the ground for insects. He was actually clawing the ground really hard to dig them up. He was easy to identify because of the grey head. He was hanging out with some Robins which were doing the same thing. There are quite a few rufous-colored birds with white breasts that streaked or speckled, and I haven't gotten the hang of identifying them yet. But he was easy because of the head.

I also saw a Blue-Headed Vireo. My first Vireo!! He had a distinctive white eye ring that extends across his beak to form a kind of mask. I think I've actually seen one before, but had been unable to identify it. He also has a yellow wash under his wings and on the sides of his breast, but his actual breast is white. He let me look at him really close up for a while, which always makes identification easier. Someone else that came out and let me see her close-up (i.e. within 2 feet, maybe?) was another Golden-Crowned Kinglet. So, so tiny.

As I was leaving the park I looked at the inner harbor and saw some duck-like birds in the middle that didn't look like Mallards. So I parked the car and ran over to see if I was right. I had heard that you can find different types of ducks and waterbirds there sometimes, but all I've ever seen are Mallards. So there were about 20 or so black duck-like birds out on the water. They were pretty far away, but when I looked at them through my binoculars I could see that they had a white beak. So I thought, "Easy identification", right? Um, no. Because I thought they were duck-like and didn't look far enough into my bird book. There were no other waterbirds that were all black and gray with a white bill. So I "bing"-ed it and found it right away. They were American Coots, which are Rails, not ducks. On the water the look like ducks, but if you see them walk, which I did not, you'll see that they have long-ish weird looking legs. I posted a picture of one walking and a close up of their feet. They don't have webbed feet, but have additional "lobes" on their toes to help them swim. So nifty.

As I said, I haven't gotten the hang of the brown/white streaked breasted birds yet. I THINK what I've been seeing a lot of (Mom and I saw them at Eagle Creek and I saw a bunch today) are Wood Thrushes. But I've posted a pic of an Ovenbird (1st) and a Wood Thrush (2nd). Wood thrushes are significantly larger than Ovenbirds, which is why I think they are Wood thrushes. The birds I saw were hanging out with Robins and were almost as big, whereas Ovenbirds are notoriously shy and are more the size of a wren, I think. They are ground dwellers, so you're always looking at them through brush and they're hard to see. When I've seen them (which, of course, they may not all be the same ones) they've had VERY bright rufous tails that seem to contrast slightly with their wings and back, but I don't see that in any birds as a characteristic, so I'm at a loss a bit.

So I'm very happy with my birding today. I was really only out there for about an hour and a half, and it was very relaxing. I would have preferred less people around, but, oh well. :)

UPDATE: So after posting this, I decided to do a little research on all the different types of brown/rufous birds with white streaked breasts. There are Veerys, Brown Thrashers, Wood Thrushes, Hermit Thrushes, Ovenbirds, Wrens, and many more. HOWEVER, I have definitely identified the birds that we saw at Eagle Creek as Hermit Thrushes. When we were watching them we noticed a few distinct behaviors and plumage. I noticed that his tail looked very red in contrast with his wings, which were more greyish. Also, they have a tendency to let their wings droop down and lift their tails high in the air. They did that over and over and it was distinctive. So as I'm doing the research in the Hermit Thrush notes on http://www.allaboutbirds.org/ it says that they do all of the above in behavior and that the plumage is also as noted. I LOVE identifying birds by behaviors or habitat. Also Hermit Thrushes are the only thrush to stay in Indiana year-round. Tada!!

Halloween!

Anne went as the St. Pauli girl. AND she made the outfit! Impressive, no?

I went as Hera, Queen of the Gods. If you look really closely at some of these pictures, you can see my peacock earrings. The peacock was her sign. I am a nerd.

Bill is a "Garbage-can Knight". This is an extension of the "Drunken Bicycle Jousting" outfit from earlier this summer. We also thought he could have been Oscar the Grouch with a little green hairspray.

Me and Amy, the ref.

Amanda is a ladybug and Katie is a martian. I'm not sure about the boys.

Everyone.

Kitty was a blank canvas. She was wearing all white, and brought markers that we used to write on her.

After the bar, I went down and met Natalie at Gannon's. She's not wearing a costume because it was her 30th birthday!

Later we met up with Emily, who went as Madonna.

That's all!

Cranes and BlueJays and Merlins, oh my!

I almost titled this "Cranes, Trains, and Automobiles", but it didn't make any sense. So on Saturday morning (early), Mom and I met at Jasper-Pulaski Wildlife Area to see the migrating Sandhill Cranes. We did a little research (very little) and knew that they met in a particular field to "socialize" on their migration flight path. They roost in the trees, then fly out in the mornings to this field, then fly out to the farmer's fields to eat during the day, fly back to this field to chat some more then either move on or roost again for the night. I was running late (because I didn't get up at 4:30am when my alarm went off, shucks) and thought I was going to miss the cranes. I was very upset. Turns out, they stay in this field and just kind of come and go all morning and really all day. I turned into the parking lot and opened my door, and Holy Cow these things are loud! They kind of sound like a mix between a Turkey and a Goose. Honky, but with a little trill to it. I have a video that I will try to post in which you can hear them all together, and then at the end (assuming you haven't thrown up by then - the video's a little shaky) you can hear an individual crane as he flies overhead.

So this is the field where they all hang out. There's a ton of pictures here. You might want to click on some of these pictures to see the big version, so you can see some of their coloring and stuff.

I love watching them land. This guy's getting ready for landing. They look so awkward with their long legs hanging down. Mom said that it's fun to watch them as they look for a spot to land - like they're looking for their friends.

This is one of my best shots - you can actually see the red on their heads.

Something scared them (maybe a coyote) and a bunch at the far end of the field all took off together.

This is a dance that they kind of do. Not many of them do it really. In the spring, there's an elaborate courtship dance that they do, but in the fall they just kind of flap their wings a bit.

Later, after we had our fill of cranes, we walked around the Wildlife area looking for other birds. Then we tried the Kankakee Fish and Wildlife Area, and then the Tippecanoe River State Park. The Fish and Wildlife areas don't have trails and I was super paranoid that I was going to get shot because it was hunting season. So the State Park was better. Here's a shot of of where we were walking.

A Canadian Goose that we scared away in a algae-covered bog. We also scared out a Great Blue Heron.


More Scenery:

A picture (that I didn't take) of a Red-Headed Woodpecker and then a Juvenile. I saw both (and probably some females). We saw lots and lots of these!

We also saw some Blue Jays, White-Breasted Nuthatches, Robins, and what we are reasonably sure was a Broad-Winged Hawk. We had to do that by process of elimination. We were standing in the middle of the woods and Mom grabbed my shoulder and we saw a very dark hawk fly away. It happened very fast and I didn't get a good look at him, but Mom saw a white tailband. After looking through the books we saw that there are only two Hawks that are in our region and hunt in the woods - the Red-Shouldered Hawk and the Broad-Winged Hawk. The red-shouldered hawk has a heavily striped tail and the Broad-Winged Hawk has a single white tailband that is highly visible. So I'm about 90% sure of that identification. It was funny, as I was watching him, he seemed just a little awkward as he was flying. Maybe it's hard to keep from hitting the trees?

MONTROSE HARBOR:

Then, today, I decided to just run down to Montrose Harbor for a bit for fun. I brought my camera so I could take some scenery pictures for you guys.

Here is a friendly squirrel. He didn't mind me at all.

Here's a whole bunch of scenery shots. This is the actual "magic hedge" on the right.

There is a bird in this picture, see if you can find it!

The view down on the lake of the Chicago skyline

This is the "pier" where I saw the cormorants and sanderlings last week.

The beach

I don't know what bird this was, but I thought the silhouette was neat.

This is the big pasture in the middle where I saw the Northern Flickers last week.

I've always thought that this dead tree should have a hawk perched on it.

The entrance

So I did actually see some birds. Right at the front I saw a little guy with a yellow streak on his head. He was a Golden Crowned Kinglet. Apparently the male sometimes has a larger streak with bright orange in the middle, so the one I saw was probably a female. I also saw an Eastern Kingbird, some Flycatchers that I didn't try to identify, and another warbler that I was unable to identify. Might have been a Nashville Warbler, but I'm not sure.

Here are the Golden Crowned Kinglets (not my picture, obviously).

THEN. I was about to leave and I saw a dark form in the air out of the corner of my eye. I look up and I know it's a raptor. She was pretty small, but I got her in my binoculars as she was soaring. She was right above me and I could see her really well. As soon as I saw her, I thought she was a Merlin. She actually hovered in the air right above me. They have a distinctive checkerboard brown and white pattern on the underside of their wings and barring on their chest. Other hawks and falcons also have this, but hers was very distinct coupled with her size. Merlins are only slightly larger than pigeons, which is their main prey. They're also called Pigeon Hawks. So she soared out of sight and I ran back toward the lake. I walked along the trail and came to a very abrupt stop as I saw her perched in a tree! And so I took some pictures! Very fuzzy, bad pictures, but pictures nonetheless. This is the first time I've every been able to "stalk" a raptor of any kind. Merlins are actually Falcons, not Hawks. So here's a couple professional shots of Merlins, then mine :)

I actually got to watch her chase a pigeon or mourning dove! At the time I thought the other bird seemed unconcerned, but that's before I knew that it was prey!

So here she is perched. Yay 10x optical zoom! And this is without a tripod! I actually had a tripod in my backpack, but not enough time to set it up.
So here she is soaring. A nice silhouette. You can see that her wings are a little thicker in the middle and then come to a point. The bulgier part means she's not a Peregrine Falcon, and the point means she is a Falcon. And you can see that she has a relatively long tail.

I couldn't decide which "perched" picture was better. This one is more from the side and the first one, she's facing me and you can see her tail better if you zoom in.

So that pretty much made my day. I practically skipped to the car. Oh, you might be wondering why I keep calling it "her". The females are more brown on their backs and the males have more of a slate gray color. She was definitely brown, so it's a female.