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!