Birding

I really haven't been birding very much lately and what I have been doing has been very abbreviated. That's why it's kind of ridiculous that I just added 3 birds (pretty much the only 3 birds I've seen in the last month) to my life list :)

Tonight I went to the harbor in the morning but I barely had any time so I saw a Goldfinch and a female American redstart (not a bad find), but that's all. So I went back this evening and on a whim stopped towards the front of the park where there's a gate to the back of the golfcourse and there's a little pond that I've seen things in before. I walk about 2 feet into the gate (where I am NOT supposed to be - the gate's usually locked) and see something, bring up my binoculars and there is a Green Heron. SO COOL. There were actually two. The first one shown is the juvenile and the rest of the pictures are of the adult. I don't think I've ever mentioned this, but just FYI what I can see through my binoculars is much closer and clearer than what I photograph. So, the pictures are a little grainy because I zoomed in digitally on them (and it was dusk, so not really enough light for pictures), but you can see him pretty well. The first pic was taken through the gate and I'm actually waaaaay closer to the juvenile than I was to the adult, but it looks the same distance because I digitally zoomed the adult pics and not the juvenile.

If you look closely, he is looking down his nose at me. They have very odd eyes.

As I'm watching the Green Heron, I look back at the path behind the gate (it's a very wide path) and there's a Chicago Police Car parked there. Ruh roh. I was disappointed because I knew he was going to tell me to get out of the golf course. So I stepped out of the gate and he rolled down the window and asked me what I was looking at. I told him that it was a Green Heron, and he's like "Cool - I've seen some Night Herons in there sometimes". Oh yeah. The cop was a bird enthusiast :) We sat and talked for about ten minutes, I showed him some pictures, and then he let me go back in. Not a bad idea, making friends with the cop that patrols the park, eh? I also made another friend, Maryanne, who is an amateur like me. I let her look through my binoculars and we talked all about the herons and the hedge and stuff. She told me about a spot quite a bit further south where I might see some Yellow or White-Crowned Night Herons, and I walked all the way down there, but they weren't there (although there were some Wood Ducks and some other ducks that I didn't identify). Still working on those.

Part II: I was down in Fishers a few weeks ago and I convinced Mom to go birdwatching with me. Before that little trip, however, we had dinner one night out on her balcony and what do we see up in a nearby tree but a Cedar Waxwing. It was very dark so the picture's kind of terrible, but he was very pretty ;)

So for our trip we went up to Morse Reservoir to a spot where we used to go fishing. At the dam are a TON of Great Blue Herons (around 15), Canadian Geese, and one Least Sandpiper. When we were pulling up I mentioned that I really wanted to see a Belted Kingfisher. I think I thought of it at that moment because the dam spillover is the type of habitat that it would fish in. So, because the Bird Gods apparently grant my every wish...

I saw him fly from the trees and saw his white underwing stripes which looks a lot like a Mockingbird's wings, but I could just tell from his disproportionately large head that it wasn't a Mockingbird. I knew what he was pretty quickly. He caught a fish and sat on the fence trying (for probably 10 minutes) to get it positioned so he could eat it.

Love this shot

I have some really ridiculously good shots of a Least Sandpiper, Sanderling, and Semipalmated Sandpiper from Montrose a few weeks ago too, but I'll post them later.