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.

Birds

I know I haven't been posting much, but I haven't been doing too much bird-watching. I went down to Montrose Harbor last week after going running, so I didn't spend too much time because I was tired but I did see some interesting birds.

As I was walking through, I didn't really see any birds in the trees, but I saw some somewhat large birds flying away from me that had white rumps. I didn't think too much of it because I thought they were robins. I went on down to the beach and walked out onto this concrete pier that goes out into the lake. I saw a couple of brown birds that looked like cormorants but didn't have the correct coloring. One flew up and perched on this big structure of some kind (probably used to have a light in it) and another flew down and floated on the water. I looked at them for a long, long time then when I got home I was able to identify them as Juvenile Double-Crested Cormorants. So, my first instinct was right. That might be the first time since I've started that that's happened :)

Then I was kind of bummed about not seeing too many birds and I just kind of rested my elbows on this concrete ledge that was chest-level and kind of relaxed. All of a sudden 4 little white and grey birds fly down and land on this ledge about 30 feet from me. I turn to them and look at them through the binoculars and they're just walking along, pecking at the concrete, walking towards me. So I lowered the binoculars and just watched, and darned if one of them didn't walk right up to me! I made a very small sound (oops) and he looked slightly alarmed and walked quickly away. I could have reached out and touched him. He was so cute! So then I watched them as they flew away and saw white stripes on their wings, much like Killdeer and Sandpipers.

On my way back through the hedge, in a clearing I got a good look at those white-rumped birds again and started stalking them around the park. They were large, about 12 inches, and perched both in trees and on the ground. They had SO much going on. Brown head, black beak, black "bib" on their neck, black "moustache", red heart-shaped mark on their nape, black speckling on their body, white rump, and, best of all, when they flew you could see the most beautiful saffron color on their wings, so that it looked striped yellow and black on their wings. They are in the woodpecker family and are called a Northern Flicker. After stalking them a bit, I realized that there were at least six of them and I wasn't the only birder out there checking them out.

Neither of those pictures show the black "moustache". One is red, and one isn't there. From the pictures, it seems that that can differ. Also, the eastern sub-species is the Yellow-Shafted Flicker, and the western is the Red-Shafted Flicker. The ones I saw were yellow.

So, when I went to Oklahoma, I wasn't able to go bird-watching, but I still saw some cool birds. On the way home from the airport I saw at least 3 hawks. One was coming right at me and I thought it had the head and size of a Kestrel, but I wasn't sure. Later that day, Christine and I drove to Target and as we were going down the interstate, which is lined with fields, we saw 2 different hawks exhibiting the same behavior, which was to soar close to the ground in small circles, obviously hunting, and then every once in a while they would flap their wings over one area to stay in the same place. I knew that I had seen this behavior described in one of my books, and when I got home to Chicago I looked it up and it is an extremely common behavior of American Kestrels. I wish I could have seen their coloring, but I couldn't. It's neat. So I'm very confident that those were Kestrels.

So as I was looking in the bird book (yes, I brought my binoculars and bird book to Oklahoma, why do you ask?) I was just pointing out cool birds to Michael and Christine. I showed them a Scissor-tailed Flycatcher and said that I really wanted to see one, but that they weren't up in my area. Well, I looked at the map and they're natural habitat is centered on Oklahoma! Michael and Christine both said they'd seen one. But since I wasn't going to have the chance to go bird-watching I didn't think I'd see one. On Sunday morning, driving to church, I was watching the electrical wires, as is normal for me now, and I saw one!!! I was so excited! Michael thought it was funny. THEN, on the way to the airport, we saw another one. But in that case, I was able to get a better look at it because we were waiting to turn left at a T, and it was right in front of us.

Also in Oklahoma are Great-Tailed Grackles, all over the place. The females and males look different, but they weren't any shyer than the Grackles here :)

And I saw a Blue Jay. I had forgotten how gorgeous their coloring is, and I swear I haven't seen one in the Midwest in years - anyone else?

So, that's all, but they were all pretty cool.

Oklahoma, Cole, Abby, and Birds

So I went to Oklahoma to see Michael and Family (it's gotten so big that they are just "and family" now). I was a little sick unfortunately, but Christine said it wouldn't be the same if one of us weren't sick :) So I was highly averse to makeup only when the pictures were being taken apparently :)

Abby looks thrilled, no?

I love the little smile!

Big Yawn!

The sleeper I got him :) He looks slightly startled by this turn of events.

What happens when you tell Abby to smile:

Hee.

And a video that isn't terribly interesting, I'm afraid, aside from watching Cole.