NCIOS - North Central Illinois Ornithological Society

I heard second-hand this morning that someone may have heard a Whooping Crane in the company of Sandhill Cranes in the area of Moody Marsh. How’s that for an iffy report? Well, I can’t vouch for the information but it might be worth looking around if anyone is in that area. Thousands of Sandhill Cranes have been reported moving through the Chicago area in the last week or ten days, so the Cranes are definitely on the move.

Yesterday Morning (Saturday) there was a single female Common Redpoll under the Severson Dells Feeders.

Birded Rock Cut with my parents (Ronald and Patricia Callaway) and nephew (Dakota). Ducks were the big attraction as we saw 9 species:

Common and Hooded Mergansers
Buffleheads
Common Goldeneyes
Redheads
Ring-necked Ducks
Mallards
Gadwalls
and one Wood Duck

We also saw three Great Blue Herons, one of which flew close by, three Turkey Vultures, Bluebirds, and Song Sparrows.

I went hiking at Blackhawk Springs with my Dad, Ron Callaway, and we saw quite a lot of bird activity. It was really cold. There were tons of Bluebirds, American Tree Sparrows and Song Sparrows. We saw a Fox Sparrow and a lot of American Robins. When we got to the bridge near the Perryville Entrance we heard a familiar, “it’s-been-awhile” sound. An Eastern Phoebe was singing! What? I thought it was too early! I guess not! It really is a nice place to bird, even though it gets a little crowded sometimes.

Sorry, this is dated - I wasn’t set up to report until yesterday. A woodcock was performing an aerial display at Blackhawk Springs last Tuesday when it was so unseasonably mild. The Kishwaukee is high but I did see a Great Blue Heron earlier that evening also. A solitary male bluebird has perched on the box in my yard the past three mornings, so hopefully they’ll nest again this year.

There were about a dozen Eastern Meadowlarks singing and hanging out at Rock Cut State Park’s Olson Lake this morning. There were also Coots, Common Mergansers, Hooded Mergansers, Ring-necked Ducks, Common Goldeneyes and more swimming (and ice-walking) on Pierce Lake.

It appears that we were invaded by Fox Sparrows overnight. There were a bunch of them at the bird seed this morning. Also, yesterday there was a female Purple Finch at the Severson Dells feeders, noteworthy because they have been in really short supply this winter.

This afternoon the first Pine Warbler of the season (for me) showed up. It was under the suet feeder picking up tiny suet crumbs that the other birds had knocked loose.

Barbara and I had a couple of Tree Swallows over our driveway this afternoon. I saw 22 Hooded Mergansers and a few Common Mergansers at Rock Cut. Also today at Rock Cut: a Pied-billed Grebe, Canvasbacks and both scaup species, Buffleheads, Redheads and Black Ducks. Ruddy Ducks on the Rock River by Auburn St. Bridge. Yesterday 8 Tundra Swans on the Rock River between Byron and Oregon, 14 White-fronted Geese at Rock Falls and lots of Ducks up and down the river.

I birded with Jennifer Outcalt (my sister) at Blackhawk Springs over my lunch break. Raptors seemed to be moving about quite a bit with sightings of low-flying Red-tail and Cooper’s Hawks. The best find was a small group of Eastern Bluebirds and hearing a Song Sparrow singing away.

I will probably bring this up at next month’s meeting but has anyone used eBird before and if they have what do they think of it? eBird (ebird.org) is a great tool for birders because it allows us to put in our sightings in checklist form and let the computer do all the work. You can make graphs, keep year lists, life lists, county lists, individual location lists, etc.

Check it out if you have time. I was thinking of creating a community database for NCIOS - where we could all sign in with same user name/password and submit sightings. Let me know what you think (add a comment by clicking on the post title or where it says “no comments”)