Month: October 2017

Finches

Finch activity at Greenwood Cemetery in Rockford (NE corner of N. Main and Auburn Sts) is heating up over the past few days.

A smattering of Pine Siskins has been hanging around for over a week.  This morning, Steve Gent and John Longhenry had 45 in a flock.  Around 11:45 am, I had a flock of 55.  About the same time, I had a flock of 18 Red Crossbills fly over headed NE.  Yesterday, Larry Balch had a flock south of the chapel which flew SW.

John Longhenry had 2 White-winged Crossbills yesterday at the circle with the hemlocks north of the chapel.  A migrating Cooper’s Hawk soared over the cemetery around 1:00 p.m. yesterday.

There are a lot of cones on the conifers in the cemetery, particularly on the hemlocks.  This place bears frequent checking.

Ipsen Rd Conservation Area

I was in Ipsen Rd CA again this morning, I stayed pretty much in the southern part of Ipsen and didn’t go into Newburg Village CA.
I had a pretty good showing this morning with several species of sparrow including Fox, White-crowned, White-throated, Field, Swamp, and one Clay-colored. One Hermit Thrush. Some waterfowl including American Widgeon, Blue-winged Teal, and Gadwall. Probably my favorites for the day were the Northern Harrier that flew over, and the four Rusty Blackbirds that were in the pines.

Ipsen Rd and County Line

This morning I was at Ipsen Rd Conservation Area in Boone Cty. There were quite a lot of sparrows in small groups all over the sites with a few groups of White-crowned Sparrows, and an enormous mixed flock of blackbirds stirring as I got there. Mostly Redwings, but there was at least one Rusty Blackbird in the mix. In one little patch of woods there was a group of Ruby and Golden crowned Kinglets, a Brown Creeper, a Red-breasted Nuthatch and few others. The best for the day was in County Line Forest Preserve on the Winnebago Cty side, there was a Peregrine Falcon perched in a tree eating a bird.