North Central Illinois Ornithological Society

Yesterday, Jan. 8, Barbara saw a male Merlin fly out of Anna Page Park and cross Safford Road toward the Berean Baptist Church. It circled around and returned toward the SE area of the park, where the tall pines and spruces are located. This is the same area where she found one on the Rockford CBC in 2008. If you are out in this direction, please report any Merlin sightings.

Barbara and I took a long walk around the series of trails that form a long E-W loop at Anna Page Park. The loop goes up on the dry dam, below the jaws of the dam on the west side of the levee, and back through the woods on the north side of Kent Creek.

We recorded 84 species in 3 hours. Most notable was a male Summer Tanager that flew from the east side of the dam to the west side. Also near the dry dam were at least 4 Henslow’s Sparrows (along and in the cool season grasses along the west shoulder of the dam and the northwest area of the creek), a Bell’s Vireo along the trail that enters the dam area from Porter Road (be careful of the construction of the water lines there), and a bunch (6) of Orchard Orioles out along the dam on both sides. We also saw 22 species of warblers in the walk, mostly in the hardwood forests both north and south of Kent Creek, an empid flycatcher that refused to call but was likely a Willow, and a lot of migrating warblers (I said 22 species), mostly Blackpolls, Bay-breasted, Blackburnian, Cape May, Redstarts and Tennessee, but also 1 Wilson’s and Orange-crowned, several Chestnut-sided, a N. Parula, bunches of Nashville, both Blue- and Golden-winged.

There were 2 Philadelphia Vireos calling (and visible) in our woods, and a Pine Warbler was still calling on territory from the pines just north of Page Park School near our property line with the park.

This afternoon, a pair of Pine Siskins has been collecting bills full of hair that we brushed out of one of our dogs. Presumably the female is doing the collecting while the male watches from a near-by perch. Then they fly back toward the large pine stand in Page Park, just northeast of our property.

Other yard sightings today were 6 Am. White Pelicans flying over around 12:15 p.m., 3 YB Sapsuckers, lots of Golden-crowned Kinglets, our first Ruby-crowned Kinglet of the spring, 2 Hermit Thrushes (1st arrivals) 4 Fox Sparrows (and singing), and a couple of Purple Finches. We saw a lot of E. Phoebes in the woods along the stream in Anna Page Park, and a pair is hanging around our house.

From Brian Leaf reporting for Mary Kisamore:

“Mary Kisamore is here, working in the library, and hasn’t had a chance to call the hotline. But she said she saw about a dozen red crossbills about 12:30 p.m. at Ana Page Park in the spruce trees at the bottom of the hill, past the Y in the road.”

Barbara and I saw an immature Goshawk fly over our woods and prairie about 4:15 p.m. today. There have been several Goshawk reports from along Lake Michigan already this fall, so I hope that this is going to be an irruption year for this species. That normally means a cyclical decline in grouse numbers up north.