North Central Illinois Ornithological Society

This afternoon, I relocated a Northern Shrike at the dry dam in Anna Page Park in northwest Rockford. This is almost certainly the same shrike that Barbara and Beth Goeppinger found there on the Dec. 18th Rockford CBC.

I parked on Porter Road, just E of the bridge over the creek, and then walked S on the snowmobile trail. As the trail turned toward the east, and the north end of the dry dam, the shrike was visible as it perched at the top of a tree to the south.

I have not seen or heard many reports of N. Shrike in northwest IL this winter other than one found near the Wiegert/Telegraph Road intersection by Steve and Dottie Cooper on 12/10 and the bird reported by Anne Straight at Ayer’s Prairie in Carroll Co., so please reply to this post with date and directions if you have other shrike sightings. Thank you.

Barbara and I took a short walk on an abbreviated loop along the south side of Kent Creek in Anna Page this morning.  By the time we left the house, it was too warm to go out into the open areas around the dam, so we stayed on the equestrian trail in the woods with a brief look out on to the dry dam from the west end of the loop trail where the gate is smashed down. 

Only migrant was a Bay-breasted Warbler, but the highlight was a calling White-eyed Vireo out by the dry dam.  It was in the hedgerow along the base of the east side of the dam and south of the creek. 

We also saw that ATVs have been using the equestrian trail and tearing it up pretty badly in the areas where the ground is sandy.  We’re going to contact the Park District to see if they can put the gate back up, and maybe rebuild the fence in that area with a gate for pedestrians to get through and up on to the dam.

Barbara and I found 2 Acadian Flycatchers at Sugar River FP yesterday afternoon. 

There were 4 Willow Flycatchers along the dry dam at Anna Page Park in Rockford yesterday morning.

This morning, I heard a Hooded Warbler and a Canada Warbler calling from the woods in back of our house.

This morning, Barbara and I decided to keep the car in the garage and hike Anna Page Park for migrant birds and wildflowers.  We had a terrific morning!  Highlight was a female Summer Tanager in the woods along the south side of Kent Creek on the equestrian trail.  Also there were several nice groups of warblers, including Blue-winged, N. Parula, Palm, Black & White, Nashville, Tennessee, Pine, the ubiquitous Yellow-rumped, Ovenbird, and Northern Waterthrush.  Blue-gray Gnatcatchers and House Wrens were everywhere.  There were quite a few Rose-breasted Grosbeaks. A Red-breasted Nuthatch is still present and calling from the pines south of the parking lot with the wood chip piles on the west end of the park.  I suspect nesting, but can’t confirm it yet.  A Great-crested Flycatcher is calling from the woods behind our house.

The wildflowers were still in very nice bloom-the phlox are really out now, the Bluebells are still going strong, Swamp Buttercups are still quite fresh, and the large, white trilliums are showing up in a number of places. Wild Geraniums are really in full bloom, and Blue-eyed Marys are in their usual spot near the Camp Conestoga building.  Marsh Marigolds are still in flower, but the Dutchman’s Britches are finished for the season, as is the Cutleaf Toothwart.

An Orchard Oriole was singing from the trees east of, and below, the dry dam.  Quite a few Baltimore Orioles have arrived and are calling.  Only a few Indigo Buntings here so far, plus several Gray Catbirds.  A pair of Red-tailed Hawks were in flight-1 was carrying a snake.  A mink made a brief appearance along Kent Creek.

Barbara and I took a walk on the equestrian trail on the south side of Anna Page Park, which runs along Kent Creek, on Sunday morning.  The woods had a lot of bird activity.  We heard, and later saw, a Wilson’s Snipe displaying over the marsh on the north side of the creek near the dry dam.  A Sandhill Crane was calling.  We counted 13 YB Sapsuckers, over 20 Yellow-rumped Warblers, 3 Field Sparrows and 2 Eastern Meadowlarks on the south side of the dry dam, plus 2 Vesper Sparrows along a wheat field on the south border of the woods.  A Winter Wren was in a tangle of fallen branches along the trail.  Both species of kinglets were seen and heard, especially Ruby-crowned, which were everywhere and very vocal. 

2 Pied-billed Grebes were in the flooded area on the west side of the dry dam. 

We also picked up 2 full bags of trash along the trail and in the woods.

Barbara and I spotted a Broad-winged Hawk over our house and woods this afternoon.  It was the first we have seen this year.  It was earlier by 5 days than my earliest previous sightings over the last 10 years.  We also spotted a male Harrier, 2 TVs, an immature Bald Eagle, 3 Red-tailed Hawks, a Sharp-shinned Hawk, and a Ring-billed Gull, all in the course of 1 hour from 2-3:00 p.m. 

The trees around our house and woods are full of YB Sapsuckers.  Counted 6 on the property in a walk around the woods and afterward.  A House Wren was singing from the edge of the woods this morning around 0730, and a Vesper Sparrow was in the driveway with the juncos and Chipping Sparrows.  A Red-breasted Nuthatch is calling from the pines behind the Page Park School.  One has been hanging out there since at least March 27 and is presumably the same bird.

This morning, we took a drive out to the Pecatonica Wetlands area.  Found a Greater Yellowlegs, 6 White Pelicans flying over the Pec River on the south side of the Howard farm on IL 70, a pair of Bald Eagles on the nest at Howards, and Rusty Blackbirds in the swamp along Blair Road.

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.”