North Central Illinois Ornithological Society

The Rockford CBC was held on Saturday, December 18, 2010. 37 field observers in 14-18 parties, plus 12 feeder watchers, participated. Overall, the day was relatively pleasant for birding. Temperatures ranged from 5-17 degress F. Wind was mild at 0-10 SW. Snow cover was 4″. In addition to walking and automobiles, particpants also cross-country skied (10.25 miles, 6.5 hours) and went by ATV (6 miles and 3 hours). Still water was frozen, and the rivers were only partly open.

The count recorded 69 species and 15,134 individuals, plus a Spotted Towhee (I’m sorry that the small party staking out the Kehoe feeder was not rewarded that day) in count week. A big “thank you” to Vonnie Kehoe for keeping the wood stove fired up and the hospitality even warmer for the window gazers.

A few highlights: this count exceeded previous totals for Bald Eagle. I eliminated likely duplicates from adjacent territories and still got to 44. This far exceeds the prior record. 18 Cooper’s Hawks squeaked by the old count by 1 (more feeder watchers?). There were large numbers of frugivorous birds. Cedar Waxwings set a new high at 313, while E. Bluebirds and Hermit Thrushes tied their previous high counts, and the 116 Am. Robins were close to their previous high. Many of these birds were feeding on hackberry fruits, which were abundant this year. Other species seen eating hackberries were E. Starling, Red-headed Woodpecker, N. Flicker, and YB Sapsucker. Oddly, no Yellow-rumped Warblers were recorded, but the poison ivy berries seemed diminished.

Other highlights: 3 swan sp. (flying away from the observers), 1 Eastern Meadowlark, 2 N. Pintails, 3 Wood Ducks, 2 Savannah Sparrows, 1 Common Redpoll.

“Lowlights” were only 25 Ring-necked Pheasants (more aggressive agricultural practices are eliminating CRP lands, plus cooler and wetter springs), lower than usual totals of Red-tailed Hawks and Am. Kestrels,
low numbers of Great-Horned Owls (fewer owling parties), a very low number of House Finches compared to prior years and a poor early winter for Pine Siskins.

Thank you to everyone who participated.

Dan Williams

Barbara and I had our first Common Redpoll of the season yesterday when a calling bird flew over us as we were cutting our Christmas tree at Williams Tree Farm west of Rockton. We also had a mixed flock of Horned Larks and Snow Buntings along Meridian Road just S of IL 75.

Please post your bird feeder sightings this winter, particularly of winter finches or other unusual birds, since the Christmas counts are coming up and having this information may be useful if your feeder is in one of the count circles.

Thank you.

Here are the dates for various Christmas Bird Counts in the Rockford area. Please contact the compilers to participate (assuming that you have not previously signed up at the Rockford Bird Club meeting in November). If you feed birds and live inside one of the count circle areas, your participation is very welcome and there is no charge! Here they are:

Rockford CBC. Saturday, December 18. Contact Dan Williams at 815-968-4732 or twotringas@gmail.com

Rock Cut CBC. Sunday, December 19. Contact Eddie Callaway at 815-323-0011 or at birdfreak@birdfreak.com

Whie Pines CBC. Sunday, December 19. Contact Eric Walters at 847-246-4312 or at ericwalters7@sbcglobal.net

Kishwaukee CBC. Wednesday, December 22. Contact Barbara Williams at 815-968-4732 or at twotringas@gmail.com

The National Audubon Society charges $5/person/per count for a participation fee to help defray the expense of accumulating and processing the data gathered on the counts. No charge for feeder watchers! If you can particpate, even for 1/2 of a day, please let us know. We can certainly use your help.

Thank you for volunteering.

After the Crane Count this morning, Barbara and I headed to Pecatonica to have breakfast with Jack and Joyce Armstrong.  We were pleasantly surprised to find Steve and Jean Gent in the restaurant, too.  All of us had been counting cranes, so we had a chance to discuss our sightings and, particularly, some shorebirds on Telegraph Road. 

About 1 mile east of Pecatonica is an old shallow oxbow that floods in spring and during high water.  This morning, we counted nearly 24 Pectoral Sandpipers (there could have been more out of sight behind the rise) and a small (10?) group of Lesser Yellowlegs.  Jack said that there were 2 small shorebirds which he said looked like Least Sandpipers when he and Joyce stopped there. 

Our count highlights were 12 Sandhill Cranes, 18 flyover DC Cormorants, 1 American Bittern (seen flying and landing near us in the pre-dawn light), 1 Virgina Rail (calling), 6 Soras (all calling), 2 Barred Owls and 1 Pileated Woodpecker.  We were counting at a restored wetland on private property.

If you are signed up for the Midwest Crane Count (Saturday, April 17th from 530am-730am) here are some resources to know what sounds you are looking for.

From the International Crane Foundation, a bio on Sandhill Cranes which includes sounds.

Listen to ‘unison’ call

The Macauly Library of Sound has a ton of sounds and video but I couldn’t find any specifically with the unison call. Just search for Sandhill Crane and there are a few hundred results.

Please feel free to add in the comments any additional info on Sandhill Cranes you find and make sure to report on what you see! (Not just cranes!)

Sandhill Crane in the middle of Canada Geese

The weather was frigid yet sunny. We had 11 counters (down from 19 the previous year) but still covered a good deal of ground. We found 11 new species for the count area bringing the two-year total species to 58.

We managed to find all seven species of area woodpeckers which is always a cool triumph especially in winter. A Peregrine Falcon was a nice addition as well.

Waterfowl numbers were WAY down do to hardly any open water which also explains the major decrease in Canada Geese numbers.

Full list of birds:

American Crow – 92
American Goldfinch – 49
American Kestrel – 4
American Robin – 2
American Tree Sparrow – 92
Bald Eagle – 2 (1 ad 1 imm)
Black-capped Chickadee – 142
Blue Jay – 37
Brown Creeper – 8
Canada Goose – 1,138
Cedar Waxwing – 25
Common Goldeneye – 2
Cooper’s Hawk – 3
Dark-eyed Junco -154
Downy Woodpecker – 37
European Starling – 576
Hairy Woodpecker – 7
Horned Lark – 25
House Finch – 45
House Sparrow – 598
Lapland Longspur – 3
Mallard – 140
Mourning Dove – 118
Northern Cardinal – 90
Northern Flicker – 1
Owl Sp. – 1
Peregrine Falcon – 1
Pileated Woodpecker – 3
Purple Finch – 3
Red-bellied Woodpecker – 15
Red-headed Woodpecker – 1
Red-tailed Hawk – 10
Ring-billed Gull – 1
Rock Pigeon – 149
Rough-legged Hawk – 1
Snow Bunting – 5
Swamp Sparrow – 1
Tufted Titmouse – 3
White-breasted Nuthatch – 37
White-throated Sparrow – 1
Wild Turkey – 10
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker – 2
Eastern Bluebird – 2
Ring-necked Pheasant – 1

Total Species: 44
Total Individuals: 3,637

Most species were found in lower than normal numbers. The exception was the roadside birds of open country – Horned Lark, Lapland Longspur and Snow Bunting. They were pushed to roadsides in good numbers by the snow cover. We completely missed White-crowned Sparrow, Swamp Sparrow, Great Blue Heron, Pine Siskin and Black Duck. However, new count records were set by small margins for Eastern Bluebird with 15 and Snow Bunting with 424. Two Peregrines set a new record and 28 Bald Eagles tied a record set four years ago. When this count started 20 years ago, we commonly missed Bald Eagle entirely. Those big boys have become pretty common in a short time span!

1633 Canada Goose

195 Mallard

13 Common Goldeneye

10 Common Merganser

12 Ring-necked Pheasant

38 Wild Turkey

28 Bald Eagle (8 ad, 20 imm)

2 Sharp-shinned Hawk

10 Cooper’s Hawk

65 Red-tailed Hawk

6 Rough-legged Hawk

8 American Kestrel

2 Peregrine Falcon

16 Ring-billed Gull

14 Herring Gull

704 Rock Pigeon

341 Mourning Dove

1 Eastern Screech- Owl

5 Great Horned Owl

2 Barred Owl

4 Belted Kingfisher

4 Red-headed Woodpecker

102 Red-bellied Woodpecker

187 Downy Woodpecker

27 Hairy Woodpecker

9 Northern Flicker

1 Pileated Woodpecker

183 Blue Jay

3463 American Crow

551 Horned Lark

365 Black-capped Chickadee

40 Tufted Titmouse

6 Red-breasted Nuthatch

149 White-breasted Nuthatch

62 Brown Creeper

1 Carolina Wren

1 Winter Wren

6 Golden-crowned Kinglet

15 Eastern Bluebird

11 Hermit Thrush

21 American Robin

902 European Starling

362 Cedar Waxwing

1 Yellow-rumped Warbler

262 American Tree Sparrow

3 Fox Sparrow

6 Song Sparrow

5 White-throated Sparrow

750 Dark-eyed Junco

211 Lapland Longspur

424 Snow Bunting

451 Northern Cardinal

1 Common Grackle

5 Brown-headed Cowbird

1 Purple Finch

265 House Finch

171 American Goldfinch

951 House Sparrow

I have received all of the field team reports and all but two of the feeder reports. The final (mostly) total is 65 species, which is slightly below average for the past 10 years.

Highlights were Chipping Sparrow, Brown Thrasher, Winter Wren (2), Eastern Meadowlark, Eastern Bluebird (2), and 4 Northern Shrikes. New totals for high species numbers were counted for Black-capped Chickadee (677), American Goldfinch (653), Brown-headed Cowbird (112), Bald Eagle (29) and White-crowned Sparrow (6). Fox Sparrow tied the high with 8.

On the low or missing side, there were no Wilson’s Snipe for the first time in many years, no Common Goldeneyes or Common Mergansers, no Carolina Wrens no Yellow-rumped Warblers or Hermit Thrushes, and only 3 Ring-necked Pheasants!

A full list of the species and numbers will be sent to all participants with my compiler comments, and they will also be available on the National Audubon website after I post the final results there in a few days. Thank you to all who participated.

Happy New Year!

Dan

Merry Christmas and greetings to all,

We are missing a few of our usual Christmas counters for this year, but I think the count circle is pretty well covered. As I write this, the snow is still falling steadily. If you are participating in the count tomorrow, please don’t take any chances with your personal safety. Depending on what the weather does, driving and walking may present challenges. Just do what you can do without risk and keep track of your mileage and hours. If it’s too hard to do much walking the number of walking hours will be down and the number of birds found will reflect that. That’s why we keep track of the effort expended. It’s not worth frostbite, injury or car accidents. Be safe. Good luck, I hope you all have fun and find interesting birds.

Barbara

I have mailed forms and maps to all team captains during the past week. The last went into the mailbox yesterday, 12/11. The captains will call you to arrange meeting time and place, etc. If you have volunteered for the Rockford count, but don’t hear from your captain by Tuesday, 12/15, please call me at 815-968-4732. I’ll follow up to be sure that you are contacted. Thank you.