North Central Illinois Ornithological Society

This morning, a flock of 16 White-winged Crossbills flew over while I was out along Safford Road getting the newspaper. They came from the direction of Page Park School. There is a stand of hemlocks on the west side of the school driveway, and I suspect that they had been in the hemlocks. I advise that you avoid the school property on weekdays during school hours. School security seems to be on higher alert there.

Barbara and I walked over at 10:45 a.m and found WW Crossbills feeding in the hemlocks. Shortly after we arrived, a staff member came out of the building to ask what we were looking at. We explained about the crossbills (generally) told her that there may be other birders around trying to see them. By the time we got back into our driveway, the flock flew up and circled around several times before heading off toward Page Park. We counted 19 birds.

I walked the full loop at Klehm from 12:00-1:00 p.m. today. I found the flock of Common Redpolls at the west end of the west loop in the birch catkins. They responded to pishing and came to perch at the top of a spruce, then returned to the catkins to feed. I counted 35 of them. A pair of Red Crossbills were calling while flying over, but I never located them perched. There was a lot of bird activity in the sun, particularly in the protected areas on the south side of the more dense plantings and on the south side of the visitor center. At the Center, birds were coming in to drink water from the gutter on the south side of the building. I saw 3 male E. Bluebirds, 9 Pine Siskins at the feeder (the feeders are being filled now) and 2 Yellow-rumped Warblers by the cedar stand just SW of the Center along the paved trail.

I needed to make a suet run to Eickman’s in Seward this afternoon, so I took the “Longspur Highway”, better known as Kelly Road, from Meridian Road to Pecatonica Road. I anticipated that yesterday’s snow would bring a lot of birds to the roadside, and my expectations were not disappointed.

The first few flocks were small numbers of Horned Larks, which was normal. However, about 1 mile W of Meridian Road, I started to find “small” flocks of birds that were mostly Lapland Longspurs, but with a few Horned Larks mixed in. The first two flocks had 100-125 birds in them, and 90% of the birds were Lapland Longspurs, the rest Larks. At one point, I had a flock of ~ 300 birds, again almost all longspurs with a few Horned Larks.

On my return, I had a megaflock of longspurs (~600) with 1 (I am not making this up) Snow Bunting, and a handful of Horned Larks. There were also flocks of 100-150 longspurs on Winnebago Road north of US 20, Harrison Road between Auburn and IL-70, and on Safford Road, just west of our house. Again, no Snow Buntings in any of these flocks. More longspurs were along Cunningham Road west of Hoisington, plus a very nice male Northern Harrier. Again, no Snow Buntings.

My total for 1.5 hours in the Seward/Winnebago area was about 1100 Lapland Longspurs, 50 Horned Larks, 1 Snow Bunting, 2 Red-tails, and 1 Harrier.

This area bears repeated checks for longspurs and Snow Buntings.

Around 2:15 p.m. today, I found a flock of 37 Common Redpolls at Klehm Arboretum in Rockford. The birds were feeding on Birch seeds at the far west end of the west loop trail. Also in the vicinity were 10 Cedar Waxwings. Waxwings are scarce at Klehm this winter, the likely result of a paltry fruit crop on the crabapples.

Around 3:30 p.m., I saw a Northern Shrike along Halley Road about 1/4 mile E of its intersection with Meridian Road, northwest of Rockford. This bird has been reported to be around that area since December 10 or so.

A few Snow Geese persist at Howard’s farm on IL 70. There are many Cackling Geese there, too. I did not try to count them. The Grover/Whitney team reported 161 from there on the Rockford CBC on December 17.

Last Wednesday, 12/28, Andy Sigler and Mike Madsen counted 22 Red Crossbills at Greenwood Cemetery in Rockford. Today, John Longhenry reports seeing 26. No one has reported White-winged in a while. Has anyone seen any there since Christmas Day?

Around 11:00 a.m. today, Andy Sigler and Mike Madsen saw an adult Golden Eagle along Wyman School Road, near Caledonia Road, in NW Boone County. The bird was flying SW, toward the Winnebago County line in the general direction of Rock Cut SP. Don’t know if it was seen in the park, but Andy and Mike were inside the Rock Cut CBC circle when they spotted it.

Yesterday, Ari Shavit posted to IBET that he saw a Long-tailed Duck and Surf Scoter on Pierce Lake at Rock Cut SP. Andy Sigler called me this morning to report that the birds were still there. Andy also saw an adult Lesser Black-backed Gull standing on the ice offshore from the concession stand by the boat launch on the south side of the lake. He said that the bird flew off around 9:00 a.m.

A few days ago, I spotted a Red-tailed Hawk with white wing tags at the Olson Annex of Rock Cut SP. The tags are white with black numerals 133. Anne Straight and others had seen a tagged Red-tail there about a week or so earlier, but Anne was unable to read the wing tags.

Anne furnished me with an email address for the O’Hare airport project which is capturing and tagging Red-tails in that area, then releasing them to other places.

Today I received a reply that the Red-tail which I saw at Olson Annex was trapped and tagged at O’Hare on October 14, 2011 and released at Rock Cut SP. The project would like updates if the bird is seen again. Please report future sightings to craig.k.pullins@aphis.usda.gov

An adult female Rufous Hummingbird is coming to a feeder at 908 Seventh Avenue, Sterling.

Bob and Andrea, the homeowners, have given birders permission to view the bird from their side yard. The feeder is in the side yard on the east side of the house. It is on a hook attached to the trunk of a very large tree just in front of a orange-brown fence. The bird perches in a bush below a window on the east side of their house or in the top of a young tree growing in the parkway in front. Please do not go closer to the feeder than a line running east from their front porch. That is, don’t go N of the front porch if it was extended east. Pictures will be hard to get from there, but that is the way it goes.

They may have a guest book out. Please sign it. It will be an eye-opener for them, and a lot of interest to their children, to see how far birders will come to see this bird in their yard.

Good luck.

A Common Loon was on Pierce Lake at Rock Cut SP today around 12;30 p.m. Mixed in the goose flock was a Snow Goose, and many Cackling Geese, 2 pairs of Black Ducks, plus miscellaneous C. Goldeneye, 1 Bufflehead, 3 Ruddy Ducks, several Common Mergansers and 2 Hooded Mergansers. The only gulls were Ring-billed.

A Red-tailed Hawk with white shoulder tags (black numerals “133″) was in a tree along the driveway to Olson Lake parking lot. This is probably one of the birds that was trapped, tagged and relocated from the O’hare airport project.