North Central Illinois Ornithological Society

I checked Lake Sule and the Intermodal Pond area in Rochelle late this morning. Highlights were a Horned Grebe on Lake Sule and my first Sora and 2 Lesser Yellowlegs with 14 Wilson’s Snipe at the Intermodal Pond.

Reports of arriving birds (that normally winter along the Gulf Coast) are being noted with some pretty early dates. However, hummingbirds are also being reported, including 2-3 in northern IL in the last 2 days. This is remarkably early for hummingbirds. We’re going to put a feeder out today. If you are interested in following hummingbird migration, here is a link:

http://www.hummingbirds.net/images/map-rubythroat-us.gif

Like Jack noted, we have a lot of wildflowers blooming in our woods: False Rue Anemone, Bloodroot, Hepatica are all blooming, Bluebells and Prairie Trillium are almost blooming. Our Redbuds are almost out, and the Flowering Quince is flowering. Burned the driveway prairie yesterday. Found several Little Brown Snakes around (which were not injured by the fire). Butterflies so far are Mourning Cloak, Cabbage White, and the punctuations. Barbara is working on Bumblebees already.

Late this afternoon, I found 18 Trumpeter and 5 Tundra Swans in the oxbows east of Rock City Road just north of Ridott. Also present were 90+/- Green-wnged Teal, about 20 N. Pintails, a pair of Am. Wigeon, 10 Cackling Geese, 1 Canvasback and 8 Bald Eagles, mostly immatures.

On Thursday, March 8, the duck flock had increased to approximately 500 birds. Most numerous were scaup (~300 with 80% Lesser), still good numbers of Ring-necked and Redheads, but Canvasback numbers were reduced. A new species from Wednesday was American Wigeon. A pair was in the inlet on the west side of the Red Oak picnic area.

At Nygren, 122 Northern Shovelers and at least an equal number of American Coots were visible from the observation deck. A small number (10) of Green-winged Teal were also there, plus some Gadwall and 3 N. Pintail fly-overs.

The strong south winds and warm temperatures are bringing a lot of ducks to Pierce Lake at Rock Cut SP. Ice only remains in the two northern inlets, where it is still shady and out of the wind, but the remainder of the lake is thawed.

At noon today, there were hundreds of ducks, including ~100 Redheads, ~100 scaup (80% Lesser, 20% Greater), 75+/- Ring-necked Ducks, 22 Buffleheads, 26 Canvasbacks, 9 Common, 2 Hooded and 2 Red-breasted Mergansers, 5 Gadwall & 3 N. Pintails. Only 2 species of gulls, and they have changed over. Now the gull flock is dominated by Ringed-bills (I counted 85) with Herring (17) a distant second. A single Bald Eagle (3rd year) was making the ducks nervous.

Grebes ought to be showing up with the ducks, but I didn’t see any today.

I took the dog for a walk around the loop road at Sugar River around 1:45 this afternoon. On the way, I stopped on Harrison Road to see what birds were hanging out at Winters’ wetland. There were 4 Trumpeter Swans. At least one was banded (black on yellow. They were quite far away, but with my scope I thought that the band was 81F). The banded bird is from the Wisconsin release program if I recall the color code correctly. A few Gadwall were also there, plus a nice male Harrier. It was too bright, and early, for the Short-eared Owl show to be going.

4 Barred Owls were calling at Sugar River. Nice day for a walk, although the afternoon was otherwise quiet for calling birds other than the owls.

This afternoon I found at least 7 Short-eared Owls at Shirland in northwest
Winnebago County. 7 was my high count of birds in the air at once.

The birds were hunting over a wetland preserve on the west side of Harrison
Road just south of Shirland (north of the steel bridge). THIS IS PRIVATE
PROPERTY. Do not trespass.

The shoulder on the west side of the road is too narrow to either park or
stand. Certainly no room for scopes or tripods. There is room on the east side
shoulder.

The owls were fairly far out over the marsh-the closest couple were over 100
yards from the road. Also present were 2 Harriers.

This is probably a good time to check Nygren Wetlands west of Rockton for this
species, too.

This afternoon around 3:30 p.m., I saw 3 TVs just north of the Whitman Street Bridge.

I found an odd dark mantled gull at Rock Cut SP the other day.

I took some photos which I attach here. I sent them to Amar Ayyash, who has a lot of expertise in gulls. He replied that he believes that this bird is a hybrid Great Black-backed Gull X Herring Gull. Notice the pink legs, the larger bill, paler mantle, and the white window in only the P10 primary, with small apical spots on the tips of other flight feathers. The subject compares reasonably well with photos of this type of hybrid that appear on page 293 of the Howell and Dunn Gull book, with the exception that their photo shows white windows on both P10 and P9.

Larry Balch also has commented (see his comment below) and believes that this bird is a 3rd winter Lesser Black-backed Gull. Larry meant that the mirror was in P10, not P9 as is in his comment. The subject has a mirror only in P10 (as I noted). Lesser Black-backs can have pink legs in immature individuals. I beleive that it is more likely to find a LBB Gull here than a hybrid which is unusual in the Canadian Maritime provinces and New England only in the winter (as stated by Howell and Dunn).

Dan Kassebaum believes that this bird is a subadult Lesser Black-backed too. He reports that he has observed a similar bird at Lake Carlyle. It had pinkish legs but with an undertone of yellow, indicating a subadult. Dan would like a better view of the flight feathers.

Barbara and I walked the paved loop trail at Klehm Arboretum from 10:30-11:30 a.m. today. Highlight was a small flock of 6 White-winged Crossbills at the far southwestern arc of the loop at trail marker 11. Also there was a flock of 17 Pine Siskins. We had 2 Red-breated Nuthatches on the walk, plus heard a few calling Red-winged Blackbirds. I found some owl pellets that appeared to be those of a Long-eared Owl, but there was no owl in view in the conifer. We heard later that a trimming crew apparently flushed an owl that was being pursued by crows earlier that morning. I’ll check the spot again when the crews aren’t working. There were 4-5 pellets, so it appears as if an owl has been roosting there for more than one day.

As reported yesterday on IBET, the adult Lesser Black-backed Gull continued to be seen today at Rock Cut SP. It was with 30 or so Herring Gulls at the far east end of Pierce Lake, best viewed from the fishing pier at the Lion’s Club picnic area. There is some open water at the east end and it was on the edge of the ice and in the water around 1:30 p.m. Larry Balch saw it around 10:30 a.m.

At the west end at the dam is another area of open water. At 1:20 p.m. there were 3 Ruddy Ducks, 6 Common Goldeneye, and a male Lesser Scaup in the open water.