North Central Illinois Ornithological Society

When we scheduled this field trip we did not know that the Rock Cut State Park deer hunt was this weekend. The main body of the park will be closed to all but the people participating in the hunt.

Instead of meeting at the Lion’s Club parking area we will meet at the big parking lot that overlooks Olson Lake on the east side of Rte. 90 where we held the hawk watches. We will meet at 8:00 a.m., look at Olson Lake and then probably go to Windsor Lake, Nygren Wetlands, Lake Summerset and Howard’s farm. I expect we will be finished around noon.

The second NCIOS hawk watch field trip will be held this Saturday, October 15, 2011 at the Olson Lake parking lot at Rock Cut SP from 9:00 a.m. to noon. Bring a comfortable chair and dress for the weather. No pre-registration is necessary. Just show up! Hope that we see you there.

Join us for some hawkwatching on Saturday Sept. 24 from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon in the parking area at Olson Lake in Rock Cut State Park. There was a large movement of Broad-winged Hawks through Hawk Ridge in Duluth this past weekend, so if we are lucky we might see a lot of activity. Bring your scopes, binoculars and maybe a comfortable chair.

At the last meeting, it was decided to do a field trip to Rock Cut SP. No leader was assigned. 7 of us showed up by the dam parking lot at the pre-determined hour of 0730 and just took a mosey down the trails below the dam. It was raining lightly, so umbrellas were open. By 1000, several people had to leave, but 4 continued over to the Hart Road parking lot on the west side.

A total of 76 species were recorded, although I am including a couple I heard while driving in on the north entrance road before we met, like Cerulean Warbler.
Highlights included Wilson’s, Canada, Magnolia, Blackpoll, and Blue-winged Warblers, both Alder (5) and Willow (3) Flycatchers, and a White-eyed Vireo. Some of the 4 at Hart Road also had a very brief look at a Swainson’s Hawk that soared toward, and then banked away, from us as we were standing on Hart Road in the equestrian parking lot area looking and listening to the WE Vireo. I got a very brief look before it disappeared behind the trees in the hedge row and continued to fly away from us to the south, so the views from behind weren’t particularly good. A large buteo, with long wings that were pretty pointed, thin in proportion to that of Red-tail, held in slight dihedral. My brief look included a the underwings, with the dark flight feathers on both wings in contrast to off-white underwing coverts. When last seen, it was moving south and disappeared behind a tree line.

A lone Ruddy Duck was on the lake. 4 Spotted Sandpipers flew by, and 2 Ring-billed Gulls were on the rocky island until they were flushed off by fishermen in a boat.

No Olive-sided, Acadian, or Yellow-bellied Flycatchers, Bell’s Vireos, Yellow-breasted Chats or cuckoos of either species were recorded.

18 persons attended the NCIOS hawk watch field trip at Olson Lake in Rock Cut SP on Sunday, September 26. It was lead by Vic Berardi, the founder of the Illinois Beach SP hawk watch. Here is Vic’s report from IBET.

“This morning I spent 4 wonderful hours hawk watching with a terrific group of birders from the North Central Illinois Ornithological Society (Rockford Bird Club) We made our observations from the Olson Lake parking lot, which is part of Rock Cut State Park. The view from this parking lot is incredible with an expansive vista to the north, west and east. Although weather conditions were not ideal for general raptor movement (3rd day after a cold front) we did manage to tally 61 hawks from 8:30AM to 12:30PM. Most of the hawks were quite distant and required a scope for ID verification of age/sex but a few came in fairly close. I think this spot could be an excellent location for an inland hawk watch in Illinois.

Here’s what we saw:

Osprey – 2
Bald Eagle – 1
Northern Harrier – 1
Sharp-shinned Hawk – 6
Copper’s Hawk – 7
Broad-winged Hawk – 7
Red-tailed Hawk – 35
Peregrine Falcon – 2
TOTAL – 61

I’m hoping to return to this spot this fall under better weather conditions for migrating raptors. I’d love to see its potential!

Thanks to NCIOS for a great time today!”

Thank you to Vic for a very enjoyable morning. Anyone can go to this site, which is at the highest point of the parking lot S of the beach at Olson Lake, and just sit and watch the skies for raptors. Because of the distances, scanning with binoculars and a scope is necesarry–it is hard to pick out the tiny specks of birds at those distances with the unaided eye.

The rain stopped just as we started to walk at Franklin Creek. The birds were sparse, with only five species of warblers seen, but our group of eleven participants had a fine time. The wildflowers at Franklin Creek are impressive right now with masses of trilliums, anemones, wild geraniums and shooting stars.

The October 10th NCIOS field trip to the International Crane Foundation is fast approaching. Please see our calendar of events for full details. This is just a reminder that reservations and money must be received by Ken Frey by Wednesday, September 30th.

The cost is $7.00 for adults and $2.00 for children 18 and younger. We hope to see you out there!!

Call Ken at 815-877-5028 for payment and reservations.

The I.O.S. Gull frolic at Winthrop Harbor has been moved to the 21st of February. I’m sorry if this has caused any confusion. We will still be carpooling in there in the morning, and I have flyers with all the info that you can pick up at the next NCIOS meeting on Feb 12th. You can still call Jan Lockwood at 815-289-0751 or me, Barbara Williams, at 815-968-4732 for details on the carpool meeting time and place.

The NCIOS field trip to Starved Rock SP and the IL Waterway Visitor Center in Utica had 8 hardy participants who braved the windy day and showed up for the trip. The gull flock is just beginning to reassemble there after all of the flooding and open water since December 27. The very cold temperatures over the past week has frozen all of the water above the dam. There were approximately 150 Herring Gulls. In the flock was an adult Thayer’s Gull that gave everyone excellent looks as it flew right over the deck of the visitor center and out over the lock. It was a life bird for several people. The only other gull species was Ring-billed, but just 1 bird.

There were approximately 150 Common Mergansers, 1 Red-breasted Merganser, many Common Goldeneyes and a Redhead. There were 43 Bald Eagles around the lock and dam, and a couple of Rough-legged Hawks and a few kestrels along I-39 on the way back.

The feeders at the Starved Rock Visitor Center had White-throated, White-crowned and Fox Sparrows, plus 5 Pine Siskins and 3 species of blackbirds.

We’ll meet at the Alpine Village Shopping Center on the Northeast corner of the intersection of Harrison and Alpine Roads in Rockford. Meet in the parking lot between the Hallmark store and the Amcore Bank just before 8:00 a.m. for car pooling. We plan to leave at 8:00
It looks like we’ll have some ice on the river down by Starved Rock State Park. That will provide places for gulls to stand around, and, if the Lock and Dam are operating normally we may have a good day with a bunch of gulls and some Bald Eagles as well. In the event that the gull-watching doesn’t pan out we still have the back up plan to do some hiking in the State Park. In any event, bring GOOD boots and WARM clothes!!! Watching birds from inside the Lock and Dam observation building is limited, at best. Bring scopes if you have them. After gull-watching we plan to stop for a bite to eat at Duffy’s Tavern in Utica.