North Central Illinois Ornithological Society

Yesterday afternoon, Jeff Donaldson and Matt Vincent found 4 or 5 Smith’s Longspurs on the spring count while driving west on Edson Road near a drainage ditch about 2-3 miles west of the intersection of Edson Road and Friday Road. At that point, Edson Road is the border between Ogle and Winnebago County south of Rockford. The ditch runs north-south under the road.

Larry Balch, Barbara and I, and our friends, Beth Goeppinger and Joe Jacyna, went down there this morning and, after searching for more than 1 hour, had 4 Smith’s around 0945. They were flying and giving flight calls (with some not-very-good flight looks) back and forth over Edson road, about 0.1 of a mile west of the ditch. When the birds landed, they were out of sight behind low ridges in the fields. A thunderstorm with lightning deterred us from staying longer. We left around 10:00 a.m. We also saw a male Lapland Longspur in full breeding plumage. 25 American Golden-plovers flew over, too.

Brad Grover called at 3:40 p.m. to report that he and others were unable to relocate the Smith’s Longspurs, but, on the bright side, they had 25 Lapland Longspurs, 3 breeding plumage Golden-plovers in the fields, and a fly-over Upland Sandpiper.

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.

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.

Today, I received a call from Jeff Donaldson. He told me that Greg Keilback saw 4 plegadis ibis (species?) at Nygren on Saturday, October 8. According to Greg, they
stayed all day. It’s too bad Greg didn’t alert the birding community to the presence of these birds right away. Barbara, Larry Balch and I were there on Sunday morning for 3 hours and did not see any ibis.

Tom Little called me around 6:15 p.m. tonight to report that he had seen a Western Kingbird at the Rockford airport just off of Belt Line Road east of the bridge over the Kishwaukee River. His report is on IBET.

I was driving west on Auburn when he called, so I immediately headed for the airport. When I arrived, I checked the fence lines he described and saw 2 or 3 kingbirds way, way down the fence line to the east. 1 was lighter than the other two from the back view, so it was probably Tom’s bird, but it was too far away for me to identify with 10X binoculars. I didn’t have a scope. Within 10 minutes, Larry and Donna Balch arrived with 2 scopes, but by then, no kingbirds of any species were visible. We looked for at least 30 more minutes, including a drive over to Baxter Road near the Kilbuck FP entrance, but still no kingbirds. If seen in the morning, I will call the NCIOS hotline again and also post on IBET.

Around 8:35 p.m., Barbara and I were setting up lawn chairs in the parking lot of the Riverfront Museum Center to count the Chimney Swifts that are roosting in the chimney of the old National Guard Armory. The museum center and armory are on Main Street on the west bank of the Rock River just north of downtown Rockford. We spotted a few gulls flying by going upriver (north), which I initially presumed were the Herring Gulls that have been hanging around Rockford between the airport quarry pond and the Rock River almost all of the summer. When we looked at the gulls with our binoculars two of them were Herring Gulls, but one individual was smaller, had a black head, a dark mantle, black primaries, no white between the black primary tips and the mantle, and no white outer primaries. It disappeared from sight behind the Museum Center building.

There is a log jam at the confluence of Spring Creek and the Rock River, about 1 block north of the Auburn Street bridge, where the Herring Gulls have been roosting in the evening, so we headed up there. This location is one block north of Auburn Street along the Rock River. The log jam is best viewed from upper Harlem Blvd. on the west bank of the river. Upon arrival, Barbara immediately spotted the Laughing Gull swimming in the river among the log jam. We didn’t have a scope, and the light was fading fast, but were able to call another birder who lives in the neighborhood (he was at the Armory about to count swifts, too!) so he drove up with his scope. I suspect that the gull will spend the night there and may still be present very early tomorrow morning.

We headed back to the armory and watched hundreds of swifts fly into the chimney until about 9:10 or so.

On Saturday, Eric Walters and Jeff Donaldson found a Western Kingbird on Weldon Road in Ogle County, just S of the county line with Winnebago Co. and immediately S of Severson Dells FP. The bird was sitting on a wire fence along the farm lane to 12681 Weldon Road, which is on the east side of the road. It is the last driveway to the east before the road enters the woods at Colman Dells.

The bird was still there today, Sunday. First notice of the sighting was relayed to the NCIOS telephone calling network.

Many of you are already aware that an adult male Barrow’s Goldeneye was found at Rapids City (Rock Island Co) last week and was seen there through Sunday, 2/13. Then, it was refound yesterday at Port Byron, just upstream from Rapids City.

Now, a second adult male Barrow’s Goldeneye has been discovered today by Mike Madsen and Andy Sigler at Lock and Dam 13, but on the Iowa side of the river. And, they saw the adult male Barrow’s at Port Byron, too!

A Snowy Owl is reported at the intersection of Fork Creek Road and Rte. 72, four miles East of Shannon. Shannon is South/Southwest of Freeport, IL.

We have received a number of inquiries about the status of the Spotted Towhee that was coming to the feeder of Martin and Vonnie Kehoe in NW Winnebago Co., so I thought that I would let you all know its status (actually, the lack of current status).

Vonnie reports that it has not been seen since December 30. Then the warm weather set in overnight. She reports that the number of birds at their feeder have declined quite a bit since then.

It may be that it will take another good snow to bring the birds back to the feeder. If the towhee is relocated, I will post its return.