North Central Illinois Ornithological Society

While Barbara was watching Broad-wings over our house, I checked out a few places at Rock Cut SP this morning.

Highlights were a White-eyed vireo calling from the thicket at the start of the equestrian trail that runs South from Hart Road, south of the equestrian campground. This trail goes back to the old hay field that has had Henslow’s Sparrows for a number of years now. In the field, I counted at least 3 Henslow’s, but it is likely that there are at least 4. A pair of Cooper’s Hawks were in display flight over the woods south of the field.

A pair of Broad-wings was circling and calling over the hardwood forest on the south side of the creek below the dam on Pierce Lake. The woods below the dam were full of Yellow-rumped Warblers, gnatcatchers, and Ruby-crowned Kinglets. A lot of Eastern Towhees and Field Sparrows were heard from the scrub growth on the north side of the paved trail and along the entrance road coming in from the north.

3 Yellow-throated Warblers were heard, two of which were in the White Pines east of the Red Oak day use area driveway entrance.

A pair of Osprey, one with a fish in its talons, were flying over the east end of Pierce Lake. There was a flock of Ruddy Ducks (15) on Pierce Lake, and a smattering of puddle ducks plus some Lesser Scaup on Olson Lake. Other than Killdeer, the only shorebird was a solitary Solitary Sandpiper along the muddy edge at the Pierce Lake dam parking lot.

At 10:00 am today, Barbara and I were about to launch our canoe when we heard a Yellow-throated Warbler calling multiple times from the White Pines across the road from the outhouse at the south side boat launch at Rock Cut SP. This is a very early arrival by several weeks (my previous early date for Winnebago County was April 14 and average is 10 days beyond that) This species winters in southern US., so an early arrival, given the weather patterns, isn’t completely unexpected. I saw a Palm Warbler yesterday in the Pecatonica bottoms-another early arrival.

This is a good time to find Common Loons in Winnebago County. The Coopers found 2 at Rock Cut SP this morning, Phil Doncheck and I had 1 at Lake Victoria in South Beloit, and Rick Barton from Paddle and Trail just called to report 5 more on Windsor Lake behind his store.

The Coopers also saw an Osprey and, likely the birds of the day, 2 White-winged Crossbills in the pines just S of the IL 173 entrance, which they viewed with their telescope.

I counted 24 White Pelicans at Nygren Wetlands this morning, plus 31 DC Cormorants. Swamp Sparrows were calling from the marsh, there were about 50 Tree Swallows flying around, and a Winter Wren called from near the observation deck.

Phil and I also had 4 Horned Grebes on Lake Victoria, and later I saw 3 on Lake Summerset (viewed from the yellow gate on Best Road). There were many Tree Swallows over the lake, but I could not locate any Purple Martins there as yet. 1 Greater and 2 Lesser Yellowlegs were at Lake Victoria, but no Ross’ Goose was found.

Pecatonica Wetlands FP had over 250 Tree Swallows flying and perching over the dead trees along Blair Road.

Yesterday and today there were gorgeous male Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers here, there and around town.
Dan and I looked for the reported Eared Grebe at Rock Cut State Park. We found three Horned Grebes in various plumages, one in almost-full breeding plumage, nineteen Pied-billed Grebes, 40-45 Wood Ducks, 2 Ruddies, 2 Ring-necks, a few Redheads and Lesser Scaup and a very sassy Belted Kingfisher, but no Eared Grebe.
We also searched the Bloom School and the Marsh School neighborhoods looking for Mississippi Kites, (see the previous report on this blog) but came up empty.
If anyone sees those birds, please post. We’d like to catch up with them!

Barbara Williams

Sixteen club members participated in this morning’s trip. We began with several stops in Rock Cut State Park, moved to Windsor Lake and Nygren Wetlands and ended with a quick stop at Oliver Road. We came up with 54 species of birds. We did not find any particularly unusual birds.
From the Red Oak Picnic area in RCSP we saw two Horned Grebes and a Pied-billed Grebe. We saw one Common Loon in spite of there being lots of fishermen in boats on Pierce Lake. Also at RCSP, a Brown Thrasher sang his heart out from a treetop and Tree Swallows cruised above the lake.
A Sora was heard from a wet spot along Oliver Road and four Lesser Yellowlegs were in a small flooded place just south of Oliver Road.
The weather was mild and the toads were singing.

We’ve decided to meet at Rock Cut State Park, at the parking area right next to the Pierce Lake dam, at 8:30 a.m. on Saturday, March 24. We will take a look at the lake and then walk down the bike path along Willow Creek for a while. Later, we will probably check Windsor Lake and maybe Nygren Wetlands.
All are welcome to join us!

Barbara

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 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.

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.