North Central Illinois Ornithological Society

Today Jerry Rosenband and I cruised around SW Winnebago County, in hopes of finally finding a county Roughlegged Hawk this winter. We failed at that, but we saw many Horned Larks, and good numbers of both Snow Buntings and Lapland Longspurs that were coming into breeding plumage. The largest concentrations of the last two species were seen along Klinger Road, between Edwardsville Road and Montague Road. But our harbingers of spring were three meadowlarks seen along Klinger in two widely-separated spots.

On Sunday, 2/7, Northern Shrike was sitting in the top of a scrubby tree in the dog training area on the west side of Harrison Road, about 1/2 mile N of its intersection with Auburn Road, and just before the bridge which crosses Kent Creek.  There has been a bird off and on here all winter (we found one here on the Rockford CBC) but I haven’t seen it in about 3 weeks until yesterday.

The Prairie Falcon was relocated this morning at Nachusa Grasslands.  It was along Lowden Road about 3/4 mile south of the main headquarters and near the Yellow house.

I happened upon a very large flock of approximately 1000 Snow Buntings in
the far SE corner of Boone County this afternoon during a lunch hour cruise
through the open farmlands there. I also managed to spy 3 Lapland Longspurs
among the boiling buntings on both sides of the road. The flock was along
Hill Road between Davis School Road and Pinegar Road (DeLorme spells it
Pineger but the road sign spells it Pinegar). DeLorme 19, C-5.

I have received reports of Merlin and Peregrine in Rockford. Both were seen within the last week. Thought that I would post them so others could be looking at these spots.

Jack and Joyce Armstrong saw a Merlin on Saturday, January 23, at Blackhawk Park.  It was in a tree in the area of the parking lot by the old quarry face along the river. 

A Peregrine has been seen periodically in the area of the Faust Landmark high rise residences.  It was on a communications tower nearby.   Peregrines show up in that area from time to time.   They have also been seen flying in the direction of downtown Rockford in late afternoon.  Any tall building or tower could have one perched on it. 

There was another report of the Prairie Falcon along Lowden Road, about 2 miles N of Nachusa Grasslands, on Tuesday of this past week.  No reports since.

The weather was frigid yet sunny. We had 11 counters (down from 19 the previous year) but still covered a good deal of ground. We found 11 new species for the count area bringing the two-year total species to 58.

We managed to find all seven species of area woodpeckers which is always a cool triumph especially in winter. A Peregrine Falcon was a nice addition as well.

Waterfowl numbers were WAY down do to hardly any open water which also explains the major decrease in Canada Geese numbers.

Full list of birds:

American Crow – 92
American Goldfinch – 49
American Kestrel – 4
American Robin – 2
American Tree Sparrow – 92
Bald Eagle – 2 (1 ad 1 imm)
Black-capped Chickadee – 142
Blue Jay – 37
Brown Creeper – 8
Canada Goose – 1,138
Cedar Waxwing – 25
Common Goldeneye – 2
Cooper’s Hawk – 3
Dark-eyed Junco -154
Downy Woodpecker – 37
European Starling – 576
Hairy Woodpecker – 7
Horned Lark – 25
House Finch – 45
House Sparrow – 598
Lapland Longspur – 3
Mallard – 140
Mourning Dove – 118
Northern Cardinal – 90
Northern Flicker – 1
Owl Sp. – 1
Peregrine Falcon – 1
Pileated Woodpecker – 3
Purple Finch – 3
Red-bellied Woodpecker – 15
Red-headed Woodpecker – 1
Red-tailed Hawk – 10
Ring-billed Gull – 1
Rock Pigeon – 149
Rough-legged Hawk – 1
Snow Bunting – 5
Swamp Sparrow – 1
Tufted Titmouse – 3
White-breasted Nuthatch – 37
White-throated Sparrow – 1
Wild Turkey – 10
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker – 2
Eastern Bluebird – 2
Ring-necked Pheasant – 1

Total Species: 44
Total Individuals: 3,637

I am in the process of upgrading the website/blog for NCIOS so things will look rather funny/different for a day or two (hopefully not longer and most likely shorter). There’s a high probability that your user password (for those who post) was reset and hopefully emailed to you automatically. You will have to update the password or if that doesn’t work I can manually issue a password and then you can change it.

Otherwise, you are free to post away as normal and I will be working on getting everything looking the way it should again (all the posts “should” be there but with export/import some could have been lost).

The main site of NCIOS (the non-blog portion) should be 100% good at this time.

Thanks,

Eddie Callaway, NCIOS web administrator.

I finally found some Snow Buntings and Lapland Longspurs in Winnebago County. There was a flock of approximately 250 birds on Kendall Road between Cunningham and Kelley Roads. Near the Cunningham (north) end of Kendall, a farmer has spread manure in a field along the east side of Kendall, and that is where i found the flock.

Approximately 200 Snow Buntings and 50 Lapland Longspurs.

Barbara and I took a drive around SW Winnebago County (Kelley and Cunningham Roads between Pecatonica Road and Meridian Road. We were looking for Snow Buntings and Lapland Longspurs. We found zero, and only a few (15) Horned Larks.

Figuring that these birds might be hanging around fields where farmers have spread manure, we went to Eddie and Telegraph Roads, where the farmer often has fresh manure in the field on the NE corner. No manure, no birds.

Undaunted, we headed for Fish Hatchery Road and drove it back toward Winnebago Road. Nada, except a lot of ice fishermen at 4 Lakes and a lot of starlings at the NE corner with Winnebago Rd.

Finally, we drove to Bill Hoople’s to see what was in the creek. Mostly Mallards and Canada Geese (plus a domestic goose and 2 Mute Swans) but we were finally rewarded with a Wilson’s Snipe.

Is anyone seeing any Snow Buntings or Lapland Longspurs in Winnebago County? If so, please post. Thanks.

I haven’t seen anything posted here yet, so I thought that some readers who don’t follow IBET might be interested to know that a Varied Thrush has been coming to a feeder (well, backyard-she is putting out fruit) at Anne Straight’s house in Forreston. She lives on 5th street (?), on the SW edge of town. It is a two story white frame house with an old cement farm silo in the back. You can park in her driveway and walk around the front of the house to the area along the back deck (follow the footprint trail). The thrush is mostly under the conifer furthest to the right as you look west, but sometimes it is in other bushes in the yard. Dress warmly! You might have to stand there for a while.