Birdlog #8 - 3-27-14: Birding at a lek during migration...

... Rocks.

You're probably wondering what a lek is (unless you're an obsessive bird nerd who knows every obscure term ever used anywhere). A lek is where adult male birds can do courtship displays, and females will come and watch. I think they're only used by plovers, grouse and some birds-of-paradise.

Anyway, here's the list:

• 5 Canada Geese
• 2 Mallards
• 1 Turkey Vulture
• 3 Bald Eagles
• 1 Red-tailed Hawk
• 20-30 Sandhill Cranes - The first I've seen in Illinois!
• 11 Killdeer
• 1 Peregrine Falcon
• 1 Blue Jay
• 2 American Robins
• 1 European Starling
• 1 Cedar Waxwing - possible
• 3 House Sparrows

The species that really stick out to me are: Bald Eagle, Sandhill Crane and Peregrine Falcon. The Killdeer were the only ones actually using the lek, but there were other birds around. Here's the really crazy part: We saw all of those birds in twenty minutes!

And once again, I didn't have my camera with me - It's outta battery, anyway.

End.

Birdlog #2 - 12-10-13: Birdy small talk and vacation sightings

Not a lot of birds today; mostly House Finches. That means nothing good to pose for a picture. Doesn't make much of a difference, anyway - I'm missing my camera.

I remember when we took that road trip to Indiana. At the Fair Oaks Farms in Fair Oaks, IN, I saw tons of robins and starlings, and even a couple Barn Swallows! After we had gone back to the hotel, I saw no birds for the rest of the evening.
The next morning, three of us went on a short hike around the perimeter before breakfast. We saw a couple House Sparrows, and robin or two and a dead frog in the pond.
That day, we drove to the Indiana Dunes National Park, on the border of Lake Michigan. In the gift shop, I bought a national parks "passport" and an Audubon bird call. Later, on our family hike through the park's forest, we came to a stop at an elevated platform with big, mounted binoculars on the deck; a "bird observatory." On the platform, I saw two Yellow Warblers, one male and one female, two Belted Kingfishers, probably mates, one raptor of some sort, and a Blackburnian Warbler! I was so excited that I cried just a little (it's still a little embarassing to admit it).
Afterwards, out of the forest and onto the beach, we saw just massive flocks of Ring-billed Gulls; that was the only species of gull on the beach, I think.

Mallard, adult female.

Next month, we traveled to The Abbey in Fontana, WI, right on Lake Geneva. I like where our room was: the second floor, meaning we had a deck, facing the lake! We saw a lot of Mallards there, along with a weird-looking black-and-white domestic version. I ever did get a picture of that one...
While we were sightseeing in Lake Geneva (the city, not the actual lake), I saw a lot of Ring-billed Gulls, some House Sparrows, starlings, herons and robins. There were a couple other species, but I can't remember what they were.

End.