Lake Springfield: The Great Winter Expedition On A 53 Degree Day In January (W/ Video)

I had cabin fever this afternoon, which is unusual for me since I don't live in a cabin.  I had to get outside in the warm weather.  This winter has been bipolar in its temperatures.  We get a week of the frozen tundra, then a week of the Gulf Coast.  It has made for some fun times.  I decided to visit Lake Springfield and see any migratory birds.  I spent the whole afternoon circling the lake.  I saw so many geese, I had to get it on video, and give you all motion sickness...

If you're not suffering any ill effects, we'll move right along.  (Next time, I'm bringing a tripod.)  Those birds were snow geese ([Anser] Chen caerulenscens).  We talk about snowbirds around here as people who go down to Florida in the winter.  These birds come down to Illinois for winter.  They have wings, so I'm a little surprised at the poor decision-making of stopping this far north.   There must have been thousands of these geese.

 Evidently, just south of Lincoln Land Community College's Springfield Campus is one of the most ideal birding sites on the lake, Marina Point.

This is a promontory that juts out well into the lake.  Two islands, one to the east and one to the south, lie a couple hundred feet offshore.

Gulls, like the one hiding in the picture above, were common in the area.  I do not know my gull species, so I was unable to identify it.   For once, these gulls were dressed in camouflage...

 Despite the warmth of the day, a huge sheet of ice covered the lake. The waves seemed almost to have frozen immediately, as rippled lines in the ice.  I watched several mallards, Canada geese, and gulls prance about on the lakeshore.  Then I noticed a structure in a tree on the island to the south...

Based on the fact that I am about a hundred and fifty feet from this island, I would guess that that is a bald eagle nest.  I had heard rumors that there was a nesting pair in the area.  I failed to see any eagles, but the nest was quite enough.  Eagle-eyed readers (sorry, I really, really couldn't help it) also may notice the bald cypress tree (Taxodium distichum) on the left of the picture by the water's edge, somewhat separate fro the rest of the trees.  Thousands of bald cypress were planted around Lake Springfield to prevent erosion.  There are hundreds along Sugar Creek, one of the two main feeder creeks that supply Lake Springfield with water.  The area, once you canoe or kayak back into this swamp, resembles Louisiana swamps, so prolific are the bald cypress.  Make no mistake, however, these trees are not native to central Illinois.  They range as far north as southern Illinois, but none grow naturally in Central Illinois except for those that have naturalized from plantings such as this.

Moving onwards, I visited the marina at Lake Park.  There is an accessible breakwater which looks northwards, although here I am looking south back at the marina.  Here's what's north of me:

A second, slightly smaller group of snow geese, still numbering in the hundreds, lay north under the shadow of CWLP's smokestack.

To the east, a nearby plane (upper right) had disturbed the geese (lower left) and they flew over the lake to join the main group of snow geese.  I assumed at the time that these were Canada geese (Branta canadensis) an all too common bird.  The birds in the lower right are probably Canada geese.  The birds on the lower left, however...

These were in fact Greater White-Fronted Geese (Anser albifrons), another migrant, and not one I had ever recognized before. These birds had different calls from Canada geese, but  I could not tell they were different until I got back home and looked at the pictures.  There were a few hundred of these, and as they tend to migrate with snow geese, these joined up with the flock of snow geese shown previously.

On the breakwater, ice and snow, blown by the wind, had solidified into a strange solid layer of ice among the riprap.

This unusual formation of ice only existed along a  north or west-facing shore, thus it obviously came about from being blown up by the prevailing winds.  I watched the geese for awhile, and then drove around the lake again.  While I had seen most of the waterfowl, a six-point buck across from Lincoln Memorial Garden was worthy of a photo...

 Overall it was a grand expedition.  When the lake thaws, cormorants live on those islands.  I will have to go back then, so expect a few cormorants in the next few months.  Hope you all enjoy the warm weather while it lasts!