The Great Prairie Falcon Hunt (Complete Edition)

I had my fifth lifer bird of the year recently, and it is quite an interesting story, that.  Recently a local birdwatcher, one of the most active ones in my area, spotted a Prairie Falcon at Nipper Wildlife Sanctuary.   Some have heard of the Peregrine Falcon (more on that later), the famous falcon and fastest bird in the world (able to dive through the air at 200+ miles per hour) that has become a conservation success story.   Peregrines are uncommon in Illinois, and it's a great day when I see one (more on them later...)

However, Prairie Falcons in Illinois are rare, REALLY rare. Birdwatchers are interested when you see a Peregrine Falcon.  They send you emails and location questions on Facebook for Prairie Falcons.  Prairie Falcons are rarely seen east of western Kansas.  Despite their name, they are far more fond of mountains than prairie, and the majority of their range falls within the Mountain  and Pacific Time Zones.  In the winter, they come down to the prairies, and occasionally east.  Thus, one residing about half an hour or so from my house deserves investigation.

On the way, I found this American Kestrel (Falco sparverius), the smallest, most colorful, and only common falcon species in my area.  It was "hovering" in the air, something a Kestrel does when after a mouse.  It eventually caught the mouse, and I moved on, as a great white flood flew over:

Over five thousand Snow Geese (Chen caerulescens) flew overhead, in a line stretching as far as the eye could see, and proceeding over my head for fully fifteen minutes or more.  It was a sight uncapturable on camera, and I regret that there was no one else to see it with me.

I continued to walk past still fields, with only the swooping of a hawk or the sudden flight of a pheasant (above) to break my thoughts.  There were a good number of  Northern Harriers (Circus cyaneus) swooping about, skimming low over the fields before swinging back up into the sky:

I look forwards to the days when I can afford a better camera for moments like this.  There were about eight Northern Harriers in the sky at one time!

I walked all the way to the back of Nipper, which is a fairly long walk.  I ended up in private property, a neighboring grassland, by accident, and after realizing this when I saw a hunting stand, hastily retreated back to Nipper, where hunting is not permitted.

On my way back, I found this gigantic pile of  wood in the middle of the field, almost as tall as I am.  I wonder what might live in it?  That is a quest for another day.

I then worked my way back up to the viewing hill, but I saw no Prairie Falcon.  I ran into another birder, and in my excitement to finally meet another local birder, I think I may have given this person a bad impression of myself! We teamed up for a bit, looking for the bird, but I had to leave.  He found the Prairie Falcon twenty minutes, to the minute, after I left. GRRR!!!

Still, I persevered, and returned out a few days later.  Earlier in the day, I had seen a Peregrine Falcon while driving along in the flat, low suburban commercial districts of Springfield- not generally the place to see a bird fond of tall skyscrapers and wilderness cliffs!   I thought I'd exhausted my luck for the week, but I gave the falcon another chance.  I also found another American Kestrel, on a wire:

Then, looking out into the field, I saw something through my scope, which I had brought out specially for this occasion!  I got my award-winning photo of the Prairie Falcon (Falco mexicanus) , at last!  Truly, this photograph is something special:

By award-winning, I mean that it's the worst photo of anything that I have photographed this year.  Still, the lighting was poor, it was hundreds of feet away, and the wind was blowing strongly directly at me.  I'm happy you can even see the Prairie Falcon (the white dot in the center is its chest.)  I had a better look through my scope, and I identified it based on that.  I looked at it from multiple angles to confirm what it was, satisfied myself that it was what it was, and left.   At least this time I finally got a photo of one of my lifer birds!

I've come to the conclusion that I am best with photographing landscapes.  See above for details.  Also, on an interesting side note, as of this writing I was the last person to see the Prairie Falcon at Nipper.  Other birders arrived in the following days, but there were no further sightings.  If you're trying to find it, look in the evening on soil ridges just south of the first, northernmost ditch perpendicular to Lead Line Road.

Ebird Checklists:

First Trip:
http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S33871587

Peregrine Falcon:
http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S33950743

Second, successful Trip:
http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S33954058

An Indiana Bat? In January?

Well, I went down to Cliff Cave County Park in St. Louis County, Missouri, on a balmy 64 degree day in January.  (The usual comments about climate change will be omitted, because you've heard them all before.)  Regardless of the source of the warm weather, it was amazing to get outside.

And... That's what everyone in Missouri thought, too!  I've rarely seen so many people in one park since the days of Pokemon Go.  As a result, I made strides to avoid photographing people and I think, from the following photos, that I did a good job.

Cliff Cave County Park is built into the side of the bluffs of the Mississippi River, and also contains some of the floodplain, too.  The limestone bluffs are quite impressive:

I had read online that Cave Salamanders could be found here, and, desiring to find this would-be-lifer as my first herp of the year, I began to check the stream flowing from Cliff Cave, far in the back:

Sadly, the creek was a bit polluted, and no amphibians of any species were evident.  Cliff Cave is gated to protect the bats that roost inside, including the Federally Endangered Indiana Bat.

My dad, who was with me, developed a headache, and we walked back down to the car.  I spotted something flitting about above the road, and thought it was a very out-of-place Swallow.  After watching it for a bit more, I saw it for what it really was.  It was a BAT!

Based on the color and size, it's possibly an Indiana Bat (Myotis sodalis).  On the other hand, bats are very difficult to ID.  Still, there's nothing that's stood out to me that rules out this being an Indiana Bat.  If someone wants to point out some key ID feature, that would be great.  I got a better look at this bat than shown in these pictures, and from what I saw it looked like an Indiana Bat.

If this IS an Indiana Bat, I got very lucky, and this bat got very unlucky.  Indiana Bats are a Federally Endangered species, making this essentially the rarest animal I've ever seen.  On the other hand, the fact that this bat is out in January, wasting energy hunting non-existent bugs, and trying to do so in the middle of the day, is not a good sign for its health!

After Dad went back,  I decided to continue hiking.  I made my way to the top of a nearby bluff, where I discovered some unusual lichens:

This area was great for lichens, as I even found the uncommon fruticose lichen, here:

I also found some strange fungi, like this specimen of Witch's Butter, above.  I also flipped over a few rocks, looking for herps.  The biggest animal I found was a centipede as long as my ring finger.  I flipped no more rocks after that, though there were many, many more:

At the top of the trail was a spectacular vista, looking out over the Mississippi River and the American Bottoms, the large, open lowlands across the river.

There were many people atop the bluff, and it was exceedingly difficult to take photos around them.  However, I managed to do so.  Here, you can see the parking lot below:

 I climbed back down the bluff and rejoined my dad, and then the rest of the family, happy to have seen all this on such a bizarrely beautiful January day.  While I had mixed feelings about seeing the bat, if it is what I think it is, that is the rarest animal I'll probably see all year, so that's amazing.  This is also the first time I've ever written and published a blog within 24 hours of the events taking place.  Hopefully, my luck holds out, as I still need that first herp of the year...

Eagle Season

We are firmly in Eagle season this year.  This year has been either cold or warm with fog and ice storms, so far.  An ice storm back in December inspired this photo of frozen fields:

 I haven't been out a whole lot, but I did make it out recently to Lake Springfield.

There wasn't much but melting ice at Marine Point, though I had a few flyover Greater White-fronted Geese (Anser albifrons), which I didn't expect.

More unexpected geese roamed about Center Park, the Cackling Geese (Branta hutchinsii) above.  They're smaller, including their bills, than a regular Canada Goose (Branta canadensis).

Just down the road, I found an Oregon Junco (Junco hyemalis [oreganus Group]) eating some seeds.  It was my first of the two rarer birds of the day.  This is definitely an Oregon Junco, due to the chestnut coloring on its back and sides. Oregon Juncos are the far less common subspecies of the regular backyard Dark-eyed Junco.

Literally across the road from the Oregon Junco was the Mystery Goose, whom really needs a name.  I propose Whitey, considering how pale it is.

I then ventured on down towards the dam, where the power plant's warm water discharge keeps an open area in the ice all winter long.  This leads to a concentration of wildlife, particularly of the avian variety.  The best place to view this gathering of winter birds is across the lake at the parking lot of Lincoln Greens Golf Course, which is open to the public.  The first bird I noticed was a Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus), directly in front of me on the ice.

Just behind it was the largest flock of Common Mergansers (Mergus merganser) I have ever seen, of which only a portion is below:

Here's the majority, with the power plant looming behind:

Common Goldeneyes (Bucephala clangula), Ruddy Ducks (Oxyura jamaicensis), and a few others were mixed in, but this is predominately Common Mergansers.

The ice and the Bald Eagle made for a great photography subject.

Far off in the back, I spotted a couple of Black Ducks (Anas rubripes), which I don't see too often:

Even further back were sixteen Great Blue Herons (Ardea herodias) and one American White Pelican (Pelecanus erythrorhynchos), here due to the warmth of the power plant's hot water discharge.  The lake's waters are used to cool the power plant's generators, and the resulting hot water is pumped back out into the lake, creating a birding hotspot during winter.

This open-water area across the bay had hundreds more ducks and gulls, as well as six of the nine eagles I saw over the course of my visit.

Four of those eagles decided to sit in one tree!

While I was unable to get a good photo of it, I also spotted a Greater Black-backed Gull out on the ice, as well as a few white-winged gulls of unknown species.  The lifer Greater Black-backed Gull may have been the best bird, but this eagle below, which remained on the ice right in front of me for a very long period of time.  It was a good day, and I hope to get out soon again sometime.

Ebird Checklists:

http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S33573535

http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S33573340

One Strike, No Shrike- But Lots of Owls!

Saturday, January 7, 2017 began like any other day of Christmas break.  I dragged myself out of bed at 9:45 AM (I'm not a morning person), ate breakfast, and began checking my social media around 11 AM.  A local birdwatcher in my area (to be honest, one of the best ones in the state) had spotted a Northern Shrike in Cass County, less than an hour's drive from my house.  This discombobulated my day's plans entirely.

There aren't many birds that I will drive an hour for on their own merits. Shrikes are among that small number.  They are rare in Illinois, and getting rarer. Also known as butcher birds, shrikes, which hunt mice and small birds, have the curious habit of sticking their victims' corpses to thorny bushes, in order to save them for later.  Their specialized habits and general rarity makes them one of the species I most want to see.

I left the house at 1:30 PM, realized I didn't have enough gas, went to buy gas, accidentally left my gloves off when pumping gas, and to top it off, I managed to tear off one of the card pockets of  my wallet while paying for the gas.  Two tailgaters and an obnoxiously slow driver later, I was in a considerably foul mood.  Added to this was the traditional difficulty of finding a shrike.  While they generally try to stay near their larder (the bush they hang all their dead prey in) they can move around a bit while hunting, often in somewhat brushy areas where it's hard to see them, at least according to what I've read.  I had low expectations, particularly after the luck I'd had already.  On the highway, I barely even saw any Red-tailed Hawks, and those are usually quite common there!

Thanks to the vagaries of cell reception, there is a large gap in service in Western Illinois, Anywhere west of the Sangamon-Morgan county line gives me 1X cell phone reception automatically.  As a result, I had no GPS.  Therefore, when I tell you that I missed my exit, I have an excuse.  Once I'd figured out I had missed my exit, I took the next available exit, and ended up, after a bit of map-checking, on Phillips Ferry Road.

In front of me on the road, I spotted three small, pale, sparrow-like birds. These turned out to be lifer Lapland Longspurs, though they flew off before I could get a photo. Several more good birds later, I came down the bluff to the bottom of Phillips Ferry Road.  A few birds flew in front of me, and landed in some brush to my right, near a barn.  Looking over at them, I saw one with a red mark on its head.  I thought, "How is that bird flying with such a big head wound... That's a Common Redpoll!"  I didn't get a photo of it either, though I stopped.  I relocated it, but it flew before I could even raise my camera, and it flew behind the barn, along with a few other similar birds (though I can't say for certain they were Redpolls)  Behind me, meanwhile, I spotted a man walking around in the yard of the house nearby, staring at me.  I wasn't about to trespass in front of him, not even for a Redpoll.  For legal reasons, I'll refrain to say what I would have done had that man not been there...

(Update:  For whatever reason, despite several searches, no other birders have relocated the Redpoll.)

I took photos of the Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis) flying overhead instead.  The man kept staring, so I left.  He probably thought I was a burglar or something.

Two lifers, so far! The Common Redpoll was especially good, since to my knowledge at this point in the winter I'm the only birder to have seen one in central Illinois in all of fall 2016- winter 2017.  Winter finches like the Redpoll haven't had to come south for food this year, so they've remained in the north.  I'd like to remind everyone that I had no intention of driving down this road, at this time.  If I hadn't, I would have missed two lifer bird species, and one especially that's not very common this year.  Thank you, God!

That was a lot of exposition, so I will try to balance that out with pictures now.

Short-eared Owls had been reported in the area near the shrike, so I decided to look for them and Northern Harriers first.  I haven't seen any at Nipper so I decided to give this area a try.  My first animal were four White-tailed Deer (Odocoileus virginianus), including two bucks,

A large flock of Horned Larks (Eremophila alpestris) sat on the road just down from me.  They posted sentries just a little bit out from the group.  Every so often, something would spook them, usually me, and the whole flock would fly up at once, and then slowly return to pecking gravel.  Birds eat gravel in order to use it in digestion. There's a specialized region of a bird's stomach, called the gizzard, which stores this gravel and uses the ingested gravel to help break down tough foods.

Along the edge of a creek, I found a few sparrows, including this Savannah Sparrow (Passerculus sandwichensis), above, and the American Tree Sparrow (Spizella arborea), below.  I'm certain with a little more looking, I could have found a few more species of sparrows, but I was quite happy with those I did see, especially the Savannah Sparrow which I did not expect to see.

Driving down the road, I spotted this white canine in the grass, and at first I thought it was a leucistic coyote.  Of course, when it ran across the road to a house, and I saw the collar, I figured out it was just someone's dog.  Later, however, on the drive back, I saw a coyote eating roadkill in the center ditch of the highway, twenty feet from me as I drove past.

It was truly a beautiful day, and the day got better still as I drove through a prairie and spotted a bird of prey flying low over the grass...

Then, I spotted a second one, just behind the first. I was too late to get a photo of the first Northern Harrier (Circus cyaneus), but I got this photo of the second just before it vanished in the grasses.

In a nearby tree, I spotted a Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus), the first of two for the day. To be honest, I'm actually surprised I didn't see more, considering how close I was to the Illinois River!  I suspect there wasn't enough open water on frozen-over Meredosia Lake to attract more eagles.

Indeed, all my waterfowl of the day were flyovers, including Canada Geese (Branta canadensis):

There's nothing quite like a blue winter sky in Illinois:

At this point, I went looking for the shrike, and I drove down Honey Point Road, from whence it was reported. At the very end of Honey Point Road is a gate, and I could not turn around on that gate.  I had to reverse about sixty feet before the road and the nearby ground were level enough to allow me to turn around!  I contented myself with driving down Indian Point Road, where one patch of woodlands yielded five Red-tailed Hawks at once!  I was so amazed, I didn't take many photos:

I still hadn't seen my Shrike or Short-Eared Owls, the two main bird species reported from this area that I had come to see.  I went back along Morgan-Cass County Line Road, where the majority of prairies grew, and I spotted about six Northern Harriers at once!

Far off, over the fields, I could see one harrier hunting intently over the prairie:

Suddenly, something entirely different flew up from the prairie!  It (top right) and the Northern Harrier (bottom left) proceeded to chase one another:

A second one flew up from the prairie, and I realized I had just gotten my first photos of a Short-eared Owl (Asio flammeus).  I have a hard time really "counting" a bird, especially a rare bird like this, without a photo, so I snapped away.

Even at my great distance, you can see the face of the owl distinctly:

The Harrier and the Owl continued to fight for about five minutes. diving at each other with their talons, but never quite connecting all the way.  Eventually, they got bored and flew away from each other.  I drove off about this time.

In the setting sunlight, I watched the third and final Short-eared Owl fly over the fields.  I started last year by going and looking for Short-eared Owls at Nipper Wildlife Sanctuary, and I feel that this is a tradition that I should continue.  Next year, I'll have to look for them someplace else, to keep up the streak.  Since this time, I've learned where the Northern Shrike is exactly, so I plan to look for it again sometime soon.  This is the first chapter in "The Great Shrike Hunt".

Ebird Checklists:

http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S33524334

http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S33524282

http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S33524682

http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S33525276