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/S33524682
http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S33525276
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