Who Knew Golf Courses Had Loons? (Post #50)

There you go.  It's a Common Loon (Gavia immer), one of three I saw today on a field trip. But this is in media res.  Let's begin at the beginning.  In the beginning... (skipping ahead)... I woke up today around 5:30, and was out birding on the field trip  by 7:00.  Driving north on Hazel Dell Road, we stopped near a bridge and a narrow bay.  Pied-Billed Grebes (Podilymbus podiceps) were off fishing already.  These tiny waterbirds usually hide in the middle of the bay, necessitating an extreme cropping job to see any details.

Nearby, four Blue-Winged Teal (Anas discors) cruised in a bay with poor lighting.

As the sun rose in the east, a Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) flew by and landed on a nearby roof.

Another grebe, likely a Pied-Billed Grebe, cruised on the other side of the bay.

Moving on from there, we ended up at the Lincoln Greens Golf Course.  I spotted the Northern Flicker  (Colaptes auratus), the second to last woodpecker on my list for this year.  It's not a great picture, but you can see it below.  For every good picture, there are about ten that are not.

This post, by the way, is a sort of sequel to my most popular post, How To Be Suspected Of Terrorism.   We arrived across from the power plant, and I took several pictures.  Even though there were literally three Muslim students in hijabs with binoculars, in addition to me, on this field trip, we were not detained this time.

A large flock of Double Crested Cormorants (Phalacrocorax auritus) was fishing just below the power plant.  Several American White Pelicans (Pelecanus erythrorhynchos) joined the massive flock of several hundred cormorants.  These birds are migrating northwards to the Great Lakes, but they spend several weeks in this area before moving northwards.

Here's a good close up of the spectacle.  Most of the birds were taking turns diving, and there must have been a huge school of fish for all these birds to congregate in such a large group.  Considering the location, this doesn't surprise me.  The water in this section of the lake is warmer, as it is pumped through the power plant to act as a coolant.  When released back into the lake, it leaves this section of water unusually warm, even in winter.  I have no doubt that the unusual temperature of the lake in this area helps to stir up more life.  We watched this mass of birds in awe.  Suddenly, a bird was seen near the shoreline on our side of the lake.  It was, however, not just any bird, but the Common Loon!

This is my favorite bird, hands down. I was ecstatic.  Then, two more appeared.  Two of the three were less than fifty feet away, so there were many pictures taken.  This elegant black and white bird, known in England as the Great Northern Diver, was yet another migrant going north to Canada.  In the last month or so since I saw the last one, they have changed into full breeding colors.

All in all, the lakeshore near the golf course was a great place to be.  In the bottom picture, you can see the whole spectacle of cormorants and about a dozen pelicans, all below the power plant.  Also, I got a great picture of the power plant.  This is NOT to be used for terrorism purposes, I swear.

I may be joking a lot about the whole terror suspect thing, but it is a serious topic.  The recent attack in Brussels is no joke either, with twenty-eight people dead in two terror attacks.  I pray that nothing like that happens here.  I also hope they find the man in the hat.

And now, for something completely different, a Loon cleaning its feet.  I've noticed several diving ducks doing this lately, and I suspect there's a reason, but I don't know it.  Also, note how far back those feet are.  This bird rarely goes on land because it essentially has to push its front end along.  That mental picture is rather humorous, especially fortified by YouTube videos.  Look it up.

All in all, I'm surprised to see so many birds on and by this golf course.  I'm just wishing we'd seen "fore" loons.  Get it?  Ok, bad joke's over, you can stop cringing now.

Just when I thought the day really couldn't get any better,  something flew over from across the lake.

Any guesses?  We spotted another one of these birds later, likely the same individual, and I'll tell you what it is when we get to that picture.  Just understand that it's quite big and not in typical plumage.

We then spotted what we believed was another Pied-Billed Grebe, but on closer inspection, it's lacking the whole Pied-Billed part.  It has a solid color bill.  What is it?  We may never know.

Nor do we know what this is, although it looks like some kind of Grebe.  Both this bird and the previous mystery specimen were near each other and could conceivably be related.

At the next stop, the birds  were far more typical, with Lesser Scaup (Aythya affinis) and Ruddy Ducks (Oxyura jamaicensis) out in the far middle of the lake as usual.

Then the bird of prey appeared again, harassing some nearby Canada Geese.  (Good job!)  If you don't know, and I didn't know, this is the immature Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus).  Evidently, it takes up to five years for Bald Eagles to get their distinctive head colors.

Here's what the average duck looks like to the casual observer.  Actually, this is a grebe.

This is a Horned Grebe (Podiceps auritus).  As usual, this is a heavily cropped picture of a bird for which I should really just post a photo taken from Google Image Search.  It somewhat resembles the second mystery bird from earlier, but the yellow stripes on the side of the head are a good distinction.

On the way out, we spotted this Red-Headed Woodpecker (Melanerpes erythrocephalus), a rare bird with a rather wearying scientific name.  If this species has to carry that scientific name around, it probably doesn't get out much.  No wonder it's so rare.  In reality, of course, the Red-Headed Woodpecker is an oak grassland (oak savanna) specialist, really only seeming to thrive in areas with large open areas with plenty of oak trees and dead timber.  Center Park is one such place.

As this trip began, so shall it end.  Two Pied-Billed Grebes were found off Marina Point.  Here's about the best picture I could get of these birds.  Here, you can see clearly that these birds have a ring of coloration on the bill that gives them their name.  Anyway. that's all for now.  I'll be going out sometime this week birding again, so expect that in a few days.  This was the big five-zero post.  It's kinda hard to believe I've stuck with it this far, but I'll continue to try and go for two posts a week on average. 2000 pageviews is just around the corner! The next couple of months will likely be busier, so expect a lot of Southern Illinois posts done about previous trips. All in all, I'm glad to see the blog doing so well.

History Fact:

Despite being called the Declaration of Independance, the word Independance does not actually appear in the title.  Instead, it's : "The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America."[Sic]