Skipping Work For Barred Owls

Okay,  I didn't actually skip work.  I just went, and after a song and dance routine, they told me I wasn't needed at the time.  Yes,  I do mean a literal song and dance.  We were joking around.
At any rate, I rushed home, grabbed my camera, and drove down to the Chatham Wildlife Sanctuary.  Apparently, the preserve has a permanent population of Pileated Woodpeckers (I dare you to say that three times fast).  While  I definitely saw those gigantic woodpeckers, and I jumped up and down a couple times when I did out of excitement,  they saw us first.  You wouldn't think the biggest woodpecker would be so darn skittish, but these birds, as soon as they saw our small group, flew away.  So, I got no pictures.  Jumping probably didn't help.

 I did find a few of these mysterious leaves out in the woods.  Could it be an orchid?  I hope so, but I have my doubts.  More likely, it's an introduced spring bulb that just hasn't flowered  yet.

 However, plenty of plants were flowering,including this White Trout Lily (Erythronium albicum).  Another member of our party and I got to talking, and we failed to notice that the entire rest of the group had stopped.  Then we noticed.  Then we found out why.

 It's really not every day you see a Barred Owl  (Strix varia).  As a matter of fact, this is my first time.  Evidently, the rest of the group had seen it fly and then land.  It watched us from about a hundred feet away.  This is probably the second most common owl in  Illinois, after the Great Horned Owl.
By common,  I mean that people see it.  No doubt some of the other owl species, like the Screech Owl are a bit more populous, but are less visible in general.

The entire area was full of woodpeckers and shelf fungi. Evidently the trees are not healthy.

After the all-too-short field trip,  I made my own.  Going over to a pulloff by the lake,  I spotted many things, including about a hundred Tree Swallows (Tachycineta bicolor), swarming in what I suspect to be a migrating formation over the lake.

Of course, on the lake itself were Pelicans,  Cormorants, Gulls, and... wait.  That gull in lower left has a black head?  What nonsense is this?

That would be a Bonaparte's Gull (Chroicocephalus philadelphia)  (Copy/Paste is a wondrous thing).  This species is named after  Napoleon Bonaparte's nephew, Charles Lucien Bonaparte.  Charles, a naturalist, came to the United States in the early 1800s and discovered a lot of birds.  The genus name of mourning doves and their relatives, for instance, is Zenaida.  This was Charle's wife's name, which he gave to this group of birds.  Charles Lucien Bonaparte was nearly as important as Audubon in the history of North American birds, and in his time was certainly more prominent.

Here, one can seem more of the Bonaparte's Gulls, as well as a rogue tree swallow.  These gulls numbered in the hundreds.  They are migrating northwards to the far taiga woods of Canada.

 Wood Ducks (Aix sponsa), meanwhile, were found near wood.  This is good and proper.

 These Double- Crested Cormorants (Phalacrocorax auritus), meanwhile, decided to have a convention on a log nearby.  When they move on,  I suspect the local fish population will breath a considerable sigh of relief, as there are thousands of these fish-eating birds out on the lake.  I moved on from this place after a bit of watching the spectacle.  Going onward,  I stopped by another spot on my way back, also along Lake Springfield and the Chatham Wildlife Sanctuary.

 This is quite a spectacular female Mallard...  Oh, wait. What's with that bill?  Actually, this is a female Northern Shoveler (Anas clypeata).  That bill is naturally oversized.   These birds prefer mud-bottomed marshes, which is exactly where I found it.  When there, they use that peculiar bill to "shovel" through the mud, extracting invertebrates to eat.

Here is a male as well, a very distinct specimen.  Even at a far distance, that bill makes this duck clearly different from anything else in Illinois.  I watched the group of roughly a dozen Northern Shovelers forage for a bit, before leaving and going on.   It was  a wonderful, if brief, trip, and I had a lot of fun.  I've never seen either Barred Owls nor Bonaparte's Gulls, and skipping work was a bonus.
All these crazy waterfowl just added to the fun.  Anyway, my schedule may be getting busy, but the birds keep coming, and I'll keep posting.  Have a good day, all!