Peeps, Osprey Attack, and... Is That Cannabis? (Chautauqua/Emiquon Birding)

This was a very full day, so full that I am splitting it in two.

First off, yes, I found this illegal plant whilst out birding.  I am not disclosing the location, but, yes, this is Hemp (Cannabis sativa sativa), the marijuana plant.  Considering that a good quarter of all gardening books in the average bookstore seem to have this plant on the cover, I identified it instantly.  This is, however, not the subspecies that Marijuana is made from.  Instead, if you ever see hemp fibers mentioned in something, this would be the plant.  The stems, tough and tall, have been made into rope, paper, and clothing for hundreds of years.  This particular plant also has lower quantities of the chemicals that give marijuana its "high." I'm still not disclosing the location, but you would have a harder time getting high from this plant.  It's quite likely that these plants came to the site naturally. Hemp plants grow across the Midwest and other regions as literal weeds.   Hemp, like any form of Marijuana, is illegal to grow in Illinois, and it is far less likely to be grown illegally, but far more likely to grow naturally, particularly in wetter areas like where I found it.

It's ironic that I discovered this around the same time that Illinois lowered the fines on possession of marijuana, making it about $200 to have ten grams or less of marijuana.

Now that I've gotten that out of the way, I visited Chautauqua and Emiquon National Wildlife Refuges recently, in search of peeps.  I don't mean those sugar-blasted marshmallow candies.  "Peeps" is a birding term that means small sandpipers.  If you've seen the recent movie,  Finding Dory, you may remember the short film that came before the movie about an adorable baby sandpiper.  That would be an example of peeps.  The name comes from the high-pitched sounds these birds make while running around in the mud, looking for small insects and other tiny animals to eat.  There were hundreds of the little birds scurrying on Chautauqua National Wildlife Refuge's mudflats.

However, Sandpipers (especially peeps) have a dark side that's masked by their appearance and habits.  They are nearly impossible to identify, all nearly resembling each other.   They don't live in single-species flocks, but intermingle and hybridize, making it a real mess to try and figure out what is what.  I believe that I saw at least six new species today, but it is impossible to tell.

The morning of the trip, I saw with some reluctance that their was an enormous stormfront in Western Illinois, though  it was very slow-moving.  A couple of friends and I met up at my house and we drove out to Chautauqua National Wildlife Refuge first, since at  this time of year Chautauqua has more birds. Chautauqua has a small trail near its headquarters, one of the best-surfaced paths I've walked in Illinois, albeit with a slight overabundance of spiderwebs across the trail.  There was a web across the trail about every ten feet, and one out of every three webs had a large spider sitting in the middle.  It is my guess that the trail is not hiked often. Of course, that seems appropriate for Chautauqua itself, which takes a backseat in popularity to Emiquon.  My personal guess is that since Emiquon is an easier word to say than Chautauqua, people recommend visiting Emiquon more often.

 However, Chautauqua (pronounced Sha-taw-kwa) is a much more interesting word.  No one knows what it means.  The word is from the Native Erie language, which is now lost.  The word remains as the name of a lake in New York.  However, in 1874, a group of ministers and businessmen founded an entertainment/education movement on that shores of that lake.  The movement, which became known as Chautauqua, led to various camps bearing that name being founded all around the country.  Chautauquas were places where religious, political, and educational speakers would give speeches, comedians would entertain, and musicians would perform. The movement was unique to America, and has died away since the advent of television and automobiles.  For more information, see here.

As for the National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) itself, it was made after a failed attempt to dam the Illinois River led to this section of the riverbed being flooded.  The project, named the Chautauqua Drainage and Levee District, led to this wildlife refuge's name.  Ever since, the lake has grown shallower and shallower, leading to a huge exposed section of mudflats on a shallow, wide lake.

One of the few birds I've managed to identify completely at Chautauqua is the Semipalmated Plover, (Charadrius semipalmatus) in the middle of the photo above.  Semipalmated Plovers, like most of the sandpipers visible, live their lives in a constant race.  Sandpipers nest far north, in the tundra on the edge of the Arctic Ocean.  As soon as the young have grown up, in early to mid-July, the birds come down south.  Some stop on the Gulf Coast, but a few fly as far south as Argentina.  In-between, especially in August, large numbers can be found around the rivers and lakes here in Illinois.

We watched from the trail on top of the bluffs above the lake as sandpipers foraged below us, and as the sky grew darker.  The data connection in the area ranges from 4G to 1X at random, but we figured out that a number of thunderheads had popped up around us. After looking this up, we decided to wander about the woods, and I found a moth with an upside down cross design on its back, the Clymene Moth (Haploa clymene), unpictured.  This moth's upside down cross may have been a sign of bad luck.  All of a sudden, it began to rain quite heavily, and we bolted for the car, where we drove on to the next section of the refuge. As I've discussed before, Midwestern weather is infinitely changeable, and when it began to rain less in about a half hour, we got out and looked around. There is a levee that extends for a mile or so across the lake, dividing it in two. We began to walk it.

It was still raining, the sort of misty rain that pervades the clothes, skin and soul, but there was much to photograph.  I kept my camera tucked under my partially-dry shirt, wiping off any raindrops compulsively.  I am not about to have another camera malfunction in the mist.  I can't say whether that killed it in the cemetery last time, but it probably did not help.  At any rate, the camera remained functional.  I began to see several new plants, as well, about this time.

This is the Halberd-leaved Rose Mallow (Hibiscus laevis).  With flowers wider than my hands, it has like the largest flowers of any native Illinoian plant!

I have no idea what this plant is, but it grew on the sides of the gravel-topped levee. (Correction, I have since been told that this is Clammy Weed, [Polanisia dodecandra])  It began to rain harder as we walked, but at this point, we were halfway out on the levee, discussing philosophy, birds, and how soaked we were from walking in the rain. I would occasionally interject with, "Oh, look, a bird!"  When we heard the first thunderclap, we were a trifle alarmed, since one of my friends, who's over six feet in height, was the tallest object on the levee. Everything else kept its head down.

We could see huge birds flying through the rain and mist, almost prehistoric in appearance.

Gradually, we reached the other side of the lake, where those large birds, about seven hundred American White Pelicans (Pelecanus erythrorhynchos), awaited us.

Seven hundred of anything is quite a lot, but for the largest birds in Illinois, it was a spectacle.  Furthermore, there were at least three hundred more off to the north and south of us.  It was a new record of pelicans for all three of us, and despite the weather, it made the long walk worthwhile.

American White Pelicans only nest at fewer than sixty sites in the northern United States and Canada, but are fairly common and easy to find in migration regardless.  Furthermore, the average person does not seem to realize that you can find pelicans in Illinois, as pelicans are traditionally associated with the ocean.  I've had multiple people tell me that I'm wrong and pelicans don't live in Illinois. American White Pelicans, however, live their lives almost entirely inland along large rivers and lakes, except for the winter when they go to Florida, California, Mexico, and the Gulf Coast.

Behind the pelicans were thousands more shorebirds, looking like ants from our vantage point.

Far off, meanwhile, three figures stood, watching us from behind the pelicans.

These were three rain-drenched and immature Bald Eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus).

As we approached, two of them decided to fly off, one showing the characteristic white tail.

The third lingered about, raising his wings and shaking them several times to dry off.  I've never seen three Bald Eagles at once in the wild, so this was quite an experience. It's always a good day when you see a Bald Eagle.  Illinois is lucky to have over 3,000 wintering here in the winter, mostly along the rivers.  The only state with more Bald Eagles than wintertime Illinois is Alaska.  However, during the summer, we have far fewer eagles, though enough to consider them secure. Nests are especially common along the Illinois, Ohio, and Mississippi Rivers.  I though these three Bald Eagles would be the highlight of the day, but I was proven wrong thirty seconds later.

Osprey!  For all you Pokemon Go players, this is the birding equivalent of a legendary Pokemon.  For the rest of you, the Osprey (Pandion haliaetus)  is a State-Endangered bird and thus EXTREMELY rare in Illinois.  These fast moving "fish eagles" only have around ten nests in the entire state, according to an IDNR report I read.  I've seen them migrating over Lake Springfield before, and wrote about it once before.  As a result, I have a "better" picture here, taken back in April:



The Osprey dived and lashed at one of the Bald Eagles with its talons.  I've never seen this before, and the three of us were certainly some of the few people in Illinois to have ever seen this behavior.

 Ospreys and Bald Eagles hate each other.  Bald Eagles regularly steal fish from Ospreys, to the extent that this was noted back in the 1700s before birdwatching became popular. For this reason, Benjamin Franklin considered the "character" of the Bald Eagle inappropriate for a national symbol, but he was outvoted.  Of course, Ben wanted the turkey, so I'm not sure that he was the best judge.

The Osprey lashed out at the eagle over a dozen times.  I feel really dumb that I didn't get a video.

We soon saw why the Osprey had attacked.  There was an Osprey nesting tower, complete with nest, just a few hundred feet away.  Biologists build these towers to give Ospreys better nesting sites, and Ospreys have better luck nesting and raising chicks on such a structure.  I'm not sure whether the nest was occupied by any chicks, but I would guess from the parent osprey's aggression that it might be.

We decided to stay away from the Osprey nest, turn around and walk back on the levee, unaware of the odoriferous spectacle awaiting us at our next stop...

TO BE CONTINUED