Vertebrate Zoology Journal #5- Lincoln Land Community College Grounds

Lincoln Land Community College

Tuesday, September 13, 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM

Temperatures: 82-85 degrees Fahrenheit

It's been  two busy weeks since I last wrote a blogpost (though you saw it later than that), and I am very far behind.  Fall birds and fall homework have both begun in earnest.  Thankfully, Lincoln Land Community College is a great place for both.  This is the only community college in Illinois with a bird banding program, run by renowned bird expert Vern Kleen.  For more information, see here.

We started our hike at the bird banding station, where this House Wren (Troglodytes aedon) was released. They also had a Swainson's Thrush, an Eastern Wood-Pewee, and a Black-capped Chickadee, which were all banded and released swiftly.  While there, I spotted a dark shape up in the sky, and it turned out to be a Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus), with an oddly torn tail:

We walked along the edge of the woods for a bit, but there were few birds of note.  Birds, indeed, were all that we saw.  There were a few House Sparrows and House Finches, five Blue Jays, three American Crows, and about four Chimney Swifts.  A Red-bellied Woodpecker, two Northern Cardinals, three Black-capped Chickadees, and a Downy Woodpecker were heard calling as we walked through the woods.  For one reason or another, including even getting a phone call in the middle of my taking a picture, I got very few photos from that section.  The 'common-ness' of these birds also played a factor in my lack of pictures.  I did find a beehive, however, so that was exciting:

We  saw four American Crows sitting up in a tree, occasionally diving at a well-concealed bird.  Hoping for an owl, we instead found this Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis) after a bit of looking.

Considering the size of the grove of trees, without the mob of crows (and a couple of Blue Jays that joined in at the end) we would never have found this hawk:

We also spotted an Eastern Phoebe and a White-breasted Nuthatch in the trees nearby.  Near this point, behind Mason Hall, we discovered a small flock of House Sparrows and Chipping Sparrows, about fifteen and five, respectively.  We then crossed back over the parking lot towards the gym, where we discovered six immature Eastern Bluebirds (Sialia sialis), products of the local nest boxes:

These bluebirds can be seen seemingly everywhere on campus, ironically except where the banding nets are located.  They especially enjoy hunting bugs in the athletic fields:

Overhead, we spotted a couple of Turkey Vultures (Cathartes aura) and zooming in on top of a nearby cell tower,  I spotted several more.  Some days, depending on the winds, over a hundred Turkey Vultures circle over Lincoln Land's campus.  They roost in the trees to the south and east at night, it seems.  In the morning and evening, they are easiest to see in great numbers.

As we walked back, fifteen Canada Geese flew overhead and landed in the pond.  While looking up at them, we also spotted this lone vulture, sitting on the power lights.  It wasn't a great success of a trip, but this was all the way back in early September.  I've had better luck since...

Ebird Checklist:

http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S31572164

Vertebrate Zoology Field Trip Journal #4: Carpenter Park-100th Post!

This is the hundredth post on my blog.  Wow.  I wasn't sure at points whether I was going to continue with this website.  It's not always easy for me to have these posts out, and certainly not in time.  Often, there are days, like the one described below, where I just scrap an entire blogpost because the pictures don't work out or there just wasn't much to write about.  My last blogpost, however, I posted to an email group of birdwatchers, and it got me several kind emails in reply, full of advice and ideas.  If you're one of those people, thanks for reading this blog and emailing me!  

Carpenter Park State Nature Preserve

Friday, September 9, 3:45 to 5:00 PM

Temperature: 80 degrees Fahrenheit

Weather:  Mostly cloudy, with intermittent brief rain, winds negligible.

I'll be honest, getting to Carpenter Park was terrible.  As I drove down there on the highway, a septic treatment truck, with a loaded septic tank on back,  switched lanes so that it was in front of me.  It then began to leak, at sixty-five miles an hour.  There were some words said as the contents of the tank intermittently splattered against the windshield, hood, and front grille of my car.  Thankfully, it turned off a few miles later, though not before leaving a few semi-permanent stains in the front of my car.  Running late, I raced to meet up with the main field trip.  I caught up to them, finally, with my tale of woe, and a car desperately in need of a wash.  The trip was nominally taken in search of snakes, but none were to be found.   We missed out on seeing any warblers here as well.  We could hear a Pileated Woodpecker calling, but it remained out of view, sadly.

Initially, however, all we could seem to find were Eastern Wood-Pewees (Contopus virens).  We did spot a Swainson's Thrush or two, and we could hear Blue Jays and a Black-capped Chickadee calling.  However, these are, with the exception of the Swainson's, all among the most common Illinois birds.  No other vertebrates could be seen at this place, which was usually teeming with life.  Only one form of life was widespread and everywhere; that was the mosquito.

Out in the prairie section, the Gray Catbirds mocked us from the edge, while American Goldfinches (Spinus tristus), about eight of them, bounced around the weeds on the path ahead of us.

With the general lack of vertebrates, I was soon distracted by plants, and this colorful False Foxglove (Agalinis spp.) was a good distraction.  These prairie flowers, while not state-listed, aren't exactly a common find for me.  Partially parasitic, False Foxgloves steal water and nutrients from the roots of other plants, which makes these botanical semi-vampires quite bizarre and fascinating to me.

Also, this time of year, the butterflies are on the move, and we found this tiny yellow one, resting on the leaves of a Cassia plant.  It was around the size of my thumbnail.

Back in the woods, we found several more Eastern Wood-pewees and a Red-bellied Woodpecker.  Far more exciting than these common birds was the Gray Treefrog  (Hyla spp.) we also found.  My computer, for no explicable reason, wants to have this picture vertically oriented:

I also spotted an unusual fungus or two, something quite easy to do at Carpenter Park:

Finally, we made it out to the banks of the river, where Boneset and Hibiscus grew.  Still, there wasn't even a heron visible!  We contented ourselves with an American Robin and a Chimney Swift or two flying overhead, and dipped back into the forest.

On the way, our professor stopped for a photo inside this tree.  The mosquitoes and mud made this section a bit unbearable, so we moved on quickly, heading for the bluff.

With the lower water levels, the rocks at the base of the bluff were exposed:

A Northern Cricket Frog (Acris crepitans) hid among the pebbles and debris on the banks of the Sangamon River, defying us to find it when it weren't moving.  These frogs, the size of crickets, are among North America's smallest vertebrates and our most plentiful frogs.  Can you see it?

The birds were also more visible.  We spotted several more Chimney Swifts catching bugs above the treetops, as well as a pair of Mourning Doves and a Downy Woodpecker.  Of course, this paled in comparison to what we found when we got atop the bluff.  An adult Bald Eagle flew right past us as we climbed up the bluff, going east along the river, so suddenly that we failed to get pictures.  After a few minutes, we spotted a second, juvenile Bald Eagle flying near a group of eight Turkey Vultures to our southeast.  This was the highlight of the day.

We made our way back to the parking lot during a brief rainshower.  I waited around with a couple of our party, trying to see what birds were in the trees around the parking lot.  We turned up several more Eastern Wood-pewees and a couple of White-breasted Nuthatches (Sitta carolinensis), including one hiding in the photo below.  It's a short list, but at least we had a Bald Eagle and a Gray Treefrog.  I would not recommend returning to Carpenter Park anytime soon, however, unless you are especially resistant to mosquitoes.  I'll certainly be back... after frost.

Ebird Checklist:

http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S31503123

Beachhouse Birding Report + Identification Needed!

I'm taking a break from the journal life.  This is for the local and IBET birdwatchers, more or less.

Over the course of the last month,  I've spent a bit of time at the abandoned beach in Springfield, Illinois.  The site of an unfortunate drowning back in 2007, the beach has been closed since, fenced off and left alone.  The only decent-sized wild beach or lake mudflat viewable by the public in Sangamon County, the Lake Springfield Beach is one of the best birdwatching locations in the county.  Just ask these  Pied-billed Grebes (Podilymbus podiceps):

These little grebes are just starting to appear on the lake, especially as people put away their boats for the year.  Pied-billed Grebes dislike the frequent boat traffic of Lake Springfield in the summer months, and thus live and breed on quieter waters.  However, they pass this way in the fall as they migrate southwards, and we're all the better for it. 

Also, as I've mentioned previously, we've had a flock of Caspian Terns (Hydroprogne caspia) continuously on the lake since July 14.  This is the longest a group of Caspian Terns has been seen on Lake Springfield, at least according to the limited information I've obtained online.  There were well over a hundred back at their peak in late August, and they can be seen fishing all over the lake:

This beach is also the county's most consistent spot for sandpipers, including this little mystery:

I initially called this a Ruddy Turnstone, as one had been "sighted" earlier in the day here.  However, upon further consideration and especially examination of the bill, this cannot be a Ruddy Turnstone in the slightest.  I don't know what it is, so I would like some help in identifying it:

The dark collar appears a bit washed-out in these photos, but it was the most prominent feature of this unusual sandpiper.  The bird, whatever it was, wasn't particularly shy.  I was evidently the last to see it, as no one else reported this bird in any of the trips afterwards.  As this was a few days ago,  I don't know if we'll ever get a chance to see it again.  (Note:  Thanks to the half-dozen people who told me this was a Pectoral Sandpiper (Calidris melanotos))

Above, you can see it in comparison to a Killdeer twice.  Below is my best shot of the bird:

Also, there's no chance that the birds below are Western Sandpipers?  I might have to change an Ebird checklist and add a check to the list in the back of my Peterson if they are.  Westerns would be new for the area, and rarely recorded in this county.  (Note, Thanks for telling me that these ARE Least Sandpipers, and how to differentiate the two.)

In  other birds seen here, a Great Egret (Ardea alba) has been intermittently seen since July.  While obviously not a rare bird,  I still enjoy seeing them, and they seem abundant this year.

The Double-crested Cormorants (Phalacrocorax auritus) have returned to Lake Springfield's three largest islands, where dozens roost every night.  They can be seen fishing off the beach and nearby Marina Point.  I keep hoping for a Neotropic Cormorant, but I doubt that'll happen this year.

One of the highlights I had here recently, which I would like confirmed by any birders familiar with the species, was a pair of probable Black Terns (Chlidonias niger), on the same day as the improbable Ruddy Turnstone.  One of these is photographed below, although as a flyover it's not the best picture:

Also on the same day, a few Forster's Terns (Sterna forsteri) joined the Caspians.  It was a four-tern day, which is hard to do on this lake, especially outside the best months of May or June.

The fourth species of tern spotted were Common Terns (Sterna hirundo), distinguishable from the Forster's quite easily at this time of year, and quite obviously not Caspian Terns:

Also, on this same day again, September 7, 2016, Stilt Sandpipers (Calidris himantopus), appeared, in company of all the bird mentioned above.  I rarely see them, so I was quite happy:

Sometimes, you're watching the birds, and sometimes they're watching you:

Only a few sandpipers, like the Killdeer (Charadrius vociferus) and the Spotted Sandpiper (Actitis macularius) below, are frequent flyers here, to use a pun that isn't used often enough, I feel.

Others, like this Solitary Sandpiper (Tringa solitaria), only come here for part of a day before flying off again.  This habitat is simply not large enough to support medium/large sandpipers indefinitely.

Every so often, thankfully, we get a glut of Least and Semipalmated Sandpipers, two birds I can rarely if ever tell apart:

Of course, this whole happy business of sandpiper and tern watching will likely come to an end when they someday reopen the beach.  Proposals have been swirling for the last several years, stalled by an economic downturn, though not for lack of interest.  I've read recently that the beach will "Definitely" be opened next year for public business, so the birders may have to make do with other spots. Eh, we've had a good run, and it was always going to be temporary.

How many years before a lifeguard sits where this Great Blue Heron does now?  God only knows.

Vertebrate Zoology Field Trip Journal #3- Chautauqua @ Goofy Ridge and Emiquon

Northwestern Mason County

Saturday, September 3, 5:00 AM- 5:00 PM

(Events referenced in this section are 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM and around 3:45 PM)

Temperature: 55-80 degrees Fahrenheit

Weather: Mostly sunny, winds out of northwest

Congratulations to those who have stayed with these rather overlong journals.  I saved the best for last, in my opinion.  The animals seen in Goofy Ridge and Emiquon are the rarest of the trip.

The local Osprey (Pandion haliaetus) was out and about at Goofy Ridge, named for the nearby village.  This, two Bald Eagles, four Turkey Vultures, a few American White Pelicans, a Double-crested Cormorant, a flock of  fifteen Canada Geese, a Great Blue Heron, and several swallows comprised the notable flyovers.  There were probably more, but we didn't notice them for the grasshoppers, thousands of which I neglected to photograph.

Three Red-eared Sliders (Trachemys scripta elegans) greeted our arrival at the Goofy Ridge levee by sliding into the water.  This area is quite a great turtle spot, as I was to find out later...

Indeed, the population of turtles here also engaged in photobombing this Great Egret (Ardea alba) photo.  I count two in this photo, but like as not there's a couple more hidden underwater. Thankfully, the area lacked the thousands of dead rotting carp seen and smelled on a previous trip.  I learned recently that this lake has massive Asian carp die-offs whenever the water levels are lowered during the summer.  A few Ring-billed Gulls still picked around the edge of the lake, but my focus was here:

  My favorite birds of the trip were these Black-necked Stilts (Himantopus mexicanus).  Amazingly long legs and what appears to be a black helmet and coat on each bird make for a cartoonish appearance.  The Black-necked Stilt has only recently begun to be seen here in great numbers.  It's a happy story of a species on the rise, and as such has gone nearly undocumented by the news.

A Spotted Sandpiper (Actitis macularius) and four Lesser Yellowlegs (Tringa flavipes) stood on a nearby log, intermittently grooming themselves and stalking insects on the log.

Over on the bank, meanwhile, a mysterious turtle lived.  I have never seen any turtle in Illinois with the head, tail, legs, and shell of this one.  At first I though it was a Snapping Turtle, but after a second consideration, I have determined that it may remain unknown.  This section of Illinois has many rare turtles, and it is possible that this is one of those, unknown to me.  This is quite possibly some species of Map Turtle, the four of which in Illinois I am quite unfamiliar with.

I have gotten rather off topic.  A Cooper's Hawk (Accipiter cooperii) flew overhead, and we turned back at that point.  A friend and I walked back slower than the rest, as I'd seen something in the brush near our turning point.  It turned out to be a couple of Eurasian Tree Sparrows.  As we came back, she spotted this "lovely" spider in the brush:

It  was the day's second Yellow Garden Spider (Argiope aurantica) (I found one later, at H.A. Gleason Nature Preserve).  I wish I liked spiders better, but as it is, a spider this large terrifies me.  With legs, this spider is easily as wide as the palm of my hand.  It was busy eating grasshoppers as we watched.  We yelled at the rest of the group to come back and see it, but they were too far away, distracted by some other bird, so we ran up to meet them.

There was an Eastern Wood-Pewee and a few Barn Swallows, but the big draw was a female Rose-breasted Grosbeak (Pheucticus ludovicianus) feeding in a tree over the parking lot.  We went to leave, when something hopped out from under my car.  I dived for it, and it hopped away.  On my hands and knees,  I crawled after it, and caught the amphibian, an American Toad (Anaxyrus americanus):

After showing this off to the others, I released the toad.  As I did so,  I came across this Turbulent Phosphila (Phosphila turbulenta) caterpillar, the larval stage of an unremarkable brown moth.  I often wonder whether moth caterpillars like this are analogous to people I know, who live colorful lives while young but may become dull and commonplace when they get a bit older.  Philosophizing aside, this is a neat caterpillar to find.  It lives on greenbriar vines, often in groups.

We  stopped in Havana for a bit of lunch, where I got in the van with the rest of the class (having driven separately until then) and then we took off for Emiquon Preserve, where I practiced my lackluster skills at photographing moving birds from a moving vehicle:

To  be fair, this would never have been a great Black-crowned Night Heron (Nycticorax nycticorax) picture.  I'm fairly proud of the fact that I got it in general.  This rare, State-Threatened heron is, as its name suggests, nocturnal, and despite its black, white, and gray colors, remarkably hard to find even where it is common.  Evidently, this works in the bird's favor, since it is found worldwide.  Three Wood Ducks, ten Mallards, fifteen Blue-winged Teal, a Turkey Vulture and a Belted Kingfisher later, we spotted something else fairly interesting in the shallows off the road:

Two juvenile Little Blue Herons (Egretta caerulea) were the next birds to find.  These southern herons regularly drift up to Emiquon and other parts of Central Illinois just after leaving their nests.  State-Endangered, these small herons are often found with Snowy Egrets, but such was not the case on this day.  If there is one bird in Illinois I have looked for the hardest, it is the Snowy Egret.  Every weekend, several birdwatchers go to Emiquon and report several Snowy Egrets.  I have been there on the average of once a month since May, and  I haven't seen one.  This considerably irritates me.  But I digress.  Our finding these two herons was quite good luck.  The way to identify any heron is the bill.  A Great Egret has a solid yellow bill, while a Snowy Egret has a black bill with a yellow base.  In the case of the Little Blue Heron, these birds have a silvery-blue bill with a dark tip.  As soon as we got out of the van to identify these birds, they departed for other sections of  Thompson Lake.

Thompson Lake is the main body of water at Emiquon, and on this particular day, it was covered in pelicans, egrets, and gulls.  We saw about two hundred Ring-billed Gulls, fourteen Great Egrets, and  seventy-odd American White Pelicans, all fishing after their means.  The gulls pounced on fish from the sky, while the egrets stalked slowly in the shallows.

Meanwhile, the American White Pelicans (Pelecanus erythrorhynchos) cruised the lake, dipping their bills occasionally in the water and catching fish.  Just recently, a few pelicans were spotted on Lake Springfield, so keep your eyes out for huge white birds.

Painted Turtles (Chrysemys picta) watched us from the rocks surrounding the visitor's center.  Also:

Northern Cricket Frogs (Acris crepitans), one of our most common little frog species, hopped about in the rocks.  We must have found a half-dozen on the edge of the lake, all hidden in the riprap.

While looking at the frogs, I spotted this damselfly.  Invertebrates here are too numerous to count, though thankfully the mosquitoes are rather limited by all their predators in this area.

Up at the reopened boardwalks, I spotted this Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias), which watched our little band from its perch on the boardwalk, next to the sign.  I've never been to this part of Emiquon, which has been closed to me for the last few trips.

Under a shade structure frequented by wasps, we spotted a few Cliff Swallow nests.  Most of these birds have since flown south, but I spotted one flying overhead.  These birds are some of the few that have done well out of modern buildings, using underpasses, bridges, and other manmade structures to affix their mud-built nests.  About  twenty Northern Rough-winged Swallows and five Double-crested Cormorants flew overhead as we watched.

Meanwhile, on the boardwalk, the Great Blue Heron decided to stay put and give me a perfect shot of its tongue.  Who knew they had a barbed tongue?

As we went to leave, a Leopard Frog (Lithobates spp.) hopped out near our van.  It was an excellent capper to a good trip at Emiquon, but as you know, I kept going, all the way to Goofy Ridge again.

The first bird back at Goofy Ridge was a Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus), and a decent one at that.  Most of the Bald Eagles I've seen at Chautauqua have been immatures, like this one, brownish until about five years of age. All these juveniles are a sign of a strong, growing population. It's a good sign to see this species on the rebound, particularly after a recent estimate I read that we're short a billion birds compared to 1970 records, especially grassland and/or insect-eating birds affected by pesticides and more intensive farming.  It's bad, but at least we know it happened, and this survey left out waterfowl, one of the faster-recovering groups of birds.  If you read nature news too often, you get too pessimistic.  To quote Jurassic Park, "Life, uh, finds a way."

Goofy Ridge Levee looks out, as it always does, over a vast wetland meadow and huge lake.  About forty Canada Geese foraged at the far end,  along with three Great Egrets and about ten Ring-billed Gulls.  Overhead, a Pectoral Sandpiper flew north, one of the hundreds in the area.  The Black-necked Stilts still foraged in their pond, and I quietly contemplated the scenery.

Off in the far distance, hundreds of shorebirds and pelicans could be seen, resting on the edge of the water, too far for me to reach them.  I walked a bit further, when I scared up about seventy-five of one of Illinois' more curious birds, the Eurasian Tree Sparrow (Passer montanus):

Eurasian Tree Sparrows looked to be the day's Fifth Orchid (Great finding at the end of the trip).  I'd never seen so many before.  These birds, as you might deduce, are from Eurasia.  Released in St. Louis, they are now found in the St. Louis area, central and western Illinois, and the southeastern tip of Iowa.  Despite being nonnative, these birds are some of the few almost exclusively found in Illinois, out of all the United States.  They are fairly common here, but seem to be unlikely to become a serious pest like their relative the House Sparrow.  I thought this might be the highlight at the end, but I have saved the best for last, as the day itself did.  

After careful examination of the animal's plain back and lack of front ridges,  I have come to the conclusion that this last turtle is the state-endangered Smooth Softshell Turtle (Apalone mutica)- a real Fifth Orchid if ever there was.  This river-dwelling turtle made an excellent cap to a full day of birdwatching.  I had this new-ish reptile, eight lifer list birds, and several state-listed animals and plants.  It justifies the nasty case of poison ivy I currently have from Revis and H.A. Gleason Nature Preserves, for certain!  I have several more journals out to do, coming up, so be prepared for a glut of posts as I try to encapsulate all my Vertebrate Zoology adventures on this blog.

Ebird Checklists:

http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S31412091

http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S31412156

http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S31412221

http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S31412444