The last day of May was one of the better days I've birded this year. I was going to visit Emiquon and look for a vagrant White-faced Ibis and Western Kingbirds, but the Ibis had left and the Western Kingbirds will wait for now, since they're a breeding species. Furthermore, I couldn't find any birders to go along. So, after 17 Dunlin and two Red-necked Pharalopes were reported at Four Corners in Morgan County, I decided to go looking, as I'd never seen either species. I started out ambling in the country, up towards Beardstown, a town to which surprisingly I've never been before. Dickcissels (Spiza americana) (above) sang along as I went.
Evidently Beardstown has a marsh. All I found in it was Red-winged Blackbirds (Agelaius phoeniceus) and Wood Ducks, as well as a calling Sora, not seen but heard. A Sora is a type of rail, little birds with tendencies to hide in marshes and make weird sounds. Ordinarily, a Sora would be the best bird of the day, but not on this particular day...
Four Corners was the next place I stopped. This place, south of Beardstown near Meredosia, is a series of large fluddles, or flooded fields, around a four-way intersection of two county roads. At the time of my visit, the flooded zones were the size of small lakes, and they had been there for at least a month or two, allowing much life to grow in them. This mixture of insects, worms, and algae was the perfect stopover for migrating shorebirds, including...
Dunlin! These were the first lifers of the day. Dunlin (Calidris alpina) are a fairly common shorebird, but one I'd continued to miss for some reason. They are the long, thin-billed birds with gold backs and black bellies above. Dunlin migrate from the edge of the Arctic Ocean, far above the Arctic Circle, all the way to the Florida Coast in the winter, and then back again.
Forster's Terns (Sterna forsteri) sat by, and a Common Tern flew off before I took this photo! Both of those are State-endangered, because while they're very common migrants, they only rarely breed in Northeastern Illinois.
Can you spot the Red-necked Pharalope? It's got a white belly and white cheek patch.
I met up with Vaughn Suhling here, and we birded from about 4:45 to 7:15 PM. These Blue-winged Teal (Anas discors) were only the tip of the iceberg when it came to birdwatching here.
About two dozen Black-necked Stilts (Himantopus mexicanus) roamed through the fields, often flying at other birds. The Killdeer would chase off the Semipalmated Sandpipers, and the Black-necked Stilts would chase off the Killdeer. I presume this aggression is a display of these birds defending their nests, as I've seen something similar at Emiquon.
One of my favorites were the thirty-two Black Terns (Chlidonias niger) flying overhead. Black Terns are another Illinois State-endangered species, primarily because they nest in freshwater marshes in far Northestern Illinois- much like Forster's Terns and Common Terns.
A few White-rumped Sandpipers (Calidris fuscicollis) hid among the terns on shore. These are distingushed by having longer wings, slightly larger size, and white rumps when in flight.
Dunlin and White-rumped Sandpipers weren't the only species present. The majority were Semipalmated Sandpipers (Calidris pusilla), the small, pale, plain ones in the photo above.
A few Stilt Sandpipers (Calidris himantopus) also hung about, including this one cleaning its feathers. They were a nice side bonus to the day.
The highlights, however, were the Phalaropes. Phalaropes are among the oddest birds in the world. The Red-necked Phalarope (Phalaropus lobatus)below in the center (Killdeer [Charadrius vociferus] on the left, Semipalmated Sandpiper on the right) is a female, and the females are more colorful than the males. This is common among humans, but generally not among birds. Furthermore, Phalaropes are in the group called shorebirds, but the Red and the Red-necked Phalarope both winter out on the deep sea, eating plankton and swimming on the surface of the water, far out of sight of shore. Odd for a SHOREbird!
Perhaps most fascinating about this group of shorebirds is how they feed- they spin in a circle to produce a current and stir up their food. At any rate, this was my first Red-necked Phalarope, and these aren't easy to find in Illinois during the spring, so I was quite happy!
A second one can be seen on the left side of this photo. I watched them spin for a bit, among the many Semipalmated Sandpipers, before moving on.
We were briefly interrupted by the arrival of a speeder getting pulled over, and this inspired us to go looking for Common Gallinules where they breed nearby. We found one of these state-endangered birds, among a flooded marsh/prairie with breeding Pied-billed Grebes and American Coots calling, when a Black-crowned Night Heron (Nycticorax nycticorax) showed up. This State-endangered species is rare away from Northeastern Illinois and Emiquon, to my understanding. I also saw a Green Heron, a Great Egret, and Great Blue Herons here.
Calling Dickcissels were everywhere, as, deeper in the grasses, were Northern Bobwhites and Ring-necked Pheasants. A few Indigo Buntings also sang, though I didn't get any good photos.
We then went over to the nearby Meredosia National Wildlife Refuge, looking through prairies with the bluffs above the Illinois River in the background.
A few American Goldfinches (Spinus tristis) hopped about in a field where the uncommon if uncomely Henslow's Sparrows had been seen, though we heard and saw nothing more exciting than a Grasshopper Sparrow, another little brown bird non-birders don't care about, here.
Next, we went looking for a Blue Grosbeak at another spot, just north of this.
This spot had my first Illinois Orchard Oriole (Icterus spurius), though I did recently see a few of these for the first time in Missouri, in this post here.
Last migrants, the Cedar Waxwings (Bombycilla cedrorum) are flying north, and I've seen a few hundred in the last few weeks or so, mostly at times and places it's inconvenient to record them.
My second-ever in Illinois Blue Grosbeak (Passerina caerulea), a female, looked over at me from its perch and posed perfectly for the camera. This is one of several bird species far more common at Meredosia National Wildlife Refuge than most other spots in Illinois.
Another bird in that same category is the Yellow-breasted Chat (Icteria virens), and here's one below. This unique "thrasher-warbler" (it's a warbler with the song and behavior of a thrasher/mockingbird) is one of the more common "rarities" in Illinois. It seems to me that birds in Illinois sometimes have their rarity determined based on how many times they are seen in Chicago. Chats seem fairly easy to find in sandy, brushy areas downstate.
Just as we began to leave again, a state-threatened species, the Black-billed Cuckoo, a third lifer for me, flew across our path and into the bushes. We stopped leaving once more, and began looking for it. Black-billed Cuckoos are a nemesis of mine I'm glad to have conquered, albeit with a lack of a photo.
Though we didn't refind it, I did see a Bell's Vireo (Vireo bellii) and took its photo. These rarely-seen birds were calling all over, but I hate to report them if I don't see at least one. This is usually about as much as you see of a Bell's Vireo, and to be fair, it isn't the most exciting bird in Illinois. The fact that I found my first one only a week before is far more exciting to me, however. Bell's Vireos are a little gray Western bird that are locally abundant in Illinois. Some spots have many, most have none. They like shrubs on the edge of prairies in western Illinois.
I drove back home along the scenic bluffside roads an extremely happy man. Three lifers is a very good day, and with all the other birds on top, today was probably my best birding day of this spring. And I wasn't even expecting to go to Meredosia as of that morning!
Bird of the day, among so many good birds, would have to be the Black-billed Cuckoo, followed by the show-stealing Black-crowned Night Heron and the Red-necked Pharalope. However, over half of the birds I saw today would be the highlights of any other average day. Heck, seven of these birds are state-listed as threatened or endangered. (To be fair, the Black, Common, and Forster's Terns and the Wilson's Pharalope are kind of cheating on that, since they're fairly common migrants.) Seeing the state-listed Black-billed Cuckoo, Common Gallinule, and Black-crowned Night Heron made my day just as much as the lifer shorebirds. Thanks to Vaughn for showing me around!
(P. S. I had one last stop at Centennial Park, just a second or two late for the setting sun, but not too late to capture the Foxglove Beardtongue spectacle at the park's prairie restoration)
Four Corners (I have 51 species- this may be my longest checklist ever!)
http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S37301701
Meredosia National Wildlife Refuge
http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S37301834
Wow! Great finds and what an abundance! I don't even get that much variety when I visit Horicon. I may have to take a little road trip... it's only about 7 hours. LOL!
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