The Wild Land of Lincoln: Emiquon

Showing posts with label Emiquon. Show all posts

Saturday, May 20, 2017

Emiquon, Again? Why Not? (So Many Stilts!)

If you can't tell, I enjoy Emiquon so much that I can spend three weekends in the same spot. The appeal does not extend to non-birders quite so much, however. Therefore I did them a favor and separated out that content, mostly rare plants, to this blogpost here.

I decided to take my mom to Emiquon one evening, to show her around the place where I've spent so much time. We were greeted by two Bald Eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) in one tree!

American Coots (Fulica americana) fed on land here, like chickens.

There was a Canada Goose (Branta canadensis) on a nest, with a turtle army in the background. I suspect the nest is a muskrat lodge with a nest on top.

Last of the migrant ducks, the Northern Shovelers (Anas clypeata) and Blue-winged Teals (Anas discors) rested at Emiquon before going north to the Prairie Potholes, a series of glacially-carved wetlands centered in the Dakotas where most of our dabbling ducks breed.

Red-tailed Hawks (Buteo jamaicensis) flew overhead, as I watched. They spooked many of the other birds including:

So many shorebirds! These Black-necked Stilts (Himantopus mexicanus) fed in a flooded cornfield, the only shorebirds tall enough to forage in the waters. Other creatures also lived in the waters...

A couple of Common Snapping Turtles (Chelydra serpentina) foraged in the floodwaters alongside the stilts, moving to deeper water in pursuit of food.

We moved over to the next field, where a proliferation of shorebirds were the result:

By the way, I have no idea what species are present, nor would I be able to identify them from this vague photo. Some were clearer in the field, but most were too far away for genuine identification. We did see at least forty-odd Black-necked Stilts together in the flooded fields:

We then went off and had Pizza Hut, a fine end to the day in my opinion! I then came back a week later, on my own, to be greeted by this immature Bald Eagle:

The marshes were full of life, including my first Illinois Marbled Godwit, but it was too far off for a photo worth putting out here. Instead, I spotted almost as many Black-necked Stilts and other shorebirds here as I had seen the previous week:

Down the road, an Osprey (Pandion haliaetus) flew up after fish:

Over on the loop at the Visitor's Center, more shorebirds proliferated.

This Greater Yellowlegs (Tringa melanoleuca) decided to show its nictating membrane, a protective second eyelid that makes the bird look like it came out of a horror movie.

Lingering Snow Geese (Chen caerulescens) remained, remnants of the million-strong flock that passed through here back in February.

On my way out, an angry Stilt chased the Lesser Yellowlegs (Tringa flavipes) out of the pool a few times. According to research, this is probably a parent chasing an intruding bird away from a nest.

This turned out to be an injured Yellowlegs, and it had a broken leg. I'm wondering how...

Meanwhile, satisfied that it had done its duty, the Black-necked Stilt meditated the mirroring property of water with its reflection on long legs.

The last bird of the day was an unusually light Eurasian Tree Sparrow (Passer montanus), and yes, it was as light as the photo shows it to be.

A fine sunset capped the days, and my time at Emiquon had ended, helping to get me more shorebirds than warblers for the year, so far. It's been a bit odd as far as birding goes, but as of 5/14/17 I'm up to 184 species of birds for the year so far, which is quite a lot! Summer looks like I'll be mostly busy, so don't expect too many posts this year. I think I'll be cutting back to an irregular schedule and about 4 posts a month from now on.

Ebird Checklists- Too many to list! Just go to Emiquon!

Tuesday, April 25, 2017

BULLSNAKE! And Emiquon, Too!

Right, time to finish up that Mason/Fulton County trip I did a few weeks ago. You can read about the part where we visited Revis Hill Prairie here. We stopped to eat lunch afterwards, at Chautauqua National Wildlife Refuge. This gave us a good idea exactly how flooded the river was, as the lake was considerably higher than the last time I was there.

A few Ruddy Ducks (Oxyura jamaicensis) slept in the middle of the lake as we sat eating our lunch.

A couple of Northern Shovelers (Anas clyptea) flew by, too, showing off all their colors.

Several Red-eared Sliders (Trachemys scripta) sat in the muddy water. This lake, I've been told, used to be much fuller of fish and more scenic before the government put a levee across the middle. That and the introduction of Asian carp to these waters seems to have worsened the water quality. Still, even in a reduced state it's an appreciable place for nature.

Several American White Pelicans (Pelecanus erthrorhynchos) sat out on sandbars, and one flew right over our heads. The majority of people with me weren't birdwatchers, but pelicans are a bird everyone can appreciate, given their size and bill.

The pelican landed just behind us in a small bay, where it posed for photos. After this, we went over to Sand Ridge State Forest and into the desert of H.A. Gleason State Nature Preserve.

Two of the four of us had never been to H.A. Gleason, so we trekked over the sands.

The breeze had kicked up, and we walked through the dry grasses as they blew in the wind, north towards a tall dune named the Devil's Neck. I call this grass patch the "Devil's Prairie" as I always end up with ticks when crossing it.

Once on the Devil's Neck, we found a few small members of the Mustard family, inlcluding this Draba reptans, but one a bit rarer than the rest:

The famous Silvery Bladderpod (Lesquerella ludoviciana) while in bud, was not in flower (at the time, though on a second visit later...)

I love the giant sandbox that is this part of Mason County.

Now, I'm not going to say exactly where this tree is, but it is in the vicinity of our previous locations. The reason for this is simple- snakes like this are often taken from the wild. As a result, I will say that this is in Mason County, but no more than that.

I had walked ahead of the group, looking on the ground for snakes. Someone called out "Snake!" and I immediately ran back to see it. We had discussed the possibility that there might be some Racers in the vicinity, but as soon as I saw it, I happily screamed. "Bullsnake!" (Pituophis catenifer sayi).

Bullsnakes are the largest snake species in Illinois, and while this wasn't a big one, it was about three and a half to four feet long. They are most often seen in Illinois on the "Kankakee Sands", south of Chicago along the state's northeastern border with Indiana. The Mason County population is similar, but far less photographed by herpers. This snake resides in the sand-prairie regions of Illinois, and avoids the black-soil former prairie areas throughout most of Illinois.

This was a beautifully-patterned snake. Unfortunately, I don't have a clear photo, and they get the name Bullsnake for their aggressive-if-handled temperament. I let the snake climb higher in the tree, and both it and I were happier for it.

In the same area, we found some Corydalis flavula, a favorite of mine that I don't see near home.

A member or two of our group had never seen a wild Bald Eagle before, so I decided to show them a nest I'd found. As we approached, the Bald Eagle flew off of the nest. It wasn't a great look, but they did finally see a wild Bald Eagle!

We then went off to Emiquon, and realized quickly that while the levee-protected Thompson Lake wasn't very high, the surrounding area's floodwaters were far higher than usual!

We started watching fish in the shallows, including this Shortnose Gar (Lepisosteus platostomus) below. Obviously, I've tweaked the photo so that you can see the gar. I had never seen a gar in the wild before, and it was quite fun to watch as it cruised along the water's surface.

Far off in the distance, we spotted an Osprey (Pandion haliaetus) flying past. It dove for a fish just after this photo was taken. Ospreys may be State-endangered, but here they're an easy bird to see.

At the Emiquon Visitor's Center, several Savannah Sparrows (Passerculus sandwichensis) (named for Savannah, Georgia) hopped about in the grass on the edge of the wetland.

We saw several other interesting birds, some or all of which will be mentioned in the future. After a brief drive-about, we took a photo of the lake and left for home, stopping at Dairy Queen on the way. It was a fine end to a long day of exploring. Little did I know I'd be back the next weekend...

Wednesday, April 19, 2017

Temporary Hiatus #1

This blog is on a temporary hiatus until I get through a lot of schoolwork. Don't worry, I'll be back in like a week and a half or so!

Black-necked Stilt photo, from a recent trip to Emiquon:

Saturday, March 11, 2017

The Big Day- LOTS OF BIRDING!

In the birdwatching world, there are many kinds of birdwatchers. Some set up a feeder and just sit by and watch the birds eat. Some people relentlessly chase down any rare bird in the state, trying to get as many as they can on their life list. Others enjoy studying how migrations change from day to day and year to year. Still others do Big Days... and they are the crazy ones.

A Big Day is finding as many species of birds in a day as possible. The Illinois state record is 191 species, and you can read about how that happened here on the official American Birding Association website. Finding, by the way, includes hearing birdcalls only, so long as it's identified. This is a personal problem for me, as I don't know most bird calls unless the birds live in my neighborhood.

In order to do well on a Big Day, you have to get out early and stay out late, spending most of the day on the road. You have to know where certain species will be and go straight to those locations. Basically, you can't bumble about, waiting until well after dawn and coming in just after twilight, spending lots of time here or there, getting lost, driving hours out of your way after random plant species. Or you could do exactly that and have a great time anyway... like I did.

I had originally intended to get out at 5:00 AM and bird Revis Hill Prairie Nature Preserve for Eastern Towhee, Carolina Wren, and whatever sparrows I could scare up. However, I also had begun Stranger Things, the Netflix TV show, recently, and I was on the last episode. At that time of night, the decision was to continue and watch the very last episode of Stranger Things or get out early and birdwatch at Revis Hill Prairie. (These are the tough decisions I have to make in life.)

If you've seen Stranger Things, you'll know what I did and probably why I did it. I know Revis to be an underrated naturalist's paradise, and I will return to prove it another day. I never found any of the species I listed above anywhere on the trip. Missing Revis cost me any chance at beating records, which in my book is fine- I'm out to have fun.

My theoretical first stop of the day was actually not going to be for birds- I was after Snow Trillium. I believed that some might be found at Parklands Nature Preserve. That, however, would require finding Parklands Nature Preserve in the first place. As an old-growth woods, I hoped for some of the woodland birds on the side, too, maybe even an owl. Yeah, nothing happened there.

My actual first stop of the day was at Elkhart Hill. There's a private nature preserve on the hill, with an old-growth woods, and I figured I might get Carolina Wren or Eastern Towhee here, which as mentioned didn't happen. Instead, I heard a Pileated Woodpecker as I took photos of the little stone chapel in the cemetery adjacent to the nature preserve. This is a fairly large woods, but it's very isolated, so the Pileated Woodpecker surprised me greatly! It was the first of many surprises to come.

Next stop was Parklands, in theory. It's inside Mackinaw State Fish and Wildlife Area, so I assumed there might be trails to get to it. That would not be the case. I never found Parklands Nature Preserve, although I knew its general location. In this case, there was so much brush and ravines, and so few birds or flowers, that I was uninterested in proceeding further. I returned to the parking lot, which proved to be wise. I spotted a Yellow-breasted Sapsucker, a very hard woodpecker to find this year, and then I spotted an Eastern Bluebird (Sialia sialis), the only one of the day. (that phrase will come to be repeated often):

Wild Turkey and Wilson's Snipe along the side of the road brought up the day's total to twenty-six species, and it was nearing 10:00. It was at this point I realized I'd be setting no records. Generally, in a Big Day, you get most of the species you need early in the morning, giving you the rest of the day to tick off the ones you missed. Still, I rushed across Tazewell County, and decided to try my luck at Powerton Lake, a reservoir in the Illinois River Valley that had some wet woods behind it and a huge expanse of open water... and cold wind. I did not pack a warm jacket, as it was sunny and the forecasts had varied widely, from low fifties to high sixties. I prepared for higher temps, and the actual temperatures went lower.

Powerton Lake got me a few good birds to add to the day's list. The day's only Belted Kingfisher called from the creek behind the lake. I got a few more birds here, but overall it was very species-poor and I was cold, so I went to my next stop, Spring Lake.

Spring Lake, which I had never visited before, proved to be one of the best stops of the day. Mute Swans (Cygnus olor) were everywhere, with a couple of Trumpeter Swans thrown in the background for no reason. I only noticed them later in the back of a photo!

A Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) on a nest provided my first look at this fairly common species. Actually, this nest is remarkably easy to see, and you can easily get too close.

A small neighborhood on the shores of Spring Lake looked far nicer than most settlements along the river. Someday I will get a picture of the unincorporated community of Goofy Ridge to demonstrate what I mean. Suffice it to say I've never seen so much littering in my life. Therefore, it was quite nice to see a river settlement that wasn't actively polluting everything around it!

Speaking of litter, the south end of the lake was littered with American Coots (Fulica americana). After Red-winged Blackbirds, this was the most numerous species seen all day. I saw about a thousand total, which is actually somewhat lower numbers for this part of Illinois at this time of year.

One of the more interesting birds along the Illinois River is the Eurasian Tree Sparrow (Passer montanus), simply because it's the easiest place to find this range-restricted bird. When I say range-restricted, I mean in the United States. Technically, it's found throughout Eurasia and has been introduced to almost every continent outside the Old World. However, in the United States, this bird is found almost entirely within Iowa, Missouri, and Illinois. It was introduced in St. Louis in the early 1900s, and it hasn't gotten much further in a hundred years.

On a side note, this is my first time seeing this bird in a genuine tree! They seem to prefer bushes.

As the sky clouded over, I spotted a huge flock of mixed ducks on a shallow pond adjacent to Spring Lake. Within moments, I had twelve species of ducks, including my two favorites, American Wigeon (Anas americana) and Bufflehead (Bucephala albeola), above. (Male and female Bufflehead, and American Wigeon in foreground)

Overhead, American White Pelicans (Pelecanus erythrorhynchos) soared on their huge wings. I'm amazed something so large can stay in the air so effortlessly.

Below them, Eastern Meadowlarks (Sturnella magna) hid in the brush and I scared Chorus Frogs, seeing some for the first time all year. The noise of calling frogs from the nearby bottomlands was quite loud! I looked in vain for the elusive Illinois Chorus Frog, but I couldn't even get a photo of the usual Western Chorus Frogs in the area.

After about ten or fifteen minutes, I realized it was time to leave. The gnats were becoming obnoxious, which isn't something I usually say in March and which does not bode well for the summer. Every dark speck on the car window below is a gnat, and they all wanted to fly in and bother me:

Hoping the gnats would improve down the road, I went to Chautauqua, passing through the aptly-named hamlet of Goofy Ridge on my way to that parking lot. A Hairy Woodpecker waited in the parking lot and after being identified immediately departed. "You need me, right? But a photo wasn't in my contract! Goodbye!"

A mass of calling blackbirds in the wet woods adjacent to Chautauqua's Mud Lake made me curious if any of my nemesis Rusty Blackbirds (Euphagus carolinus) were present. They were!

I've been looking for Rusty Blackbirds for a bit, so I'm glad to finally find a few. Once you get over 200 species of birds in a state, it's a lot harder to find new ones! Rusty Blackbirds dwell in wet woods, presumably because some bird has to and they drew the short straw.

Red-winged Blackbirds (Agelaius phoeniceus) were FAR more common. Indeed, they were the most common bird of the day, easily outnumbering everything else except possibly American Coots.

The nearby lake was full of ducks, but all of them except one species I'd seen before. That species was the Ruddy Duck (Oxyura jamaicensis), one of my personal favorites:

As you might be able to tell from the spray, this diving duck had just emerged from the water. Ruddy Ducks are in a special group of ducks called Stiff-tailed Ducks. There's only five species, and for some reason there's one to every continent (excluding Antarctica and lumping Eurasia together.)

Many sparrows flew up around the edges of the lake, but they were all Song (Melospiza melodia) and Tree Sparrows, so far as I could tell. I missed out on a large number of sparrows by not visiting more prairie fields. After seeing something that looked suspiciously like an early Osprey, but which flew out of view before I could identify it, I moved on to the refuge's headquarters.

It was while driving between the two that it hit me- I wasn't enjoying trying to get as many species as possible. From then on, I'd take my time and enjoy the places I visit, like I would on any other trip. At the Headquarters, I heard an odd-sounding Sandpiper, but I could not identify it from the call and I could not find it by the lake. I then went into the woods. where I got quite lucky.

All at once, Tufted Titmice, White-breasted Nuthatches, Red-headed Woodpeckers, and the Golden-crowned Kinglet (Regulus satrapa) seen above appeared, all three of which had eluded me earlier. I may have called the Big Day off, but it wanted to keep going! I was sitting at sixty-seven birds by the time I left for Emiquon Nature Preserve- in other words, the majority of the species I would find.

The Red-headed Woodpecker was the last of all seven species of woodpecker in Central Illinois for me to find that day. Finding all seven is known as a Woodpecker Shutout. To top that off, I got my best-ever photos of a Downy Woodpecker (Picoides pubescens) only ten feet away from me:

Emiquon may not have gotten me many new birds, but I did find more species there than I expected. I found these Northern Shovelers (Anas clypeata) with many other ducks, including my first Hooded Mergansers. However, for sheer number of duck species, I found nothing to rival Spring Lake Bottoms, which I would consider the third-best find of the trip, first two being new species.

Not everything in the area was ducks- this immature Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus), eating a fish, proved a wonderful photography subject!

Then I found a bird or two I didn't expect, as a few lingering Snow Geese (Chen caerulescens) flew overhead. A few weeks ago, this area would have held hundreds of thousands, possibly millions of Snow Geese. Even earlier that morning Chautauqua had hundreds, according to an employee I met up there. Only a dozen remained at Emiquon, insofar as I could see.

On the shoreline, these Killdeer (Charadrius vociferus) battled it out among themselves, ignoring me as the two on the right chased away the two on the left. The vociferus part of their name was well-earned! They wouldn't shut up at all, especially not when they finally decided I was too close.

For some reason, their cries didn't disturb the world's best hidden bird, in the photo below:

If you give up, it's just a little above the lower left corner. Here it is, the second lifer of the day, the completely unexpected Snow Bunting (Plectrophenax nivalis):

Snow Buntings deserve their name- they breed in the Arctic Circle, which is really, really, really far north, and winter down here. This bird, as you can tell, has a thick layer of insulating feathers to keep warm on cold nights. Actually, Emiquon's almost as far south as they've been seen this winter. This bird should be on its way north by now.

However, as you can see below, all the wing feathers have been ripped out on one side. I don't know why, but I suspect some predator has attacked this bird, only for it to escape. It has plenty of food in the spot where I found it, and I let it be. Even with its injury, this bird was remarkably tame, letting me approach without running away. The Snow Bunting didn't seem to be doing this out of weakness, as it ran up and down the shoreline multiple times while I stood about looking for ducks.

Even with its injured wing, if the Snow Bunting can regrow its feathers and that's all that's wrong with it, it has a chance. After all, it's not the easiest bird to see. Find it again, I dare you.

(It's halfway between the big dirt mass on the shore and the left side of the photo).

Another unusual bird for this time of year was the Tree Swallow (Tachycineta bicolor), a very early migrant feeding on bugs like the gnats from earlier. Since the bugs were up sooner than usual thanks to the warm winter, the Tree Swallows have come north to eat them. I wonder how many birders have observed a Tree Swallow and a Snow Bunting at the same time?

Overhead, another surprise came, in the form of Greater White-fronted Geese (Anser albifrons), which I assumed had moved north a bit earlier, like the Snow Geese with which they often associate.

Like the geese, I moved north, deciding to visit the areas to the north of Emiquon. I was cruelly tricked by someone's Snow Goose hunting decoys, and drove past a fithy cattle pond as I went to go see the imitation geese. This pond proved to be full of Wilson's Snipes (Gallinago delicata), whose appetites weren't so delicata as their Latin name suggests. Unfortunately, it was still overcast, so the lighting was execrable. That's a word I recently found, and intend to use.

Still, I had a great few minutes watching the snipe, and I spotted a flyover Rough-legged Hawk at the same time, pushing me to 72 species. I feel that I've become quite a proficient snipe hunter in the space of a week! Literally, it's been a week since I saw my first one.

At this point, it was getting late, so I drove back across the river. Sitting in a tree directly left of the bridge was a Red-shouldered Hawk, species 73 for the day and completely unexpected. I drove around for a bit near the Havana Power Plant, which has given some birders very good birds. I got a Northern Mockingbird once I got lost in the vicinity, species 74. I found my way out and to Matanzas Prairie Nature Preserve, a place for Illinois Chorus Frogs. At this point, however, it was too cold for any calling frogs, so I looked at flowers.

This is the Pussy Willow (Salix discolor), a new plant species for me, and one quite abundant in the wet shrub prairie. It got starring role as the title photo, though I had to hold the branches tight to keep them in focus! This plant is used by certain churches as a replacement for palm branches on Easter Sunday, especially churches in Eastern Europe.

After finding the Pussy Willow, I then went looking for American Woodcocks. (Yes, I know. I can hear my family now- "Watch your language!") At this time of the year, Woodcocks, which I prefer to call Timberdoodles, are mating in Sand Ridge State Forest. They make a sort of call in the woods that sounds like "Bzzeeent! Bzzeeent!" Once they have the attention of the female, the male Timberdoodle flies hundreds of feet straight up in the air and then comes back to earth. Then they go back to "Bzzeeent!"-ing again. I saw this just after sunset, and, exhausted, went home.

The High Senior General Grandmaster-Admiral of Illinois Big Days, Greg Neise, who was one of the members of the group that did the record Illinois Big Day, commented on my Facebook post about this: "72 for early March isn't bad at all!" (Technically, it was 75, I forgot the Pileated Woodpecker and the Rock Pigeons in the initial count and I found the Black Ducks in a photo afterwards.) This makes me feel quite good about the thing, and I might do it again- with someone else. A solo Big Day is somewhat tedious at times, if still good fun.

In summary, I had a great time doing a Big Day, but it certainly is exhausting and not my preferred method of birdwatching. I'm an explorer at heart- I want to see new lands and new spots. I also like more than just birds- I was looking for plants and herps too! In my mind, the perfect trip combines all of these interests, so this trip, while amazing, didn't suit me perfectly. I'm glad to have found this out, and I got two lifer birds in the process!