So, I was bored Thursday, March 23. I was in the middle of an English paper, and it wasn't going well. I was out of ideas on how to interpret the poem in front of me. I was going birding with a local class at 3:45, so I had a little time to kill. Idly, I checked my phone. On Illinois Birders Exchanging Thoughts, an email group that generally notifies me of rare birds three hours or more away,
there was an email from the greatest living birder in Illinois. (Well, at least one of the greats.)
H. David Bohlen, the man who wrote the definitive guide to birds in Illinois, aptly named The Birds of Illinois, had spoken, or rather, written. He birds Lake Springfield as part of his job, and I've occasionally encountered him. I once asked to look through his scope at my lifer Sabine's Gull, but that's about it as our social interactions go. Every month he lists what birds he's seen, usually long and full of rarities not seen by any of the other local birders. I don't mean that as a criticism, that he's making them up. He isn't. Bohlen seems to spend most of the day driving around Lake Springfield and environs birding, to the partial envy of the other birders in town. Since he birds so much, he gets birds on Lake Springfield I could only dream about. That being said, he only emails in these lists once a month after the end of the month, and the February one had already been posted.
What on Earth was this email about?
I read the email- BLACK-HEADED GULL, offshore from Lincoln Greens Golf Course. I rushed out the door immediately. Now, for those who don't know what a Black-headed Gull is, I'll tell you. Actually, I'll show you. While I don't have great pictures, Colin Dobson, one of the best birdwatchers in my area, did get a photo and here is the bird:
For those of you who wonder what all the fuss is about, Black-headed Gulls (
Chroicocephalus ridibundus) are from Europe, and rarely come over to the East Coast. Finding one in Sangamon County is therefore an event. This species has only been found in Illinois seven times. I didn't know that at the time, or I would have tried for a good photo. I only saw the bird in flight, and when there's four hundred Bonaparte's Gulls around it, it stands to reason that I might get them mixed up.
Above is the hot water discharge of the power plant, putting off steam due to the cooler air around it. Almost all the gulls in these photos are Bonaparte's Gulls (
Chroicocephalus philadelphia) or Ring-billed Gulls (
Larus delawarensis).
I did take a few photos, however. Now, I could be wrong, but I think the upper gull on the far left might be this gull. I saw it in flight through my scope, and reported it. The Black-headed Gull is hard to identify, since you have to see the dark underside of the wings for a conclusive identification.
On top, and if you don't see the head, it looks just like a Bonaparte's Gull, pictured above. The white front edge of the wing, a hint of black on the tips, and a tendency to weave back and forth over the water- all these are characteristics of both Bonaparte's and Black-headed Gulls.
If that's not confusing enough, a few of the Bonaparte's Gulls, like this one, had already-darkened heads, and the lighting can make the underside of the wing appear darkened, as in this case, too. I'm frankly amazed I found the correct gull, to be honest. Black-headed Gulls are a little bigger than Bonaparte's Gulls, so that helps.
I got bored of watching gulls, so I watched Tree Swallows (Tachycineta bicolor), eighty or so of which danced about on the water in front of me, along with the four hundred Bonaparte's Gulls.
It was a happening place!
Off to my right, a flock of gulls gathered around the American White Pelicans (
Pelecanus erythrorhynchos) and Double-crested Cormorants (
Phalacrocorax auritus).
I then ran off to meet up with Tony Rothering and a Bird ID field trip through Lincoln Land Community College. I was participating as a guest on this field trip, and I snapped several photos of all the good birds along the way, including the incredibly rare Killdeer (
Charadrius vociferus), a bird I see or hear only about four times a day. That being said, I'm not sure what's going on with its leg:
In similar fashion, this American Robin (
Turdus migratorius) seems to have emerged from a war zone, and the barbed wires only accented that impresssion:
Still, all's well with the world, as the big draw here at the Lake Springfield Beach House was EIGHT Common Loons (
Gavia immer), a new high number for me. Only one loon came close:
It was about this point that I met Colin Dobson and Tony Ward for the first time. Colin Dobson is an remarkable birder. He's a bit younger than me, and I'm on the young side myself. Despite that, he's found about double the number of bird species in Illinois that I have. I envy Colin's discoveries, while at the same time often following them up to get new species for myself. I did this Sunday... but that's for the next blogpost.
And with that, let's get back to our feathered friends. We said good-bye to Colin and Tony, and hello to a bird-on-a-tree-next-to-the-apartments,-black-and-white-with-a-red-crest-holy-smoke-that's-a PILEATED WOODPECKER! (Hylatomus pileatus) Next to a Black-headed Gull, a Pileated Woodpecker near the Beach House is about the rarest thing we could have seen. These birds drill holes in the sides of trees that I could stick my arm into. As a result, they need lots of big trees. Center Park, where we were, doesn't have too many trees that big, so it was a shock to see this shy bird there. I alone also saw a Peregrine Falcon fly by, and the day's good birds kept on going.
The main reason I went with Tony Rothering's field trip and didn't stick around with the Black-headed Gull was to see this, the local Great Blue Heron rookery, where dozens of herons build their nests together for communal protection. I've never seen this before, and I was very impressed.
I can honestly say I've never seen this many herons up in a tree. It reminds me of a story by my third-grade teacher, Mr. Morgan. He used to go rollerblading through Washington Park in Springfield, and once he saw a Great Blue Heron (
Ardea herodias) sitting far up in a tree. Beneath it, dozens of people walked, not once looking up to see this amazing bird. He had the bird all to himself to watch. No one walking by him inquired what he was looking at. They were all too focused on looking forwards to look around. It's a story that I have remembered ever since, and it's just about the only memory I have of third grade.
Looking around ourselves while others drove, we found this Eastern Phoebe (
Sayornis phoebe), one of five for me that day. Then we found a bird I didn't expect... again!:
This is the world's most stereotypically Southern bird, the Northern (What?) Mockingbird (
Mimus polyglottos). We found two on the drive. Their population seems to be increasing here, I think. There's another somewhat Southern bird that's also expanding its population in Sangamon County, but I'm not going to reveal what it is yet, and I'm never going to say where it lives. It is hopefully going to be the subject of an upcoming blogpost, and I don't mean the same one as I teased earlier...
Back at the Beach House, I met Joe Phipps, another birder I'd never met before. Several of the Common Loons from earlier remained, and they swam about the lake in front of me. It was a fine conclusion to a very full day!
At the Beach House the following morning, I found a gull that was a bit bigger than the rest, as well as another Herring Gull (
Larus argentatus smithsonianus). The local herons have been giving these a wide berth since the Herring Gulls will chase down herons and try to steal their fish:
Over at Lincoln Greens Golf Course, a crowd of Bonaparte's Gulls remained, with no Black-headed Gull. This was much to the disappointment of the large crowd of birders gathering that day.
I met Ron Bradley, Kevin Richmond, Keith McMullen, Susan Zelek, Ted Wolff, and Phil Doncheck for the first time, as well as Joe Gardener and Jim Mordacq, local birders I already knew.
We fell to small talk and watched the cormorants fly by, which reminded me of this photo, taken several days ago during the Lesser Black-backed Gull hunt:
In the upper left, the smaller bird was flying alongside, not behind, this group of cormorants. It "might" be a rare Neotropic Cormorant, or it could be a gull that I happened to catch in the same frame. Either way, it's interesting that it flew with the cormorants around it, and this bird warrants further investigation around the lake.
The local pelicans flew up at the same time. At this time of year, American White Pelicans develop a knob on their bill. It's something or other with breeding.
I decided, when the Lincoln Greens birders weren't having any luck, to drive down the lake and scout out any other Bonaparte's Gulls and possibly the missing Black-headed Gull. I ran into an American Tree Sparrow (
Spizella arborea) alongside a Chipping Sparrow along the way. The Chipping Sparrow, a bird of summer that's migrating into our area, hid, while the wintering American Tree Sparrow flew down a little ways and watched me from a perch.
Further down still, at Lincoln Memorial Gardens, a Northern Flicker (
Colaptes auratus) posed for me on a branch. The Northern Flicker's patterning resembles a person with no fashion sense, mixing spots and stripes and various tan shades. Yet, for some reason, there's some fascinating quality to it.
Emerging Bloodroot (
Sanguinaria canadensis) flowers indicated that it was high time I went out in the woods looking for flowers and gave up all this bird nonsense. Still, I was a man on a mission.
No angry Cardinals (
Cardinalis cardinalis) would deter me from my quest.
I took several photos of the nearby mass of ducks trying to avoid boat traffic on the lake, when a family walked up with a dog. Dogs are not allowed at Lincoln Memorial Gardens, and I was about to tell them this, when the mother asked, "Do you have a yellow car?"
Huh? "It's beige."
She gave me a confused look, which probably matched mine.
"Beige is sort of tan."
"From the 90s?" (Oh, it definitely is. Beige is the most 1990s car color ever invented.)
"Yes. Why?"
"You left your lights on." I thanked her, said nothing about the dog, and after snapping a couple more photos, high-tailed it back to the parking lot. The mission to refind the Black-headed Gull was temporarily put on hold. I did find my car's lights on. Thankfully my car started!
A quick stop further down the road at Cotton Hill Park yielded a surprise female Canvasback (
Aythya valisineria), a duck I rarely ever see on Lake Springfield. I then heard the chattering of another local lake bird, the Belted Kingfisher (
Megaceryle alcyon), which thankfully posed for me:
A train then raced by, and I took the photo back at the beginning of this blogpost, before looking down the tracks. Crossing the tracks yielded about four hundred cormorants on one of the lake islands. However, as I went further down the lake, the numbers of Bonaparte's Gulls kept decreasing.
Near sunset, I ended up in the Chatham Wildlife Sanctuary, with American Coots (
Fulica americana) skipping across the water on amusingly oversized feet. There was no Black-headed Gull, there were few Bonaparte's Gulls, and I had reached the end of the lake.
After the first Thursday, no one ever saw the Black-headed Gull again. I'm glad I raced out there when I did, although in the future I'm going to try and get better photos of such a rare bird! It was a lot of fun, however, meeting so many birders, including some of the best in Illinois.
After two frenetic days of birding, I went back and finished that paper Saturday. Then came Sunday.
TO BE CONTINUED-ISH
