Photo: Green heron by Lindsay Vacek
Hello everyone,
It was a chilly but beautiful morning and we had lots of nice birds. Our Great Blue Herons are still around, and a Black-crowned Night Heron was spotted but it wasn’t O Sagi, our Japanese Garden resident. We were lucky to have three Black-throated Blue Warblers in residence; two males and a female, which were flagged as rare on eBird. Other warblers were Orange-crowned, Palm and Yellow-rumped.
We had a nice hawk day with both a Cooper’s and a Red-tail. Eastern Bluebirds were heard by all and seen by a couple birders. We were lucky to spot three adorable Winter Wrens, one of which gave us terrific looks while it perched on a small plant to eat seeds for a few minutes. It was another good sparrow day with five species observed.
BIRDERS: Lucy, Marian, Mike, Jennie, Gary, Bruce, Nick, Megan, Ezra, Stefan, Marisa, Peter, Renate, Eric
TIME: 8:00am to 11:15am
WEATHER: 40 degrees, sunny
Compiler: Mike
Photographers: Eric, Gary and Mike
Canada Goose 125
Wood Duck 17
Mallard 3
Chimney Swift 21
Ring-billed Gull 2
Great Blue Heron 4
Black-crowned Night-Heron 1
Turkey Vulture 2
Cooper's Hawk 1
Red-tailed Hawk 1
Belted Kingfisher 2
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker 1
Red-bellied Woodpecker 2
Downy Woodpecker 2
Hairy Woodpecker 1
Northern Flicker 2
Eastern Phoebe 1
American Crow 11
Black-capped Chickadee 1
Ruby-crowned Kinglet 9
Golden-crowned Kinglet 3
White-breasted Nuthatch 1
Brown Creeper 3
Winter Wren 3
Gray Catbird 1
Eastern Bluebird 2
Hermit Thrush 4
American Robin 3
House Sparrow 12
House Finch 1
American Goldfinch 18
Fox Sparrow 2
White-throated Sparrow 21
Song Sparrow 1
Swamp Sparrow 1
Orange-crowned Warbler 2
Black-throated Blue Warbler 3
Palm Warbler 4
Yellow-rumped Warbler 5
Northern Cardinal 4
If you’d like more information about a bird, check out the All About Birds ID guide:
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/
Corrections, additions and comments are welcome.
Recordings are not used to attract birds.
The Walks are free and open to one and all. They are held year-round. Newcomers are warmly welcomed.
Saturday morning walks: Start at 8:00 a.m. and cover a distance of two miles. Birders walk from the meeting spot counterclockwise onto Wooded Island. Exiting Wooded Island at the south end, the birders walk along the soccer field and enter the south end of Bobolink Meadow. The Meadow’s path leads to the Music Bridge. After crossing the Music Bridge birders walk through the parking lot and around the Columbia Basin (North Lagoon) and return to our meeting spot. In late fall, winter and early spring, the birders check for birds on the lakefront at the Outer Harbor near LaRabida Hospital and the Inner Harbor after the Wooded Island walk.
Meeting Spot: Birders meet on the west shore of the Columbia Basin (North Lagoon). Park on Stony Island Avenue near 59th Street, walk east across the parkland area, then cross Cornell Drive to reach the spot.
Good birding everyone,
Jennie