Photo: Barred owl by Lindsay Vacek
Hello everyone,
What a fascinating and horrifying few days of birding we had this week. As I’m sure you all know by now, Chicago experienced a fallout of birds, which is a very rare occurrence, on Thursday October 5. A strong cold front pushed the migrants south and then a late night rainstorm drove thousands of them down to the ground. Others kept flying and they were easily seen streaming south along the lakefront. When I first saw the reports of the fallout on Discord (the Cook County bird chat app), Mike and I dropped what we were doing and immediately walked over to Jackson Park. The ground was almost covered and the trees were full of warblers, thrushes, kinglets, sparrows and many more. It was thrilling and magical to be among all those birds.
Unfortunately, soon the reports of the window strikes started coming in, with an especially bad event at McCormick Place where 1000 dead birds were retrieved. That’s when our excitement turned to sadness for all the beautiful birds that were lost. I hope we do not have another fallout in Chicago for many years to come. Many thanks to the dedicated staff at the Field Museum and the Chicago Bird Collision Monitors for the difficult and heart-breaking work they did on Thursday morning to save as many birds as they could.
Many of the birds that made a stopover in our area on Thursday were still around on Saturday, plus more migrants arrived on Friday so we had a lot to look at. I think we set a new record for the length of our walk at almost 5 hours.
Yellow-rumped warblers were everywhere and they, the Palm Warblers, and the Cape May Warblers decided that the lily pads in the Columbia Basin would be a good place to catch insects. It was odd, and interesting, to see them hopping around on the water.
The White-throated Sparrows arrived and we saw and heard them throughout the park. We also had the pleasure of spotting 2 Fox Sparrows and 2 Eastern Towhees in the center of the Island.
We walked through the meadow with a Palm Warbler who kept hopping along in front of us. Five 5 Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers were in the area north of the Music Bridge. And the most unexpected bird of the day was the Rusty Blackbird that eagle-eyed Leslie spotted on the edge of the Columbia Basin as we finished up the walk. What a great way to end a wonderful walk.
BIRDERS: Marian, Mike, Jennie, Gary, Megana, Leslie, Mark C., Roger, Paul, Lucy, Tyler, Mark W., Eric, Jen, Marisa, Dennis and welcome to Ray, Sylvia, Laura, Jake, Ben, Mary and Clare, visiting from England.
TIME: 8:00am to 12:55pm
WEATHER: Sunny, 45 degrees at the start
Compiler: Cheryl
Photographers: Marisa, Leslie and Eric
Canada Goose Number observed: 225
Wood Duck Number observed: 12
Mallard Number observed: 21
Rock Pigeon (Feral Pigeon) Number observed: 1
Chimney Swift Number observed: 5
Ring-billed Gull Number observed: 2
Double-crested Cormorant Number observed: 1
Great Blue Heron Number observed: 5
Great Egret Number observed: 1
Black-crowned Night-Heron Number observed: 1
Turkey Vulture Number observed: 1
Cooper's Hawk Number observed: 2
Red-tailed Hawk Number observed: 6
Belted Kingfisher Number observed: 2
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker Number observed: 9
Downy Woodpecker Number observed: 2
Northern Flicker Number observed: 2
Eastern Wood-Pewee Number observed: 1
Empidonax sp. Number observed: 1
Philadelphia Vireo Number observed: 1
Warbling Vireo Number observed: 1
American Crow Number observed: 50
Black-capped Chickadee Number observed: 8
Ruby-crowned Kinglet Number observed: 4
Golden-crowned Kinglet Number observed: 4
White-breasted Nuthatch Number observed: 1
Brown Creeper Number observed: 3
European Starling Number observed: 2
Gray Catbird Number observed: 1
Swainson's Thrush Number observed: 2
Hermit Thrush Number observed: 7
American Robin Number observed: 23
Cedar Waxwing Number observed: 1
House Sparrow Number observed: 8
Pine Siskin Number observed: 3
American Goldfinch Number observed: 10
Chipping Sparrow Number observed: 1
Fox Sparrow Number observed: 2
Dark-eyed Junco Number observed: 27
White-crowned Sparrow Number observed: 6
White-throated Sparrow Number observed: 23
Song Sparrow Number observed: 1
Swamp Sparrow Number observed: 4
Eastern Towhee Number observed: 2
Rusty Blackbird Number observed: 1
Common Grackle Number observed: 1
Northern Waterthrush Number observed: 5
Tennessee Warbler Number observed: 1
Orange-crowned Warbler Number observed: 1
Common Yellowthroat Number observed: 1
Cape May Warbler Number observed: 6
Magnolia Warbler Number observed: 5
Palm Warbler Number observed: 12
Yellow-rumped Warbler Number observed: 103
Black-throated Green Warbler Number observed: 1
Northern Cardinal Number observed: 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.
Good birding everyone,
Jennie
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This outing qualifies as a prerequisite for participating in Chicago Audubon's Birding Gear Exchange Program. Please check in with the trip leader the day of the event.