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Wooded Island Bird Walk

  • Wooded Island, Jackson Park Meet at the west side of the Columbia Basin Chicago, IL, 60637 United States (map)

Photo: Hooded merganser by Elizabeth Harris

Hello everyone,

We made our goal of having more bird species than birders, our weekly goal during the winter. We had quite a nice flock of Dark-eyed Juncos by the south bridge and they were joined by a White-throated Sparrow.

A few Red-breasted Mergansers put on a show for us in the marina. One bird caught a large fish and two others chased it all around the piers. I didn’t know that they could swim that quickly! The bird with the fish was not willing to share and suddenly gulped the fish down all at once. The other Mergansers swam away looking hungry and disappointed.

BIRDERS: JC, Eric, Jennie, Mike, Cheryl, Paul, Lucy, Mark C., Leslie, Judy, Marisa, Renate and welcome to Sarah, Dave, Manny and Karina.

TIME: 8:00am to 10:00am     

WEATHER: 41 degrees, cloudy, a bit rainy

Compiler: Cheryl

Photographer: Eric (who found a brown creeper that the rest of us didn’t spot)   

  1. Canada Goose   Number observed: 49

  2. Mallard   Number observed: 7

  3. Common Merganser   Number observed: 1

  4. Red-breasted Merganser   Number observed: 36

  5. Ring-billed Gull   Number observed: 1

  6. Herring Gull   Number observed: 1

  7. Great Blue Heron   Number observed: 3

  8. Red-tailed Hawk   Number observed: 1

  9. Downy Woodpecker   Number observed: 1

  10. Northern Flicker   Number observed: 1

  11. American Crow   Number observed: 5

  12. Black-capped Chickadee   Number observed: 1

  13. European Starling   Number observed: 74

  14. American Robin   Number observed: 17

  15. House Sparrow   Number observed: 6

  16. American Goldfinch   Number observed: 1

  17. American Tree Sparrow   Number observed: 3

  18. Dark-eyed Junco   Number observed: 9

  19. White-throated Sparrow   Number observed: 1

  20. Northern Cardinal   Number observed: 1

 

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

Earlier Event: December 9
Wooded Island Bird Walk
Later Event: December 23
Wooded Island Bird Walk