Thanksgiving in Central Illinois
Kate and I managed to extricate ourselves from family
responsibilities over Thanksgiving, so we took off on Wednesday
night for central Illinois. This is a part of Illinois that we
really haven't birded at all. And, there are frequent reports
for this area on the Illinois hotline that had tantalized us for
too long.
Our first day, Thanksgiving, we hit Lake Clinton and Lake
Decatur, looking for ducks, and saw absolutely ZIP. It had
instantly become a horrible trip. We didn't even see any
mallards. We speculated that the reason the ducks weren't around
was because the wind was up and the skies were clear and it was a
perfect day for migrating. Then again, maybe not. We hoped,
that by the time we got to Lake Springfield (near, you guessed
it, Springfield, Ill), the ducks would start appearing, using the
lake for the night. We did wind up seeing many Horned Grebe,
Pied-billed Grebe and Goldeneye here. And the highlight of the
day was a very late Forster's Tern. It turned out that this bird
was on the hotline, and I had not been paying attention. We were
chasing and didn't even know it.
On Friday, we rose early and tried to beat the ducks before they
took off. We were successful. We picked up more Horned Grebes,
Ring-necked Ducks, Ruddy Ducks, Bufflehead, Goldeneye and 3
Common Loons. We had very close looks at both the loons and the
grebes, probably as close as we have ever gotten.
Then we went chasing. The Illinois hotline reported an adult
Reeve along with other shorebirds at Sand Lake near Havana,
Illinois. Unfortunately, the maps don't show Sand Lake, so I
stopped at a gas station in town. The exchange went something
like this:
Me: "Excuse me, do you happen to know where Sand Lake is?"
Attendent (looking very confused): "You mean you just want to
know where Sand Lake is?"
Me: Yep.
Attendent (still very confused): "Well, you head south on 97 till
you get over the railroad tracks, then you'll see it"
Me: Thanks
Very ruffled fellow, presumably just in from checking his trap
line (and in need of some expensive dental work): "Wall, ya'
know, there ain't much water left in that lake right now."
Me: "Good, that's just what we wanted to hear"
I left them there, probably with enough material to entertain
their buddies for the rest of the day telling about these weirdos
looking for Sand Lake. Particularly, when, as we discovered a
few minutes later, Sand Lake isn't much more than a low spot in a
farmers field.
As we pulled up, we noticed some sparrows in a hedge. They kind
of looked like house sparrows, but just weren't behaving right.
Kate looked at them and announced "Eurasian Tree Sparrows!"
We've seen ETS's outside of St. Louis, but did not expect to see
them here. I recall seeing reports of them this far north, but
they were still a pleasant surprise.
Upon carefully scanning Sand Lake, we found 50 Common Snipe,
several Lesser Yellowlegs, a couple of Greaters, N. Shovelers,
Redhead, Hooded Merganser, Gadwall and other ducks that we had
seen before. No Reeve, but nevertheless, a great stop.
Our next destination was Chautauqua National Wildlife refuge.
Unfortunately, they were rebuilding the place (last years
flooding did some significant damage) and we could not get very
close. We did see TONS of Mallards, and we picked up Pintails
and Am. Wigeons.
For Friday, we wound up with 45 bird for the day. Not bad.
Saturday
We checked out another lake just south of Springfield, Sanchris
Lake. It too, like Clinton and Decatur, was a bust.
It was a
pretty spot though, and warrants further attention from us
sometime in the future. We then drove over to the Mississippi
River planning to work our way north to the Quad Cities and then
home to Chicago. Our target, Bald Eagles. Our first stop was
just south of Nauvoo where we came across a couple of rafts of
Canvasbacks that must have numbered in the general vicinity of
15000 birds. It was an amazing sight. Apparently, based on
some
reading that I did when we got back, this particular spot is a
regular stopover on their fall migration. It really was
wonderful.
We ran into this interesting fellow at the next stop, still south
of Nauvoo, who was using a homebuilt wooden tripod into which he
had build a seat. He had 16 power binoculars mounted on it and
was scanning the mixed raft of ducks on the river. He was very
proud of his creation and demonstrated how he had used paraffin
to lubricate the joints and had counterbalanced the mechanism
specifically for his binoculars. He had been there for a while
and pointed out Green-winged teal, a pair of White Pelicans and 2
Bald Eagles. One of them was on the Iowa side, so I now have an
Iowa list with Bald Eagle as No. 1. Not an inauspicious start to
another state list. And not a bad way to end the trip. With
our
last target bird ticked and with 59 birds for the trip, we headed
back to Chicago. |
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