Butterflies getting plentiful

This year we decided to create a butterfly garden in front. Our Milkweeds which we planted last year from seed are by now a returning, and well-established anchor with stalks well over 5 feet high. The white-pinkish flowers are so fragrant that walking up to our house is through a lovely wave of perfume. The scent is almost a blend of Calla Lillies, Lilac and Jasmin! Our plan was simply to buy one of these wildflower mixes, which come ready to sprinkle including a fertilizer. We didn't have high hopes, but were super surprised when this established itself as a dense crop of Cosmos, Bachelor Buttons, Corn Flowers, Allysum and more. We are thrilled with the outcome of this very easy exercise in what is really a dry, not very fertile soil. Our birds took care of some great random sunflowers, which anchor the patch on the other side of the Milkweeds.

First visitors to the Milkweeds this year are our beautiful Eastern Tiger Swallowtails, as pictured here below.
We hope the Monarchs will be laying their eggs soon, so we can report on Milkweed nursery developments!

                                                                                                                                                                     

Strange landings, part 2.....

Yesterday we had another interesting strange landing of a huge bird in an unexpected place. After our Canada Geese landing on our roof (not exactly a flat runway), Kim my wife discovered this Great Blue Heron way up in the dead part of a willow tree near our backyard. Considering the wingspan (6.6 Ft) of these birds, feet which are made to stand in or near water and not grab branches, and an overall awkward, wobbly landing, it is totally amazing this bird made it to where it was sitting. Unfortunately we never saw the landing or the take-off. What will we see next?

Proud Robin parents + sad ending

Our Crab Apple nest welcomed babies over the weekend, we believe it to be two or three tiny ones sticking their necks and beaks out for every movement over the nest. We're thrilled and as promised will keep Poke out of the backyard!

UPDATE on 6/18/11: We are sad to report that on 6/16
the Robin's nest was attacked by a Coopers Hawk. My wife saw the entire drama unfold and reported it immediately. The whole thing took but a second, and the brave parents went after the Hawk with a vengeance. For a while we were not sure to assess what exactly the Hawk had taken or caused, however it became soon clear that the nest had been abandoned, and no young were visible anymore. We suspect they were both grabbed. As unsettling as this may be, it does show nature at its rawest and most interesting; it remains a bird-eat-bird world out there. We feel in a way fortunate that we saw it unfold, and know what happened. We'll treasure these photos.

Looking for cat, getting Gray Catbird instead!

Looking for my cat today I heard a faint meow, and some rustling of leaves in and under the Juniper bushes along the driveway. Thinking for sure I had located the little rascal, I soon discovered it to be a Gray Catbird digging in and under some dead leaves, stuck in the juniper. I fetched my camera and got him just in time sticking his head up. I do hope they're nesting in the area, which would be a great experience for this birder!

Downy inspects garage doors!

We had quite a spectacle today when a young Downy decided to fly into the open garage, and simply couldn't find its way out. We have a rather high (12') sealing, and quite instinctively, the woodpecker found the highest point and wouldn't come down or out. Garage-door brackets seem an attractive alternative to trees, so see for yourself....

The adventure ended with the help of a borrowed net from our good Willowbrook Wildlife friends, which ultimately pursuaded young Woody that life outside the garage was much more pleasant than inside!

And all that in Chicago's 90+ Degr. F...... :-)

Cedar Waxwing love

We took a nice walk in our wonderful Willowbrook nature preserve this afternoon (high 80s) and took some nice shots of a courting couple of Cedar Waxwings. We have so many of them this year, and I think the "F" (fairly common) designation for late Spring by the DuPage Birding Club may have to be re-written as C(ommon) if not A(bundant). They just love the bare branches of dead trees, and the top of our our neighbor's dead Willow sometimes looks like a Christmas trees when flocks of Waxwings and Goldfinches congregate at the same time. This here was a cute scene when he offers a berry treat to his partner!

Bird (bath) safety

Not long ago we bought a terrific bird bath on Craigslist. It's barely used, beautifully purple glaze-over-terracotta, with the bowl locking onto the pedestal. Super safe and sturdy even if the occasional raccoon decides to jump on it. We did come to the conclusion however that the 5.5 - 6 inch depth of the bowl definitely was not as songbird-friendly as we had wanted, so we decided to build up a rock platform in the middle of the bowl which gives enough foothold and leaves a small enough moat for any bird to feel safe and comfortable. The purplish river rocks blend in nicely with the bath, and give the whole thing a more organic look.                              

It's certainly no "rock"-et science

The only problem thus far is the fact that the rocks heat up the bath water pretty quickly, with the good consequence that we're refreshing the water quite often, thus keeping bath and birds clean and fresh all the time. 

but we felt it would be an interesting tip!

Can't wait to see it being used as intended!

Expecting new life here and there...



The "new" bench was a trash find, it's perfect!

Other than the yard reaching its full Spring beauty, with new green and growth preparing no-doubt for another onslaught of a Chicago summer, birding has been relatively slow in general.

Our migrators have moved on, and we're pleased to see we have a number of nest-building Robins around the house and yard. Here is one of the parents giving us a great "Wisconsin Dells" exhibit in the bird bath...

My faithful garden companion!

  We'll soon be reporting on family life in the Crab Apple nest, and will surely be extra vigilant for the safety of our baby Robins due to this new little creature in our life....His name is Poky and came as a teacup sized rescue, after that you're lost.....
He seems to be more interested in naps than birds anyhow, which makes our birding life extremely pleasant!

Splish splash..........

The new nest boxes have thus far been ignored, and we keep hoping we may get some other family life in those as well. Most exciting visitors lately were our first (female) Ruby-throated Hummer and (male) Baltimore Oriole, and we decided to add an Oriole nectar feeder to the "regular" Hummingbird feeder in our back yard. Supposedly the Oriole feeder will attract Hummers as well, plus Wrens, Catbirds, Flickers and Woodpeckers, we'll see......          This being an excellent Oriole year here in Northern Illinois, I sure hope for success with this feeder (Orange 12 Oz./4 port Oriole-Fest by Birds Choice)

International Migratory Bird Day Celebration - Willowbrook Wildlife Center

Today I joined a large group of early birders at the morning bird walk in our lovely Willowbrook (IL) preserve under the professional and personable guidance of Kevin Luby, Naturalist at the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County.

 Unfortunately the unpredictable Illinois Spring reared its ugly head again, and temperatures had fallen to a high 40s with a nasty cold wind. Birds were plentiful though and I decided to take a shot of the

 growing list of bird sightings this morning.

Highlights for me were the Indigo Buntings, Red-eyed Vireos, Least Fly-catcher, many Warblers and a pair of Baltimore Orioles working on constructing their beautiful nest. A bird banding action (in case you were wondering about the caption "*caught today" on the above chart) and demonstration was also part of the day. Here below is one of the banders/instructors showing how to properly hold a bird while working on the band. All in all an exciting birding experience to add to my blog!

Met The Stokes last night!

Last night the DuPage Birding Club of Glen Ellyn, IL hosted Don & Lillian Stokes at the wonderful Cantigny field house, for their presentation on the new Stokes Field Guide to the Birds of North America. It was a fascinating account of their long journey to research, compile material and finally publish this beautiful and most complete book. It was a privilege to meet them and have them sign my copy as shown in the below photos.

The Stokes signing many copies!

Rose-breasted Grosbeaks and Redstarts!

When coming down my stairs this morning (we have a full-glass front door, top and side-lites) I noticed from the corner of my eye a bunch of black, white and red activity at the feeder. Thinking this was probably a nice male Downy or Hairy woodpecker I was delighted to notice a flock of Rose-breasted Grosbeaks at the suet basket. They didn't give me enough time to get the camera in gear, and didn't show since. Our friend has them at her feeder in a more woodsy area, our front feeders are fairly open and exposed, so I was happy to get them visit us this Spring! What a thrill!

This You Tube clip is courtesy Lang Elliott at MusicOfNature.org. I felt this was the best Rose-breasted Grosbeak footage available, and wanted to share this masterpiece with my readers. Again, please visit  http://www.musicofnature.org/home/ , with thanks to Lang!

Still, our next guest was indeed a male Downy which we did get on film.....we love our many different Woodpeckers around here!

Wow, another first this spring, a small troop of American Redstarts in our overgrown creek area this afternoon! How beautiful the adults are in their jet-black and orange plumage. Like the Yellow-rumps, darting high up in the air in an almost aerial acrobatic circus act, catching flying insects around the tree tops. Hope to shoot the photo one of these days.

Strange landings......

My neighbor discovered and quickly shot the following scene on (both our) rooftops recently. And no, this is not Photo Shopped! Funny enough it wasn't the first time we had this happen either, you just wonder how these big bombers even manage to land on a roof or what the attraction for them is.....

And funniest of all, one each on their own roof, a navigation miscalculation perhaps, or did she have enough of his nonsense for a while......?

Backyard update

Today is another cold (4th of May!) day in Springtime Chicagoland, and I thought I'd check out what was happening around our stream in the back of the property.

Our backyard  "Rio Seco", perfect Warbler habitat

To my delight I soon found myself (still) surrounded by Yellow and Yellow-rumped Warblers, as well as the Ruby-crowned Kinglet community who are all still waiting to migrate and leave us for the season. The Yellows are actually the most vocal ones, and very recognizable in their song. The Kinglets and Yellow-rumps were way too busy looking for food. I hope the Yellows, being non-migrators here in northern Illinois, will indeed stick around the watering hole for a long time!

Ruby-crowned Kinglet

Yellow Warbler

Cedar nesting boxes, good or bad?

The other day I stumbled on a couple of beautifully made cedar bird houses at WalMart for under $10.00/ea. Now I'm not the guy to give great praise to WM in general, but these were just terrific. Well-made out of thick stock, not your flimsy little things and again, for $8 and $9 a great find. I got a Wren house and a Bluebird house, both were well-built, cleanable, came with all the mounting/hanging hardware and seem to be quite up to the task and elements.

Now here's the question: I seem to find many oposing or contradicting views out there on whether or not (aromatic) cedar houses are good, bad, repulsive, no problem, causing this, that or the other etc. These two do smell pretty strongly, but that may wear off over time outdoors.


I'd like to see if I can open a bit of a discussion with your more "cedar" experienced birders out there. By the way, some feathery folksies have already been curiously checking out the Wren house, no Wrens yet, so I have to keep an eye on that. But it somehow showed me that there wasn't an immediate scent or other form of repellency going on.


Hope I can get some input from fellow birders, and many thanks in advance for that!

The new Stokes arrived in my mailbox!

My new Stokes came in the mail yesterday, and I am like a child in the candy store!
I absolutely LOVE it, and am in the process of reading it cover to cover.   What is actually even more exciting is that the Stokes' are going to be speaking at the DuPage Birding Club (Glen Ellyn, IL),  Thursday, May 12, 2011, 7:30 pm. I hope to have my copy signed there for sure, and perhaps get a nice photo to update this post with!
For more information on that, see the link to the DuPage Birding Club to your right on this blog.

Meanwhile, I hope I am not breaking the law by showing this photo of the book........, if I am, I'll (reluctantly) remove it ;-)