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 ;-)