Year List - 2020 - March 8 edition

Going to try the year list again this year...


March 8, 2020
Location: Bill Jarvis Bird Sanctuary and surrounding parkland.

The lighting was seriously not in my favor, but this appears to be a Red-Headed Merganser.










Common Goldeneye (female)

 
     Dark-Eyed Junco

















 American Tree Sparrow
(right - female; left - male)

Northern
Cardinal
(left - male)

(right - female)

 White-Throated Sparrow
(White-capped variation)

White-throated Sparrow (Tan-capped variation)

Downy Woodpecker  (Eastern, female)

American Robin

Corkscrew Swamp - 10.7.12 - Post 5

One last creeper, and then, a truly weird thing... the only bird for this trip. 

Spotted Orb Weaver (053 - 2012)

This is a Spotted Orb Weaver.  They were *everywhere* in the swamp.  Which makes sense since their endemic in the southeastern U.S. - again, something I won't find in Illinois.  The neat thing about this shot is that you can see that the first segment of his legs are red where as the rest are black and white.

This is not a shy spider.  They make huge webs you could see from the boardwalk and then sit right in the middle of them.  Sometimes you'd find them or their web hanging right in front of you.

I like this shot because even though the web is hard to see, the spots (from his name) are easier.  Look at the white stripe right down the middle of his abdomen.  He has gray spots down the white line.

Pileated Woodpecker (054 - 2012)

And then there was my one major bird find for this trip.  There were a few other birds, but none of them photographed well.  I may fight with them later, but for now, there's this Pileated Woodpecker.

These guys have the weirdest range.  Up the U.S. West Coast, through a swath of lower Canada and then down through the northern Midwest and Eastern states all the way down to the top of Florida.  But nothing through the Southeast, most of Texas or the Northern U.S. around Wyoming, the Dakotas and Montana area.  And he was drilling and drilling and drilling.  I hope he found some awesome bugs for all the work he was doing.  They are in Illinois, but I don't think I've seen one here yet.

Okay, reptiles and amphibians are next and last.  For this shoot.  There were many, many, many more pictures taken while I was in Florida.

Fullersburg Woods Forest Preserve - 4.15.12 - Post 3

Okay, the next set of spottings...

Prairie Trillium (028 - 2012)

 So I first noticed Trillium in Tennessee.  I didn't think we had it up here, or at least I'd never noticed it before.  But hey, look!  The one in Tennessee was called a "Sweet Betsy".  This one is called a Prairie Trillium.  At first I couldn't see much of a difference between the two, but one of the websites I looked at made me look at the leaves closer.  These leaves are two distinct shades of green.  The Sweet Betsy has solid leaves.  It also has taller, thinner flowers than this.

Eastern Gray Squirrel (029 - 2012)

They're pretty ubiquitous around here, but I found this Eastern Gray Squirrel to be pretty adorable.

He's the original tree-hugger. :)

He didn't see me for a while , but you can see in this shot that he'd finally figured out what was going 'click-click-click'.




Which prompted him to do this.  Turn ninety degrees and hang out sideways for a good long time.  Strange little dude.  Cute... but strange.

Tiger Beetle (030 - 2012)

The arthropods and other cold-bloodeds started sticking their heads out in March when we had that freakish warm spell.  But for the most part, they've gone to ground as the temperatures have normalized.  This lone tiger beetle was the only 'crawly' I saw this trip.  There will be butterflies later, but this is the lone 'bug'.

Blue-Winged Teal (031 - 2012)

 Okay, this shot is *abysmal*, which is really disappointing.  It's a totally new species and from pictures I've googled they're cool looking water foul.  But at least now I know they're around and what I'm looking at when I see them.

It's a Blue-Winged Teal.  Teal, in this case is the type of bird it is.  Like we'd say 'duck' or 'goose' or 'grebe'.  So it's not in one of those groups.  It's in the group called 'teal.'

So, I know this shot is awful, but since I'm pretty sure I've never seen one before, I don't want to take the chance that I won't see another one.  So for now, I'll post the horrid shot, and hopefully I'll be able get better ones before migration is over.  (This was one I was glad I had the magnet board in the visitors' center to check the species on, because the picture is so incredibly bad.)

Creeping Buttercup (032 - 2012)

Okay, wild buttercups have a tendency to look a lot alike.  Now, there's a sign in the cultivated area that says these flowers are swamp buttercups, but when I Google that, I get a very different picture.  So I poked around for a while longer and what I think I actually found out in the 'wilds' was a Creeping Buttercup. If anyone is better with Illinois wildflowers and has a better idea, I'd love to hear it.  Thanks!

American Robin (033 - 2012)

So it occurred to me the other day that I'm ignoring some species because they're as common as dust around here.  Then I realized that my blog has been seen in 35% of all the countries in the world. Which means that for at least a few people, what's common to me probably isn't so common to them.

One of the things I haven't been blogging and counting are what I think of as 'the six second grade birds.'  See, when I was in 2nd grade (about 7 years old) we had to learn to identify the 6 birds we were most likely to see wild in Northern Illinois: sparrows (and they were all just lumped together, but I think mostly we saw pictures of house sparrows), robins, crows, cardinals, mallard ducks and Canada geese.  So to me, these things are just everywhere and not that 'special'.  But I should probably get them in here if I want to have as complete a record of what's around here as I can get.

Also fair to note, apparently the American maturity rate has sunk to about eleven years old and gotten stuck there long enough that they renamed this bird since I was in 2nd grade.  We learned it as the "Robin Red-Breast".  You know like the White-Breasted Nuthatch from the last post?  Well, apparently the word 'breast' is now too controversial so it's now called the "American Robin."  Dear school children and those who act like them over the name of a bird... Grow up. 

Red-Breasted Woodpecker (034 - 2012)

So from the very common to the quite uncommon.  I know I saw one last year, but that was it.  I saw one.  All year.

And apparently I never got it blogged, which makes it new for the count. :)

This is a male Red-Breasted Woodpecker.

Possibly one of the strangest names ever for a bird.

Now, given, Red-Headed Woodpecker was already taken.  But still, look at that first picture.  Do you see any red on his breast?  And it's not just a weird specimen; when you check on line, the notably red part of this bird is his head.  His chest is mostly white with maybe a bit of a rose blush.  I totally don't understand how this bird got the name he did.  (On the flipside, at least he's rare enough that he didn't have to undergo a name change to avoid making school kids giggle like crazy every time he came up in conversation.)

In this shot you can see that he has a bit of blush around his eyes and red around his beak... but still no red breast.











Okay, that's it for this post.  More sightings tomorrow.



Total Identified Species Sited for the Year: 34
Total Unidentified Species Sited for the Year: 1
Total New Species: 18

Prairie Trillium*
Eastern Gray Squirrel
Tiger Beetle
Blue-Winged Teal*
Creeping Buttercup*
American Robin
Red-Breasted Woodpecker*

Spring has sprung!

So Chicago's weather has been *bizarre* to say the least lately.  This winter we never got more than about two inches of snow at any given time and only had about three or four measurable snows the entire season.  We rarely saw temperatures below freezing, even overnight.  I don't think we were in the teens or twenties (F) more than one or two days.

Then in March we were hitting 87 (F) and the like for about three weeks.  Now it's April and we're more on track with 'normal' weather, which is to say days in the 50s and 60s nights in the 40s and 50s, occasionally in the 30s.

All of this has conspired to *really* muck with nature.

A lot of flowers are blooming two weeks to a month early.  The trees never really shut down for the winter so the pollen counts are in the astronomical ranges.  My allergies are insane and people I know who have never had seasonal/pollen allergies are starting to feel congested and wheezy.

But all the same... it's now spring in earnest and the start of my personal 'photography year'.  I wanted to go out and do some shooting in March, but I managed to break my camera.

Actually, according to the very, very nice guy at International Camera who fixed it, I didn't *break* it per se.  It was a thing that apparently happens to Canon dSLRs on occasion - the shutter broke.  It's really, really hard to take pictures when you don't have an operational shutter.  But they repaired it for me quickly and much more inexpensively than I had feared it would be.  So if you're in Chicago and you need to get a camera fixed, I highly recommend them.  The building they're located in is just a tiny bit dilapidated and creepy, but the guy running the shop is incredibly nice and they do great work.

So once I was up and shooting again, I went down to Tennessee to visit my little niece and nephew.  While I was out there I harassed my father into taking me to a state park so we could do some shooting.  He's working on 3D shooting, with a pocket 3D camera.

I'm not terribly interested in 3D yet, mostly because most people don't own the technology to properly view a 3D picture, so I'm not sure what I could do with a 3D shot if I had one.

I've done my first tour of both the Magic Hedge and the North Pond as well.  It's clearly early on in the season and most of what I found both places are year-round dwellers and some of those early-popping flowers I mentioned before.

As the weather has warmed up I've been thinking about what my goals will be for this year.  My plan last year was to get 50 new species.  Unfortunately starting a new job last fall kind of derailed me before I got there.

So I think this year, I'm going to again shoot for 50 new species.  I'd like to get 200 total species blogged this year.

I also want to get to at least ten new locations for shooting.  I started with my Tennessee shoot at Bledsoe Creek State Park.  (And for the record, I give this park an overall B grade.  A few things I wouldn't see at home, more species earlier in the spring, but at least on this trip, nothing *spectacular*.)

I'm going to set up a master post for species I've posted in the past couple years to help me keep track, but another good place I've found for tracking and talking about wildlife spotting is projectnoah.org.  You can follow me and my spottings here.

So for right now, I'm tossing up a few of the better shots from Bledsoe Creek State Park in Tennessee.  The next few posts after that will be me trying to organize my sightings so I know what's new and what's not. :)

Eastern Tailed Blue (2012 - 001)

This is an Eastern Tailed Blue.  His little tails on his hindwings are hard to see, but the orange spots help to identify him.  There aren't a lot of butterflies up north yet, even with the crazy warm weather, so it was nice to see such an obvious sign of spring down south. :)

Blue Jay (2012 - 002)

A Blue Jay!  Okay, I admit, a stellar blue jay shot is one of my bucket list photographs.  This shot is okay, but one day I want to get one that's truly awesome.  I'm a huge fan of finding blue in nature, since there's so little of it.

White-Tailed Deer (2012 - 003)

White Tailed Deer.  I'm told there are a ton of these in this particular park, but this is the only one we saw all day.  She's pretty small, so we're guessing she's young, but mom was nowhere to be seen.

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (female) - (2012 - 004)

So I'm still working on my Blue Jay shots, but I have to say, this is about as good a shot of an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail as I'm ever going to get.  This particular butterfly is female - you can tell by the blue 'chevrons' on her hindwings.

Mosquito (male) - (2012 - 005)

 This is one of the biggest mosquitos I've ever seen in my life.  The leaf in that picture is about the size of my hand.  So that mosquito's body length is about 2 or 2.5 inches.  I'm told that these huge ones are all male and therefore do not bite people.  I have to figure there's some truth to that, because for all of these I saw out there I emerged from the woods without one bite.

Pipevine Swallowtail Butterfly (2012 - 006)

This Pipevine Swallowtail was hanging out with the Tiger Swallowtail above.  At first I thought it was a black morph female Tiger, but then she opened her wings and I could see the white dots and the large sections of iridescent blue on her back.

Muscovy Duck* (2012 - 007)

This was a new species for me for sure.  This face that only a mother could love belongs to a Muscovy Duck.  We don't have those in Chicago (though I may have spotted a hybrid one yesterday at the North Pond... I'm working on an identification for that one.)  These are pretty large ducks.  In fact between the red faces and their size my dad's first reaction to the small flock of them we saw was, "Look!  Turkeys!"

Unknown caterpillar (2012 - U001)

 I wish I knew what this was.  I mean, obviously it's a caterpillar.  And it's hanging from a silk thread, which means it must be some kind of silkworm which should lead to a silk moth, right?  Well a really good list I found for all the Sumner County butterflies and moths only lists one silkmoth and this is *not* the caterpillar it comes from.  I asked at Project Noah, but we all seem to be stumped.  If anyone has any ideas, I would *love* to hear them!

Snail (2012 - 008)

 So here's something I don't see much of in Chicago, no matter how many waterways I walk around.  A snail!  (I saw a slug one morning at the South Pond last year, but I couldn't get it to come out from between the boardwalk slats to get a good picture of it.)  Anyway there were tons of these snails in one spot near that lake at Bledsoe.  Again, I'm looking for a species identification if there's anyone out there who's good with gastropods.

Hairy Woodpecker (2012 - 009)

I know I've seen these at the Magic Hedge before, but I don't think I ever got a picture this clear.  This is a hairy woodpecker.  I love how you can see the band of yellow on his beak.










So that's ten pictures for this post.

In summary, for my goals:

Total Identified Species Sited for the Year: 9
Total Unidentified Species Sited for the Year: 1
Total New Species: 1

Eastern Tailed Blue Butterfly
Eastern Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly
Hairy Woodpecker
Blue Jay
Muscovy Duck*
Mosquito
Pipevine Swallowtail Butterfly
Snail
White-Tailed Deer

* - New Species

New Location - the Bill Jarvis Migratory Bird Sanctuary - 5.22.11

So I was walking through the Hedge last week when I saw this sign:

Now, I know the Lily Pool well.  I was just complaining about having hiked over there from the South Pond last week only to find that it still isn't open.  :(  But I hadn't heard of this Bill Jarvis place.  I think the sign must be new, because I'm pretty sure I would have seen it before, I'm only at the Hedge about once a week.  And I'm at the North Pond almost as often.

Anyway, I came home and Googled this place.  It's near the golf course on the east side of Lake Shore Drive on the North Side.  Or, as the directions I got said, "East of Lake Shore Drive, at the end of Addison Ave. (3400 N.)

Well, I was going to be in that general vicinity yesterday morning so I took all my photography gear with me and planned to stop on my way back.  According to Google Maps, I needed to take the 36 bus back down Broadway and then walk the few blocks east to Lake Shore Drive and then cross it, and basically I'd be there.

If you're from Chicago, you see the problem.  If you're not from Chicago, imagine crossing your area's busiest eight-lane expressway.  Not a highway with cross streets that will cause cars to occasionally come to a stop.  An expressway with on- and off-ramps so no one stops on this road ever. (Okay there's a light at Chicago Ave, but that was nowhere near me.)

There are a few underpasses.  The east side of the drive is a *highly* developed recreation area in a very upscale section of town.  Of course, I hopped off the bus where I had to hike up about a mile north to get to an underpass, cross under and then hike back about a quarter mile to get back to where I actually wanted to be.

Not helping things, I was in jeans and boots and a t-shirt and the temp had shot up from the mid sixties to the mid eighties between the time I left my house and the time I got to this sanctuary.

Now, me being uncomfortable isn't the end of the world.  I had water and snacks and I was in the shade a fair bit of the time.  Unfortunately I'd left the house without turning on the air conditioning for the ferrets.  I'm sure dog and cat people think that's kind of a ridiculous thing to get worried about, but ferrets don't handle heat well at all.  Logi (especially) is happy to snorkle and play in the snow all day long.  But ferrets tolerate temperatures above 80* F about as well as most people tolerate temps at about 100* F.  We CAN survive it, but it's going to be a miserable time. And then, only for short periods.  So I was feeling a little pressure to move through this place at a quicker pace than I might otherwise investigate a new shooting location.

That said, the set up for this place is... not great.  I didn't have a great desire to linger there.

Unlike the Magic Hedge or the Lily Pond, you can't actually walk through this sanctuary.  The entire thing is surrounded by a ten foot high chain-link fence.  There's a path around it, but you can't go in.  Part of me says, "Well that's great for the birds, really." The rest of me says, "If the point is to increase nature awareness in the city, you might want to let us get as close as we can in the other parks.  Because that fence is a huge turn off."  It might have been better if it was split rail or something a little less "institutionalized, prison-height" black chain-link.  For some reason that fence read much more as "Keep people OUT" rather than "keep nature safe."

There is a platform that lets you see over the fence at one end.  Sort of.  When I read on the website, I was thinking of the one like they have at Volo Bog.  At Volo the platform isn't ridiculously high off the ground from where it was - maybe 8 or 10 steps up.  But once you're up there, you can look over a huge lowered section of the bog.  You get a great view from that slightly increased height.  It's where I took this shot:

The platform at Bill Jarvis is only about four steps up.  And yes, it does help you see over the fence and it's a great spot to set up your tripod.  The downside is that the birds have completely figured out that they're exposed on that face of the sanctuary and they tend to not hop up to be visible while there are people on the platform.

As you go around, there are a few trees on the outside of the actual sanctuary and a few areas that I think will be wildflower and butterfly gardens in a month, but aren't much of anything right now.

It's a small area that has a parking lot on the north and an archery range (yes, really, Chicago has a public archery range.  And there were even people out there shooting arrows at targets when I was out there) on the northeast and a jogging path that butts *right* up against Lake Shore Drive all along the west side.  So it's not a phenomenal spot for getting in touch with nature.

These signs every twelve feet or so, certainly didn't help.

All that said, I did see a few species I haven't seen anywhere else in Chicago... or, you know, anywhere else at all.

 This is a hairy woodpecker.  I've seen the RedHeaded at the North Pond, and I've seen Red-Breasted and Flickers at the Hedge.  This guy took me a bit to identify because most woodpeckers in Northern Illinois are black and white with various checks and stripes on their wings.

 An Indigo Bunting!  A blue bird.  I love finding blue in nature.  He really didn't want to come out of the leaves.  He was singing his little heart out though, so he wasn't too completely dedicated to staying hidden.

And another warbler to add to the collection.  This one is called a Magnolia Warbler.  I really need to get a lens a little better than the telephoto I have now.  Warblers tend to stay *just* out of range of the lens I have now.  I ran into a guy out there who was looking for his 30th warbler species for the spring.  Last year he saw 32 distinct species.  I guess I still have a lot of birds to find.

So, yeah, three new species, but I need to head back to this spot one more time without worrying about me being hot or the ferrets being hot (seriously, I was more worried about them) or being annoyed by the 'great new place' being badly set up before I form a more permanent opinion.

So, the final verdict?   33 of 50 new species, and a location that needs re-evaluation.

North Pond - 5.10.11 - New Speices, Post 1

Wow... yesterday the weather was just amazing so after I tracked down the falcon, I went to the North Pond.  I took my time and my tripod and got some really neat shots.  There are still a few species I need to research, but I found some really amazing stuff out there.

I also have a new obsession. ProjectNoah.org  It's a social wildlife site where you post what you've seen and where you've seen it.  If you don't know what it is, people can help you identify the animal or flower from the picture and the context you give.  And you get to earn little badges as you go.  If you've ever seen how I play Farmville, you know I love getting little electronic badges to signify accomplishments. :)  If you're on, or join, Project Noah, and want to follow me over there, I'm listed by my name (Kymberlee Ricke).

So anyway, it took me 5.5 hours to make the loop around the pond yesterday.  The wildlife was in full swing.  And so were the local birders and photographers.  At one point I stood around with two other people exchanging sightings and talking about the Kingbird that perched, basically, right above our heads and the warblers that are still in abundance.

So... new species from this particular adventure...

 So this particular duck is a bit of an odd case.  It's a Pekin or Domesticated duck.  Found in the wild... so... *shrug*  I suspect it was either put there by or escaped from the Lincoln Park Zoo, nearby.  There's exactly one pair on this pond.  So, yeah, wild, but not exactly.

From white ducks to American Black Duck.  Apparently these guys were in danger of being wiped out as a pure species.  See, there's other ducks that are happy to mate with them, thus diluting the American Black Duck gene pool.

 Which leads us to this guy.  At first glance, he seems to be a mallard with that bright green head, but that's only part of the truth.  He's a mallard mix.  Like dogs, ducks can apparently intermix when breeding and mallards are apparently all too glad to do so.  This particular mix seems to be the "labradoodle" of the duck world.  A 'mutt', but one that occurs enough to get its own name.  According to one website I found, the mallard head with a white neck/chest and brown body is called a Duclair Duck.  In general a mallard mix is referred to as a "manky duck".

Okay, this guy isn't new.  It's a correction.  I had originally listed him as a White-Fronted Goose.  And while that would be an appropriate description of this guy, it's not his species.  He's a Graylag.

 Did I mention that the pond is Warblers-Are-Us right now?  This is a Common Yellow-Throat Warbler.  Looks like more than just his throat is yellow to me!

 Here's the Eastern Kingbird I mentioned above.  Kingbirds are a type of flycatcher and apparently somewhat rare in the area.

 One of my favorite finds of the trip was this Rose-breasted Grosbeak.  So very nice of him to show off his distinguishing red breast for me.  Made it much easier to identify him. :)  He's a finch - related to cardinals.

 Now here's something you don't see every day.  Mostly because he never comes out of the grasses and reeds!  A Virginia Rail.  We don't get too many wading birds in Chicago, other than the herons, so this was a pretty cool find.

And the coolest find of the whole trip?  A Red-headed Woodpecker.  Yep, like Woody.  Someone had mentioned to me that they'd seen one around and I was pretty sure they were confusing red-headed with either Downy or Red-breasted because they both have red on at least parts of their head.  But no, sure enough, here's a bird that's listed as a threatened species, right here in the middle of Chicago.



So those were the major new finds.  Eight new species, for a total of 23 of my 50.  Almost half-way there.  I suspect it's going to start getting a little thin in the 'new species' area, at least until June and the influx of the warm-weather insects.  I saw a clouded sulphur butterfly when I was out getting the falcon yesterday, so we should start seeing more butterflies soon.  And the bees are starting to pop out.  So hopefully about the time the migrating birds move out, the insects will move in.