Year List - 2020 - March 1 Edition

March 1, 2020
Location: Bill Jarvis Bird Sanctuary and surrounding parkland.

Common Goldeneye
(male)

 Common Goldeneye
(female)







Black-Capped Chickadee

Redheads (with a Greater Scaup)

Greater Scaup (males with white side patch, females with white patch on beak)










Fox Squirrel/ Eastern Fox Squirrel/Bryant's Fox Squirrel





Also seen: northern cardinal; White-Throated Sparrow

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*

The Magic Hedge - 1.11.11, Post 3

Here we go again... :)  I'm finding that I have to do a lot of lightening of my shots in post-production.  Given that it was really light (I mean, it was cloudy and snowing, but it wasn't, by any means, dark) out and I was shooting snow, I have to figure my camera was somehow overcompensating.

Airborne Squirrel

 Like I said yesterday, there were squirrels-o-plenty.  This guy was chasing another one.

Chilly Squirrel

This squirrel managed to look cold.  Most of them didn't. They were fat and energetic and having at the seed someone tossed down.  This guy... I don't know... he just looks chilly.

Standing Guard Over Seeds

I think this guy was afraid I'd take his seeds or chase him off.  He kept popping up like this and then going back to eat and popping back up to look at me.  I love how he's all chubby in the belly, but he has this kind of ratty tail thing happening.

And They're Off...

A geese-launch shot I forgot yesterday.  I didn't color correct this one.   I left it a little gray because it seemed to add to the scene for me.  Also because it gives you an idea of how my camera was perceiving the *really, really* white snow.

Your Insane Photographer

Here's a rare portrait of the (insane) photographer.  I ran into someone else out there taking shots with his S.O. so I offered to take a picture of the two of them together, so he said he'd return the favor.  I couldn't find my purple and gray hat, so I had the earband on.  I had really, really wet hair by the time I got home.

The Bird the South Forgot

Then there was this guy.  It's not a good shot or anything, but it's an American Robin.  What the *heck* is he doing here in this snowstorm?  As a kid I was always taught that the robins returning was one of the first signs of spring.  This robin?  One for the first signs of SNOW MY GOODNESS, SNOW!

Looking for Mr. Tumnis

 There's shrubbery arch in the Hedge.  I have no idea if this was crafted at some point or if it somehow naturally formed when branches tangled together overhead.  Anyway, add a little snow and you have the entrance to Narnia, I swear.


 

Snow on the Weeds

 The weeds of the summer and fall are clearly dormant now, but the stems still remain and have been picking up snow on any surface that's horizontal or close enough for jazz.

You Can't Spin This Cotton

It makes it look like we're growing cotton... in Chicago.  In January.  I love that in this shot, even at this size, you can see the snow falling.

Snow (on) Cone(flowers)

 Here's more of the little snow caps.  I'm pretty sure these were either coneflowers or sunflowers in the summer.  Now They're snowcone flowers. :)

Quiet

This needs to be made into a card or something at some point.  It just strikes me as ridiculously iconic "Winter".










There's more.  (There's always more with me, isn't there? :)  But that's enough for tonight. :)

The Magic Hedge - 1.11.11, Post 2

So like I said at the end of the last post, there were a lot of animals out and about for this kind of weather.  Of course, it's easier to see them when there's no brush or leaves in the way.

Bunny Bundles Up

 The first critter I saw was a bunny.  So was the second and third.  It was Bunny, ten steps, Bunny, ten steps, Bunny for a while.  All of them hidden in this thicket of the remains of the tall grasses and flowers of the spring and summer.

Literal Crow's Feet

 I know crows freak a lot of people out, but I find them kind of cool.  I love the texture of the feathers at his shoulder.  Also there's something inherently interesting to me about a completely monochromatic animal, down to his eyes and feet.

 And then he decided to head for the next tree and I got this cool shot of his wing.  I also used this shot to be sure it was an American Crow and not a Raven - a Crow's tail is that seashell/scallop shape and a Raven's tail is triangular. 

I Seed What You Did There

There were some seriously pudgy squirrels out there today. A woman I was talking to said she was the one putting out the seeds.  She wants to try to attract cardinals.  Now, to be fair, I spent an hour and a half today hoping to get that iconic picture of a male cardinal in a snowy evergreen, but I'm not sure it's a good idea to start tossing down seed in a wild sanctuary.  You could easily end up introducing a plant that doesn't go there when you do that.  Not to mention you influence the way the wild animals behave and then what will they do when you don't come back with more?

M-Y Geese

 Then there were the geese.  Again, there was a big crowd of them because there was someone out feeding them bread.  But when the bread-man left there was just this big flock of geese on the lawn.  There had to have been 75 - 100 of them easily.  And at some point they all decided to leave.  But not at once, like something scared them.  About fifteen of them lined up, facing the lake then all at once they took off.  Then fifteen or twenty more spread out in a line like the first set had and after a minute that group took off.  They kept going in batches like that.  Which, as a photographer was great.  I was able to start predicting their behavior and I knew where to aim the camera. :)

The Second Heat Takes Off

 So here was the second set.  I love that my camera caught them all with virtually no blur on any of them.  It does, however, make it look like a slightly weird photoshop job where the birds were just pasted in haphazardly.

The 3rd Heat

The shapes of the wings in this one are so very cool.  There's the "M" guy in the extreme foreground, the "V" guy above him.  There's the "U" guy on the left and the "Y" on the right.  Too bad they couldn't spell anything. :)

Last Group Gets Off the Ground

 The guy in the middle of this shot looks like someone just lobbed a bird into my picture.  Don't you wonder how anything that big, with that much mass gets off the ground without jet engines?  I love the white "V"s on their tails and that you can see the "V" on all 5 geese in the shot.

I Know I Buried Food Here Somewhere

There will be many, many squirrel pictures, later.  But for now, one guy who must be looking for *something* he buried.  He kept shoving his face in the snow and then coming up and looking... annoyed. :)











Okay, that's the first half of the shots I took today.  More later.

Chicago Done Naturally (Post 2 of 10) - The Magic Hedge

Okay, this is my favorite secret Chicago shooting spot. I lived in my apartment at Montrose and the lake for seven years before I discovered this place – and I could walk to it if I wanted to.





To get there, you drive down Montrose heading east (or take the Montrose bus to the Montrose Beach - it only goes that far east during the summer, though). Cross Lake Shore Drive and keep going all the way to the harbor. When you get to a curve in the road with a road on the right, take the right. (Montrose is one side of the top of a Y, it becomes Simmons which is the other side of the top of the Y, you want the street that becomes the bottom of the Y, which really doesn’t have a name.)

Drive around the curve until you see a whole lot of trees and a couple of signs announcing “The Montrose Harbor Bird Sanctuary”. Otherwise known as “The Magic Hedge.”

Quick history: The army built a barracks here back in the day. They put in honeysuckle bushes to give a little privacy to the bottom floor of the barracks. Eventually they left, the buildings came down, but the honeysuckle hedge remained.

Now over 300 different bird species are spotted here each year. Obviously not all at once or anything, but there are more birds than you can point a camera at. I’ve seen robins, cardinals, thrushes, some little yellow thing I still can’t identify, grackles, gulls and others. There’s also a load of squirrels, chipmunks and rabbits. I haven’t seen them yet – I’m guessing it’ll be June before they arrive – but they’ve also got up signs indicating the hedge is a butterfly spotting point.

Oh, it’s also famous for something else – a place to pick up a prostitute. The websites will tell you that since they put up fences around most of the stands of trees, that that’s been curtailed, but I’ve seen evidence that it’s not terribly true. ;) So, yeah, it's gorgeous during the day, but I'd head home around nightfall.

You’ll see other photographers out there no matter when you go. There aren’t a lot of kids and the bird watchers and high school couples you do see are pretty quiet, so it’s a nice quiet place to shoot. These are very wild birds though and will take off at the slightest noise. A good telephoto is your friend.


To hit:
Go as far east as you can through the trees and you’ll eventually reach the lake. You get a pretty awesome view of downtown from there. (This was clearly taken on a very hazy day.)



To miss:
Watch the ground. If it’s not the aforementioned prostitutes, someone’s still having a good time out there. This is probably the tamest evidence of that activity that I've found...

North Pond - July 14, 2010 - Post #2

Okay, here we go again. More shots from that same walk I was talking about yesterday.


A purple coneflower. More fun with macro mode. [Coneflower Near the End of the Road]








I'm learning to do a lot more with manual focus. For example, I wanted to focus on this grackle with a seed in his beak, but my camera kept insisting on focusing on the green leaf in front of him. It's trickier to get a shot quickly, but if your subject is sitting still for a minute, you do get a much better shot.

[Grackle with Seed]

This guy was adorable. He came creeping down from a higher branch and seemed pretty shocked to see me standing right under his nose. But instead of running back up the tree, he just flattened himself against the branch like, "You can't see me. I'm blending in!" Too bad the tree was mostly green from lichen. :)
[Flat Squirrelly]

Peekaboo turtle! Don't let fables fool you. Turtles - at least Chicago turtles - are pretty fast. This guy would hear my shutter, duck back under water swim a few yards, pop back up. I'd catch him, he'd duck under and come back up somewhere else. Very, very quickly. I love that you can see his feet and shell under the water in the breaks in the algae. [Peekaboo Turtle]

Near as I can Google, this is an upside down Carpenter Bee. I think the flower he's on is some kind of onion variety. Anyone know?

[Carpenter Bee]





Most adorable shot ever! The "Rainbow Duck" shot from yesterday is mom. She was swimming around this log while her babies sat up high and dried and preened and rested. I still need to look up what kind of ducks they are.

[Ducklings on a Fallen Log]




I love this as an artistic shot. I also love that my Google-fu found that this plant is called Blue Vervain and that the bee is a female bumblebee. This is the kind of shot that I end up filing away for the next Art Sharks or contest I find.

[Bumblebee and Blue Vervain]



So, truthfully, the smaller you make this shot, the better it looks. :p He took off, I held down my shutter and just followed him as he went. The good news is, the camera did know what I was focusing on (as evidenced by the almost invisible, yet still visible enough to be annoying tree branches in the foreground), the bad news is, there's a lot of blur when trying to catch a heron that's diving for its dinner. [Heron Goes Dinner Diving]

He's so much easier to catch well when he's sitting still. :)

[Juvenile Great Blue Heron Watches the Horizon]






And here he is in all his glory. And in context. I think I may have inadvertently focused on his chest because it's a little more in focus than his head. But given the distance I was at when I took this, I'm surprised it came out as well as it did (even if I did have to darken it a bit in Graphic Converter). I love how you can see the darker feathers coming in on his chest and in his tail. And a little detail? Look at the zig-zag reflection of the grasses in the water. [Young Heron in the Grass]


Okay, ten pictures make a post. Let me know what you think. :)