Monthly Archives: February 2006

cold white geese [60 – 61]

Pole frozen solid off Lake Shore Drive

Today there were some posts on the lists about Snow and Ross’s Geese on the Chicago lakefront. Though we got a late start (Pole’s fault), we decided to check them out. We went to Chicago’s Montrose Harbor, which is the location of the Magic Hedge, probably the best place to bird within 100 miles, though we haven’t been there yet this year. We saw some white geese from Lake Shore Drive as we drove in from the south, so we parked near the entrance and make a trek to their location.

Continue reading →

gull frolic [52 – 59]

Today was the Illinois Ornithological Society’s (IOS) Gull Frolic at Winthrop Harbor, which is on Lake Michigan just south of the Wisconsin border. We had never been to one of these things, but expert birders were promised to be on hand, so we figured we get a few animals to add to our list. Gulls are a nightmare. There are something like 27 species and each may have up to 5 plumages (first year, second year, breeding, etc.). And worst of all, a lot of them look the same. So sadly, for birders of our skill level, 27 x 5 = forget it.

Continue reading →

no hawks were violated [51]

Today was our last day in Minnesota, and we decided to bird Sax-Zim bog, a rural area northwest of Duluth and famous for birding. We planned to stay till noon and then drive back to Chicago. We stayed till dusk, of course, and didn’t get home until 1:30 am. We still hadn’t seen any Great Gray Owls this trip, and since we saw a lot of them at Sax-Zim last year, we hoped we might get lucky.

We started on Route 133, where, almost immediately, we saw a large raptor. It was sitting in a tree and turned out to be a juvenile Bald Eagle. An adult (mom or dad?) was just perched just a little down the road. Then we saw another raptor flying over a field. Pole identified it right away by the distinctive markings under its wings: a ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK. Another lifer for us both. We actually saw two of them, so they might have been a breeding pair. We saw them frequently as we drove around the bog.

Continue reading →