Pole has been sick. And I’ve been traveling and working 12-hour days.

Not that I’m complaining, mind you. It’s the birds I’m worried about. The birds that never got the chance to cross our paths and be immortalized by a check mark in our little American Birding Association (ABA) booklet. So here’s what we’ve got: Pole saw an AMERICAN ROBIN when she ran an errand one day (March 1). My limited efforts were much more fruitful.

I didn’t see no stinking robin (yet), but did manage to make two last-minute, end-of-the-day trips to Glacial Park in the northwest suburbs of Chicago (on March 5th and 11th). People have reported seeing short-eared owls there, so I abandoned Pole and made the trip solo. No owls either time. However, on the way there both times, I saw RING-NECKED PHEASANTS along the side of the road (just east of the town of Richmond). This road passes through some fields and woods owned by the Richmond Hunting Club, which means birds were probably releases. But the pheasant is an introduced bird anyway, so even if these weren’t exactly 100% wild, the ABA says you can count them, and so I have. I’m just grateful I managed to pass through the club’s property without some hobby hunter like Dick Cheney shooting me in the face.

On my second trip to Glacial, I also saw about 100 RED-WINGED BLACKBIRDS, male and female. They were in the trees and making a huge racket. Odd that this year’s first glimpse of this common bird should be in a mob, rather than the more familiar solitary male kon-ka-reeing his head off in a meadow.