Today we made our first trip to Northerly Island, which was formerly Miegs Field, Chicago’s lakefront airport. I used to like Miegs because is was fun to watch airplanes landing only a few blocks from a skyscrapered downtown. But Mayor Daley loves his parks, so he used 9-11 as an excuse to plow over the runways and plant this greenery. I don’t want to sound like a nature hater, but I’m a friend to all birds, including the big silver ones. I’m not losing any sleep over it, mind you. My cube faces west so I can’t see the damn lake anyway, and hizzoner has given us another place to bird.

Northerly Island is just a prairie at present with only a few young trees. If there’s a grander landscaping plan, I don’t know it about. We saw an American Kestrel as we came in, but the bulk of our time was devoted to hunting LBJs: little brown jobs. This name can apply to all the little brown birds you see, but for us, it usually means sparrows. They’re a challenge because they mostly look alike. The key word here is “mostly”. If I had every sparrow species in a cage in front of me, it would be easy to ID them. Almost all have distinctive markings, but most of these distinctions are minor. It’s like those irritating “Spot the Difference” pictures you find in the funnies. “This sparrow has a gray crown instead of a brown one, this one has a spot on its streaked chest, while this one has a spot but no streaking.” It’s a real pain in the ass. I find it so frustrating that I usually just don’t give a shit.

Pole knows her LBJs much better than I do, and even though she gets frustrated with them, she’s much more driven. She’s probably more frustrated with my lazy ass, because every time she points one out saying, “Look! Look! What’s that? What’s that?” — my reply is invariably a lazy-assed, slacky, “Eh. Just another LBJ.”

But today we were lucky because there were lots of sparrows and plenty of time to watch them. In addition to the usual suspects, we saw a SWAMP SPARROW, some FIELD SPARROWS, and a FOX SPARROW, the last a lifer 2x.

Next stop, the Magic Hedge, which was — what’s the word I’m looking for? — magic. As soon as we got there, Pole spotted a YELLOW-BELLIED SAPSUCKER, a lifer we had both been eager to find. It’s a beautiful bird, and on top of that, it has one of the funniest names in the business. When I was growing up, the name seemed to be on the tongue of every comedian (or maybe it was just Johnny Carson). It was also a staple of my own childhood shtick, and let me tell you, it caused lots o’ laughs. I highly recommend it.

Other birds were a NORTHERN FLICKER, a HERMIT THRUSH, and a GOLDEN-CROWNED KINGLET. Best, though, was another Fox Sparrow, who gave us a show with his manic, two-footed, backward hopping. It was very amusing, and I’m actually thinking of adding the motions to my popular sapsucker routine.