From Evergreen Lake to Clinton Lake--Swans, Owls, and Red-shouldered Hawks

On January 2, I found four swans near the dam at Evergreen Lake in Woodford County. At first, I thought they were 4 of the 5 Tundra Swans that Dave Weth had found at Evergreen at the end of 2012, but Dave and Matt Fraker were observing the swans by the dam the following Saturday and determined that these were actually Trumpeter Swans. I was excited to finally see Trumpeter Swans, and I returned to the lake several times last week on the way to and from work to see them. Usually when I saw them they were pretty far out, and I kept hoping they would come closer to shore or end up on the McLean County side. Although I only saw them in Woodford County, when they were last seen on Sunday, January 13 by Shanin Abreu, they were in McLean County. Here are a few of the photos I took of them last week.











Other waterfowl I saw included Redheads, Common Goldeneyes, Cackling Geese, and Greater White-fronted Geese.









On Saturday, January 12, Wes Kolb, Les Allen, and I drove down to Clinton Lake, hoping to see Fraker's Common Redpolls and the saw-whet he had reported on ebird. It was no surprise that our first raptor was a Red-tailed Hawk.



From the IDNR parking area, we had several flocks of mixed geese fly over us, including Greater White-fronteds, Canadas, and Snow Geese.



Not long after this, we encountered this strange looking Red-shouldered Hawk.



This poor Barred Owl appeared to have been hit by a car.







We checked both the Parnell access and the marina for Common Redpolls. Wes and I saw and heard a couple of birds fly over that seemed likely suspects, but they were backlit and did not land. At the marina we hiked through the pines and found a nice flock of titmice, chickadees, nuthatches, Downies, Red-bellieds, and Brown Creepers. Les found a Hairy Woodpecker and Wes saw a live Barred Owl thanks to help from the crows that were tormenting it. As we drove away from the marina, we saw a second Red-shouldered Hawk, but my camera was on the floor of the vehicle, and it flew just before I could get a shot.

Our last stop was an attempt to find the saw-whet. Thanks to Wes, the attempt was successful. My attempts at photography were not in that I do not have a user friendly manual focus on my camera.





On the way home, we stopped at Deanna Frautschi's yard in Bloomington, hoping to see more owls. On Christmas Eve, I had seen three Great Horned Owls in her yard, and she had just reported the return of a red morph Eastern Screech-owl to her box the day before on Facebook. Graciously, she had given me permission to come over and take a look.

Pine Siskins are one of the year round specialties in Deanna's yard. Her yard may well be the most reliable place to find one in McLean County. I don't know how Wes managed to pick this guy out.



Wes also picked out a Golden-crowned Kinglet from the same tree.

We could not find any Great Horneds, but this little guy popped out shortly before we left.



I went back for a better look at him on Monday during the time he usually comes out just before dusk and took a few more shots.

New Year's Rough-legged Hawk

Carrie and I have been bringing in the New Year watching the original Star Wars Trilogy at home. Before we got started with the trilogy, we had a nice group of birds come to our feeders this morning, including at least two Red-breasted Nuthatches.

Mourning Dove 3
Red-bellied Woodpecker 2
Downy Woodpecker 1
Blue Jay 2
Red-breasted Nuthatch 2
White-breasted Nuthatch 1
European Starling 6
Dark-eyed Junco 6
Northern Cardinal 3
House Sparrow 4

After watching A New Hope, Carrie agreed to join me on a drive to find some New Year's birds. Our first stop was State Farm Corporate South, where we had a decent variety of waterfowl.

Cackling Goose 6
Canada Goose 150
Mallard 6
Northern Shoveler 8
Ring-necked Duck 1
Lesser Scaup 5
Bufflehead 1
American Coot 8
American Robin 1

Next, we drove around on the country roads North of Downs, where we saw a few Horned Larks fly across the road and enjoyed great looks at a couple of Red-tails and a beautiful light, male Rough-legged Hawk!







From Downs, we drove to Moraine View State Park, where we added a few more species.

Canada Goose 200
Lesser Scaup 2
Hooded Merganser 1
Ring-necked Pheasant 50
Wild Turkey 50
Red-tailed Hawk 3
American Coot 1
American Kestrel 1
American Crow 8
Black-capped Chickadee 1
European Starling 30
American Tree Sparrow 2
Dark-eyed Junco 8
Northern Cardinal 9
House Sparrow 2

Among the birds we saw there were 50 Wild Turkeys and 50 Ring-necked Pheasants, and they were nowhere near the hunters!





Here is one of the Red-tails we saw.



I had hoped to see a Bald Eagle at Moraine View, but we did not find one there. On the way home, however, while we were stopped at a red light at the corner of Route 9 and N Hershey Rd., Carrie spotted a Bald Eagle soaring above. This brought our New Year's Day count to 30 species!