Pomarine Jaeger at Weldon Springs State Park, DeWitt

It is not unusual for me to get behind on this blog. Here is a post I made on the Illinois Birder's Forum back in November, but never posted here until February 1, 2015. This bird, which Carrie and I found together is quite possibly the best bird find either of us have had. We found a Say's Phoebe together in 2013 in McLean County, IL, but unfortunately we were the only ones to see it. The thing which made this sighting so special was that this bird, which is usually seen on the move was so cooperative, and it was so wonderful to be able to share this bird with birders from all over the state that came to see it.

On Saturday, November 22, Carrie woke up early and wanted to eat breakfast out. When I mentioned going to Clinton Lake to look for redpolls, Carrie seemed interested. So we went to Denny's for breakfast, came back home for a few minutes, and headed South for Clinton Lake. We did not find any redpolls. In fact there were very few birds, particularly on the lake. We managed to see two American Tree Sparrows at Parnell, the Barred Owl at the Weldon Access Area, a very pale Red-tailed Hawk, scattered Hooded Mergansers and Pied-billed Grebes, a couple of Common Mergansers at the Marina, and an astonishing 2 Redheads and 12 Greater Scaup from the overlook. After finding nothing at the West Access, we decided to call it a day and get some lunch at the Chinese buffet in Clinton.

After lunch, Carrie asked me if I wanted to go to Weldon Springs.

"Sure, that's fine," I said.

So we got to the lake there at around 1:30 p.m., and were viewing from the South end next to the spillway. We were looking at a couple of ducks that were diving next to some Canada Geese from the car. I cannot even remember what they were because after what came next, I forgot about the ducks. We were about to leave, but I saw what from the car looked like a big Mourning Dove taking a bath out in the middle of the lake. I said something about it looking like a Mourning Dove.

Carrie said, "Yeah, what is that?"

Then I knew it was a jaeger, but it took me a few seconds to remember the word "jaeger." So I said, "It's one of those, what-do-you-call-its . . . it's a jaeger!"

We got the scope out, and were able to walk right up to the deck along the trail, and I started taking pictures and trying to contact other birders. I knew the identification would be difficult so I walked down the trail to the East a little to get some closer shots. The bird was somewhat skiddish and it was difficult to stay on the trail without getting a little too close. The bird took off a few times as I attempted to get back to my scope without disturbing it, but it eventually ended up back about where we first saw it. We noticed the bird had a lot of white on the bottom of the tail and underwing, which ruled out Parasitic.









The bird was very brown in color, and the more we studied it, the more I leaned toward intermediate juvenile Pomarine Jaeger.





Matt Fraker was the first to show up, and he eventually concluded after looking at my photos of the upperwing and underwing and examining the bird himself, that the bird was a Pomarine as well, which just meant as far as I was concerned that I was a really lucky guesser. Next Matthew Winks arrived and then Travis Mahan with his family, Tony Ward, Colin Dobson, Colin's grandmother Sharon, and Tyler Funk.

The bird took several short flights, and Tony got some awesome shots of the bird in flight. Carrie and I stayed until about 4:45 p.m. waiting for more birders to come. The jaeger bathed again, and just as it was getting almost too dark to see, a noisy flock of Canada Geese flew in and landed near it in the water. After a minute or two, the jaeger seemed agitated by the geese and took off. I lost it in the dark, and it was too dark to relocate. If it followed it's pattern for the evening, it probably circled around and landed a little further to the East in the lake along the trail. I hope it will still be around tomorrow.

Here is a link to the thread on Illinois Birder's Forum where the identification of this bird was discussed

http://www.ilbirds.com/index.php?topic=55539

White-tailed Deer Near Merwin Nature Preserve

This morning I saw these two deer on my way to work near Merwin Nature Preserve on Highway 29 in McLean County.

Three Falcon Species in a Day

It was Carrie's weekend to work, and at 293, I only needed 7 more species to get to 300 on my state list. So I decided to search for one of the Prairie Falcons in Coles County that Tyler Funk discovered a couple of years ago. I Facebook messaged Tyler, and he was very much willing to help in advising me where to look. At first I thought this bird might be a Prairie Falcon. The I realized it was an American Kestrel.



So I drove to Coles County and started at the Magic Stump, but the falcon was not there so I continued to drive around the area looking along some roads that Tyler told me to try. Eventually, I ran into Nicolas Sly and another birder. They were on the dirt road closest to the stump and thought they saw the Prairie Falcon flying a long way away past the stump. I drove over to the next road, and they eventually joined me, but I suspected we had not gone far enough so I drove another mile over and saw the Prairie Falcon fly up from the ditch and land in the field--State bird #294! I observed the Prairie Falcon for a few minutes sitting on a clump of dirt, but by the time Nicolas and the other birder drove up, the falcon had flown away.



Fortunately, they were able to get on the bird, which had flown closer to the stump, a little later. Before I decided to go to Clinton Lake, I found this Rough-legged Hawk in the area.







At Clinton Lake, the birds were sparse, but I did find a nice flock of Rusty Blackbirds near the West Side Access.



There were also some Turkey Vultures hanging out at the marina.





When I got back in town, I found this Peregrine on top of Watterson Towers in Normal, which made my third falcon in a day. Too bad I did not see a Merlin though I checked one of their hangouts in town!

Snow Buntings at the Gridley Wastewater Treatment Ponds

On Monday morning, November 10, I stopped at the Gridley Wastewater Treatment Ponds before work. Several flocks of Snow Buntings flew over, while I was there, totaling at at least 67 birds. Several of them stopped on the rocks around the ponds, but I managed only a few shots.







Four days later, there were only three there when I stopped by, but they flew into the corn field beside the ponds, and I was able to watch them feed on the corn. What a wonderful photo session they gave me.