Common Terns in McLean County, IL

On Wednesday, September 30, I stopped by the Gridley Wastewater Treatment Ponds after work, and I was surprised to find a Common Tern. I had recently seen my lifer Common Terns at Carlyle Lake earlier in the month, but this was my first Common Tern in McLean County. Common Tern is a difficult bird to see in McLean County. I had seen many Caspian, Forster's, and Black Terns, but no Commons. Here are a few photos of this bird, but has a dark carpel bar, a long black-tipped bill, and a primaries extending past the tail.







The next day after work, I stopped by again, but the Common Tern was not there. So I decided to check the buoys by the water pump house at Evergreen Lake. On my way to Evergreen I remembered the buoys by the spillway at Lake Bloomington. So I stopped there first and found another Common Tern. This one did not have dark carpal bars yet, but face pattern and long primaries ruled out Forster's, while the bill length and dark primaries ruled out Arctic.

Black-bellied Plover, Buff-breasted Sandpipers, and Black Terns at El Paso Sewage Treatment Center

On Sunday afternoon, September 6, I stopped by El Paso Sewage Treatment Center to look for the Black-bellied Plover that Josh Engel reported seeing there. The Black-bellied Plover was there along with 6 Lesser Yellowlegs, 6 Baird's Sandpipers, 4 Buff-breasted Sandpipers, and many Least, Pectoral, and Semipalmated Sandpipers. Here is one of the Buff-breasted Sandpipers.



And here are a few shots of the Black-bellied Plover.











The next day was Labor Day so I had the day off, and I returned to El Paso. When I arrived, there were 9 Black Terns giving quite the show. They flew in pretty close to me while I was watching the shorebirds in the Northwest lagoon. The Black-bellied Plover was still present and flew into the Northwest lagoon. Also present were 3 American Golden-plovers on the berm between the two larger ponds, 40 Killdeer, 1 Spotted Sandpiper, 1 Solitary Sandpiper, 8 Lesser Yellowlegs, 6 Baird's Sandpipers, 28 Least Sandpipers, 5 Buff-breasted Sandpipers, 10 Pectoral Sandpipers, and 5 Semipalmated Sandpipers. Here are a few shots of the Buff-breasted Sandpipers.













And here are a few shots of the Black Terns.

Swallow-tailed Kite and Yellow-crowned Night-Herons in Champaign, IL

After work on Tuesday, September 1, Carrie and I drove to Champaign, IL to look for the Swallow-tailed Kite that had been reported there. We drove to Kenny Ave. off of S Mattis Dr. from where the bird had been seen hunting insects over a cornfield. It had also been seen in bare tree branches perched on a tree just off of Kenny Ave. There we ran into Phil Doncheck and several other birders who were also waiting to see the bird. We did see an Osprey fly by, but the kite never showed up.

Since many of the students at Salem were going on a field trip on Thursday morning, I decided to work later hours on Thursday and drive to Champaign in the morning again to make another attempt at seeing the kite. The kite had consistently been seen in the morning and early afternoon, but not in the evening. Based on the previous sightings and the reports that were written, I knew my best chance to see it would be between 8:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. So I arrived just before 8:00 and went to the large conifer on the North side of Windsor, just East of Matthis where it had previously perched, where I ran into Ted Wolff, who was waiting across the street from the conifer. Other birders showed up including Fran Morel. A Cooper's Hawk landed in the conifer, while we were waiting.



By about 8:45 a.m., I was thinking the bird was somewhere else so I left and started driving around the corn fields nearby. I wasn't far down the road when Ted Wolff called me and said, "Get your #$%#$ back over here. The Kite is in the tree." When I drove back to the North side of the road where I had parked, the kite was not in the tree, but when I parked and got out of the car, I saw the kite flying from the North back into the tree, where it remained until it was chased away by a crow.







I was able to take one decent photo of the kite in flight.



The kite hunted in the corn field to the South of Windsor, but eventually it returned again to the tree.













Someone noticed another hawk perched in a tree behind it and thought it was a Cooper's Hawk. I looked at it through my binoculars and said, "That's not a Cooper's Hawk!" After eliminating Red-tailed Hawk and Red-shouldered Hawk, we concluded that it was a juvenile Broad-winged Hawk. The bird took off and flew over us, further confirming our conclusion, just after I took these quick photos.





I took a few more photos of the kite, and then I decided to go to Kaufman Park in Campaign to look for the Yellow-crowned Night-Herons that had been reported there.





When I arrived at Kaufman Park and parked, two Yellow-crowned Night-Herons were sitting right in front of me on the other side of the pond. One of them had it's primaries lifted toward heaven as if it was worshiping the Creator.

Buff-breasted Sandpiper at El Paso Sewage Treatment Center

On September 2, I was photographing the Sanderling at El Paso Sewage Treatment Center when a Buff-breasted Sandpiper photobombed the Sanderling.