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
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