Redpolls and Enormous Gulls in Chicago, Illinois

On late Friday morning, February 13, after I attended my last session of a week long Biblical Counseling Training Conference in Lafayette, IN, I drove straight to Chicago to look for some redpolls and enormous gulls, before attending the Gull Frolic at North Point Marina in Winthrop Harbor the next day. I had noticed on ebird that Calumet Park was a great place to see Great Black-backed Gulls and from a report on the Illinois Birder's Forum that Amar Ayyash had seen a rare Slaty-backed gull near Calumet Park on Thursday evening. I had been planning to go to the Chicago Botanical Gardens to see the Common Redpolls, but Andrew Aldrich and Joshua Little had found a Hoary Redpoll at Wolf Lake/William W. Powers State Recreation Area with a flock of Common Redpolls. So I decided to go there instead and see if I could pick up both "species" since I had never seen either of them.

Wolf Lake/William Powers State Recreation Area was my first stop. I arrived at around 12:30 p.m., but was not sure where to look for the redpolls so I drove to the IDNR office. One of the park workers there was very friendly and helpful. He said a lot of people had come through looking for the redpolls so he did not know whether they were still around, but he gave me a map and showed me where to look. So I went to the boat launch and started walking along the edge of the frozen lake. I noticed several clusters of Alders, but no redpolls, but then eventually I found the flock. They were skiddish at first, and flew to some other Alders, but eventually I was able to approach them slowly and get some great looks and decent photos. Here are a few photos I took of the Common Redpolls. Notice the heavy streaking on the flanks.







I believe this bird to be the bird that Greg Neise is calling an adult female Hoary Redpoll. It was frosty all over, but as you can see, it had more streaks on the undertail coverts than is to be expected for a Hoary based on the Sibley field guide's description.









Cut and past the link below to see Greg's post in which he identifies the bird above as a Hoary Redpoll. As Greg mentioned in his blog post, there has been recent study by ornithologists that may demonstrate that Hoary and Common Redpolls are actually different variations of the same species rather than two separate species.

http://blog.aba.org/2015/02/quality-time-with-hoary-redpolls.html

The first year male Hoary Redpoll, which was found by Andrew and Joshua, is shown below and at the top of this post. This bird was extemely cooperative, hanging by the lowest branches of the Alders as I watched and photographed it. It had fewer streaks on the flanks than the Common Redpolls and only one streak on the undertail coverts. Notice the dark streaking on the rump of this bird. Still its rump was very light compared to that of the Common Redpolls.









While I was watching, I met several other birders that came out on the ice to see the redpolls, including Danny Akers, whom I had met in Putnam County, while I was viewing the Sage Thrasher that was there earlier this Winter. I went back to the IDNR office to thank the worker and show him my photos, but the office was closed.

My next stop was Calumet Park, where I found my third lifer of the day from the pier--Great Black-backed Gull. There were three--two adults and a second cycle.









I was unable to find the location where Amar had last seen the Slaty-backed Gull, but I had intel from Aidan Rominger that he was at that spot and had been there for several hours without seeing it so I headed up toward Waukegan, where I would spend the night before going to the Gull Frolic the next day. I can't remember the last time I saw three lifers in a day in Illinois. What a great day!