Sandhill Cranes and American Woodcock in McLean County

This morning, Carrie and I took both of our cars to Sam's Club to get the tires rotated. One of the employees said we were lucky to get them in this morning because usually they are slammed on Saturday. After our cars were ready, we went to Ewing Park to look for an American Woodcock. Carrie had never seen one. We flushed one at Sugar Grove Nature Center when we went looking for them last year, but Carrie did not get a good enough look to identify the bird. It was warm at Ewing, but a little windy There were very few birds there, but we had some nice ones. The Eastern Screech-owl box by the little bridge that crosses the stream in Hedge Apple Woods was occupied.



As we continued along the trail past the screech-owl box, an American Woodcock that was ahead of us on the trail flushed, but landed where we could see it. Carrie had a hard time seeing it when it landed because it blended in so well, but then she saw the big dark eye, and I took the photograph shown at the top of this post. Then we saw the woodcock doing it's funny walk before it flew into one of the yards behind the trail. We did not find anymore woodcocks today so we were thankful to see the one we saw at Ewing, which was a lifer for Carrie. We also found a very loud Tufted Titmouse singing next to a nest and a pair of Brown Creepers at Ewing.



After lunch, we went to Sugar Grove Nature Center in Funks Grove. The sun was out, the clouds were gone, and it was turning into a beautiful day. We saw the American Tree Sparrow and Eurasian Tree Sparrows shown below at the feeders.







Just before we left Sugar Grove, I heard a Carolina Wren singing by the feeders. As we were leaving, I asked Carrie if she wanted to check out the waterfowl at Evergreen Lake, but she suggested we check the Kenneth L. Schroeder Wildlife Sanctuary instead. Schroeder sounded like a good idea to me so that was where we went. While we were hiking the path to the wetlands, we noticed a small kettle of raptors above, including two Red-tails getting mobbed by crows and three Turkey Vultures.

As we passed the wetlands on our right, I noticed that there did not seem to be any ducks. Then I looked toward the new wetland and saw a Sandhill Crane through the trees. I could not believe my eyes. We could tell there were several Sandhill Cranes on the new wetland, but we could not get a good count because the trees were blocking the view. I was able to manage a few photos at a great distance.









Then the birds must have seen us through the trees as well, though we were still on the trail and pretty far back from the trees, because they suddenly took off and flew Southeast. There is no blind to keep the birds on the new wetland from seeing you coming, and the trees were still bare of leaves. When the cranes took off, we finally could see that there were five of them.

There was a pair of Green-winged Teals and a pair of Killdeer still on the wetland when we reached the end of the trail, and a Pied-billed Grebe in wetland (lake) with the blind. After Schroeder it was time to return home to do our taxes. We did not have a huge variety of birds today, but we sure had some great ones, and it was beautiful day to be outside!