Photo: Barred owl by Lindsay Vacek

Hello everyone,

What a fascinating and horrifying few days of birding we had this week. As I’m sure you all know by now, Chicago experienced a fallout of birds, which is a very rare occurrence, on Thursday October 5. A strong cold front pushed the migrants south and then a late night rainstorm drove thousands of them down to the ground. Others kept flying and they were easily seen streaming south along the lakefront. When I first saw the reports of the fallout on Discord (the Cook County bird chat app), Mike and I dropped what we were doing and immediately walked over to Jackson Park. The ground was almost covered and the trees were full of warblers, thrushes, kinglets, sparrows and many more. It was thrilling and magical to be among all those birds.

Unfortunately, soon the reports of the window strikes started coming in, with an especially bad event at McCormick Place where 1000 dead birds were retrieved. That’s when our excitement turned to sadness for all the beautiful birds that were lost. I hope we do not have another fallout in Chicago for many years to come. Many thanks to the dedicated staff at the Field Museum and the Chicago Bird Collision Monitors for the difficult and heart-breaking work they did on Thursday morning to save as many birds as they could.

Many of the birds that made a stopover in our area on Thursday were still around on Saturday, plus more migrants arrived on Friday so we had a lot to look at. I think we set a new record for the length of our walk at almost 5 hours.

Yellow-rumped warblers were everywhere and they, the Palm Warblers, and the Cape May Warblers decided that the lily pads in the Columbia Basin would be a good place to catch insects. It was odd, and interesting, to see them hopping around on the water.

The White-throated Sparrows arrived and we saw and heard them throughout the park. We also had the pleasure of spotting 2 Fox Sparrows and 2 Eastern Towhees in the center of the Island.

We walked through the meadow with a Palm Warbler who kept hopping along in front of us. Five 5 Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers were in the area north of the Music Bridge. And the most unexpected bird of the day was the Rusty Blackbird that eagle-eyed Leslie spotted on the edge of the Columbia Basin as we finished up the walk. What a great way to end a wonderful walk.

BIRDERS: Marian, Mike, Jennie, Gary, Megana, Leslie, Mark C., Roger, Paul, Lucy, Tyler, Mark W., Eric, Jen, Marisa, Dennis and welcome to Ray, Sylvia, Laura, Jake, Ben, Mary and Clare, visiting from England.

TIME: 8:00am to 12:55pm                 

WEATHER: Sunny, 45 degrees at the start

Compiler: Cheryl

Photographers: Marisa, Leslie and Eric         

1. Canada Goose   Number observed: 225

2. Wood Duck   Number observed: 12

3. Mallard   Number observed: 21

4. Rock Pigeon (Feral Pigeon)   Number observed: 1

5. Chimney Swift   Number observed: 5

6. Ring-billed Gull   Number observed: 2

7. Double-crested Cormorant   Number observed: 1

8. Great Blue Heron   Number observed: 5

9. Great Egret   Number observed: 1

10. Black-crowned Night-Heron   Number observed: 1

11. Turkey Vulture   Number observed: 1

12. Cooper's Hawk   Number observed: 2

13. Red-tailed Hawk   Number observed: 6

14. Belted Kingfisher   Number observed: 2

15. Yellow-bellied Sapsucker   Number observed: 9

16. Downy Woodpecker   Number observed: 2

17. Northern Flicker   Number observed: 2

18. Eastern Wood-Pewee   Number observed: 1

19. Empidonax sp.   Number observed: 1

20. Philadelphia Vireo   Number observed: 1

21. Warbling Vireo   Number observed: 1

22. American Crow   Number observed: 50

23. Black-capped Chickadee   Number observed: 8

24. Ruby-crowned Kinglet   Number observed: 4

25. Golden-crowned Kinglet   Number observed: 4

26. White-breasted Nuthatch   Number observed: 1

27. Brown Creeper   Number observed: 3

28. European Starling   Number observed: 2

29. Gray Catbird   Number observed: 1

30. Swainson's Thrush   Number observed: 2

31. Hermit Thrush   Number observed: 7

32. American Robin   Number observed: 23

33. Cedar Waxwing   Number observed: 1

34. House Sparrow   Number observed: 8

35. Pine Siskin   Number observed: 3

36. American Goldfinch   Number observed: 10

37. Chipping Sparrow   Number observed: 1

38. Fox Sparrow   Number observed: 2

39. Dark-eyed Junco   Number observed: 27

40. White-crowned Sparrow   Number observed: 6

41. White-throated Sparrow   Number observed: 23

42. Song Sparrow   Number observed: 1

43. Swamp Sparrow   Number observed: 4

44. Eastern Towhee   Number observed: 2

45. Rusty Blackbird   Number observed: 1

46. Common Grackle   Number observed: 1

47. Northern Waterthrush   Number observed: 5

48. Tennessee Warbler   Number observed: 1

49. Orange-crowned Warbler   Number observed: 1

50. Common Yellowthroat   Number observed: 1

51. Cape May Warbler   Number observed: 6

52. Magnolia Warbler   Number observed: 5

53. Palm Warbler   Number observed: 12

54. Yellow-rumped Warbler   Number observed: 103

55. Black-throated Green Warbler   Number observed: 1

56. Northern Cardinal   Number observed: 4

If you’d like more information about a bird, check out the All About Birds ID guide:

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/

Corrections, additions and comments are welcome.

Good birding everyone,

Jennie

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This outing qualifies as a prerequisite for participating in Chicago Audubon's Birding Gear Exchange Program. Please check in with the trip leader the day of the event.