Photo: Common grackle by Heather Orkis

Hello everyone,

It’s always a good day when we meet our goal of having more bird species than birders, so today was a good day by that measure. It was pretty quiet by any other measure though, but we expect that in the winter.

Once again, we had a nice flock of Red-breasted Mergansers along with one female Common Merganser. The young males are becoming less funny looking as they grow in their adult plumage. A Robin was singing like it was spring and a Red-tailed hawk soared above the park. Oddly, we didn’t find any Mallards or Juncos. Maybe they went out to brunch somewhere. And the weather changed from cloudy and drizzly to a beautiful clear and sunny day in a span of two hours. That’s Chicago weather!

BIRDERS: Lucy, Marian, Mike, Jennie, Cheryl, Mark C., JC, Tracy, Paul and welcome to Beth, Andy, Kelly and Sarah

TIME: 8:00am to 10:00am     

WEATHER: Cloudy, becoming sunny, 54 degrees, but with dropping temperatures.

Compiler: Cheryl        

1. Canada Goose   Number observed: 518

2. Common Merganser   Number observed: 1

3. Red-breasted Merganser   Number observed: 22

4. Ring-billed Gull   Number observed: 3

5. Great Blue Heron   Number observed: 5

6. Red-tailed Hawk   Number observed: 1

7. Downy Woodpecker   Number observed: 2

8. Northern Flicker   Number observed: 1

9. American Crow   Number observed: 3

10. Black-capped Chickadee   Number observed: 3

11. European Starling   Number observed: 13

12. American Robin   Number observed: 14

13. American Goldfinch   Number observed: 4

14. American Tree Sparrow   Number observed: 1

15. White-throated Sparrow   Number observed: 2

16. Northern Cardinal   Number observed: 5

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