February 2020

At its Annual Meeting on 16 February 2020, the Illinois Ornithological Records Committee (IORC) made adjustments to the definitions of the status codes for species on the official Illinois State List of Birds. IORC also reviewed the status of each species on the state list and made updates as necessary, starting from a set of recommendations assembled by Keith McMullen.

The new definitions for the status codes are as follows. These codes are now uniformly based on the number of records.

• Regular: Species for which there are at least eight records in the past ten years. This includes species that are very local and those that cannot be located reliably anywhere in the state. Most species in this category are expected within the state annually.
• Casual: Species for which there are at least six records in the state and three to seven records in the past ten years.
• Accidental: Species for which there are either less than six records in the state or less than three records in the past ten years.
• Accidental (provisional): Forms with accepted records, all of which are sight records documented by no more than one observer.
• Extirpated: Species which were formerly Regular in Illinois but which have not been recorded in the state in the previous 50 years.
• Extinct: Species which have occurred in the state but no longer exist.

Species for which status category was changed include the following.

• Black-bellied Whistling-Duck: status changed to Regular from Casual.
• Gray Partridge: status changed to Accidental from Regular.
• Ruffed Grouse: status changed to Extirpated from Accidental.
• Ruff: status changed to Regular from Casual. This species will remain on the Review List.
• Purple Sandpiper: status changed to Casual from Regular. IORC now requests that sightings of this species from anywhere in Illinois be documented.
• Long-tailed Jaeger: status changed to Casual from Accidental.
• Little Gull: status changed to Regular from Casual. This species will remain on the Review List.
• Neotropic Cormorant: status changed to Regular from Casual. This species will remain on the Review List.
• Anhinga: status changed to Regular from Accidental. This species will remain on the Review List.
• Brown Pelican: status changed to Casual from Accidental.
• White Ibis: status changed to Regular from Casual. This species will remain on the Review List.
• Fork-tailed Flycatcher: status changed to Accidental from Casual.
• Common Raven: status changed to Accidental from Extirpated.
• Rock Wren: status changed to Accidental from Casual.
• Mountain Bluebird: status changed to Casual from Accidental.
• Townsend’s Solitaire: status changed to Regular from Casual. This species will remain on the Review List.
• Sprague’s Pipit: status changed to Accidental from Casual.
• Evening Grosbeak: status changed to Casual from Regular. This species is now on the Review List.
• Pine Grosbeak: status changed to Accidental from Casual.
• White-winged Crossbill: status changed to Casual from Regular. This species is now on the Review List.
• Bachman’s Sparrow: status changed to Extirpated from Accidental.
• Golden-crowned Sparrow: status changed to Casual from Accidental.

The Illinois Ornithological Records Committee (IORC) recently concluded evaluations of 40 records of the occurrence of rare birds in Illinois and occurrence of regularly occurring species at unusual times. Among these, IORC accepted 39 of the records while not accepting one. Among the accepted records were the following additions to the list of species having occurred in Illinois: Limpkin, Little Stint, and Cassin’s Kingbird.

The records involved are summarized below. For each record, we indicate the species or form, with number of individuals in parentheses if greater than one, followed by date or date range, location, and county. The record number is indicated in parentheses, followed by, for accepted records, names of the documenters. If multiple documenters are listed, those understood by IORC to have been the original finders of the bird(s) are listed first and separated from the others by a semicolon. IORC thanks all the documenters, for accepted and unaccepted records alike, for their submissions. All documentation is maintained in the IORC archives so that there is a permanent record of all these observations. Documentation, regardless of the Committee’s decision, is a valuable part of the record of bird life in Illinois.

Records Accepted

• Black-bellied Whistling-Duck (34), 9 May to 28 June 2019 in Granite City, Madison County (2019-028; Frank Holmes)
• Black-bellied Whistling-Duck (2), 16 June 2019 northeast of Meredosia, Morgan County (2019-021; Colin Dobson)
• Black-bellied Whistling-Duck (28), 28-29 June 2019 in Grand Tower, Jackson County (2019-24; Rhonda Rothrock, Trevor Slovik)
• Black-bellied Whistling-Duck (19), 17 August 2019 in Grand Tower, Jackson County (2019-037; Dan Wylie)
• Fulvous Whistling-Duck, 6-27 August 2019 along the Big Muddy River levee at Island Road, Jackson County (2019-035; Don Mullison; Rhonda Rothrock, Dan Williams)
• Fulvous Whistling-Duck (23), 13 September to 5 October 2019 adjacent to Mississippi River levee roads near Merrimac, Monroe County (2019-046; Wally George; Travis Mahan, Geoffrey A. Williamson)
• Harlequin Duck, 21-30 December 2017 at Carlyle Lake, Clinton County (2017-081; Keith McMullen, Al Smith)
• White-winged Dove, 2 May 2019 in Skokie, Cook County (2019-020; Amanda Tichacek)
• White-winged Dove, 23 August 2019 at Two Rivers National Wildlife Refuge, Calhoun County (2019-039; Bill Rowe)
• Limpkin, 20 June to 7 November 2019 at Borah Lake, Olney, Richland County (2019-043; Brady Colin, Tom Colin, Matthew Cvetas, Fran Morel, Bob Shelby, Craig Taylor, Geoffrey A. Williamson)
• Ruff, 20 April 2018 at Canteen Lake, Madison County (2018-064; David Becher; Al Smith)
• Curlew Sandpiper, 20 May 2000 at Rend Lake, Jefferson County (2000-085; Brian L. Chandler)
• Little Stint, 3-7 August 2019 at the Emiquon Preserve, Fulton County (2019-032; Keith McMullen; Steve Freed, Davida Kalina, Geoffrey A. Williamson)
• Parasitic Jaeger, 16 September 2017 at Carlyle Lake, Clinton County (2017-082; Al Smith)
• Little Gull, 24-26 February 2019 at Carlyle Lake, Clinton County (2019-027; Dan Kassebaum)
• Great Black-backed Gull, 24 July 2019 south of Beall Woods State Park, Wabash County (2019-029; Leroy Harrison, Bob Shelby)
• Neotropic Cormorant, 27 June to 15 July 2013 at Dixon Waterfowl Refuge, Putnam County (2013-082; Benjamin Murphy, Jeff Smith)
• Anhinga, 8-13 July 2019 at Cache River State Natural Area, Johnson County (2019-026; Keith McMullen)
• Brown Pelican, 5 May 2018 at the Mt. Pulaski water treatment plant, Logan County (2018-070; Lara Borgerson)
• Brown Pelican, 18 August to 14 October 2018 at Carlyle Lake, Bond, Clinton, and Fayette counties (2018-065; Roger Hayes, Keith McMullen)
• Black Vulture, 1 May 2018 in Kankakee, Kankakee County (2018-068; Jed Hertz)
• Black Vulture, 17 July 2019 in Streator, LaSalle County (2019-034; Steven R. Wargo)
• Swallow-tailed Kite, 27 July 2019 near Rosecrans, Lake County (2019-030; Patricia Isaacson)
• Swallow-tailed Kite, 17 August 2019 in Thebes, Alexander County (2019-036; Steven Huggins)
• Swallow-tailed Kite, 22 August 2019 at Silver Creek Conservation Area, McHenry County (2019-042; Jeff Aufmann)
• Swallow-tailed Kite, 23 August 2019 north of Livingston, Madison County and during 1-16 September 2019 near Alton, Madison County (2019-040; Keith McMullen; David Becher, Frank Holmes, Devin Peipert, Kimberly Rohling)
• Swainson’s Hawk, 2 May 2019 in Hudson, McLean County (2019-038; Dan Williams)
• Gyrfalcon, 13 February 2017 in Lawndale Township, McLean County (2017-083; Tim Lindenbaum)
• Cassin’s Kingbird, 22 September 2019 at Montrose Point, Lincoln Park, Chicago, Cook County (2019-048; Krzysztof Kurylowicz; Vinod Babu, Robert D. Hughes, Steven Mlodinow)
• Say’s Phoebe, 8 September 2019 at Greene Valley Forest Preserve, DuPage County (2019-044; Urs Geiser, Bonnie Graham)
• Sage Thrasher, 29 September 2012 at Sand Bluff Bird Observatory, Winnebago County (2012-058; John Longhenry, Steve Reischel)
• Great-tailed Grackle, 5-6 August 2018 at Spring Bluff Forest Preserve, Lake County (2018-066; Joan Campbell, Bonnie Graham)
• MacGillivray’s Warbler, 3 May 2019 in Savanna, Carroll County (2019-047; Ethan Brown)
• Yellow-rumped Warbler (Audubon’s), 14 June 2019 at Illinois Beach State Park, Lake County (2019-031; Beau Schaefer)
• Black-throated Gray Warbler, 4 May 2019 east-southeast of Tisilkwa, Bureau County (2019-066; Douglas F. Stotz)
• Townsend’s Warbler, 15-17 September 2019 at Montrose Point, Lincoln Park, Chicago, Cook County (2019-045; Alison Newberry; Matthew Cvetas, Colin Dobson, Scott Judd, Geoffrey A. Williamson)
• Western Tanager, 9-13 May 2019 in Normal, McLean County (2019-025; Michael McKinley, Benjamin Murphy)
• Western Tanager, 21 September 2019 in River Forest, Cook County (2019-049; Jill S. Anderson)
• Painted Bunting, 2-12 June 2019 at Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie, Will County (2019-023; Jeff Smith; Jared Gorrell, Davida Kalina, Vince Moxon)

Records Not Accepted

• Townsend’s Warbler, 22 May 1970 at Prairie Park in DeKalb County (1970-001)