Sheryl DeVore

New winter field notes editor

IOS is proud to announce that Dan Williams, a long-time supporter and field trip co-chairman, has agreed to become the Field Notes Editor for the Winter Season, Dec. 1 to Feb. 28, which is published in Meadowlark. You can send him your notes via email (preferred) or snail mail. Contact Dan at 6055 Safford Road, Rockford IL 61101 or click here to send him your notes.

IOS is grateful to past winter season field notes editors including Kelly McKay, who served for many years, and Michael Hogg, who served as an interim editor for two years, among others.

Meadowlark has one of the most, if not the most comprehensive and interpretive field notes of many surrounding states. The data are used and will be used by ornithologists, researchers and birders for many years to come. Much of these data can now be found on line on our website.

Please send your notes directly to Dan even if you post to IBET and eBird.

All field notes editors use your notes, IBET, eBird and many other sources to provide you the most comprehensive list of sightings of birds that help us understand the population dynamics of avian life in Illinois.

Dan Williams new winter field notes editor

IOS is grateful to past winter season field notes editors including Kelly McKay, who served for many years, and Michael Hogg, who served as an interim editor for two years, among others.

Please send your notes directly to Dan even if you post to IBET and ebird.

All field notes editors use your notes, IBET, ebird and many other sources to provide you the most comprehensive list of sightings of birds that help us understand the population dynamics of avian life in Illinois.

IOS elects officers, new directors for 2016

The Illinois Ornithological Society Board approved a slate of officers and newly elected board members for 2016 at its Jan. 10 meeting.

The following officers will serve one-year terms”

President Matthew Cvetas

Vice President Tara Beveroth

Treasurer Urs Geiser

Recording Secretary Adam Sell

Membership Secretary Ted Wolff

Chief Editor Sheryl DeVore

In addition, the following were elected to serve three-year terms on the board to fill three vacant seats: Amar Ayyash and Urs Geiser have agreed to serve a second three-year term, and Tyler Funk has agreed to join the board for his first three-year term.

Other board members include Tara Beveroth, Ted Wolff, Fran Morel, Adam Sell, Matthew Cvetas and Bob Fisher.

Nine board members serve IOS – with three elected annually for three-year terms. Directors may serve two consecutive terms, and then skip a eyar before being eligible to serve another three-year term.

The IOS Board thanks all past and present board members and officers for their service, including Bob Fisher, immediate past president who served for seven years as IOS’s leader. Watch this space for a farewell message from Bob and a greeting from new president, Matthew Cvetas.

Stay tuned to our web site and Facebook page for more information on our plans for 2016.

Meadowlark editorial on Passenger Pigeon

Here’s the latest letter from the editor featured in the recently mailed Volume 23 No. 1 issue of Meadowlark. To read more, please join IOS. Another issue is coming soon and will feature an article on the Gray Kingbird in Illinois.

Drawing of Passenger Pigeon left by Kevin Sierzega

Of Mourning Doves and Passenger Pigeons

By Sheryl DeVore

You, no doubt, noticed the gorgeous front and back cover of this issue, created by Kevin Sierzega, whose work has graced Meadowlark before.

We asked Kevin to do this drawing to commemorate the demise of the Passenger Pigeon, whose numbers once seemed to be so abundant that humans thought this species would last forever. Of course, we now know that extinction can happen to any species, no matter how numerous.

The 100th anniversary of the death of the last Passenger Pigeon occurred in 2014. The last of the species, Martha, died in captivity at the Cincinnati Zoo Sept. 1, 1914.

In 2014, much was done to call attention to this important milestone, including, of course, Joel Greenberg’s book, “A Feathered River Across the Sky: The Passenger Pigeon’s Flight to Extinction.”

We birders all know that at one time, Passenger Pigeons filled the Illinois skyline from horizon to horizon.

But now it’s 2015, the Passenger Pigeon is long gone, and we have a story in this issue about another species in the order Columbiformes, the Mourning Dove. The article, “Lead shot ingestion rate and effects in Mourning Doves,” by Stephanice C. Plautz, et. al, addresses the issue of how one of North America’s most numerous birds is being poisoned from spent lead shot. According to Plautz, more than 400 million individual Mourning Doves have been counted in the fall in the United States. “However, Mourning Dove populations may be declining,” she writes. Her story, which begins on page 2, explains why.

Can the Mourning Dove ever go the way of the Passenger Pigeon? It seems ludicrous. Certainly, we humans would never let something like what happened to the Passenger Pigeon in the 20^th century occur in the 21^st century. Right?

Spring birding weeknd: Great birds, friends and scenery

The IOS Spring Birding Weekend (May 15 – 17) was a terrific weekend of birding on the Mississippi River in northwest Illinois. The event was planned and organized by Urs Geiser using the Chestnut Mountain Resort for accommodations.

For the field trips we split into groups and birded Lost Mound Wildlife Refuge, Mississippi Palisades State Park, Spring Lake, Ayers Sand Prairie, Thompson Causeway and Lock & Dam 13. We birded the grounds of the Chestnut Mountain Resort and watched nighthawks from the back deck. We birded along roadsides and even checked for warblers in a pine stand at a trailer dump station. (It wouldn’t be a real birding trip without a dump or sewage pond would it?) Bugs? Not too many. Rain? A few showers. But mostly it was dry and birdy.

A preliminary tally puts us at 150 species of birds for the weekend including some real treats like Brewster’s Warbler, Cerulean Warblers, Kentucky Warbler, Yellow-throated Warblers, Blue Grosbeaks, Eastern Whip-poor-wills, a singing Winter Wren, and at least three endangered species including Loggerhead Shrike, Yellow-headed Blackbird and Common Gallinule. We were serenaded on and off all day to migrant and nesting warblers as well as Baltimore and Orchard Orioles and other species. We relished every look at the magnificent American White Pelicans gliding overhead and Bald Eagles soaring or perched in trees.

We particularly want to thank Urs Geiser for all the work of planning and organizing the weekend, The stewards of the Upper Mississippi River Refuge for escorting and leading our groups into the restricted portion of the Lost Mound Refuge, and Dan Williams, Matt Fraker, Bob Fisher and Urs Geiser for leading field trips.

Special thanks go to all the IOS members who attended and lent their sharp eyes and ears to the group effort as well as sharing their good humor and boundless curiosity and interest in all things natural history.

IOS field notes compiler featured

Meadowlark editor Sheryl DeVore wrote an article about Field Notes compiler David B. Johnson and his 25 years of leading looney trips in Lake and McHenry Counties for the Chicago Tribune and News-Sun. Take a peek. Dave needs to be praised over and over for all the wonderful work he has done on behalf of birds and birding in Illinois over the years. Thank you Dave! We’re also thrilled that he’s starting to write more articles for Meadowlark. See you all at the annual spring weekend in May. Don’t forget to sign up!

Cerulean Warbler gets help from major grant

A five-year project targeting conservation of the imperiled and iconic Cerulean Warbler and focusing on the states of Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio, and West Virginia got a big boost following the granting of $8 million in funding from the Dept. of Agriculture’s Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP).

Read more about this exciting project that will help one of Illinois’ rarest and most beautiful warbler species.

Amar Ayyash: A Birder You Should Know

Amar Ayyash is the man behind the IOS Annual Gull Frolic, which he organized this year and persuaded Birding editor and author Ted Floyd to speak. As you likely know, Amar is “crazy” about gulls, and indeed very knowledgeable about this difficult-to-identify group of birds. In honor of the upcoming Gull Frolic, we invite you to read more about Amar. He also serves on the IOS Board of Directors, and we thank him for his dedication to our mission to educate others about and document the birds of Illinois.

Background: I was born in Chicago in the summer of 1978 and have lived in Illinois almost my entire life. I’m married and have four lively children (two sets of twins) – 7 years old and 4 years old. I teach high school math in Oak Lawn, IL.

What hooked you on birding? My first memory of actively watching birds is rather unusual. It wasn’t the song of a thrush or the bright yellow of a warbler that hooked me. I was a freshman in college at the time and would regularly sneak away between classes to feed the gulls at a local park. At the time, I didn’t know what species of gulls they were (probably Western Gulls) and never made it a point to find out. After returning home from college, I again found myself pitching french-fries in parking lots and marveling over the local gulls. I quickly realized the gulls in Illinois looked different than those out West and so I decided to go to my local library to get some answers. I discovered dozens of field guides and books that introduced me to a pastime called “birding”. At first, I didn’t know if this word was a verb or a noun. In short, I’m the first “birder” I ever met.

What’s best about birding? The thing I like most about birding is that it could be done practically anywhere (although I’ve learned never to bird near an airport again). Birding has taught me much more than how to identify birds. I’ve been indirectly forced to learn about weather systems, plants, insects, species’ concepts and various habitats and ecosystems.

Listing? I do keep a few personal lists that hold some value to me, but I’m very selective when it comes to updating my ABA list. For instance, I’ve driven overnight a few times to see some of my “most-wanted” species such as Ross’s and Ivory Gull, and even caught a red-eye flight to New York a few years ago to observe North America’s 2^nd Gray-hooded Gull. I once drove to Ashtabula, Ohio to see their first state Black-tailed Gull, and drove back the next weekend to see the same bird again.

Favorite locations: My favorite birding locations seem to revolve around gulls – shocking I’m sure. It’s this reason why most of my local birding is usually along the southern rim of Lake Michigan. My top four sites from each state that borders Lake Michigan (in no particular order) is North Point in Sheboygan, Wisconsin; North Point Marina in Winthrop Harbor, Illinois; Michigan City Harbor in Indiana; and New Buffalo Beach in Michigan.

Best birding memories: My most memorable birding experience is my first trip to southern California. I spent a few days birding the Salton Sea with the godfather of California Birding, Guy McCaskie. During our long car rides, I was briefed on 40 years of birding in the Golden State with some of the most entertaining birding stories one could ever hear! Another memorable birding experience for me is the 2010 Slaty-backed Gull that was glued to the ice in Indiana waters while birders desperately watched from Calumet Park in Illinois. I had seen the bird the previous evening in Indiana just after its discovery but wanted to lure it into Illinois for a Cook County record. I was able to chum it in from a considerable distance, only to have it land within 100 feet from me.

Birding activities: Besides serving on the Board of Directors for IOS, and specifically taking on the role of Gull Frolic coordinator, I maintain perhaps the most well-known gull weblog in North America, anythinglarus.com. I also administer the Facebook Group “North American Gulls” and currently happen to be working on a Thayer’s Gull webpage for Gull-Research.Org (hopefully to be launched, early 2014).

Favorite books: My favorite book is, hands down, “The Long-Shadowed Forest”, by Helen Hoover. I enjoy winter birding more than any other season and have curious thoughts of one day living in the “North Woods”. Any time I need to escape to the land of boreal species, I pick up Hoover’s book and read a few chapters. It helps to know that Helen and her husband left their careers and the big-city life of Chicago to move to a small cabin in the north woods of Minnesota.

And when not birding? When not birding, or doing bird-related work, I’m folding laundry, helping my children with their homework or trying to earn brownie points with my wife.

I take a whole lot of joy in what seems like a narrow-minded obsession to some people, but my outlook on life is pretty simple: “Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time”.

Jeff Sanders featured in Chicago Tribune article

For at least three days in December and early January over the past 50 years, Jeff Sanders has gone outside in the predawn cold to count birds in and around Chicago.

In 2015, Sanders will celebrate a half-century since he began helping with the National Audubon Society’s annual Christmas Bird Count, just a few miles from his Glenview home. Since then, he has made it to nearly every count. And Sanders doesn’t even like cold weather.

“I hate winter birding,” he admitted.

But there’s something about the annual Christmas bird count that get him out of the house when it’s cold outside.

“There’s a purpose to this. And it’s historical,” Sanders said

For the rest of the story written by Sheryl DeVore, click here.

Winter finch forecast: What will we see this year in Illinois?

Red Crossbill female. Photo by Ron Bradley.

This winter’s theme is a “mixed bag” of finch movements. For example, some species such as Purple Finch will go south while White-winged Crossbills will likely stay in the boreal forest in widely separated areas where spruces are laden with cones. Sure would have been nice to have another great White-winged Crossbill irruption this winter.

To read Ron Pittaway’s Winter Finch forecast, click here. Let us know what you see this winter season by posting on our Facebook page. And send photos to sdbailey@illinois.edu. They may get printed in a future issue of Meadowlark.