Rare Bird Alert – 22-May-2018

Plumbeous Vireo by Jon Grainger
Possible Plumbeous Vireo by Jon Grainger

Black-bellied Whistling-Duck: Williamson (South) – A pair of Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks was spotted on a private farm pond in Herrin, Williamson County, on May 22nd.

Black-bellied Whistling-Duck: Cook (North) – A single unconfirmed Black-bellied Whistling-Duck was seen at Wolf Road Woods Forest Preserve in Palos, Cook County, on May 10th.

Black-bellied Whistling-Duck: Gallatin (South) – On May 6th, Ron Bradley photographed two Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks in Gallatin County.

White-winged Dove: Cook (North) – A White-winged Dove flew by an observer at St. Mihiel Woods Forest Preserve in Tinley Park, Cook County, on May 5th.

Black-bellied Whistling-Duck: Cook (North) – Nine Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks were present at North Pond in Chicago, Cook County, on May 4th.

Western Tanager: Cook (North) – A Western Tanager was discovered at North Pond in Chicago, Cook County, on May 4th.

Plumbeous Vireo: Will (North) – Jon Grainger photographed a potential state first Plumbeous Vireo at Knoch Knolls Park in Naperville, Will County, on May 2nd.

Brown Pelican: Richland (South) – Leroy Harrison discovered a Brown Pelican at East Fork Lake in Richland County, on April 27th.

A Guide to Recording Birds by Matt Wistrand

Matt Wistrand
Matt Wistrand

A few years back, I was looking for a LeConte’s Sparrow that had been reported at Prairie Green in Kane County. I never did see the bird, but periodically would hear a long, downslurred, tinny call. Could I know this was a LeConte’s Sparrow, and not another species like Savannah Sparrow? As I researched this, I found almost zero information regarding the vocal behavior of our Ammodramus sparrows. So I decided to explore this behavior myself, and purchased a Sennheiser ME66 shotgun microphone and an adapter for my iPhone. Since then recording has become a passion and an obsession, and I strive to record every sound I hear in the field. Of course, you do not actually need to purchase an expensive recording set to do the same. You can still obtain surprisingly good recordings with your phone, especially with the right tools and technique.

When recording bird sounds, you want control over the gain and the quality. The built-in voice recorders on your phone encode audio as MP3 files, which results in a smaller file size but also lower quality. For the iPhone, Audio Memos Pro can be configured to record to WAV files, and gives control over both the sound quality and the gain level. For Android, Cornell has recommended an app like RecForge II, and Nathan Pieplow recommends SpectralPro Analyzer.

Once you have your phone configured to record properly, you may want to add an external microphone if you already have one. The team at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology tested several smaller external microphones, but found they do not make enough of a difference to make them useful. The exception to this is using a shotgun or parabolic microphone, which was quite effective as my initial setup. However, be aware that if you do so, you will likely need to disable voice activation on your phone, which can be difficult to do completely.

Beyond equipment, you can employ a number of techniques to improve the quality of your recordings. Sound quality is largely a function of distance. You can boost the recorded volume of the bird’s song or call by 6dB by halving the distance between the microphone and the bird (a significant improvement). So the first step to ensuring a good recording is getting as close to the bird as you can without disturbing it. Next, try to position your phone’s microphone so that unwanted noise from cars or other birds is minimized. Further, longer recordings are always more valuable than shorter ones, since birds often switch between different songs and calls. As a rule, I try to leave the recorder running until the bird stops vocalizing (unless, of course, the bird is agitated by my presence). Finally, to reduce fatigue, keep your arm down at your side. It may be tempting to extend your arm to get closer to the bird, but the added reach is too small to noticeably affect the recording.

After a recording session you have the option to leave your recording as is, or edit it lightly to reduce interference. Recordists vary in their opinions on editing. Some adamantly oppose all modifications, while others will lightly amplify or filter their recordings as needed. That said, there are not many places in Illinois where you can escape background noise, especially if you live in the northeast portion of the state. Between normal commuter traffic, airline traffic from two major airports, and the fact that more trains pass through Chicago than any other major US city, it is nearly impossible to obtain a recording free from heavy background noise. As such, I dampen the noise in the first kHz of most of my recordings, with the exception being recordings of low-pitched vocalizations like heron grunts. Such filtering is easy with free tools like Raven Lite or Audacity. There are several online guides available to help you use these filters.

With spring migration underway, there will be many opportunities for you to record both songs and calls. It is worth getting into the habit of regularly recording the sounds you hear now. So when that singing MacGillivray’s Warbler shows up at your local forest preserve, you won’t walk away realizing you could have recorded its song but in your excitement completely forgot to do so.

by Matt Wistrand

Smith’s Longspur Field Trip Report

Field Trip Participants by David O'Brien
Field Trip Participants by David O’Brien

Let’s see….

Foggy, raining, and cold after our first two gorgeous spring days of 2018 here in Illinois??

It can only mean one thing—

I must be leading a bird walk for Smith’s Longspurs!!! Believe me—rain dances ain’t got nothing on my Longspur walks…

In all actuality, we could not have had three more perfect days to set this walk up — two days of the first hard south winds of the year to allow major migratory movement and then a wicked cold front to jam that in its tracks and keep everything on the ground.

We had birds everywhere, finishing this part of the day with the same great Longspur looks with which we began it.

We counted at least 186 Smith’s Longspurs, had an American Bittern fly-by, and enjoyed a potpourri of other birds. I’ll attach our lists below.

After a quick re-fuel, I took a few of our crew to the ParkLands Foundation’s Merwin Nature Preserve for Woodpecker-palooza (at least 39 birds and six of our seven species, only missing the Pileateds that are there), a Great Horned Owl, and bunches of other fun things. That list will also be below

Thanks everyone for turning out and making for such a fun morning!!

By Matthew Fraker

Rare Bird Alert – 21-Apr-2018

Western Tanager by Dennis Oehmke
Western Tanager by Dennis Oehmke

Tufted Duck: Brown (South) – Bob Randel found the state’s fourth Tufted Duck at Spunky Bottoms in Brown County on April 20, 2018.

Ruff: Madison (South) – Also on April 20th, David Becher found a male Ruff at Canteen Lake in Madison County.

White-winged Dove: Woodford (Central) – A White-winged Dove was reported coming to Ted Hartzler’s feeder in Minonk, Woodford County, on April 18th.

Western Tanager: Sangamon (Central) – A Western Tanager was photographed at a private feeder in Springfield, Sangamon County, on April 10th.

Neotropic Cormorant: Clinton (South) – Dan Kassebaum photographed a Neotropic Cormorant in the old Kaskaskia River Channel, Clinton County, on April 8th.

Mountain Bluebird: Knox (Central) – An adult male Mountain Bluebird was discoverd at Oak Run Lake View Beach in Knox County on April 8th by Jean Jorgenson.

Mottled Duck: Clinton (South) – Dan Kassebaum reported two Mottled Ducks at Eldon Hazlet State Park in Clinton County on March 25th.

Loonapaloonza 2018 Field Trip Report

Field Trip Participants
Field Trip Participants

Twenty-six intrepid observers participated in the third Loonapaloonza mini-coach tour of some lakes in both McHenry and Lake counties.

Bagels, muffins and coffee were provided to all and a group of ten of us stayed for lunch at Gale Street Inn.

Loonwise: Highlights included 49 Common Loons on various lakes and 289 American White Pelicans. Three adult Bald Eagles were seen thermaling overhead and an immature eagle had a fish in its talons on Lake Marie. Many Red-breasted Mergansers were observed and a few migrant Turkey Vultures were noted. The rarest bird noted was an adult Great Black-backed Gull on Petite Lake (a new gull for any Looney Trip and always rare inland).

We ended our tour at Almond Marsh where many puddle ducks were seen including Gadwall, Ring-necked Ducks, American Wigeon, Bufflehead plus nesting Great Blue Herons and Double-crested Cormorants.

All-in-all a sunny loon and pelican filled day!

Birds of Southern Illinois

Birds of Southern Illinois
An online resource by W. Douglas Robinson

In 1996, W. Douglas Robinson published Southern Illinois Birds: An Annotated List and Site Guide, a resource that documented the birds of southern Illinois by surveying published literature and the field notes of active observers.

Challenged by his publisher to update his twenty year old book, Robinson took on the arduous task using the field notes of The Meadowlark: A Journal of Illinois Birds and data contributed to eBird. Once completed and faced with the prospect of having to pay $3000 of his own money to publish it, Robinson decided to forego printing and distribute the book as widely as possible via the Internet.

The result is Birds of Southern Illinois, an online resource summarizing knowledge of birds in the seventeen southernmost counties of Illinois and designed to be regularly updated. Site guides are missing from the updated version, but Robinson mentions that “all of that information is easily accessible on eBird via the Hotspot Explorer.” What remains are species accounts with comments on status and abundance, arrival and departure dates for migrants, preferred habitat, and records of note.

Check out this great resource and help the author keep this book current by adding your data to eBird. And, who knows? Maybe your records will make it into the next version.

Join the MOON Team!

Where have all the whip-poor-will’s gone? This is a common question I am confronted with. I think it is a good question and one that leads into a larger discussion question that asks “Are current bird monitoring programs capable of estimating population trends for nocturnal species”. While current standardized monitoring programs, such as Christmas Bird Count (CBC), Breeding Bird Survey (BBS), and Spring Bird Count (SBC), are exemplary monitoring programs, they take place primarily during daylight hours, so unfortunately they cannot reliably monitor population trends for cryptic, nocturnal birds. Anecdotally, we know some may be declining, and, because of this, many organizations throughout the U.S. and Canada have put together monitoring programs for nocturnal species that aim to generate statistically powerful data that can be used to generate population trends over a shorter period of time. If species are declining we can further investigate the causes and in turn try to make beneficial conservation management decisions.

Eastern Screech-owl by Matthew Cvetas
Eastern Screech-owl by Matthew Cvetas

In 2008 Illinois enlisted the guidance of ongoing nocturnal monitoring programs and piloted Monitoring of Owls and Nightjars in Illinois (MOON). MOON is a volunteer based program that occurs throughout the state of Illinois. MOON’s target species are breeding owls and nightjars. In Illinois we have four nocturnal owls that we monitor for; Barn Owl, Barred Owl, Great Horned Owl, and Eastern Screech-Owl. The Barn Owl is listed as threatened on the Illinois Endangered Species List. The Eastern Screech-Owl is found in low numbers according to BBS data, but population trends are absent. Barred Owl, which was once rare in the state, is now found throughout the state as is the Great Horned Owl. MOON also targets nightjars; Illinois has have three species: Eastern Whip-poor-will, Chuck-will’s-widow, and Common Nighthawk. Nightjars are aerial insectivores and aerial insectivores of North America are in decline and the reasons why are poorly understood. The Chuck-will’s-widow has recently been listed as threatened on the Illinois Endangered Species List. The state of the birds report listed Common Nighthawk as a species in steep decline. Audubon’s climate model projects the Eastern Whip-poor-will to lose 78% of its breeding range by 2080 and 55% of its non-breeding range. By establishing MOON census routes that are consistently monitored we seek to be able to not only track trends in abundance and distribution for these species but to also develop suitability models and best management practices for them. Volunteers are critical for this program to succeed.

Because these routes are run anywhere from dusk until dawn, as opposed to during daylight hours, it can be a challenge to recruit and retain volunteers. Unlike other monitoring programs, where you have to learn to identify a large number of birds species often by sight and sound, MOON volunteers only need to learn a small handful of calls. The calls of these birds are relatively simple to learn and fun to hear. Volunteers monitor routes located along suitable habitat for owls and nightjars 2 times from April to June when the moon is at least 50% illuminated. Routes are 9 miles long with 10 stops per route. MOON volunteers are also encouraged to record “other” species they hear during the listening period if they can identify the sounds. These additional data can give us insight into the life histories of other species.

Interested in becoming a part of the MOON team? We are always looking to recruit more volunteers, so if you would like to volunteer, please e-mail me. You can also visit our website.

by Tara Beveroth

IOS Conservation Committee Formation

As the state organization “Dedicated to Illinois Birds and Birding,” the IOS board thought it was time to form an IOS conservation committee to work on behalf of this motto. Myself and Ted Wolff volunteered to take up this endeavor and have already been meeting and talking with members interested in joining the committee. As this committee continues to solidify its role, we are looking for any IOS members interested in being a part of the conservation committee.

Matt Igleski, Conservation Committee
Matt Igleski, Conservation Committee

There are many responsibilities that this committee will immediately be taking on. One, to send representatives to the Birding Conservation Network (BCN) quarterly meetings; BCN is a Chicago area coalition focused on conserving Chicagoland birds. Two, to communicate Illinois bird conservation issues to members via email and regular contributions to the IOS website. Three, to evaluate issues and develop IOS’s stance on these issues, especially when issues might be particularly complicated.

Our aim is to focus on few issues with greater potential impact, this overarching strategy will allow us to concentrate on issues that will be both actionable for members and high impact for bird conservation. In addition to rallying support around actionable issues, we intend to follow up on and communicate outcomes from past conservation actions to keep members feeling up-to-date and informed. We believe meaningful and actionable notification of conservation issues to members will make a difference within the state and community overall.

Please consider reaching out to us if you have any interest in Illinois bird conservation and want to help guide this committee.

Thank you,

Matt Igleski

Save Santa Ana Wildlife Refuge, Texas!

Plain Chachalaca, Rio Grand Valley Texas (Photo: Matt Igleski)

If you haven’t already heard, there is talk of building a wall along the entire US-Mexico border. Without going into all the political and logistical minutia, the big takeaway is that the wall cannot go on the border itself and will actually be several feet to miles into the US from the border. Due to the placement of the potential wall, many areas will be trapped in a “no-man’s land” and one of these areas includes the Santa Ana Wildlife Refuge in the Rio Grande Valley of south Texas. All the experts agree that this will be devastating to wildlife and will further fragment habitat vital to many birds in the region, many of which aren’t readily found anywhere else in the US, and other animals such as the Ocelot—only found in the US in south Texas. Access for birders is still unclear, there may well be a way to access the area after the wall is built, but nothing has been confirmed and no one will be holding their breaths even if promises are made.

Alright, so we recognize that this is not an Illinois conservation issue per se, however it does have the potential to impact migratory birds traveling through this area. And it has the potential to impact Illinois birders looking to explore an exciting part of the country for birding. It is undoubtedly one of the most important bird conservation issues we are currently facing in the US. However, it is also an issue that all of us can take action on today!

As Congress continues to debate the 2018 budget there are ongoing attempts to attach money for Trump’s border wall. Construction in Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge is poised to begin as soon as money is allocated! You can help by calling your members of Congress today and tell them no money for walls! Call the Senate switchboard, 202-224-3121, and read the script below. You’ll have to call it twice to leave a message for both Tammy Duckworth and Dick Durbin. Calls are the preferred mode of communication as it’s been shown that it is more effective than letters or emails, and brings immediate attention to the issue.

Green Parrots, Rio Grande Valley Texas (Photo: Matt Igleski)

Example script:

“Hello, I am a constituent and I am calling to ask _____________ to oppose all money for border walls. The Trump administration has already announced that the first border walls they would build will slice through the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas. This is a refuge that is so biodiverse that it is called the “Crown Jewel of the National Wildlife Refuge System.” I ask that _________ protect this jewel for its wildlife and for future generations of Americans by voting down ALL funding for border walls.”

Follow the latest news at the Save Santa Ana Wildlife Refuge facebook page.

Thank you!

IOS Conservation Committee

IOS Honors Members

Joan Bruchman (left); Donnie Dann and Matthew Cvetas (right)
Joan Bruchman (left); Donnie Dann and Matthew Cvetas (right)

At the Gull Frolic, IOS President, Matthew Cvetas, took the opportunity to honor two long time members of the Illinois Ornithological Society (IOS) for their significant contributions to IOS and the Illinois birding community.

Not present, IOS recognized Joan Bruchman with the “Distinguished Service to IOS” award. Over many years, Joan held a position on the board of directors, planned Spring Birding Weekends, and helped to circulate its flagship publication, Meadowlark.

IOS also presented Donnie Dann with the “Distinguished Service to Illinois Birding” award. The birding community has long welcomed his leadership and guidance on conservation issues both local and abroad. His work as advocacy chair of the Bird Conservation Network (BCN) and volunteer naturalist for Ryerson Conservation Area are just two examples of his untiring efforts in this capacity.

Congratulations, Joan and Donnie, and thank you!

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