General Reflections Based on Surveys in McLean and Woodford Counties

In the fall of 2007, Matthew Winks and I created an approximately 50 mile winter raptor survey route that begins an ends at the Fraker Farm abode. This route heads east south of the Mackinaw River past Evergreen Lake to Lake Bloomington where it crosses north across the Mackinaw, heading back west all the way to the Congerville Road, and then back south across the Mackinaw for a weaving, wandering route that heads back to the east to its finish.

Over its almost 10 year history, this route has been amazingly productive for raptors, with total counts usually finishing in the 70s or 80s, and the best counts pushing 100 birds.

A quick summary of raptor abundance for the most part yields few if any surprises. Northern Harriers present consistently but in variable numbers depending on the year. Cooper’s and Sharp-shinned Hawks, while clearly present, can be a tough get. Red-shouldered Hawks are resident in this corridor of the Mackinaw River, albeit in small numbers that always provide excellent eye-candy moments when they decide to pop-up on survey day. Bald Eagles are a solid winter presence here, and are now also breeding in several sites along the upper Mackinaw. Merlins and Peregrines remain very scarce on these surveys, but have graced them on a couple of occasions while American Kestrels have a healthy presence here.

The two species that make for the most striking presence on this route largely due to their migratory presence are Red-tailed Hawks and Rough-legged Hawks.

Rough-legged Hawks occur in sections of this route with an impressive frequency. Most of the birds are juveniles or adult males (not surprising as the males tend to wander farther south than the females do in most years). We generally see more light phases than dark phases, but the darker birds are always at least annual.

Yet it is our most common raptor that has become the most interesting. Red-tailed Hawks are the “Herring Gulls” of the hawk world. With tremendous inherent variation just in the “Eastern” (borealis) subspecies alone, our “meat and potatoes” most common raptor here, we then must add several other variants of Red-tailed Hawks present here in winter to get the full, complicated, and often confusing picture. These additional variants include “Harlan’s” (harlani), “Krider’s” (kriderii), “Western” (calurus), and “Northern” (abieticola).

“Harlan’s” Hawks are very rare but almost annual in central Illinois, with the more common darker phases being expectedly more often documented, although here in our survey corridor, we have documented the much rarer lighter phase Harlan’s on at least three occasions (including an adult this year right by the Fraker Farm).

“Krider’s” variants are also almost annual, but can be difficult to confirm due to a sliding scale of inherent variation in “Easterns”.

“Northern” Red-tailed Hawks represent a subspecies that has only recently gained a whole lot of attention. Out of all the different variants mentioned, these tend to be the least rare of the non-“Eastern” versions, with several being found annually in central Illinois.

And finally there is the “Western” Red-tailed Hawk, or the calurus. One of the larger mysteries surrounding Illinois winter raptors is why so many gorgeous dark-phase “Westerns” get well documented, and yet not a single light-phase calurus can make it into the Illinois books. Distributionally, it makes zero sense that dark “Westerns” show-up annually, probably more so than “Harlan’s”, but light “Westerns” never get here.

Or are these dark “Westerns” actually true calurus?

An interesting theory behind the disparity between phase presence of “Westerns” here in Illinois is that maybe all of our dark “Western” birds are actually dark “Northerns” (abieticola). Because field identification of a dark “Western” versus a dark “Northern” at this point is not feasible, only some sort of physical monitoring (bands, satellite, tags) of these dark “Western” type birds that show-up in the east might lead us to where they return in spring helping us uncover whether or not these dark mystery birds are “Westerns” or “Northerns” (entire paragraph pers.comm. Jerry Liguori).

While winter can be a season of dread for Illinois residents, for many of us it is yet another great season for getting out to find birds — raptors especially. Try to photograph or at least pay closer attention to every winter Red-tailed Hawk that you safely can — it is almost guaranteed that at some point during a winter you’ll photograph/see a special wanderer from afar.

by Matt Fraker

Evergreen Lake, which is located in both McLean and Woodford Counties and the surrounding Comlara Park, is arguably the overall best location to find birds in McLean County, IL, boasting over 245 reported species, including such rarities as the only recorded Yellow-billed Loon in Illinois found in December 1998.

To read the full account, visit the IOS sponsored Illinois Birding by County Wiki.

Hello Bird People,

I have been running into Wes Serafin since the late 1980’s and his presence always made the birding day more fun. Wes and I along with Sue Friscia, Geoff and Chris Williamson, and University of Chicago grad students, Dave Mandell and John O’Brien (and others), all took park in the first Cook County Big Year Group Contest back in 1992 where we all acted like a pack of wolves charging around after another new species for the year. But it was a very friendly competition and we all had a good time.

I would mainly see Wes in the Palos area (his home territory), but also at Montrose, Wooded Island, the Calumet area, and at Hawk Watch sites. When I rushed to Paul Douglas Forest Preserve on an extended lunch hour to see Josh Engel’s Fork-tailed Flycatcher, Wes called me over to look at it through his scope just before it flew farther away to make for harder viewing, which I did not have time for if I wanted to keep my job. Wes was one of those who saw well at great distances and always spotted hawks well before I did. (Of course most folks spot hawks well before I do!)

Last Spring, Wes called me to tell about Smith’s Longspurs at the new south section of the Orland Grasslands and met me there the next day where naturally Wes was the one to re-find the birds and point them out to me. Come to think of it the same thing happened the year before at the old section of the Orland Grasslands where again it was Wes’s directions that got me to see the Smith’s.

The last time I talked to Wes was last November and he reminded me that we should plan on another search for Smith’s Longspurs in the spring. I will still do that project but I guess Wes won’t be going along this time. This means it will be harder to find those birds and it will be a lot less fun trying!

Try and stay healthy, Bird People, as we don’t need any more losses in our ranks.

Al Stokie

Hello Bird People,

A Requiem in the Middle Ages and Renaissance was a musical service, as in a Requiem Mass, in honor of someone who had died. Well no music here but just some words to accomplish the same thing, to honor Joan.

In spite of being the person who has passed on the messages from Joan’s family to the Illinois Birders Exchanging Thoughts (IBET) bird people I must admit that I did did know Joan as well or as long as Walter Marcisz and the Greene Valley Hawk Watch folks. It’s only been in the last two years that I had very many dealings with Joan.

Before that she was “that birder with two dogs” who found a lot of Sparrows at North Pond and reported them quickly on IBET and eBird. It was only at North Pond that I would run into her with both the friendly black dog and the more reserved white dog. She would sometimes email me for bird info but that was it. Then Joan asked if I knew where to look for Long-billed Dowitchers and how to ID them, not an easy task by the way. Some were being seen at FermiLab so I said I’d meet her there and check them out. So along with Bob Erickson I arrived at Fermi at the agreed on time only to find that not only had Joan arrived early but she had seen some dowitchers, walked right up to them for a better look, and flushed them to who knows where? Joan’s comment was that, “They’ll be right back,” but they did NOT come right back! In fact they did not come back at all. This was not a good first impression, but I had to admire her enthusiasm. Eventually we all saw Long-billed Dowitchers, but not that day.

And as to her level of enthusiasm, Joan loved to get her year list up to 300 species which required a lot of travel as did her breeding bird surveys in Putnam County and elsewhere. And Rhonda has mentioned Joan’s many visits to Southern Illinois for the Birding Blitz ad Chrstmas Bird Counts. Joan would drive anywhere by herself or with the dog or dogs and eventually even me. This last year she wanted to add to her year list by adding
species seen in Central Illinois so instead of bringing her remaining dog she brought Bob and I to help with IDs. We added many species for her in Havana and Chautauqua and had such a fine time we did the same trip again a few weeks later. Joan also joined our Gillson Park Lake Watch crew a couple of times which was new for her. The last time I saw Joan at a rare bird event was at Afton looking for the Harris’s Sparrow.

I did not know about Joan’s health issues, but I saw on eBird that her last species seen for 2016 was the Waukegan Purple Sandpiper. Later I learned from other birders who saw her there that Joan was not looking well. Then came the Mountain Bluebird in western Illinois and I was surprised to not only not see her while many were looking at it but I saw no mention of her even trying for it which was not like Joan at all. Also there were few if any eBird reports after the Purple Sandpiper. (But if Joan’s last “rare bird” sighting was that Sandpiper she had a fine “last bird”.)

I visited Joan three times at the nursing home by myself and with Karen Lund and Jeff Sanders. The only thing on her mind was getting out of that place and back home. I was glad to hear that she did get back home although only for a week before she ended up back in the hospital and then her last stop on the hospice floor.

Another birder friend at the Chicago Botanic Garden says that when a family member or a friend dies you may soon after receive a “gift” from them in the form of seeing a rare bird or the like. The morning Joan passed on I was on the way to birding when I saw and chased a license plate which turned out to be a Hawaii plate. The next day I saw nine White Winged Scoters. Probably a coincidence but, just in case, Thanks Joan!

On our two Central Illinois trips last year I learned that Joan would not pass a Casey’s gas station without going in to buy two glazed donuts. She’d eat one right away and save the other for later. So the next time I see a Casey’s I’ll do the same (at least one time) and maybe you should too.

You can blame the calories on Joan’s memory.

Al Stokie

At the 2017 IOS Gull Frolic, IOS honored Denis Bohm and Geoff Williamson for their services to both IOS and the Illinois Birding Community. Each was the recipient of donated framed custom artwork, produced by a current or former member of Illinois Young Birders (ILYB).

Denis Bohm has been a long time fixture with IOS. Denis has served on the Board of Directors, held the Recording Secretary position, and most recently chaired the Recognition Committee. How fitting that he was recognized, right? Denis also continues the thankless job of picking up the IOS mail from its post office box. Denis received a drawing of a Yellow-headed Blackbird by ILYB alum, Nandu Dubey. Thank you, Denis!

Geoff Williamson is a former president of IOS and Board member, and currently the head of the Illinois Ornithological Records (IORC) and Ornithological Records Data Committees (ORDC). Geoff has worked tirelessly to ensure submissions of rare birds are documented and IORC decisions are swiftly communicated to the Illinois birding community. Geoff received a painting of Rufous Hummingbirds by current ILYB member, Luke Haberkorn. Congratulations, Geoff!