Illinois Ornithological Society

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.

2014 IOS Grants Awards

One of IOS’s objectives is “To promote scientific research and education in order to improve knowledge and awareness of birds in Illinois”. The IOS Grants Program was initiated several years ago to support this objective with funds.

The 2014 IOS Grant Program received 14 grant requests. As a result of the generosity of several groups and individuals, 12 applicants were awarded, totaling $9,742. In addition to IOS provided funds, thanks to the following for their generous help:

Bob and Karen Fisher and Vicky Sroczynski
Pat Durkin
Carl and Pen Daubach
Southern Illinois Audubon Society
The DuPage Birding Club
The Lake-Cook Audubon Society
Quad Cities Audubon Society
Kane County Audubon Society
Many IOS Members

Thanks again to Steve Bailey and Jeff Walk for reviewing and rating all the requests and to Bob Fisher who raised much of the funds.

Congratulations to the winners and watch for their project articles in future issues of The Meadowlark.

The following grants were awarded, with information regarding how the funding will be used:

#	Amount	Name/Organization	Description
1.	$500	Amber Wingert U of I – Champaign	Video monitoring of Barn Owl Nests to help estimate factors influencing reproductive success in this declining species.
2.	$1,000	Antonio Celis Murillo U of I – Champaign	Genetics to help elucidate patterns of extra-territorial forays in Field Sparrows; helping to answer “Why cheat on your partner?”
3.	$500	Christie Trifone-Simon Jo Daviess Conservation Foundation	Funds would help defray costs of a 5-day educational day camp, which provides outdoor experiences, many of which are bird oriented.
4.	$492	Janice Kelly U of I – Champaign	Playback experiment to understand if Yellow Warblers use information associated with their two distinct song types during habitat selection.
5.	$1,000	John Maddux U of I – Champaign	Molecular techniques to identify the importance of bumble bees as a food source for North America songbirds. A large collaborative project that attempts to connect the population declines among songbirds and bumble bees.
6.	$500	Justin Shew Southern Illinois University – Carbondale	Hire student technicians to complete analyses on various projects including studying the factors influencing Red-winged Blackbird aggression and Brown-headed Cowbird nest predation.
7.	$750	Kattie Morris DePaul University	Cameras to investigate the competition for cavities Red-headed Woodpeckers experience during the winter and spring within Cook Co., IL.
8.	$1,000	Kevin Sierzega Southern Illinois University – Carbondale	Transportation and arthropod quantification to support ongoing research on the factors that influence migratory songbirds in southern Illinois.
9.	$1,000	Maria Stager U of I – Champaign	Genomic techniques used to understand how birds are physiologically capable to cope with environmental change. Maria is using Dark-eyed Juncos that endure winter conditions as her model species.
10.	$1,000	Matthew Craffey Eastern Illinois State University	Radio-telemetry to study the behaviors of Red-winged Blackbirds using Miscanthus, a potential new agricultural crop in the Midwest. This research will help assess the environmental impact on bird communities in response to a shift in agricultural practices.
11.	$1,000	Scott Chiavacci U of I – Champaign	Camera equipment and other materials to experimentally test for the cues used by nest predators (e.g. odor vs. visual) in central Illinois.
12.	$1,000	Ben O’Neal and Heath Hagy Franklin College and Illinois Natural History Survey	Investigation of the nest success and density of waterbirds in various habitat types at Emiquon in response to changing water levels.

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.

How to have a GR-EIGHT Owling Day

Snowy Owl in Illinois — Snowy Owl at Goose Lake Prairie State Natural Area in Grundy County. 5 January 2012. Photo by Jim Tezak.

By Jeff Smith

The winter of 2011/2012 saw a record, major irruption of Snowy Owls into Illinois. Double-digit numbers were observed along Chicago’s lakefront and well inland, even extending to the far reaches of southern Illinois. These owls garnered much attention from the media, birders, and anyone with a camera. Not to be overlooked though, were the good numbers of Northern Saw-whet Owls reported on some of the northern Illinois Christmas Bird Counts. Short-eared Owls were also plentiful in the larger grassland preserves. Of the winter visitors, only Long-eared Owls were difficult to find on a regular basis. However, when I located a Barn Owl in northern Illinois on its winter roost, I began to think of attempting an eight owl big day.

Eight owl species either breed or are mostly regular, winter residents within Illinois. The Illinois record for number of owl species found in a single day had been seven since 1994 when Alan Welby located that many in northern Illinois. This number was duplicated in central Illinois by Bob Chapel in 1995 and in southern Illinois by Dan Kassebaum in 2004. Barn Owl was missed in the central and northern regions, and Snowy Owl was missed in the southern region. I’m sure the thought of an eight owl day has crossed the minds of others several times in the past. I first heard of the possibility of having an Eight Owl Big Day when a Burrowing Owl was found at Pyramid State Park during the winter of 2006/2007. This year was the first time I’d have a reasonable chance to successfully attempt to record eight owls in a single day. Considering the extensive experience that all of our team members have had in locating and calling in owls, as well as the unique experience of having many of the uncommon to rare owls present and waiting for us to find them this winter, I felt our chances were very good for locating all of the owls that we would be searching for.

To find out if the eight owl big day was achieved, read Meadowlark: A Journal of Illinois Birds, Volume 21 No. 3, which was mailed to members in early October 2014.

Click here to join IOS and receive four annual issues of Meadowlark.

Rusty Blackbird Blitz

The International Rusty Blackbird Working Group (IRBWG) has been studying this species for a number of years, trying to determine why Rustys have declined 85-95% since the mid 1900’s, according to the best available estimates! Quoting from their website, “The Rusty Blackbird (Euphagus carolinus) is a widespread North American species that has shown chronic long-term and acute short-term population declines, based both on breeding season and wintering ground surveys.”

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Rusty Blackbird BlitzRead More »

2013 IOS Grants Program Sets Records!

A record 22 grant requests were received! A record 13 were funded! A record $13,000 was contributed by a record 22 organizations and individuals!

Watch for articles about each of these projects in the IOS quarterly journal, The Meadowlark. Thank you to all the individuals and organizations that made these awards possible.

Here’s a brief synopsis of the 13 grants that were awarded:

#	Amount	Name/Organization	Description
1.	$1,000	Ben O’Neal Franklin College and Ill. Nat. Hist. Survey	Assess the nesting ecology of waterbirds and other marsh birds prior to the drawdown in the Emiquon preserve in spring/summer 2013.
2.	$1,000	Amber Wingert U of I – Champaign	Monitor the Barn Owl nest boxes in Southern Illinois to determine reproductive success, develop a model of nest box site selection and test the effectiveness of conspecific playback as a survey method.
3.	$1,000	Kevin Sierzega Southern Illinois University – Carbondale	Quantify the differences in bird community metrics, e.g., species richness, evenness and diversity during spring migration and in the breeding season across a gradient of oak-hickory and beech-maple dominance forests.
4.	$1,000	Scott Chiavacci U of I – Champaign	Determine factors affecting shrubland bird nest success and causes of nest failure in urban and rural marshlands in 8 test sites in northeastern Illinois and 3 sites in east-central Illinois.
5.	$1,000	Antonio Celis Murillo U of I – Champaign	To foray or not to foray: Extraterritorial behavior in Field Sparrows and its behavioral, morphological and reproductive correlates.
6.	$1,000	Maria Stager U of I – Champaign	Evaluate the effects of day length and temperature on seasonal variation in metabolic performance and correlated differences in underlying gene expression profiles in Dark-eyed Juncos.
7.	$1,000	Mark Swanson Field Museum and Ill. Wesleyan Univ.	Determine the interactions between morphologically similar, but genetically distinct Barred Owls of Illinois and the upper Midwest.
8.	$1,000	Henry Pollock U of I – Champaign	Investigate thermal tolerances and responses to heat stress in a suite of Illinois birds and compare the data with similar data collected in Panama to determine how birds will respond to climate change
9.	$1,000	Justin J. Shew Southern Illinois University – Carbondale	Funds for year 3 of a 4 year study of the nesting success, species richness, species population, etc. of grassland birds in land set aside in the Conservation Reserve Program(CRP).
10.	$1,000	Valerie Buxton U of I – Champaign	Making the most of what remains: Determining urban grassland quality in Illinois. Assess how grassland patch size and landscape context affect grassland bird occurrence, abundance and nest success. Funds for year 2.
11.	$1,000	Douglas R. McClain Cooperative Wildlife Research Lab – SIU-Carbondale	Year 2 of a study to research the response of breeding wood ducks to differences in productivity within the Cache River watershed. The Cache River watershed has undergone different modifications during its history.
12.	$1,000	Sarah Cleeton U of I – Champaign	Explore the role of migratory songbirds in the spread of Lyme disease invasion (such as Lyme disease) in central Illinois
13.	$1,000	Elsa Anderson DePaul University	Assess Red-headed Woodpecker nest-tree and habitat characteristics and evaluate nesting competition in relation to nest-site success in Cook County

2012 IOS Grants Awards

One of IOS’s objectives is “To promote scientific research and education in order to improve knowledge and awareness of birds in Illinois”. The IOS Grants Program was initiated in 2004 to support this objective with grants awarded to projects relating to birds and/or birding in Illinois. Including this year’s grants, a total of 7 grants totaling $26,950 have been awarded.

The 2012 IOS Grant Program received 11 grant requests. As a result of the generosity of groups and individuals seven grants were funded. In addition to IOS provided funds, thanks to the following for their generous help:

Bob and Karen Fisher, Vicky Sroczynski and John Burke
The DuPage Birding Club
The Kane County Chapter of the Audubon Society
And Joan Norek, Jeffery Smith, Robert Shelby, Marsha Steffen, Steve Fluett, Jean and Bob Spitzer

Thanks again to Steve Bailey and Jeff Walk for reviewing and ranking all the requests. With so many worthy projects this was no easy task. Congratulations to the winners and watch for their project articles in future issues of The Meadowlark.

#	Amount	Name/Organization	Description
1.	$1,000	John Andrews U. of I – Champaign	Heterospecific (Social attraction between species) information use and habitat selection in Grassland birds: An experiment with Eastern Meadowlarks.
2.	$1,000	Evan Glynn Eastern Illinois University	Study the songs and responses of Black-capped Chickadees, Carolina Chickadees and hybrid Chickadees.
3.	$975	Valerie Buxton U of I – Champaign	Making the most of what remains: Determining urban grassland quality in Illinois. Assess how grassland patch size and landscape context affect grassland bird occurrence, abundance and nest success.
4.	$1,000	Kelly VanBeek U of I – Champaign	Effects of alternative tillage practices on bird populations in Illinois.
5.	$1,000	Chris Kirkpatrick Jo Daviess Conservation Foundation	Funding to help pay for a June 22-23, 2012 Bio-Blitz at Wapello Land and Water Reserve in Hanover, IL. In conjunction with the Field Museum.
6.	$500	Melissa Sunder Wildlife Prairie State Park	Purchase binoculars for the Park’s youth programs. A variety of nature classes are taught for all age ranges. The Park also participates in various bird counts, International Migratory Bird Day, etc.
7.	$500	Tyson R. Dallas U of I – Champaign	Determine what habitats and habitat features are associated with breeding and foraging of Red-headed Woodpeckers in Western Illinois.