Decisions by the Illinois Ornithological Records Committee (IORC) during the first half of 2018 have added three species to the Illinois State List of Birds: Red-naped Sapsucker, Cassin’s Vireo, and Plumbeous Vireo.
The Red-naped Sapsucker record pertains to an individual during 5-6 April 2012 at Wadsworth Wetlands Forest Preserve, Lake County, found and documented by Paul Sweet.
The problematic nature of sapsucker identification, complicated by hybridization between sapsucker species, made the evaluation of this record proceed at a deliberate pace.
IORC added Cassin’s Vireo to the state list on the basis of a sight record from 3-5 May 1994 in Chicago’s Jackson Park (Cook County). Paul R. Clyne observed and documented this bird. Details regarding this sighting were published in an article by Paul in Meadowlark, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 141-142, but the record never underwent formal review by IORC until this year. Paul’s observation was during 1994; the split of Solitary Vireo into Cassin’s Vireo, Blue-headed Vireo, and Plumbeous Vireo by the American Ornithologists’ Union took place in 1997.
The third new species also stems from a species involved in the split of Solitary Vireo. Jon Grainger discovered and photographed a Plumbeous Vireo 2 May 2018 in Bolingbrook, Will County. Jon’s excellent series of photographs clinched the addition of the third and final member of the Solitary Vireo complex to Illinois’s state list. There are few records of Plumbeous Vireo from eastern portion of the United States.
