Back in Chicago a little over five months since I was last here - and back at Montrose Point, home of the ‘Magic Hedge’ and a magnet for both birds and birders. When I was here in May of course I was looking for migrant warblers and sparrows: this time I was on a search for - er, migrant warblers and sparrows etc etc. Heck, we birders lead varied lives eh?

Of course we do. Yes I may be back in Chicago again (and no problem with that because Chicago birders seem to be a very friendly bunch and I do love the Magic Hedge), but migration in spring has a very different feel to migration in the autumn/fall anyway. In spring migration is rapid, a rushed and colourful affair, driven along by hormones and the need to get to the breeding-grounds ahead of rivals to ensure the optimum sites - in autumn, passerine migration is a (literally) quieter, subdued, less frantic event, taking place over a longer period and less likely to produce large and spectacular arrivals. It somehow suits the mood of a year-lister coming to the final furlongs of what has been a very long year indeed…(Funny how you get to September and start looking to the end of the year when there’s still three and a half months to go - especially as it may be drawing towards winter in the northern hemisphere but in the bottom half of the world everyone’s waiting for the spring.)

Anyway, I may not have been expecting anything particularly special to have turned up at Montrose Point in the middle of the month on one of the clearest days I’ve ever seen anywhere (why land on a bitty spit of land if you can see all the way to Florida?), but it was surprisingly good. In fact, I added five Year Birds to a fairly well-padded eastern North America list. Which ones? Oh, as if I’d give it away now when you know how much I like to write reams and reams of text with these posts…

So, I arrived by cab from downtown (for about 15:00 USD) a little after 07:00, just as the sun was starting to climb. An easterly breeze was causing a swell out on the lake (which an old-hand later told me was hopeless for migrants in September) and there were already small groups of Palm Warblers flittering across the open areas of parkland outside the ‘Point’ proper, and a couple of young Rose-breasted Grosbeaks chasing through the trees. I saw the first of my five new birds almost immediately - a Swainson’s Thrush (how did I get to September and not see a Swainson’s? I have no idea but I did), and then…then, I have to admit, it all went a little quiet for an hour or so.

I walked round and round Montrose Point with an increasingly unsettled feeling, but - as if to totally disprove the “early bird/worm” theory - by about nine o’clock either the birds that had arrived during the night were feeling a little rested and wanted to feed, or some diurnal migrants decided that they didn’t need to get to Florida all in one flight after all and dropped down in Illinois instead. All of a sudden there was a flurry of birds and in one little fruiting tree I found three Magnolia Warblers, a (very washed-out) Yellow-rumped, and the first of three or four Cape Mays (my second New Bird for the Year), while just yards away an Eastern Wood Pewee and a Blue-headed Vireo (bird #3) appeared out of nowhere, followed by a young Red-headed Woodpecker (bird #4) which bounded overhead, clung to a thin snag for a few seconds, and then vanished again.

Blue-headed Vireo Vireo solitarius

 

Non-breeding male Cape May Warbler Dendroica tigrina

 

Swainson’s Thrush Catharus ustulata

To be honest by about 09:30 I was starting to feel so tired that I’d have been happy to leave it at that - had it not been such a lovely day. With the sun high in the sky and the breeze cool and refreshing I was not only enjoying the birds but the weather too - which after the sodden, grey skies of what now passes for summer in the UK was almost enough to cause me to enter into a bout of near-mystical meditation on how lovely the world is, what a lovely colour blue the sky is, and aren’t those Goldfinches lovely… However, with another flight scheduled for the early afternoon there’s only so relaxed you can feel, and I figured that one more circuit of the Point would be enough before heading back.

Non-breeding plumaged American Goldfinch Carduelis tristis

I’m glad I stayed and went round one more time though. I didn’t find anything especially unusual but there were definitely still birds arriving (or becoming visible anyway) and, whilst admiring Goldfinches again, I was treated to the best views I’ve ever had of a Sedge Wren (bird #5) as it made its way through a tangle of grasses, hopping in and out of cover making soft clicking noises to itself. What a lovely bird a Sedge Wren is when you see it well, don’t you think?

Sedge Wren Cistothorus platensis

What else? How about a female Ruby-throated Hummingbird feeding from a pale-blue cornflower-like plant, a Brown Thrasher peering cautiously out of a dense shrub, and at one point having in view at the same time two Ovenbirds, a Northern Waterthrush, a Red-eyed Vireo, a Lincoln’s Sparrow, and two Cedar Waxwings? I may be something of an old-hand myself now when it comes to Nearctic birding, but there are times I still think like a Brit-based twitcher and that little lot would have caused a) complete and utter disbelief, b) total astonishment, and c) a mighty fine year-long celebration if I’d found them back home - and I hope I never get so jaded that I’d pass that many lovely birds and barely be able to stifle a yawn (as apparently some US birders in Chicago that fine morning were able to do…)

Ruby-throated Hummingbird Archilocus colubris

 

Brown Thrasher Toxostoma rufum

 

Cedar Waxwing Bombycilla cedrorum

And as if to prove that you never know what you might find on a sunny day in September if you keep your eyes open, have a look at the photo below. I’d seen a Wilson’s Snipe flush up in front of some other birders about an hour before but hadn’t seen where it had flown to, when I noticed a dark lump in the shade of a single, isolated plant suddenly ‘move’ and grow an awfully long bill. Sitting right in the open, obviously thinking it was hidden because it was in shadow of little weed, was the snipe. Too good to miss as far as photo-opportunities go, I’d begun walking slowly up on the snipe when it suddenly looked alert, swivelled round on its haunches, and looked ready to fly. I clicked the shutter a few times just before it flew - and only realised later that a squirrel was charging into the frame from the left. Now, I have no idea if squirrels take snipes given the chance, but the snipe obviously wasn’t going to sit around to find out!

Wilson’s Snipe Gallinago delicata

Obviously I wasn’t going to top that moment of great excitement (okay, yes, I realise this is hardly a tiger leaping on a Chittal type of moment, or an Orca swallowing a penguin whole, but I thought it was interesting…) so I began to walk up the road towards Lakeshore to catch a cab back to the hotel. Was the day finished? Not quite actually, because I reached the trees by the boatyard (you know, the one behind the green net fence) and noticed an American Redstart flutter out of a small tree and back in again. Interesting I thought, and then realised that there was a Prairie Warbler in there too…and a female Black-and-white Warbler…and another Magnolia…and a Pine Warbler too. Wow. Chicago, doncha just love it…

Can New York even come close? Why do I ask that - because I was in Chicago Thursday, back in London Friday, am then flying out to NY on Saturday, and (if my knackered body doesn’t fall apart) meeting Corey in Central Park on Sunday morning before flying back to London in the afternoon. Phew…

(UPDATE: How did we do on Sunday? Check out Corey’s excellent post right here to find out…)

Day List - Highlights (New for the Year underlined):

Sharp-shinned Hawk Accipiter striatus 1; Grey Plover Pluvialis squatarola 1; Wilson’s Snipe Gallinago delicata 1; Ruddy Turnstone Arenaria interpres 2; Sanderling Calidris alba c)15; Caspian Tern Hydroprogne caspia 1; Ruby-throated Hummingbird Archilocus colubris 1; Red-headed Woodpecker Melanerpes erythrocephalus 1; Northern Flicker Colaptes auratus 3-4; Red-eyed Vireo Vireo olivaceus 2; Blue-headed Vireo Vireo solitarius 1; Eastern Wood Pewee Contopus virens 1; Cedar Waxwing Bombycilla cedrorum 5-6; Sedge Wren Cistothorus platensis 3-4; Swainson’s Thrush Catharus ustulatus 3-4; Brown Thrasher Toxostoma rufum 1; Yellow Warbler Dendroica petechia 2; Prairie Warbler Dendroica discolor 2; Palm Warbler Dendroica palmarum c)10; Cape May Warbler Dendroica tigrina 2-3; Magnolia Warbler Dendroica magnolia 4-5; Yellow-rumped Warbler Dendroica coronata 2; Black-and-white Warbler Mniotilta varia 2; American Redstart Setophaga ruticilla 1; Ovenbird Seiurus aurocapillus 2; Northern Waterthrush Seiurus noveboracensis 1; Common Yellowthroat Geothlypis trichas 3-4; Song Sparrow Melospiza melodia 3; Lincoln’s Sparrow Melospiza lincolnii 1; White-crowned Sparrow Zonotrichia leucophrys 10+; White-throated Sparrow Zonotrichia albicollis 2; Savannah Sparrow 2; Rose-breasted Grosbeak Pheucticus ludovicianus 3; American Goldfinch Carduelis tristis c)20

One last thing before I go, here’s a couple of photos I took from my room while I couldn’t sleep…I’m thinking a new series might well be in order, folks.

 

A room with a view:
looking towards Navy Pier from the Swissotel, Wacker Street at 03:00 and 06:00

Photos copyright Charlie Moores 2008