Subject: Illinois Report
Date: Oct 11 23:36:34 2001
From: newboldwildlife at netscape.net - newboldwildlife at netscape.net


Hi all,
Score another one for Tweeters! Thanks to tips posted to me after a tweeters request, we stayed alert for European Tree Sparrows in Central Illinois, and me, my wife and my father-in-law all picked up a lifer! I am very grateful to those who sent advice!
If we fell 10 short of the magic 25 warblers in Pennsylvania, we weren’t even in the race in Illinois, with only 5, and no rare true sparrows either, and other seemingly surprising misses. Still, what a trip! There are many places in central Illinois (town of Bushnell, pop. 3500) where you can see that for 10 miles in all directions there’s nothing but huge agricultural fields. But at the same time, it seems you are never far from a backroad that can quickly take you to places that are breathtakingly beautiful, with dales and swales, successional fields, hedgerows, small woodlots, river valleys and wooded hillsides that look like they stepped out of an Albert Church painting.
The abundant Starlings were all working the fields and hawking like flycatchers, with nary a one foraging on the lawns (which were unrelenting, as always in this pathologically lawn-obsessed country) as far as we could see. Nor were the Robins working the lawns either, being in treed areas looking for fruit instead. Probably thanks to farming, there weren't anywhere near as many crows there as here, and I credit the Nighthawk sighting to that.
The weaver finches in town were all House Sparrows as far as we could tell, on the last day we found English Tree Sparrows in the country, and then looking more carefully found them easily two more times. Since I’m so used to House Sparrows “singing” I wasn’t ready for the sweet voice!
Whereever the countryside was pretty, the Eastern Bluebirds were out in force, littering oak branches with blue against a backdrop of leaves turning color. A continuous stream of migrating Tree Swallows made life even more pleasant, and it was nice to see Palm Warblers again, a bird that takes the job of wagging its tail even more seriously than a Phoebe!

Here’s the list, in the order we saw them:
1 Blue Jay
2 Mourning Dove
3 Robin
4 Starling
5 Grackle
6 American Kestrel
7 Crow
8 Canada Goose
9 Cardinal
10 Black Capped Chickadee
11 Turkey Vulture
12 House Sparrow
13 House Finch
14 Red Breasted Nuthatch
15 Chipping Sparrow
16 Cape May Warbler
17 Golden Crowned Kinglet
18 Chimney Swift
19 Red Bellied Woodpecker
20 Red Tailed Hawk
21 Ring Billed Gull
22 White Pelican (on Mississippi)
23 Double Crested Cormorant (“)
24 Common Yellowthroat
25 Great Blue Heron
26 Mallard
27 Coot
28 Great Egret
29 Eastern Bluebird
30 Yellow Shafted Flicker
31 Red Winged Blackbird
32 Common Nighthawk
33 Downy Woodpecker
34 Sharp Shinned Hawk
35 American Goldfinch
36 Tree Swallow
37 Phoebe
38 White Throated Sparrow
39 Yellow Rumped Warbler
40 Tennessee Warbler
41 Ruby Crowned Kinglet
42 Killdeer
43 Barn Swallow
44 Mockingbird
45 Cedar Waxwing
46 Palm Warbler
47 Field Sparrow
48 Song Sparrow
49 European Tree Sparrow
50 Northern Harrier
51 Cowbird
52 Eastern Meadowlark
53 Tufted Titmouse
54 White Breasted Nuthatch
55 White Crowned Sparrow
56 Eastern Towhee
57 Yellow Bellied Sapsucker
58 Red Headed Woodpecker
59 Rock Dove
60 Indigo Bunting




--Ed Newbold, Beacon Hill, Seattle newboldwildlife at netscape.net



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