Picture of the Day
Happy Monday!
It was a chilly (high of 48°F) and overcast day. I didn't get out until about 35 minutes before sunset and wasn't expecting to see much. Boy was I wrong! My husband accompanied me to the Spring Bluff Forest Preserve down the street (a portion of the Chiwaukee Prairie Illinois Beach Lake Plain Ramsar site). In less than five minutes we saw a dozen or so herring gulls flying overhead (the only thing we expected to see), Canadian geese, mallards, an egret, a red-tailed hawk, and a group of sandhill cranes.
Sandhill cranes are year-round residents in northeast Illinois, but there's a lot of migrants passing through this time of year. Here's the abundance data provided by eBird:
My husband has been tagging along on my birdwatching trips lately (he spotted the hawk this evening). It's funny - I all but begged him to go with me the first time and now he's hooked. He downloaded the Merlin Bird ID app on his phone the other day, was shopping for a pair of binoculars yesterday, and tonight he's researching birding hotspots in our area! I think it's safe to say that he's a convert.
Sandhill Cranes (Grus canadensis) in the Spring Bluff Forest Preserve, 28 Oct. 2019
Sandhill cranes are year-round residents in northeast Illinois, but there's a lot of migrants passing through this time of year. Here's the abundance data provided by eBird:
For more information, visit https://ebird.org/science/status-and-trends/sancra/abundance-map
My husband has been tagging along on my birdwatching trips lately (he spotted the hawk this evening). It's funny - I all but begged him to go with me the first time and now he's hooked. He downloaded the Merlin Bird ID app on his phone the other day, was shopping for a pair of binoculars yesterday, and tonight he's researching birding hotspots in our area! I think it's safe to say that he's a convert.
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