NCIOS - North Central Illinois Ornithological Society

I don't know if these count as sightings or not,but I was at Colored Sands Forest Preserve
bird banding station Saturday 20 and was fortunate enough too see these birds:
Golden-winged ,Teenessee,and Chestnut-sided Warbler,also A Red-eyed and Philadelphia Vireo
along with several others.
Here are 2 pictures of the Golden-winged Warbler.
Augie

Wednesday at about two o'clock the kitelet was still present in the top of a tree in the schoolyard. It was fed a cicada and a praying mantis by one of the adults while I watched. I stopped in the school and talked to the front office staff. I offered to prepare a display panel on the kites with some photos, a range map and a couple of paragraphs about MKs in general and these MKs in particular. The staff thought that was a great idea. I'm going to put it together and it will go in the library which all students visit once a week. Never let a "teachable moment" slip by!

Barbara and I checked the airport quarry pond along Belt Line Road south of the Rockford airport, where we found a pair of Black Terns flying over the pond on the airport side of the road. They then crossed the road and flew over to the larger pond in the locked quarry. Also present were a pair of Caspian Terns, an Osprey, hundreds of swallows of several species, a few shorebirds (Greater Yellowlegs and Semipalmated Sandpipers), Great Egrets, and the other usual species. We noted that the large dead tree that was a favorite perch for Bald Eagles is no longer there, so it must have fallen down.

Barbara and I drove over to Bloom School during a lull in the rain this morning (9/13)around 11:30 a.m. The juvenile kite was flying around the school in a fairly wide pattern, then perched in a honey locust tree in front of the school on Brendenwood. Not long afterward, the female adult showed up and perched nearby on top of a spruce. Shortly, the adult male flew in with a cicada in his beak and fed the juvenile. He returned with another cicada before we left just before noon.

UPDATE: *** Cancelled ***
Regrettably, I have decided to cancel the field trip due to the poor weather forecast which includes flash flood warnings in Lake County (where IBSP is).

As your humble leader of the field trip this Saturday, September 13th, 2008 to Illinois Beach State Park, I have decided a meeting place and time.

Meeting Place: TARGET parking lot located on Highway 173 and Alpine Road
Time: 6:45 AM - we will try to leave sharply at this time as it is about a 2 hour drive to IBSP

If you plan on attending you can email me - birdfreak@birdfreak.com or call my cell phone: 815-323-0011 (there is a typo in the printed field trip list)

Birds we plan on seeing: migrants of all kinds, shorebirds, possible Gustavian Ike blown rarities, etc.

Scopes would be nice to bring (I'll have mine but it isn't the greatest).

Thanks, and I hope a lot of birders will make it!!

- Eddie Callaway

Took these 2 Sept.6,08 around 8:00 a.m. at Bloom School.
Quite a few people there,including 2 couple from the Chicago Area,
along with Dave Olson,one of the area top phptographers.
One shows the adult with a Cicada in its beak.
Augie

There is a report on the IL Birder's Forum concerning a sighting of a Western Kingbird on Stateline Road in the area of Orangeville, Stephenson Co., IL. Apparently the sighting was posted on the Wisconsin listserve (Wisbirdn) and picked up off of the Jack Siler Birdingonthe.net site.

There are no specific directions about the location of the sighting, except that Stateline Road is on the state line, and the bird was near Orangeville. If anyone goes up there and relocates the bird, please post specific directions. Thanks.

As many may have suspected, kites nested in the Bloom School neighborhood this summer. A juvenile bird, which cannot yet fly very well, is still being fed by the adults. Here are a couple of pictures.

Adult brings food

I took this photo on 8-24-08 at Bloom School about 8:15a.m.
This one was in the process of scrathing its self
Augie