We glimpsed some American White Pelicans cruising overhead, and spotted horned grebes for the first time.
On our way out to see some birds this afternoon, we looked up the word slough and learned that in the context of a pond or other water, it rhymes with “flew.” Either way, it must mean full of birds.
We saw oodles of coots, who took off in a hurry when a bald eagle flew by.
It was a temperate but windy day when we took a quick walk around the Little Red Schoolhouse Nature Center and said hello to our waterfowl friends on adjacent Longjohn Slough. Fun day!
We went out on this lovely, slightly chilly March morning to see what we could find. McGinnis Slough near Orland Park was quite fruitful, while Tampier Lake was fine, but was mostly birds we’d seen earlier that morning or yesterday in Chicago.
We got a new lifer, the American Wigeon, and it’s the first time we got really good looks at the Bufflehead (though the pic is meh) and the Northern Shoveler.
The highlight of the day was the Sandhill Cranes. When we were back on the trail, one of the cranes landed in the pond right near us, so we were able to see it pretty close (we stayed back, though). It got into a bit of a kerfuffle with some mallards who wanted to hang out nearby.
We took a lovely walk around Fermilab in Aurora, IL this morning. We got there shortly after sunrise, and the lake had hundreds of geese on it.
There were some American Coot as well, and a bunch of ducks.
Then, across a smaller lake, we saw a couple sandhill cranes having what can only be described as a hoedown.
We also saw a bunch of raptors — some Northern Harriers across the lake, a Cooper’s Hawk, a Merlin (lifer) and two Kestrels. Pretty great!
