Summer herons, beach birds and butterflies

All photos taken in the Hyde Park Area during July and August 2018.

 

water lily in Columbia Basin in back of MSI building

green heron near Osaka Garden

black-crowned night heron in Osaka Garden

black crowned night heron with waterfall and mulberry tree

great egret in Columbia Basin behind the MSI building

western painted turtle in Oakwoods Cemetery

spotted sandpiper on 63rd Street Beach

One of this year’s hatchlings–spotted sandpiper

ring-billed gull and Caspian tern on 63rd Street Beach

A few pink ring-billed gulls showed up at 63rd Street beach

A blue Swedish duck or maybe a manky mallard (mix of mallard and domestic ducks) showed up with 2 mallards

chipmunks have moved into Wooded Isle

chipmunk checking out white mulberry fruit

squirrel in white mulberry tree

adult cliff swallow hanging out in nest

cliff swallow nest on 63rd Street beach house wall

young cliff swallow nestlings with white feathers that perhaps fool potential predators into thinking they are bird poop

an older cliff swallow nestling

female or juvenile red-winged blackbird with snack

female monarch on joe pye weed

monarch caterpillar

black swallowtail on butterfly bush

silver-spotted skipper– another candidate for bird poop camoflague

still looking this one up, it looked blue when it was flying

red-spotted purple butterfly

eastern comma on milkweed

Underside of this butterfly’s wing has a very faint comma. Again, nice camouflage

tiger lily in wooded isle

 

 

 

 

Happy 4th of July (summer in the city)

 

single gosling

bullfrog

Osaka Garden irises

male purple martin and fledgling

spotted sandpiper

lots of monarchs this year

pioneer spiderwort (snotweed) on 63rd Street beach

mallard duckling with cottonwood seeds

older mallard ducklings

wood duck ducklings

older wood duck ducklings

older goslings

why goslings can’t fly- look at the size of their wings

starling nestlings

starlings bathing on golden lady statue

nest in Osaka Garden

house wren parent

house wren fledgling

western painted turtle

great blue heron

great blue heron with 3 juvenile black-crowned night herons

adult black-crowned night heron

great egret

fledgling barn swallows

fledgling barn swallows

monarch on milkweed in mini-garden near parking lot at 53rd and Dorchester

moon watch and new groups (natural areas and dogs) meeting this weekend

New groups forming for people concerned about protecting our natural areas and/or the proliferation of “no dogs allowed” areas

The weather is supposed to be reasonable both nights so we’ll meet at The Point in time to see the moon rise.  Meeting will occur even if it is cloudy.

Saturday February 11 at 6:18   natural areas

Sunday February 12 at 7:23     dogs

Courting ducks and night camera videos

Most of these photos and videos were taken in Hyde Park (Chicago) during the last couple of weeks.

Even though the groundhog saw his shadow, I’ve seen and heard some signs of spring during the last couple of weeks: chickadees and cardinals singing their spring songs, squirrels mating, and ducks courting in the inner and outer harbor.

Field trip idea:  Go to inner or outer harbor to scout for courting ducks and look for signs of beavers.  To walk around inner harbor:  park on the street just west of Lake Shore Drive at 63rd Street (Hayes) or in the parking lot on the north side of the street.   You can walk over to the outer harbor if you park in the 63rd Street beach parking lot and walk south.

Male and female red-breasted mergansers.  Just the males are doing courting displays in this video.  Females have red heads and more white on their chests.

This is the first video I have where both male and female common goldeneyes are displaying.  After the brown female on the left hand side starts displaying, you can hear some of the beeps that the males make when they throw their heads back

At the beginning you can see this hooded merganser raise his crest and make his white patch bigger.  He then displays to a female mallard who already has a male mallard mate.

Common goldeneye male courting female common goldeneye.   You couldn’t hear it very well in the video but there is also a beep with this move.    Male and female red-breasted merganser in the background

I’ve never seen this version of the common goldeneye display before

male and female hooded merganser– male’s white patch is relatively small when his crest is lowered

female is sleeping, male’s white patch is still small

male in sleeping position but he has raised his crest, why?

because a female common goldeneye has hopped up next to him?

canvasback duck

diving

front view

female mallard on ice

herring gull on ice

american goldfinch

coyote on ice at 63rd Street Beach

winter is a good time to see nests in trees and find them on the ground

This northern oriole who nested near the inner harbor used ribbon and fishing line in her nest

I like how beaver nonchalantly steps out of the way of the truck. This video taken in 2011.

beaver with female mallard duck for scale (this photo not taken in last two weeks)

chicken wire wrap stopped beavers from taking down this tree

The saved tree

I’m pro tree and pro beaver.  If you remove beavers from an area, other beavers move in. Wrapping some trees with wire and planting other trees for the beaver is one partial solution.  I think newly cut down healthy trees from all over Chicago should be brought to places where the beavers live to see if they will use them.  Above quote is from the beaversolutions.com website.

Meeting tonight about proposed PGA champion golf course in Hyde Park

ANOTHER IMPORTANT MEETING ABOUT GOLF COURSE PROPOSAL with Chicago Park District CEO, Michael Kelly, at Alderman Leslie Hairston’s monthly meeting– January 24 at South Shore Fine Arts Academy, 1415 E 70th, 6-8 pm

Don’t want a PGA tournament golf course or a big music venue in your back yard?  Write your alderman or come to the 5th ward meeting tonight!

If our neighborhood decides that this PGA level golf course is a good idea, my personal opinion is that golf course should be organic (no pesticides).  Organic golf courses already exist!   This would  prevent contamination of our neighborhood and lake. And, the design should include wildlife habitat. Again, there are golf course that are wildlife friendly!   Finally, since habitat destruction threatens wildlife more than non-native species (many non-native species are benign or actually support native species*,  I think there should be a moratorium on tree destruction in all of Hyde Park. We have already lost 1300 trees/shrubs in Jackson Park through the work of the Army Corps of Engineers and Project 120. It will take years before the replacement young trees they have planted and will plant in the future will grow into mature trees.  An organic, wildlife-friendly course with no destruction of trees would be great and might attract more people to the game.    As was said in the JPAC meeting, many of the Chicago Park District golf courses in Chicago are under-utilized.

* “Where do camels belong?  Why invasive species aren’t all bad”  Ken Thompson 2014

Birds and berries and sometimes it’s hard to be a plant

These photos were taken in Hyde Park (Chicago) during the past two weeks.

Lots of plant parts coated in ice at the edge of the lake on The Point

Some trees on The Point were also covered with ice on the night of the full moon

Moon appearing through clouds

Outside my house are 2 crab apple trees.  One tree has been stripped of its crab apples.

The fruit on the other crab apple tree are all still there.  Maybe the crab apples on this second tree needed more freeze-thaw cycles before they are soft enough to eat?  Or maybe they just don’t taste very good?

Across the street, robins are beginning to strip this hawthorn tree of its berries.  Usually once the berries are soft enough to eat, they strip the tree in a couple of days but this year was different.

A couple of doors down from the hawthorn trees, I saw this cooper’s hawk.  All the robins decided to eat somewhere else that day

but a cardinal still ate berries that day

These berries look soft enough to eat but location matters too.  It may be too dangerous to eat these berries if eating them causes the bird to be out in the open and vulnerable.  As you saw above, our neighborhood has Cooper’s hawks.

Plants on fences often provide food, shelter and nesting sites for birds.

This used nest, note the bird wove plastic into its nest, gives us a sample of what the birds sitting in the branches above it were eating.

Lots of coral berries have been planted in Jackson Park, but the wildlife don’t seem to like them.   The author of “Birds in the Yard: Month by Month” agrees  “I planted them (coral berries) because certain nurseries gave them high marks as bird food. Every year, come spring, berries still hang, dry, ugly, untouched.”

Oak trees usually don’t drop their leaves in the fall but these leaves have hole-punch shaped holes in them for the second year in a row

Some nearby magnolia trees have the same hole-punch damage and have also not dropped their leaves this winter, which is unusual!  Lots of maples in our neighborhood didn’t drop their leaves this fall either. 

Damage done by emerald ash borer

Hyde Park beavers!

In video below, crow caws and then rattles.  It seems to swallow air in order to rattle. I wonder if that is always the case?

 

Long-earred owl in Osaka Garden.  The right eye and left ear are easiest to see.

Mostly winter ducks and swans

Photos taken in Hyde Park (Chicago) area during the last couple of weeks.

Field trip suggestion:  Walk around the outer harbor to see the swans.  You can park in the 63rd Street Beach lot off of Lake Shore Drive and walk south around the outer harbor or you can park in the La Rabida parking lot.  To get there:  turn left on Marquette Drive when LSD ends and then turn left into the La Rabida parking lot at the first stoplight.  I like to stay left and park at the turn around at the north end of the hospital property.   I saw swans twice on December 30th. In the morning  (in front of old coast guard station, 6400s) and afternoon (northwest end of La Rabida parking lot, I had to walk by the edge of the water to see them)  Seize the day if you want to see them; they aren’t always there!

I usually see mute swans in the outer harbor only when it is very cold but this year I saw a couple on a 50 degree day.

Mute swan accompanied by cygnet (less than a year old)

Mute swans are very big birds.  Use the two mallards in the background for scale

It is quite cold today and more swans have arrived.  The first six are mute swans, adults and cygnets  but the last one with the black bill is probably another kind of swan, maybe a trumpeter swan?

juvenile herring gull

On very cold days, many birds spend a lot of time preening to keep ice from forming on their wings

American coots with ice on their wings

American coot puffing her feathers up to stay warm

female red-breasted merganser on a warmer day

female red-breasted merganser on a cold day deciding whether to get up or stay curled up sleeping

female red-breasted merganser resting on a slab of ice

size comparison of male red-breasted merganser and female common goldeneye

 

lots of male common goldeneyes, leading duck on left has ice on his wings

male common goldeneye on warmer day

redhead

redhead

canvasback ducks also have a red head (one male and two females here)

From left to right in middle of photo- redhead and then 3 canvasback ducks and a couple ring-necked ducks

a better look at the ring-necked duck—

• This species might better be called the “Ring-billed Duck,” for its chestnut neck ring is usually seen only at close range, while the white ring on the bill can be a prominent field mark.  From whatbird.com

 

Lots of puffed up birds staying warm:  house sparrow on burning bush

American Tree Sparrow – here in the winter, nests in the tundra in the summer

american goldfinch

northern cardinal eating pokeweed seeds

downy woodpecker

 

red-bellied woodpecker

another view of red-bellied woodpecker

On a clear day, you can see Navy Pier from 63rd Street Beach

Photos from my 2017 Wildlife and Dog Calendars and JPAC meeting Monday!

Here are the photos from my 2017 calendars. I included astronomical events: meteor showers, total eclipse of sun and times of full moonrise and moonset.  I’ve got free calendars for people who attend the birding group, people who attend my nature walks, people who attend or help in my dog training classes and people who attend JPAC (Jackson Park Advisory Committee) meetings about the future of Jackson Park.  If I still have extra calendars in mid January, I will be happy to donate one to your child’s classroom.   I also sell calendars for $15.  I can drop them off if you have a safe delivery place in Hyde Park or I can hang them on my door (53rd and Dorchester) and you can pick them up there

Moon watch — Tuesday December 13– meet at the lake near the Field House on the Point at 4:25 for an 4:34 moonrise. There is a parking lot and an underpass at 55th and Lake Shore Drive.

There is more information after my photos about why I think it is so important for people who do not want a music venue building (Project 120’s Phoenix Pavilion) to be build in Jackson Park behind the Museum of Science and Industry to attend these monthly meetings.

Canis Sapiens’ Dog Calendar       http://www.hydeparkdogtraining.com

Although most of the 100+ people who attended the May meeting with the Chicago Park District CEO convened by Leslie Hairston (38 spoke against it, 4 spoke for it), most of the regular attenders of JPAC meetings are pro-Project 120’s Phoenix Pavilion pictured below:

 

 

 

 

Sara Paretsky’s letter to the editor of the Sun Times

This map needs to be updated:  As of the May meeting, the Chicago Park District CEO said the basketball courts would not be moved.  He also said only bicycles and pedestrians would be allowed on the rebuilt Darrow Bridge (no road connecting LSD and Cornell).

This poster was presented at a Project 120 meeting.  Patricia O’Donnell told me that 1300 trees and shrubs had been cut down in Wooded Isle and the surrounding areas.  My orange-colored comments say I don’t want more trees cut down for a Music Pavilion or a Great Lawn.

This is a view of the proposed Great Lawn.  As of May of this year, the basketball courts will  not be moved but the tennis courts will be destroyed,  bark park relocated,  golf range relocated, free parking removed and lots of paid parking removed plus LOTS of trees destroyed.

 

Winter ducks return, some last migrants pass through Chicago and the first snow

Photos all taken during the past two weeks in Hyde Park (Chicago)

Our year round resident mallards taking a bath

Lots of greater/lesser scaup in the outer harbor

A better look at a female scaup

Red-breasted mergansers in the outer and inner harbor

Lots of american coots (not a duck) in the outer harbor

Size difference between a red-breasted merganser and greater/lesser scaup

One male and two female buffleheads

Size difference between Canada Goose and female scaup

Size difference between a  1st or 2nd winter herring gull and some red-breasted mergansers

Our local starling population is plummeting but we still have a good-sized winter starling population

starlings

Oak trees usually don’t drop their leaves in the winter

but maple trees usually do drop their leaves PLUS about half of these leaves haven’t even changed colors!

this willow tree too has kept its leaves and the green leaves means the tree hasn’t reabsorbed the chlorophyll!!        (Wendy Doniger, photographer)

so many green leaves!

burning bush

The first snow also lets you see who is around when you aren’t there!

Lots of rabbits at Burnham Nature Sanctuary (47th and Cornell)

Lots of geese on the golf course

And who makes these star-like footprints?

An opossum who  was heading for one of our few remaining patches of woods with a tree canopy and understory plants around 65th and Cornell

You’ll have to look hard for the opossum in this photo.  Opossums eat lots of ticks but never seem to get lyme disease.  They are also immune to most kinds of snake venom. For more info, google:  Opossums, give them a brake!  National Wildlife Federation

A late migrating killdeer

For the last few years, we have been lucky enough to hear and see sandhill cranes migrate through our neighborhood when we get our first blast of arctic cold.

 

 

 

 

Last of fall color, super moon and sandhill crane migration site

tomatoes in Community Garden

red maple

red maples flowering last spring

red maple flowers

gingkos

sweet gum

dogwood

dogwood flower from last spring

oak

Going to see the sandhill cranes gather at the Jasper-Pulaski Fish and Wildlife Area is a great fall field trip!

Here are some videos taken at Jasper-Pulaski.  Scroll down for a video taken of a whooping crane flying with the sandhill cranes last Saturday.

They counted 15,ooo cranes at Jasper-Pulaski Fish and Wildlife Area last week.  High numbers of cranes will continue through the beginning of December

Cranes fly in to viewing platform to socialize after feeding  in the surrounding fields all day

It is hunting season so a number of deer hang out in the park where they are safe

This past Saturday a whooping crane was among the sandhill cranes

Something scared the cranes and they all flew into the air

Another Hyde Parker shot this great video with the  whooping crane in it!

Here is the website with information about the sandhill crane migration site which is about 1.5 hour drive from Hyde Park:  5822 Fish and Wildlife Lane  Medaryville, IN  During the day you can sometimes see cranes feeding and sometimes dancing  by turning right from the viewing platform parking lot and driving slowly looking for cranes in the fields.    There are often cranes near the Schahfer Generating Station in nearby Wheatfield, IN

http://www.in.gov/dnr/fishwild/3109.htm

moon with rainbow ring

first supermoon night

moonset

2nd supermoon night

2nd moonset

reflection in water– note rabbit in moon reflection

rainbow ring around sun