Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Smith's Longspur and 4 Lark Sparrows at Northerly Island

Well, migration has really heated up here in Chicago over the last two days. It will be impossible to keep up with what everyone is seeing for the next two weeks or so, and hopefully I will spend more time birding than blogging! Typically, I get behind on my notes/AviSys-ing right about now, and don't catch up until about mid-June. Little pieces of papers with numbers on them are currently scattered all over the floor of Case de BINAC. It will get worse before it gets better.

However, here is a little tease...there was a Smith's Longspur found at Northerly Island on Monday evening. The Smith's was not refound on Tuesday, but there were 4 Lark Sparrows found at the south end of the Island. (Four Lark Sparrows may not be a big deal in a lot of places, but location is everything, and four Lark Sparrows on the lakefront exceeds the number of Lark Sparrows I have seen along the lakefront in the last ten years.) There have also been some massive Willets flocks seen in the last few days, ranging from single birds to flocks of more than 60 birds, I think one observer had more than 100 in a single day.

Tonight BINAC will temporarily relocate to Richmond, Virginia, and we will have some reports from the Commonwealth over the next few days. Hopefully we will close out a few older in-progress reports as well.

3 comments:

Bill Pulliam said...

34 species of warblers down here in the last few weeks, most of 'em packed up and shipped off your way... enjoy!

Birding is NOT a crime!!!! said...

And we've still got almost three weeks of migration left!!!

Bill Pulliam said...

Make that 35 (Connecticut). The action on the ground and on the radar has definitely shifted up your way but we've still got some of the late movers down here. I do love Canadas and Bay-breasteds...