No Clue

Discovered these paper mache birds at The Magic Hedge/Montrose Harbor.  

National Wear Red Day

Today is National Wear Red Day. Organized by The American Heart Association, National Wear Red Day aims to raise awareness of women's heart disease.

This cardinal wears red everyday and seems to be enjoying a good diet of fruit and grains.

Feathered Friends: Watching the Watcher

This Cooper's Hawk, at the Magic Hedge, caught us bird-watching last Sunday. He must have been out people-watching.

Another photo of this hawk is at my Chicago birdwatching blog, which is here.

Feathered Friends: The Next Wave

The next wave of migrating (and some Summer residents) birds have arrived in Chicago.

Top row

Northern Flicker (top), Killdeer (bottom), Long Eared Owl, Dark-Eyed Junco, Downy Woodpecker

Bottow row

Fox Sparrow (top), Hermit Thrush (bottom), Eastern Phoebe, Field Sparrow (top), Vesper Sparrow (bottom), Ruby Crested Kinglet (top), Yellow Bellied Sapsucker, Song Sparrow, Hermit Thrush

Click on the photo to enlarge it

The individual photos will, over the next day or so, get to my Chicago Bird Watcher site, here.

Feathered Friends: It's Just a Phase

Pity the poor Cardinal.

They go through so much ...

... a mottled mess of gray and red ...

... a Bozo the Clown Orange Phase ...

... before getting their beautiful red, adult colors.

A few more pictures of the Cardinal's "transitional"phases are at my bird blog, here.

Whatcha Got?

I can't say it's the official birdwatching greeting, but you do get asked "Whatcha Got?" occasionally if you're standing in a park looking at something through binoculars. Usually by someone else with binoculars. (People wearing uniforms and badges tend to say "Miss, what exactly are you doing with those binoculars?")

It seems the Fall Bird Migration has begun to get active in the Chicago area. I was at the Magic Hedge (by Montrose Beach) and happened to turn around to see this sight.
Not wanting to miss anything, I walked back and looked in the general direction as everyone else. There were a lot of warblers flitting about in a tree. Sitting at the very top (a rather dangerous location given that two Cooper's Hawks were in the area looking for a snack) was the immature bay breasted warbler, shown below. It doesn't have its full adult colors, like it will in the spring. In fact, most of the birds going through now won't look like they did in the Spring. That's what makes it challenging.

Feathered Friends: A Real Live Peep

Back around Easter, I posted a photo of some dioramas of Marshmallow Peeps. Perhaps those Peeps escaped and are hopping around the Magic Hedge. Or ... maybe these are Yellow Warblers coming back for the summer.

There's two more pictures of the Yellow Warbler as well as photos of other Chicago birds on my other blog on birdwatching.

Feathered Friends: Yellow-Rumped Warbler

Bird-watching is a new hobby. I think a lot of people presume that since Chicago is such a big city that the only birds around are pigeons, sparrows, pigeons, crows, pigeons, starlings, pigeons, robins, pigeons, seagulls, mallard ducks, geese and - did I mention - pigeons. However, Chicago is on a pretty busy migratory path and has a number of interesting year-round birds. (And there are actually over 50 different types of sparrows.)

There are several places in Chicago that are set aside as preserves to foster birdlife. One of these places is called the Magic Hedge, near Montrose Harbor. That's where we saw this Yellow-Rumped Warbler.

I was going to post all the bird photos here but I started taking so many this would have become Daily Chicago Bird. So I started another blog just on Chicago birds.