Birds of Pembroke Township, Kankakee Cty, in Willow Slough-Iroquois Preserves CBC 1/1/26

[M.Bernat]

Happy new birding year!

Thank you to my birding friends who said they’d like to have been available to help me on today’s CBC (after the person who had committed with me canceled) but couldn’t because they were either on another CBC or were otherwise engaged with New Year’s activities. 

Today was the first time I’ve done this CBC, though I make it out to the area several times during spring and summer. Surely I’ve written on IBET about my whip-poor-will and owl survey monitoring under full moons in Iroquois County. It’s the best gig in the world!

Today’s birding was uneventful, but that’s CBCs for you. Hawks flew away before I could make an i.d. Sparrows flitted between grasses. And then, just as I was finally able to focus on one in a ditch by angulating (JV’s signature word) across a country road, I became aware that I was blocking an oncoming car. When I moved, so did the sparrow. I bet less than 10 cars passed me while on the count, and one had to be just then. Drats! Foiled again!

I forgot about all that when the sun came out late in the afternoon and turned the savanna grasses and leaves of the oaks a bright gold against a light layer of snow and blue sky. I think the black oak savannas in the sands of the Kankakee are among the most beautiful places on earth. 

I took pics of that gorgeous scene, of horses with a thick wintertime fur coat and an exploded view of the inside architecture of a paper wasp nest, still hanging, whose outer layer had fallen away. Why was algae growing in the water of a farm ditch? I took a pic of that too. 

Here follows a humble list for a humble area:

Willow Slough-Iroquois Preserves CBC, Pembroke Township 1/1/26

Mourning dove  9

Red-tailed hawk 2

Buteo sp. 4 (flew away as I drove)

Red-bellied woodpecker 3

Blue-jay 7

White-breasted nuthatch 2

House sparrow 6 (in a yard)

American tree sparrow 5

Dark-eyed junco 36

Northern cardinal 3

Saw a red-headed woodpecker on the Indiana side of the state line and most of the hawks were flying away from me. No wild turkeys not even at my favorite spots, no kestrels, no owls. No horned larks, snow buntings nor longspurs. I kind of expected them after the snow. No robins! I need to see if I could i.d. a few of those sparrows that stumped me. 

I’m thinking of organizing a Pembroke field trip. I think you’ll love it in late spring. Stay tuned!

Mary Bernat

South Cook County 

In Kankakee County today