Birds and bats!

[Suzanne Coleman]

Went over to a local place along the Des Plaines river called campground woods in Des Plaines and had a nice experience around sundown I saw four or five large dark bats flying around the opening by the parking area and several little brown bats and intermixed with them were several hunting nighthawks both around the grassy area and over the river in the distance. There were also robins flying around and BlueJays carrying food a little earlier, a golden winged warbler was seen and some others I couldn’t see well because of the leaves. I also had some rose breasted grosbeaks, one was calling a lot which was cool because they don’t usually do that when I’m around. A little earlier there were chimney Swifts and barn swallows also catching bugs in the same spot. The chimney swifts overlapped bats and the nighthawks flew by before and after sundown. It’s good to see there are still some things living on this planet besides people.

Also I will add that I “often” see little brown bats, I’ve seen one red bat but I don’t know if I have seen these large brown bats before so that was pretty exciting plus seeing them all working together and “getting along” was pretty amazing. Plus it was pretty nice out.

Suzanne Coleman
Cook county