Finally Avocats But Not Where I Expected Them To Be Wednesday 8-5-26

[Al Stokie]

Hello Bird People,

Did three locations for shorebirds & finally hit it big at the 3rd place.
Started at Techny North but there's only a very small mudflat with
lots of vegetation to make it hard to I.D. shorebirds. Then to Baker's
Lake where distance is the problem for anything smaller than a
Killdeer. There I got a call from Mike Madsen telling me Avocats were
at Wood Dale Reservoir so I made the almost one hour drive to get to
Wood Dale in time.

Techny North (6:55-8 am)

D.C. Cormorant (1)
Great Blue Heron (3) & Black Crowned Night Heron (1-AD)
Wood Duck (2) & Mallard (14)
Killdeer (11) & Semipalmated Plover (1)
Lesser Yellowlegs (2)
Solitary (7), Spotted 2), Least (1) & Semipalmated (1) Sandpipers
Herring Gull (1 fly-by)
Caspian Tern (also a fly-by)
Osprey (1) & Kestrel (2)
And 7 common land birds

Baker's Lake (from the northern overlook) (9-9:45 am)

White Pelican (1)
D.C. Cormorant (67)
Great Blue Heron (6) & Great Egret (15)
(Note how the numbers of Cormorants & Great Egrets keep going down)
Canada Goose (2) & Mallard (5)
Killdeer (6) & Semipalmated Plover (1)
Spotted (3) & Pectoral (2) Sandpipers
Ring Billed (2) & Herring (1) Gulls
Caspian Tern (about 18 but more hidden in the vegetation)
Bald Eagle (the usual adult on the nest platform)
And heard only Mourning Doves & Blue Jays

Wood Dale Reservoir (10:45-11:30 am)

Here there were about eight other birders to see the Avocets.

D.C. Cormorant (2)
Great Blue Heron (4) & Great Egret (3)
Canada Goose (21) & Mallard (8)
Killdeer (5)
AVOCET (6) (FOY)
Peep Species (1) (Those who saw this closer said it was a Least Sandpiper)
Ring Billed Gull (18)
Caspian Tern (Max 22)

So 31 species at my 3 locations plus roadside Pigeons for a total of
32 for the day.
Bird-Of-The-Day to the 6 Avocets & Runners-Up to the adult Black
Crowned Night Heron, the Osprey, the Bald Eagle & the lone Pelican.

This will aggravate my friend Santo but the license plate of the day
for the 2nd time in 3 days will be another one from Manitoba.
Sometimes they come in bunches.

Al Stokie
In Cook & DuPage Co's today