Crops & Clips: Flashback to October, 2017

As I do each month, I enjoyed looking back over my archived photos, taken three years previously, to remember how things were then and maybe get some idea of what to expect this year. (A big difference is that during the present year we never got back to Illinois because of the Coronavirus pandemic.)  As usual, I searched for images which reflected favorite memes: critters of all kinds (especially birds), skies and clouds, reflections, flowers and fences, as well as scenes which speak for themselves. We began the month at our second home in Illinois, after just returning from our stay in New Mexico after Hurricane Irma affected our south Florida home. 

On the first day of October a walk in Hawk's Bluff Park near our daughter's second home in Batavia, Illinois yielded a sighting of an immature Cooper's Hawk. It was in the same tree where it may have been raised by the resident pair which nested there earlier in the year. Indeed, the park was named after the area which it preserved, where ancient oaks were home to Red-tailed Hawks as well as this species:



Lippold Park, also in Batavia but across the Fox River, had a newly constructed pavilion with a boardwalk and an elevated viewing platform:

  

The boardwalk traverses a pond and leads to the river's margin:



Song Sparrows inhabited the areas of low brush:



We hiked and birded at our favorite Batavia location,  Nelson Lake Marsh/Dick Young Forest Preserve. One of its several trails crosses a creek spanned by "Audubon Bridge," amid a mixed habitat of prairie, wetlands and woodlands:



We saw many White-throated Sparrows,...





...Swamp Sparrows,...   





...and several warbler species, including Nashville Warbler...



...Black-throated Green Warbler...



...a female Common Yellowthroat...



...Tennessee Warbler...



...Orange-crowned Warbler...



...and both kinglet species, here the Golden-crowned Kinglet:





Male Golden-crowned Kinglets show a variable touch of scarlet in their crowns...





...but a Ruby-crowned Kinglet refused to display a red crest (or maybe it was a female who lacks one):



Acrobatic Black-capped Chickadees were busily foraging:



One last look at the fall foliage before  we "migrated" to our southern home for the winter:



Back in Florida, Hurricane Irma had inflicted much damage in our local Wounded Wetlands. The wind had uprooted an entire grove of fruiting Trema trees. They are an important source of winter food for wildlife. Almost all of the larger Tremas were stripped of leaves and most were knocked over. It would be almost three years before any survivors or saplings again set fruit:

   

The Yellow-breasted Chat is a burly warbler-like bird which had just been reclassified as a non-warbler and placed in a family all by itself pending resolution of its relationship to other songbirds. This was only my second-ever local sighting, on October 28: 



Here is a nice view of a male Common Yellowthroat to complement the female I had photographed in Illinois:



An Eastern Phoebe in habitat:



An Adult Bald Eagle flew low over the Wounded Wetlands:



Tropical Storm Philippe, the seventh named storm to strike Florida during 2017, moved in on October 28. The skies turned dark and we rushed home ahead of the rain. Wind damage was minimal:



A cold front dissipated the storm and we finished October enjoying cool air and clear skies. North wet prairie on October 31:




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Linking to:

Fences Around the World

Skywatch Friday

Weekend Reflections

Saturday's Critters

BirdD'Pot

Camera Critters

All Seasons

Wordless Wednesday (on Tuesday)

Natasha Musing

Our World Tuesday

Wild Bird Wednesday

My Corner of the World

Timeless Thursday

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Please visit the links to all these posts to see some excellent photos on display
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Little kings crowned and bejeweled

The final week of our "warm season" stay in Illinois drew to a close a bit earlier than in most years. We missed the peak of autumn color. It was forecast to be much more subdued this year because of the late-summer drought.

A few maples, at nearby Lippold Park in Batavia, stood out among the oaks...



...and one accented the pavillion:



Usually our schedule permits us the opportunity, not only to witness the end of fall migration, but to see a variety of other northern "target" land bird species which spend their winters in NE Illinois. 

I hoped to see Fox Sparrows which usually arrive late in October, but which have posed for photos as early as October 7. Slate-colored Juncos and Purple Finches become abundant after mid-October.  Red-breasted Nuthatches are irregular migrants and may suddenly show up as early as August. American Tree Sparrows, Lapland Longspurs and Snow Buntings usually wait until November, although any of these birds might appear a month or more earlier. So far I had not seen any of the aforementioned species.

We had a lovely walk at Bliss Woods preserve in Sugar Grove, but saw few birds. Blackberry Creek provided a nice fence and reflection:



Rain and family committments limited the opportunities for birding as our departure approached. Rather than focus on failure, let's talk about what we did see in early October. Among the warblers were...

Nashville Warbler:



Black-throated Green Warbler:





The arrival of Yellow-rumped Warblers signals that the end of migration is approaching:



As expected, some of the earlier-arriving northern sparrows were present, including the White-throated Sparrow...



...and White-crowned Sparrow. This is an immature:



Speaking of crowns, the highlights of our final week were flocks of two kinglet species. They are very active and tiny and difficult to photograph as they flit among the leaves.  

The female Golden-crowned Kinglet has a yellow cap:



Male Golden-crowned Kinglets have varying amounts of red in the center of the patch:





The red feathers may be retracted and become barely visible, as in this male:



Ruby-crowned Kinglets were present among the Golden-crowns. The males erect a red crest when excited or displaying to females or rivals, but they seem to be more placid during fall migration:



Here is a Ruby-crowned Kinglet displaying this May, at almost the same spot in Nelson Lake preserve:



My first photo of the precious ruby crown was taken at Lippold Park in April, 2010:




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Linking to Misty's  CAMERA CRITTERS,

Linking to Eileen's SATURDAY'S CRITTERS,

Linking to FENCES AROUND THE WORLD by Gosia

Linking to SKYWATCH FRIDAY by Yogi, Sylvia and Sandy

Linking to WEEKEND REFLECTIONS by James

Linking to BirdD'Pot by Anni

Linking to Wild Bird Wednesday by Stewart

Linking to Wordless Wednesday (on Tuesday) by NC Sue

Linking to ALL SEASONS by Jesh

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Please visit the links to all these memes to see some excellent photos on display

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A colorful birding "shoulder season"

Our stay in northeastern Illinois began near the end of warbler migration, so we were mostly in the "shoulder season" of birding, a more quiet time before the northern bird species start to arrive. The pair of Bald Eagles that nested last year near our Illinois home will not lay their eggs until early spring, but they were roosting in their nest tree:



By the time we were ready to return home to Florida at the end of October, the winter sparrows began showing up in fresh plumage.

White-throated Sparrows sported their golden lores;



White-crowned Sparrows are notably larger than their white-throated relatives and breed on the Canadian tundra. This one suddenly appeared on the deck of our daughter's home and posed very cooperatively:

The immature White-crowned Sparrow has a buffy crown but this does not detract from its beauty:

Song Sparrows are seen all year, but the local breeders fly south in the winter and are replaced by migrants from the north:

Larger and more richly colored Fox Sparrows followed:

Ruby-crowned Kinglets move through after most of the warblers have departed, and will linger until cold weather sets in: 

Kinglets are active feeders, "hover-gleaning" for insects in the tips of branches:

Hardy (Slate-colored) Dark-eyed Juncos, commonly called "Snow Birds," will remain all winter:



Canada Geese arrived by the thousands in V-formation flocks, joining the permanent resident population. This video captures the sense of being immersed in the wild echoing calls of flocks of geese as they fly overhead. Many settled into the small pond in Jones Meadow Park, very close to our condo. Try to ignore the passing airliner! (If video does not display in the space below, please visit this link.)

These migrating geese come in two distinctly recognizable sizes. The smaller ones actually represent a separate species, the Cackling Goose, which breeds high in the arctic tundra and spends winter more to the south. The four in the foreground exhibit not only smaller size, but short necks, rounder heads and stubbier bills: Three Canada Geese are joined by a Pied-billed Grebe: The number and variety of birds was down, but in contrast to their muted plumage, the fall colors were superb. This is something that we really miss in Florida, where the Wet Season simply transitions into the Dry Season without fanfare around the middle of October. At Hawk's Bluff Park near our daughter's home in Batavia, Illinois this magnificent Oak provided copper highlights: The Cottonwoods along Mill Creek added gold to the palette: In early October we had already experienced a few snow flurries, so we were a bit apprehensive about our daughter's invitation to join her family for a long mid-October weekend over 200 miles to the north in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin. The city straddles the namesake inlet and bay that connects Lake Michigan with Green Bay. We were pleasantly surprised to find cloudless skies and fair temperatures. From the lawn of our condo on the bay, sunset was serene and colorful despite the clear sky: At a local farm, Sugar Maples were in fine color: Large flocks of migrating ducks followed Sturgeon Bay southward. This flock consisted of over 20 Redheads with a Red-breasted Merganser taking up the lead position. Hundreds of Horned Grebes foraged just offshore. This was the first time I ever was able to photograph this species, though the images suffered because the sun was behind the birds: These two Mallard drakes, though seen at a distance, were in better light: