White Pines Christmas Bird Count
Every year come Christmas Bird Count season I do several counts, one of them is the White Pines CBC centering around Oregon IL. My area is on the SW edge near Dixon. Mostly farm land, with the Rock River dividing my territory in half (I actually have to leave the circle to get from one side of the river to the other), and a couple of Dixon City parks that have good habitat.
I wasn't expecting a good count this year: waterfowl haven't shown up in any good variety, and lack of snow on the ground means that finding birds in farm land would be difficult. But wow, in spite both of those things being true, I had a great day.
I don't usually do any pre-dawn owling for this circle because I have to drive 50 minutes to even get on site, so I typically do my owling after dark. But this year I was on site by 0600 and the air was so still it would have been a sin to not try for owls and I scored Eastern Screech-Owl, Barred Owl, and Great Horned Owl, easily the best haul I've had here. Later in the day I added two Christmas Bird Count life birds with a very photogenic Red-shouldered Hawk and a not so photogenic Northern Shrike. A dense thicket with a mountain bike trail was packed with sparrows, waxwings, Chickadees, and this titmouse eating a caterpillar.
In the end, I got 42 species, got decent coverage on the area, and even got to get home earlier, since I didn't have to stay out to look for owls. I don't usually write journal posts but I really had a good day.
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