Birding Midewin Tallgrass Prairie

I took a short three day trip with my family to Michigan and Illinois and made an effort to visit a natural area called Midewin Tallgrass Prairie --- which is about 30-40 minutes south of Chicago.

Midewin has an interesting story - it was historically a large tall grass prairie, which was turned into farmland, then the military used the land for making and testing bombs. And most recently, it was turned back into a national tall grass prairie. The name Midewin is derived from a native word meaning "healing" or "recovering". Yes, the ecosystem could be recovering, but also the people that get to visit this wonderful habitat could be recovering and healing as well.  Read more at: https://www.fs.usda.gov/midewin

PLANTS

My visit was essentially limited to a 1 hour walk at the iron bridge trailhead pathway. Lots of great plants were seen - Rattlesnake Master, Royal Catchfly, Prairie Blazingstar as well as countless yellow flowering plants such as cup plant, compass plant, and countless varieties of dark eyed susan type plants.

BUTTERFLIES

I was hoping for better butterfly diversity - and better luck with perching butterrlies: some seen were:

Buckeye

Northern Cresent

Silver Spotted Skipper

Red Spotted Purple

Cabbage Whites

Clouded Sulphur (or Southern Dogface?)

Birds

Dickcissel

Indigo Bunting

American Goldfinch

Barn / Rough Winged Swallow

Blue Grosbeak

Song Sparrow

Field Sparrow

Henslows Sparrow

Buteo Hawk

Chimney Swift

Overall - it was a brief visit to this park - but very nice. I was surprised to see Blue Grosbeaks. I was not expecting to see them there. I was also happy to find Henslows Sparrows- which I have only seen a handful of times at Point Pelee. I dipped on a few area specialties such as Eastern Meadowlark, Upland Sandpiper, Loggerhead Shrike and Bells Vireo. 

Good Birding,

Dwayne

Blue Grosbeak at Ojibway!

This afternoon I birded Hillman Marsh and had the intention of birding a few paths at Point Pelee to try my luck with some mid April migrants. Hillman was really good... I had seen tons of duck species, Dunlin, Yellowlegs, Horned Grebe (directly under the Hillman Bridge), as well as some seasonal passerines including Blue-grey Gnatcatcher. Upon entering the front gate at Point Pelee, I figured I would check my email on my phone, so see if any good (local) Ont-bird postings were reported for this afteroon. Of course, the Blue Grosbeak posting came up, but I was still wanting to walk the Woodland Nature Trail at Pelee. The trail was good, my best bird was a Blue headed Vireo (see below). But, I couldn't help but want to rush out of Pelee to see the Blue Grosbeak at Ojibway Park.

Upon arival to Ojibway, lots of familiar birders were around. Jeremy Bensette pointed out the bird to me and I was able to get great looks at it, both from outside and inside the visitor center. (the second photo above is from inside the visitor center). Tom Preney found the Grosbeak this morning, and I can't even imagine how exciting that would have been to see this bird. That deep blue colour along with its chestnut coloured wingbars was awesome to see.... an exciting lifer!

Wow... Love this bird!

Full-frame shot of a Horned Grebe, just meters from the Hillman Marsh Bridge.

 

 Ojibway park has been great this week, ... First of Season Eastern Towhees easily seen along with many other great birds such as Eastern Bluebirds, Fox Sparrows, both Kinglets and this Yellow bellied Sapsucker. A belted Kingfisher was on site at Malden, and Jeremey had even seen a Green Heron there as well.

E-birding fans will be happy to know that I'm reporting more. It feels good to contibute to e-bird rather than just be a viewer of its statistical data. Got to cut it short here!

Good birding!
Dwaynejava

Blue Grosbeak (#329)