Marching onward

March is mostly a dreary weather month around here. It's not quite warm enough to be conducive to springtime outdoor activities, and it's not cold enough to be conducive to winter sports. But there are some subtle signs of spring that give us hope. I recorded my first red-winged blackbird of the year on Feb. 24. Red-wings don't completely leave this region in winter, but they do leave my haunts at Montrose Point. They also were plentiful on my ride to and from Springfield.

On March 3, I heard a killdeer flying around at the workplace on the Southwest Side; that same week a house finch was singing in our alley for the first time in months. Then this weekend produced a couple of spring-like scenes--turkey vultures soaring over the road to Lockport, and common goldeneyes displaying at Montrose Harbor. There also seems to be a great movement of raptors afoot--I've seen three peregrine falcons in the past two weeks.

Lake walk

I started today by walking directly to Lake Michigan, near where Lawrence Avenue meets the northern extremity of Montrose Beach. I think it’s safe to say the weather was raw—cold and damp with some fog. The shoreline in this area is a concrete revetment with an iron breakwall. It’s nondescript but offers a sort of emptiness that’s pleasing on a winter day. There were big ice formations along the beach but the water was mostly ice-free. There were actually a fair number of people around—walking their dogs, jogging and biking.

I saw a handful of female common goldeneyes along the breakwall. A group of about a dozen flew over from the west and then north and out of sight. There’s a point where the shoreline bends west, on the latitude of Foster Avenue. There’s a small concrete pier there with a light tower. There I found more common goldeneyes—male and female—and a few lesser scaup. At least I think they were lesser scaup, but it’s always hard to identify them from greater scaup. There were at least two mature males, immature two males and two females. They were plunging under the water and surfacing with morsels of something (mollusks?).

I’ve seen goldeneyes do a few display maneuvers this winter, and indeed one male was doing something like a torpedo race along the surface of the water. It would stick its neck out, chin to the water, and paddle forward before plunging. Usually I see them throw their heads back, bill pointed to the sky. I continued the walk west and circled back south along Marine Drive.

Super day

Highlights from the past two mornings of birding included lots of goldeneyes, mergansers, buffleheads and redheads.

Check out the patternless area for a live blog of Super Bowl XLIV, beginning at about 5 p.m. Central time.

Ice birding

I'm not proud to admit this, but I don't know anything about gulls. Last weekend, a 12-year-old took a glance at a gull and pronounced it a glaucous gull, a visitor from the Arctic. I can hardly tell a herring gull from a ring-billed gull.

I've done relatively little winter birding, having focused mostly on spring migration and its showy warblers. But perhaps winter is the best time to go birding, especially here in Chicago. The lakefront feels wilder, with its bizarre icy formations and frigid winds. It's absolutely quiet along the lake now, nothing but ice cracking and the wind's howl. In other seasons, there is plenty of human activity to remind you that you're in a big city.

So this morning I began an exercise in improving my winter birding skills. Montrose Point was mostly icebound, but there were a few pockets of water harboring diving ducks and gulls. I saw a huge flock of gulls (mostly ring-billed with a few herring), common mergansers, one male red-breasted merganser, common goldeneyes and buffleheads. The above photo shows buffleheads, the male red-breasted merganser and common goldeneyes, near the fishhook pier at Montrose.

The positive side of winter birding is that there are fewer geographical possibilities so the list of birds is substantially narrowed. And the Great Lakes are filled with wintering gulls and ducks, so it's a great opportunity to live near Lake Michigan. The winter tallies aren't gaudy--just 11 species today--but satisfying nonetheless.