Attack weather

Since I last posted, I paid a visit to the "best location in the nation," the city named by Forbes as having the worst winter weather in the country. As if to confirm Forbes' list, it snowed each of the days we were in Cleveland.

The other reason for this post is an incredible set of photos from right here in the Prairie State. In a "Wild America" sort of montage, a golden eagle attacked a white-tailed deer at Nachusa Grasslands, about 90 miles west of here. Amazing!

Tectonic tonic

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The alarm had just gone off, and I was lying awake at 3:59 a.m. when I felt a rumbling that rattled our whole building. It felt unusual so I had the thought that it might be an earthquake. Then I remembered that we were to have a lot of snow overnight and so I figured it was a snowplow going down the street. I was hoping it was an earthquake because I slept right through our last quake in 2008.

Sure enough, I heard on the radio that it was an earthquake, and it was centered near Gilberts, Ill., west of Chicago. It registered only 3.9 on the Richter scale. Most of the seismic activity around here is located about 300 miles south of Chicago, so it was unusual to have an epicenter in Chicagoland. A quick, unscientific check of fault maps doesn't seem to show even a little one near Gilberts (between the Wisconsin Arch and the "Des Plaines" item on the fault map).

The Haiti earthquake had just reminded me of the New Madrid (pronounced MA-drid) seismic zone along the Mississippi River. We have earthquake insurance on our building, for example, and it's because of New Madrid that we do--and justifiably so. A massive temblor struck the area in 1812 and rang church bells as far away as Boston and changed the course of the Mississippi River. The fault, the Reelfoot Rift, was formed on Rodinia, a supercontinent that encompassed the Earth's entire landmass 750 million years ago (note for future fantasy basketball team names: Rodinia Globetrotters).

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.

Woodchuck holiday

It was an eventful Groundhog Day. The excitement started a few days ago when the Tribune printed a story that drew attention to Groundhog Day opposition--the holiday cruelly interrupts groundhog hibernation. Then this morning came and Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow and predicted six more weeks of winter (the guy in the video looks a lot like the guy from the movie "Groundhog Day," played by Bill Murray's brother). In the Poconos, a Phil impostor--and there are a lot of phony G-hog Day celebrations--was to be yanked from its burrow only to be discovered in permanent hibernation.

The New York Times posted an appreciation of the movie "Groundhog Day," which was fun. I forgot how perfect it was that Phil Connors was a local weatherman who hated the holiday--the biggest weather holiday of the year. Phil? Kind of like the groundhog.

Lastly, a tribute to Primus' "Groundhog Day."

Poured me out a bowl-a corn chex.
Closest thing I could find to apple pie.
Lingerin’ taste of toothpaste
Made the milk go down a bit funny.
But you know, them chex they do satisfy.

Park place

The Chicago Tribune has been good to state parks in the Camp Chicago area in recent days. First, a story about a hike at Kankakee River State Park. We recorded a "sciurid sampler," all three local squirrel species in one day, at the park about one year ago. Today the Tribune featured Maquoketa Caves State Park in Iowa, a place where we camped several years ago.

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.

Calumet flyway

Birders frequent some strange places. Dumps, wastewater discharges, landfills and water treatment plants are just a few of the places where we like to look for birds. (In fact, an article about birders at New York's Freshkills Landfill appeared in today's New York Times.) That's why I found myself in a litter-strewn industrial area along the Calumet River yesterday (above), observing gulls and mergansers. There's something about being in such obscure places that is strangely appealing. Our vantage point was where Stony Island Blvd., a single lane stretch of asphalt at that point, dead-ends into the river.

A Chicago Ornithological Society field trip took us to several points along Chicago's lakefront. It was a cold, rainy, windy day yet there was much avian activity. It wasn't a prolific day for species--I saw 31--but there were hundreds and probably thousands of ducks and gulls in the southern end of Lake Michigan. Highlights included a glaucous gull, four great black-backed gulls and two types of scoter. At Hammond Marina, we saw a pair of peregrine falcons fly right past Horseshoe Casino. Along the Calumet, we missed the uncommon birds by one day--an iceland gull and a northern shrike were seen near there the day before. Still, great fun on a damp winter day.