Chickadee Started it All

It's common that many birders start their life of bird study as the result of a single bird sighting.  For me that species was a chickadee. 

It was during the first few years after I had left the United States Army.  Jeff, a friend, and I spent time in wild places, mostly patches of woods near our home in Freeport, Illinois.  We ventured to the woods about once a week for over a year, and it was during those excursions that my curiosity of the natural world was awakened. 

Jeff had a canoe, and one day we launched it in the Pecatonica River from Freeport's Krape Park, and paddled upstream until we found a spot we had not previously explored.  Jeff tied the canoe to a tree while I scampered up a hill.  At the top was a stand of White Pines, and I came face to face with a bird at eye level on a lower branch.  It had a mysterious, striking black and white face.  It looked at me, seemingly unconcerned for a few seconds, then flitted away. 

My mom's bird feeder attracted numerous birds, but while growing up I wasn't interested enough to learn the species that appeared at our kitchen window.  But I know chickadees were one of them because my mom mentioned them occasionally. The encounter on the top of that hill among the White Pines was the closest I had come to one.  I suddenly felt the compulsion to know more. 

A few days later I bought my first bird book.  After glancing through the pages for a while I concluded that the bird I encountered was a Black-capped Chickadee.  Now I live in southern Illinois, below the dividing line between Black-capped and Carolina Chickadees.  All of ours are the latter species, one of which is pictured below.

I now have almost 450 species of birds on my life list, but fondly remember the encounter on the top of that hill, the one that launched me on a life of birding, fulfilling adventures in nature, and numerous lessons from the natural world.

Carolina Chickadee

Whoopers

In February of this year, 2016, I saw a news article about Whooping Cranes, and on a whim, checked a birding web site--eBird.org--to see where the closest cranes might be.  I was surprised to see a cluster of markers indicating sightings of four immature Whooping Cranes at Kaskaskia Island, near Chester, Illinois.  They dated from mid-January to the present.  So I planned a road trip.

Historical Perspective:  The town of Kaskaskia, at one time located on a peninsula with the Mississippi River curving round its western side, was the capital of the Illinois Territory from 1809 until statehood in 1818 at which time it became the state capital.  In 1819 the capital was moved to Vandalia because of the threat of periodic flooding. 

Going further into history, Kaskaskia began as an American Indian village on the banks of the Mississippi, and was later occupied by French colonialists.  British forces during the French and Indian War captured Kaskaskia in 1763.  The town remained under British rule until the American Revolution during which a band of 200 men under the command of George Rogers Clark traveled by boat from Louisville, Kentucky to what would become the eastern border of Illinois, then marched overland to Kaskaskia.  They arrived in the middle of the night, and captured the town on 4 July 1778 without firing a shot.

The population of Kaskaskia peaked at 7000 inhabitants during the period it served as the state capital, but has fallen steadily ever since.  The 2010 census counted only 12 residents, and fewer may reside there today making it the second smallest incorporated town in Illinois. 

In the late 1800s the Mississippi River changed its course, resulting in the peninsula becoming an island ringed by a bayou and suddenly located on the west side of the river.   The approximate dimensions of the island are 4 x 5 miles.

25 February 2016:  A friend, Ken Pierson, and I drove through southern Illinois to Kaskaskia Island to see if we could find the four Whooping Cranes reported there.  I had a GPS waypoint marking the location of a sighing two days before, and we drove directly to that spot.

A quick scan over the low-lying farm fields revealed no birds, but then Ken spotted four large white birds with black wingtips taking off from a point farther to our northeast.  We both brought binoculars to our eyes, and Bingo!  Four Whooping Cranes!

We followed them and watched as they fed in a farm field near a body of water, then followed again as they flew to another area to feed.  We watched them for about an hour-and-a-half.

In 1941 only 15 Whooping Cranes existed, but through the diligent work of biologists they slowly recovered sufficiently for some of them to be released back into the wild.  According to the US Fish & Wildlife Service, the current population is 603 with 161 of them captive birds--for species preservation.  About two decades ago a winter population of the cranes was established in Florida in the event that a storm wiped out the residual Texas population.  Today 95 of  the endangered birds  winter in Florida and spend the breeding season in Wisconsin. 

I presume that the four birds we saw are from the Florida population.  For whatever reason they have spent the past six weeks or so at Kaskaskia.  It is excellent habitat for them albeit possibly a bit cold in January and February.  It will be interesting to see if they return to the island next year.  Perhaps it will become a regular stop on their way to or from Wisconsin or Canada.