Sometime in between blitz 2016 and 2017 I got my older brother and sister-in-law into birds. For the Southernmost Illinois birding Blitz in 2017 I brought my wife and my older brother with me. My sister-in-law couldn’t make it because she was in grad school. Once again we spent Friday night at my parents’ house in Mt. Vernon. Once again we were going to be doing a dawn to dusk Blitz. Once again rain was predicted in the forecast for the day. I had a plan to do a similar route to what we did in previous years but that was soon thrown out the window. My brother and I had our radar apps on our phones and were predicting the storm movements at 3 am. We saw that we could start the day at the most Southern tip of Illinois and miss a lot of the morning rain. We headed for Mermet Lake in Massac county breaking the mold for the previous two years of starting at Ferne Clyffe. We drove through pouring rain all the way there and as we predicted experienced a break in the rain once we were far enough south.
We arrived a little after the dawn was breaking and I drove to the front of the lake where there was a field nearby. I started naming off species that I could hear singing while my wife tried to write them down in my journal. I had a bird journal for the Ornithology class I was taking at SIUE and it was an assignment to record a few bird outings in it. I probably went a little overboard by recording a big day. We had already heard a Northern Cardinal and American Robin on the way there. Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, American Crow, Red-winged Blackbird, Brown-headed Cowbird, Carolina Chickadee, Fish Crow were recorded immediately. My brother was a little impressed with how fast I could name them off with all the different sounds. Within a year, he would be able to do the exact same thing. Even my wife learned quite a few bird calls in a single day.
Looking out on the water we had our first duck, Blue-winged Teal. Ducks are hard to get in southern Illinois this late in the spring. Also added American Coot and a couple of Osprey. A group of American White Pelicans flew over.
A small shower of rain would come through about once each hour and we would stand under a small roof somewhere and watch out over the water when it came. There must have been some fallout of migratory birds from the storm because there was a large number of certain species throughout the area. We counted at least 25 Gray Catbirds at Mermet Lake, 30 Yellow-rumped Warblers, and a dozen Palm Warblers, although I’m sure there were more. We would find a lot more throughout the day. There was a good number of Prothonotary Warblers along the forest edge. My wife and brother saw a Rose-breasted Grosbeak while I was looking around for something. I wouldn’t find that bird for the rest of the day. They also heard a Wild Turkey but we would find more later. A woodpecker laughed behind the trees as we made our way around. We weren’t sure if it was a Pileated or Northern Flicker at first but it flew over to confirm it was a Pileated. Several terns were flying above the lake. We were able to identify Caspian immediately and then were able to pick out Foerster’s after some watching but couldn’t confirm any other species.
We had limited optics still on this Blitz. None of us had a spotting scope and we only had two pairs of binoculars between the three of us. The only shorebird we had at the lake was a bunch of Spotted Sandpipers. We finally had a Killdeer on our way out. We added a Wood Duck and still had little luck with waterfowl this Blitz. We stayed at Mermet Lake for over 5 hours as we kept adding species as we went around. A Golden-winged Warbler showed up halfway around. I knew from previous Blitz’s where we could get a Yellow-breasted Chat and after waiting for a few minutes we finally heard one. We were able to distinguish Barn Swallow, Northern Rough-winged, Tree Swallow from the hundreds flying around. We left the lake with 71 species, which already beat our previous year total.
Our next stop was Fort Massac State Park which was a first for us. We did not know how to bird the place and just started walking around the little lake in the middle and checking the trees for songbirds. We were able to hear some Fish Crows right away and a flock of Black Vultures was hanging out in some trees near the river. I was glad to get that species crossed off the list because it was one that I couldn’t find back home at least not yet. We were finding a lot of repeats from Mermet Lake. There were still plenty of catbirds, Indigo Buntings, and Common Yellowthroats. We were able to get both species of tanager, another chat, and a couple of vireos. There were a good variety of backyard birds as well. We walked around to a field that goes back behind some trees where we were able to get some interesting birds for the day including Blue Grosbeak, Ovenbird, and the best one, Blackpoll Warbler. There were a good number of Eastern Bluebirds in this area as well. We did not hike the bike trail because that year we had not discovered that it was such a good spot to get some birds. We had found 38 species at Fort Massac after being there a little over an hour.
The next step was figuring out where we could get to next without getting drenched and still add a few species. We noticed that we had yet to add a Downy Woodpecker to the list. We decided to give Heron Pond a try even though we had added few species in previous years. When we arrived there were two birders that were just leaving. This was the first time we had ever encountered other birders who were on the blitz while we were. One asked if we knew about the Anhinga. Yeah. Did we know he meant the one that had been spotted at Heron Pond? No. We were looking for a Downy Woodpecker. They warned us that the water was fairly deep across the path in the lower parts of the preserve. My brother and I put on the mudboots we had brought along. I think we found more snakes than birds. Viewing the photos later, I realized I had stepped over a Cottonmouth on the path. We were also able to photograph a large beaver that was only a few feet away. It did not move the whole time we were there. We watched over the water for a while to see if an Anhinga would show up. I read reports later that were more about hearing an Anhinga sound than seeing one. Needless to say we never found this bird. We also did not find a Downy Woodpecker. We did however enjoy some pitfall style base jumping from rock to rock to avoid soaking our legs in the deep water running across certain points on the path. I wish I had a video. During the hour and a half we were there we found 19 species of birds. We mostly saw Gray Catbirds in every bush and tree. Once again we did not add many new species visiting Heron Pond although it was fun and very beautiful as always.
We spent the rest of the afternoon driving through Jackson county trying to find new shorebirds in flooded fields. We were hoping to add a Black-necked Stilt. We never did find one and only found a couple of Lesser Yellowlegs. Little by little we added a few species. We had to turn around a few times and try to access areas from another side because there was so much water on the roads. We saw some Purple Martins on some gourd nests on the way. I remember seeing birds on the side of the road. Almost every bird we checked was a Palm Warbler. We finally managed to find a Savannah Sparrow right before we saw another car of Blitz birders. Further down the road we found a single Mallard in a fluddle. Only on a late Spring big day would we be so excited to see a Mallard.
At 6:15 PM we only had a couple hours of birding left before dusk. A big storm was coming as well. We wanted to end the day at Ferne Clyffe to add some nocturnal species. That would mean we would have to head south before heading north to get home. We stopped at Oakwood Bottoms to check the trails for a Downy Woodpecker. I managed to find a late Hermit Thrush among the many Swainson’s we had seen all day but only Red-bellied Woodpeckers. We spent about fifteen minutes there before hitting the road again. We drove through Lake Murphysboro State Park as the wind picked up and rain began to fall. We saw some herons and egrets along with a few Black Vultures and a Turkey Vulture. We decided it was raining too hard to go back down to Ferne Clyffe and my accompaniment was pretty tired so we headed back towards Mt Vernon at 6:40. We had yet to actually bird all the way to dusk on a dawn to dusk big day. I believe we ended the day with 97 species. We did not reach our personal goal of 100 but we were definitely turning into real birders and not some just some weird family that mysteriously entered the competition and drove around aimlessly trying to come up with a small list of species.
The next morning marked the first that we actually attended the meeting afterwards and were able to get our award in person. We were usually the only team to compete in our category so as of yet we had never been part of an actual birding competition. It was a good time meeting the other birders and telling each other bird stories. Had we gone to Ferne Clyffe we may have actually got Eastern Whippoorwill because the team we met at Heron Pond braved the heavy storm and did just that.