Our team once again comprised of myself, my older brother, and my wife. We once again started the day at Ferne Clyffe State Park. I don’t think it rained this year. My brother and I spoke of how we had heard Whip-poor-wills in our childhood and how we didn’t claim this as part of a life list because we weren’t birders yet. Also, we could not name a specific time and date that we heard them back home on the ranch. I had a feeling that this was the year we would get both Chuck Will’s Widow and Whip-poor-will. We drove through Ferne Clyffe while it was still dark with the windows down and listened. We parked the car and walked the road as we had in years past. I believe this year was different and we walked a little further on the road rather than ducking down a trail. We heard the Whip-poor-will first. My brother and I visually celebrated the sound of its song repeating over and over. My wife laughing at how juiced we got over this bird. We could hear two now. We walked a little further down and could hear another one far in the distance. Also, we could hear this booming sound, like a truck or some large machinery. We moved towards the sound and it got quieter. When we got close enough we could tell that it was an echo of a Chuck Will’s Widow song off of one of the cliffs. We had both nightjars on a Blitz for the first time. Walking along the road we also got both Barred Owl and Great Horned Owl for the first time. I believe we were the only team that had Great Horned Owl that year.
We did not take any trails because I wanted to speed walk through Ferne Clyffe so that we could be at another spot for the dawn song. I didn’t want to miss those warblers. We got a few good ones while we walked the road back to the car including Prairie Warbler and Canada Warbler. We did not go back to Fort Massac this year, most likely because we did not know how good it could have been. We did not get a great number of birds the previous year. This year we went to Mermet Lake next trying to repeat the success from the previous year. We counted a good number of species on the way. Black Vulture was checked off the list early.
At Mermet Lake we managed to get a lot of birds that we don’t normally have. We had three species of ducks: Northern Shoveler, Lesser Scaup, and Blue-winged Teal. We still did not have a scope at this point. We had to walk around the lake until we had a close enough view to identify the ducks with only binoculars. Common Gallinule was a life bird. We also added Horned Grebe to our birding blitz life list. We had 4 shorebirds with Spotted Sandpiper, Long-billed Dowitcher, Lesser Yellowlegs, and Solitary Sandpiper. A couple of Osprey circled the lake often landing on a couple of snags. My brother had a new camera and we actually started getting some decent photos of some birds. We did not have the same success with warblers that we had in the past. We only had Prothonotary, Yellow-rumped, Common Yellowthroat, Northern Parula, and Palm, all species we never struggle to get. A blue bird landed in front of the car as we made the last leg of the lake. My wife asked what it was and I immediately without looking through my binoculars said it was an Indigo Bunting. It wasn’t until my brother reviewed his photos later that we realized it was a Blue Grosbeak, the only one we had for the day.
For some reason we decided to try Heron Pond again. It may have been our most successful birding there ever. We added Louisiana Waterthrush, Summer Tanager, Gray-cheeked Thrush, and Yellow-throated Warbler among others.
The rest of the afternoon was very dull as far as birding goes. We stopped to get some lunch at a restaurant that took a while and was very expensive. There were lots of humming birds and swallows outside to watch. My wife and brother wanted to rest for awhile, possibly take a nap. I never stop. We finished eating on the road while we looked around some fields for less common sparrow species. We found none. We went down to Horseshoe Lake in Alexander County for the first time not knowing what to expect. It wasn’t very exciting. My wife actually fell asleep in the car. We may have added a couple of species but it was a little difficult to bird through the thick trees and a lot of the birds on the lake were too far to see without a scope. Honestly, it may have been the dullest blitz we had ever been on. I could feel the lack of enthusiasm from my team as it became harder and harder to add any new birds. For some reason we were extra tired even though we were having the best weather conditions we may have ever had. I started to get a headache and feel sick to my stomach. I would later decide I was dehydrated. Driving through Wolf Lake we got our Mallard. This would became an important target bird for us every year.
Getting on into the early evening, we went through Oakwood Bottoms. I don’t remember it being very eventful but we were actually fairly successful. We saw someone in a car stopped on the road looking at something. Looking in the ditch, we tried to see what he saw. My brother yelled, “ Bittern!” and we all finally saw the bird with neck outstretched. My brother snapped a few photos and exclaimed,”life bird”. Other highlights were Rusty Blackbirds and some nesting Hairy Woodpeckers. The baby birds made such a strange noise.
We drove back down through a small group of houses to try and get some backyard birds. We could easily miss some of them only visiting hotspots with a more natural habitat. We added House FInch and Purple Martin which were two of our targets. We saw a Barred Owl on the side of the highway which we went back and took photos of. Not a new bird for the day but always cool to see.
As I get more and more sick to my stomach because of my throbbing head, my wife thought I should throw it in, but I still wanted to check out the causeway at Crab Orchard on the way home. We had what we thought was 30 min to bird once we got there, Dawn to Dusk rules. I would later review the rules and realize we could have birded until 8:45. I don’t think we would have made it anyway. We needed a Dickcissel which we missed on the way out there but did get Eastern Meadowlark. Five minutes before eight we could hear Northern Bobwhites singing down the hill in the field. A perfect ending to an epic day where even I had no energy left to bird with.