Sharing Birding Contest Third Place Winner
My ten-year-old brother and I had an agreement. He would finish his math before a certain time five school days in a row; then we would do something fun together. He had kept his end of the bargain. Now I had to keep mine. But what did we want to do?
“Matthan,” I asked one April day, “what if for our fun thing to do, we would go birding together one morning? Nature Friend is having a contest we could try for. Would that be fun enough?”
He thought for a moment and then agreed.
“Just you and I,” I questioned further, “or do you want more people along? Some of the rest would be delighted to go too.”
This time he didn’t hesitate. “Just you and I.”
It was a beautiful morning when we gathered paper, pen, and binoculars to see what was out there. “We haven’t left the house yet, and I already have four species,” I informed Matthan. “There’s an oriole at the jelly feeder, a Mourning Dove strolling around on the ground, and a cardinal and a pair of Rose-breasted Grosbeaks at the sunflower seeds. That’s a pretty good start.”
Purple Martins swooped and glided above the garden. A House Sparrow flew guiltily out of the barn. Goldfinches and bluebirds flitted across the pasture. We walked out the lane and down our country road toward the “Road Closed” sign where the blacktop gives way to gravel and eventually sand and water puddles. Along the way we added eleven more species: American Robin, Brown-headed Cowbird, Barn Swallow, Carolina Chickadee, European Starling, Song Sparrow, Eastern Meadowlark, Indigo Bunting, Canada Goose, American Crow, and Eastern Wood-Pewee.
The first warbler for the day was the Yellow-rumped. Soon we heard the “witchety-witchety-witch” of the Common Yellowthroat but had no success sighting the flighty songster. The Yellow-breasted Chat sang for us as well. I got a glimpse of it in courtship flight, but the rising sun blinded me, and I wasn’t able to relocate it.
A hawk flew out of a tree ahead of us. Matthan called, “Redtail,” but I wasn’t so sure. One bird book says in Illinois all hawks should be labeled Redtails until proven otherwise, but that doesn’t hold true on our farm. A minute later, we heard the hawk scream from a new perch. It was a Red-shouldered Hawk, our most common one.
We wandered off the road and stood at the edge of the steep banks of the Little Hickory Creek. The morning stillness was riddled with bird song, including kingfishers, titmice, woodpeckers, and thrushes. Miles west on Route 51, a semi’s Jake brakes reverberated. Matthan looked at me and grinned, “Peterbilt.”
“There’s the first Turkey Buzzard!” I exclaimed. We had spotted twenty-six other species before seeing this familiar, but ugly, raptor.
The two of us stood quietly watching the water flow by. I raised my binoculars to study a bluebird that was entering a cavity of a dead tree. At the base of the tree, a log jam from previous flooding partially blocked the creek. Something moved in that jumble of driftwood.
“Look!” I whispered. “What is it?”
A dark, reddish tail had disappeared among the debris, but soon the animal popped out again and picked its way across the jam. A mink! It nosed about a bit, oblivious to spying eyes, then swam across the stream and vanished in the undergrowth on the other shore. Matthan and I looked at each other in awe.
“Was it really a mink,” he wondered, “or was it an otter?”
“It was definitely not an otter. I saw a family of those once, and they’re much larger. This must have been a mink. That’s a lifer for me.”
Matthan checked his watch. We would have to start home. This we did, but slowly, adding to our list a Carolina Wren, a Barred Owl, an American Redstart, and a Northern Mockingbird.
To save steps, we cut across a hayfield. A few yards from me, Matthan suddenly froze. “Oh, here’s a snake.”
I paused. “A big one?”
“Yes, sort of.” He remained there, staring down into the grass.
“Am I supposed to come look at it?”
“Well, yeah.”
Cautiously I inched his way until I could see a foot of black. Neither the head nor the tail was in sight. “Is it dead?”
“I’m not sure.” Matthan carefully kicked in the snake’s direction. It wasn’t dead. I dashed for the road.
After supper, we headed out again, this time through the back pasture to a different section of the Little Hickory. Matthan scrambled over a fallen tree that blocked the field lane while I picked my way through the weeds, trying not to think about our discovery in the hayfield.
Water was running over our low-water crossing. Matthan waded through the cold water, but I chose to remain behind to watch and listen. Matthan spied a Blue-gray Gnatcatcher to add to our list. Then he walked farther up the sloping bank to look around. He dashed back down, motioning me to be quiet. What could he have seen? A coyote? A fox?
“Ducks!” he hissed above the noise of the current. “Bring me the binoculars.”
Gingerly avoiding the slippery spots, I waded across to him, carrying both pairs of binoculars. We snuck up the bank until we could see around the bend.
Wood Ducks! We got a good look at these beautiful, but shy, waterfowl before the pair took off in their frantic way and disappeared upstream.
An Eastern Towhee was number thirty-nine for the day. At a stand of dead trees, we added the Northern Flicker, Red-bellied, and Red-headed Woodpeckers.
Our exploring was interrupted for a little when some of our family discovered us. They had come to the back field to remove row cover from an early planting. For a bit, we laid aside our binoculars to help, but as soon as we were free to go, we continued our search.
By now the sun had set and dusk was falling. At the pond, we heard the bullfrogs start their evening chorus. Their deep voices mingled with the shrill spring peepers.
The very last bird of the day was a White-crowned Sparrow flitting through some honeysuckle. We didn’t break any records, but that had not been our goal. We had seen lots of birds, and we were very pleased to get a lifer, even if it didn’t have feathers.