Three days ago, March 26th, I had only about six hours to go birding. I talked with my friend Andy Sigler to see what would be possible, and we outlined the possibilities. We could go to the Kankakee River (Kankakee County) for White-winged Scoters, go to Dresden Lock and Dam (Grundy County) for White-winged and possibly a Surf Scoter, hit … Read More
Weekend Digiscoping Spotlight 8 – Glaucous Gull
The Weekend Digiscoping Spotlight will highlight some of the fun shots we’ve gotten recently with a camera paired with a spotting scope. We welcome submissions of your favorite digiscoped shots to be featured in future spotlights, just use the contact form in the menu above. –~~=-=~~– This immature Glaucous Gull stuck out like a sore thumb among the Herring Gulls … Read More
Phone Skope Big Year 2014
Towards the end of 2013 I started thinking about how I could do a Big Year. I really enjoy digiscoping, so why not a Phone Skope Big Year? I am trying to digiscope as many species as possible with my iPhone 5 and Phone Skope Adapter using a variety of optics. My goal is to digiscope 200 species for the … Read More
Hunting for a Gyrfalcon
My friends and I always plan a New Years trip to kick off another year with a few days of birding the Atlantic Coast. This year the focus of our trip was clear from the start – there was a Gyrfalcon on Long Island. Reports had been coming in sporadically that the immature Gyrfalcon seen a few times last winter … Read More
Rarity Round-Up: A Four Day Birding Adventure
Click on links throughout this post to see our full eBird checklists and more photos for the locations mentioned! Last week I was sitting around campus with my friends Mark Mizak and Josh Lefever, thinking about the upcoming Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend. We knew we would have four days free and we knew we wanted to go birding. … Read More
Glaucous Gull – Huguenot Memorial City Park, Florida
Anna and I are slowly making our way towards Gainesville, Florida where Anna is starting a job soon. Today we stopped at Huguenot Memorial City Park which is east of Jacksonville. Huguenot Memorial City Park is a famous birding spot on the northeastern coast of Florida. Anna and I had been here once before and loved it, so we knew … Read More
Franklin’s Gull – Blue Marsh Lake, PA
Yesterday afternoon, Josh Lefever and I visited Blue Marsh Lake to search through the massive gull roost for a Franklin’s Gull that had been seen there every evening since the 15th. As we pulled in to the park, we could see many gulls flying down into the area to join the roost. There were already easily a few thousand gulls … Read More
Presque Isle trip
Late update…I’ve been a bit busy recently with classes and helping teach ornithology. Anyways, I took my first trip ever up to Presque Isle State Park with Nate and Tim to look for waterfowl and the large number of redpolls that have been reported up there. We were pretty excited about birding in the 10 degree Fahrenheit weather but at … Read More