High on Uppies

By Dan Lory

Sunday I talked my wife into joining me at Park 566, with the promise of a lifer Sedge Wren. We find the wren, oodles of Dickcissels, one Grasshopper Sparrow, and then about 200 yards ahead on the path a Spotted Sandpiper. Wait, that’s too big for a Spotted. Maybe a yellowlegs. The haze is terrible, but I snap a few photos. The bird disappears into the tall grass.

As we approach the area where the shorebird disappeared it flushes. It flies toward the lake. I snap more photos. Then it turns away from the lake and heads over the park, landing in the grasses far to our north. It’s acting more like a snipe than a yellowlegs, I think. Could it be an… “Harumi, hold on. I’ve got to review these photos! My glasses. Where are my @#$$@&# glasses!”

My glasses are at home on the kitchen table. Reviewing photos on the back of a camera with your spouse as your eyes is not good for a marriage. We make out enough detail to leave me 97.5% sure we had an Upland Sandpiper. “That beats Sedge Wren, Harumi!”

A good way to confirm and enjoy a rare sighting is to share it. I hand Harumi my phone, dictate a memo for the Rare Bird Alert message board, and we head for home, where my glasses help me confirm it was an Upland Sandpiper. I get the word out, and for at least three days after our initial sighting, many others enjoyed seeing this rare visitor to Chicago.

What makes this sighting even more thrilling is that it occurred exactly three years and one day from the only other time I saw an Upland Sandpiper at Park 566. Nature is just too cool.