words by David Rupp

October 5, 2023

When we woke up the morning of Thursday, October 5, little did we know that we were going to witness a once-in-a-lifetime bird migration event as hundreds of thousands of birds pushed through the greater Chicago area. In fact, I sent out an email to registrants saying that I was still going to lead the bird walk at Park No. 566, but I understood if people decided not to venture out in the rain. I deeply regret that I did not encourage people more strongly to bundle up and join the walk, because BirdCast perfectly predicted this migration spectacle.

The five of us that did show up on the South Side at Park No. 566 could have birded the entire morning from the roadside where we parked our cars. Wave after wave of birds, mostly warblers, passed through the locust and oak trees between the road and lakefront. We had to pick through all the Yellow-rumped and Palm Warblers to find the other species, but they were there…14 warbler species in all for the morning. However, because of the overcast conditions and light rain off and on, many of the birds that normally would’ve been identifiable were just silhouettes streaming southward from tree to tree.

Savannah Sparrow. Photo by Nick Paarlberg.

Because the outing was billed as a sparrow venture, we eventually moved out into the grasslands. The Palm Warblers continued to surround us, but so too did a nice variety of sparrows. We were super-excited to get decent looks at several Nelson’s Sparrows and a quick look at a LeConte’s Sparrow among the nine species of sparrows we found. Occasionally our attention would be pulled up to the sky, as we heard and then saw Cedar Waxwings passing over in flocks of 50-100 birds. Another treat was the opportunity to view Bobolinks in their non-breeding plumage, looking huge in comparison to all the sparrows and warblers.

Even though we had birded much more than the advertised two hours, three of us continued on to Rainbow Beach to see what else might find. Besides a few common shorebirds, we added the Neotropic Cormorant, over 50 Pied-billed Grebes, and another Nelson’s Sparrow to our list for the day. As we wrapped up, we started getting reports of similar birding experiences from all over Chicago. Our birding high was muted later when we read about the hundreds of birds that had died in building collisions overnight and into the morning. However, it will definitely be a day that lives in our birding memories for quite some time. It’s not often that you enter more than 10,000 birds into your eBird checklist!

Field Trip Report: Park 566