Birding Through the Year: January/February 2023
words and photos by David Hoyt
By mid- to late winter, my birding has become like this year’s weather: inconsistent. Sightings consist primarily of those made through the window, as above. This is my friend, who I call “Boss.” Or perhaps he is Boss, Jr., Son of Boss, Boss ben Boss, or Boss the III, or even Boss the IV, as it has been a number of years now that some fierce-looking but fundamentally genial redbird has roosted in the hemlocks. He is often accompanied by Lady Boss, or one of her successors. When one partner is around, the other is usually nearby, even if not visible. I am inspired by their relationship, which models both companionship and independence.
Living in a house surrounded by birds is one of the great joys of life, no more so than in winter, when so much else is silent and dark. A further joy is to contemplate one of our backyard birds during those moments when he is at rest, as many of them often are, even in the cold. And when the colors of plant life have drained away, and the breeding goldfinch is faded, Boss remains radiant against the snow. I may drive a hundred miles and tramp a dozen more in search of pelagics, irruptives, migrants, or accidentals, but at the end of the day the ability of Boss to somehow metabolize his coloration from the chemical contents of relatively drab surroundings is as amazing as the passage of any exotic bird. I am grateful when he pauses for a moment on the branch outside my window.
Mid- to late winter is also when I develop my skills in mediocre bird photography. The combination of low or poor light, long distances, and freezing hands manipulating obsolete equipment work together to produce their own aesthetic, akin to vintage Polaroid, which I find a pleasing contrast to the glammy Audubon calendar shot. There is a wildlife artist of the early 20th century of whom I am particularly fond, Frank Weston Benson, who practiced a sort of impressionistic watercolor duck art that is more evocative in its simplicity than any Audubon engraving. I cite Benson as a convenient way to lend authority to my fuzzy and distant waterfowl photographs.
As a mostly inland birder, I am always excited to explore open water habitats. An errand to Hyde Park in early February provided one such opportunity in the vicinity of Lake Shore Drive and 49th Street. Here, there is a shoal that draws waterfowl closer to the shore than they might otherwise prefer. On a chilly but relatively calm morning, I was delighted to find a raft of about thirty Greater Scaup diving here, unseen by passing joggers.
They were joined by a pair of Red-breasted Mergansers and Herring Gulls, all brunching within view of the majestic Chicago skyline, a few miles away. It was more life than I had ever observed on this part of the Lake, and a picture of the biotic cohabitation that we can only hope to greatly enhance in the coming century. Where does “nature” begin and end in such a frame? The ecological philosopher Baptiste Morizot could be describing a Chicago landscape when he writes of the contemporary world as one of “living territories deeply constituted and transformed by human activities, but where living beings have not lost their living power to take back the upper hand… [within] the biotic imbroglio that is the hidden name of ecosystems.” [1]
The surprise of the morning was a Northern Harrier riding the offshore wind above me. I had collectively “seen” this bird with two walking groups before (someone points and says, “A Harrier!” and a box on eBird is checked and delivered to me), but I had never really seen it for myself.
I spotted the harrier again further up the Drive, in the vicinity of McCormick Place, still gliding on the westerly wind. Much of the lakefront in the area has been given over to prairie restoration, and perhaps this has created more desirable habitat for the species.
Of course, daylight soon dwindled over the lakeshore. The owls in my woodland patch, so vocal in November, are now more subdued. And so, in the long winter night with few other temptations, the birder naturally turns to literary pursuits. I close with a few glances back at birding life a century ago and more.
From: Illinois Arbor and Bird Days - 1923, Circular 167, p. 39
In 1894, a Progressive-era educator from Pennsylvania initiated observance of the first “Bird Day,” an exercise meant to instill in children the appreciation of nature and the outdoors based on both rational observation and natural sympathy. Modeled on Arbor Day, and drawing on contemporary agitation in favor of bird protection, it quickly became institutionalized across the country. Pictures of grade school bird box projects such as this one are common from the 1920s.
In 1923, the Report Committee Chairman for the fledgling Chicago Ornithological Society informed readers of Bird Lore that COS members had recorded sightings of 228 species during the migrations of that year. The Chairman went on to share several observations of note:
During the A. O. U. meeting here several records of interest were made. On October 23, at Lincoln Park, Mr. Leopold and the writer found at least 18 Franklin’s Gulls in the large flock of Bonaparte’s and Ring-billed Gulls. A positive record was made by Messrs. Woodruff, Sanborn, and Leopold on October 26. After securing permission from the proper authorities, a daybreak expedition was made to the park, and a beautiful specimen in the adult plumage was taken. The skin is now in Mr. Leopold’s collection. One or two birds of this species remained until November 19.
The same Sanborn and Leopold also took specimens of Harris’s Sparrows, then locally “on the increase” during fall migration, from a beach north of Chicago. [2]
Reaching back further still, in the winter of 1856, Thoreau wrote:
Saw and heard cheep faintly one little tree sparrow, the neat chestnut crowned and winged and white-barred bird, perched on a large and solitary white berch. So clean and tough, made to withstand the winter. This color reminds me of the upper side of the shrub oak leaf. I love the few homely colors of Nature at this season— her strong wholesome browns, her sober and primeval grays, her celestial blue, her vivacious green, her pure, cold, snowy white. [3]
[1] Baptiste Morizot, On the Animal Trail, Andrew Brown, trans., (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2021), 123, 124.
[2] George Porter Lewis, ‘Chicago Region,’ Bird-Lore 25, no. 1 (January-February 1923): 49.
[3] Henry David Thoreau, The Journal, 1837-1861. Damien Searls, ed., (New York: New York Review of Books, 2006), p. 420.