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Checklist S151491365

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Main Details

Location Burnham Park--Promontory Point
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Additional Details

People

Owner Jacob Drucker

Effort

Protocol:  Traveling
  • Observers:  4
  • Distance:  0.4 mi

Checklist Comments

An absolutely mind blowing experience, with more passerines moving than MM, JRD, and LKF have ever before seen.
It was nonstop excitement, with birds at every level of view, from on the ground at your feet to hundreds of feet in the air as tiny specks. Birds flew between all of us, with the overwhelming direction being southwards along the lakefront. The only feelings of sadness came when thinking of and subsequently hearing about the carnage in downtown Chicago from the lights out crews.

This ultimately is one of those “perfect storms” birders dream of. For the last ~10 days, we’ve suffered through southerly winds and annoyingly hot temps with little migration. Last night, with anxious birds hoping to move southwards, they finally got the tail winds required to break the dam. As the north winds reached Chicago, rain and low clouds were at the forefront, as is typical of a frontal system. However, these rains came right at dawn, keeping the birds on the rain’s trailing edge as it slowly moved through the city. This perfect timing allowed for hundreds of thousands of birds to flood into Chicago, balancing survival and the need to move south.

With the birds facing a maze of concrete and glass abutted against an enormous body of water, they desperately worked their way south through suburbs and parks. Promontory Point offered a perfect spot to observe this, as the birds worked south to the peninsula, they found themselves needing to rerout back SW to stick along the lakeshore, rather than head across the water. Other birds joined this stream from coming in offshore.

Initially stunned by the numbers of birds, we did not start “rate counts” until 30 minutes into our morning. These rate counts are conducted as follows:

For one minute (via timer set on phone), observers split up visible air space between themselves and then each observer counts their dedicated space for this one minute. At the end of the minute, numbers are tallied and used to extrapolate numbers of birds moving until the next rate count is conducted, typically with a time of ten minutes between each rate count.

This morning we weren’t able to stick so close to an exact 10 minute increment, but the overall counts were still done in an attempt to really quantify the amazing numbers of birds moving.

We began one-minute rate counts at 7:38

7:38 count 1500 birds/minute
- From 7:39-7:45 = 10,500 birds
7:45 count 1800 birds/minute
- 7:45-7:53 = 14,400 birds
7:53 count 2,500 birds/minute
-7:53-8:08 = 37,500 birds
8:08 count 1300 birds/minute
8:08-8:16 = 18,400 birds
8:16 count 3,350 birds/minute
8:16-8:25 = 30,150 birds
8:25 count 3,640 birds/minute
8:25-8:30 = 18,1500 birds

Because we did not start rate counts until 25 minutes into starting this checklist and observed little change in bird flow before beginning counts, we extrapolated backwards in time using the mean rate of birds/minute of 2,350 birds/minute, which multiplied by 25 minutes gives 58,750 birds

Total ~187,850 birds!!!!!!!!

95% warblers, 5% sparrows, kinglets, thrushes, other.
Of warblers, 80% mywa, 15% wpwa, 5% other

After departing promontory point and driving west down 55th street we continued to estimate approximately 300 birds per minute per 300 meters of visible sky at least between the lake front and the west side of Washington Park. Translating to roughly one bird per meter per minute across the 3km between the lakefront through washington park gives 3000 birds per minute across the Hyde Park neighborhood. While we certainly didn't see all those birds ourselves, this allows us to estimate that 720,000 birds flew over Hyde Park in the 4 hours after sunrise.

Further highlighting the magnitude of this event are the numbers of bird collisions from the Loop. Full numbers have yet to be tallied as of first writing, but numbers at McCormick place alone were over 900 birds, more than triple the previous record.

Also of extreme note were the 25,000,000 birds estimated to pass through Dane County Wisconsin last night. No doubt many of these birds made it to us by sunrise, as the Cook county birdcast dashboard showed less than 1 million.

TURN YOUR LIGHTS OFF!!!

Totals

55
Species Observed
+3 other taxa, 187,485 individuals
0
Species with Video
+2 other taxa

Observations

  1. Canada Goose

    Number observed:  50

  2. Wood Duck

    Number observed:  34

  3. Blue-winged Teal

    Number observed:  385

    Details

    Big flock of 260 milling around way out on lake, plus other flocks, including some very high. Some birds had blue wing panels visible, so we assume most of these were BWTE rather than GWTE.

  4. Mallard

    Number observed:  3

  5. Mourning Dove

    Number observed:  1

  6. Chimney Swift

    Number observed:  34

  7. Wilson's Snipe

    Number observed:  16

    Details

    Two separate flocks, check photos to make sure not dowitchers

  8. Lesser Yellowlegs

    Number observed:  1

  9. Ring-billed Gull

    Number observed:  48

  10. Double-crested Cormorant

    Number observed:  10

  11. Great Blue Heron

    Number observed:  5

  12. Belted Kingfisher

    Number observed:  5

  13. Downy Woodpecker

    Number observed:  2

  14. Northern Flicker (Yellow-shafted)

    Number observed:  3

  15. Merlin

    Number observed:  1

  16. Peregrine Falcon

    Number observed:  3

  17. Least Flycatcher

    Number observed:  2

  18. American Crow

    Number observed:  12

  19. Black-capped Chickadee

    Number observed:  4

  20. Ruby-crowned Kinglet

    Number observed:  52

    Details

    Moving with warblers

  21. Golden-crowned Kinglet

    Number observed:  12

  22. European Starling

    Number observed:  24

  23. Gray Catbird

    Number observed:  2

  24. Gray-cheeked Thrush

    Number observed:  3

  25. Swainson's Thrush

    Number observed:  10

    Details

    Moving w warblers, multiple altitudes

  26. Wood Thrush

    Number observed:  1

  27. American Robin

    Number observed:  70

  28. thrush sp.

    Number observed:  40

  29. Cedar Waxwing

    Number observed:  220

  30. House Sparrow

    Number observed:  5

  31. American Pipit

    Number observed:  6

  32. House Finch

    Number observed:  6

  33. American Goldfinch

    Number observed:  22

  34. Field Sparrow

    Number observed:  2

  35. White-throated Sparrow

    Number observed:  34

  36. Savannah Sparrow

    Number observed:  12

  37. Lincoln's Sparrow

    Number observed:  2

  38. Swamp Sparrow

    Number observed:  6

  39. Bobolink

    Number observed:  10

    Details

    A few individuals/small groups

  40. Ovenbird

    Number observed:  25

  41. Northern Waterthrush

    Number observed:  20

  42. Black-and-white Warbler

    Number observed:  30

    Details

    Most observed in trees from stationary count spot

  43. Tennessee Warbler

    Number observed:  15

    Details

    Probably more. Minimum count

  44. Common Yellowthroat

    Number observed:  20

    Details

    Minimum

  45. American Redstart

    Number observed:  50

    Details

    Still decent numbers

  46. Cape May Warbler

    Number observed:  4

  47. Magnolia Warbler

    Number observed:  18

    Details

    Minimum

  48. Bay-breasted Warbler

    Number observed:  10

  49. Chestnut-sided Warbler

    Number observed:  5

  50. Blackpoll Warbler

    Number observed:  25

    Details

    Minimum

  51. Black-throated Blue Warbler

    Number observed:  1

  52. Palm Warbler (Western)

    Number observed:  24983

    Details

    See checklist comments for migration rates, extrapolations, and proportions. More details coming.

  53. Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle)

    Number observed:  142765

    Details

    See checklist comments for migration rates, extrapolations, and proportions. More details coming.

  54. Black-throated Green Warbler

    Number observed:  10

  55. new world warbler sp.

    Number observed:  8922

    Details

    See checklist comments for migration rates, extrapolations, and proportions. More details coming.

    Media

  56. Rose-breasted Grosbeak

    Number observed:  2

  57. Indigo Bunting

    Number observed:  30

    Details

    Low pitched bold buzzes

  58. passerine sp.

    Number observed:  9392

    Media

Additional species seen by Marky Mutchler:

  1. Wilson's Warbler

    Number observed: 1