Field Notes: July and August Highlights

Field trip group at Meadowbrook Park, Urbana. Photo by aerin tedesco.

By aerin tedesco, CCAS Field Trip Chair

July brought us many great interactions with breeding birds. One such sighting occurred on the CCAS field trip to Meadowbrook Park on July 22, when the group discovered a pair of Cedar Waxwings building a nest in one of the maple trees in the parking lot! We also encountered a recently fledged Cooper’s Hawk, along with a young Tree Swallow and a Red-bellied Woodpecker.

This month also revealed discoveries of birds that are quite rare for the county: a pair of Snowy Egrets at Middle Fork River Forest Preserve and a Swallow-tailed Kite spotted on Staley Road near the I-72 overpass!

Migrating shorebirds are now starting to come back through the area, and passerines will be right behind them! We will find these songbirds and others moving through when our Sunday Morning Bird Walks start back up at Crystal Lake Park and Busey Woods in early September.