Beach Birds

I went to Waukegan Beach early but there were no shorebirds.I could see a few birding friends at the outlet so I didn’t need to walk up there to look at the same species. They will tell me what they saw when the come back. I stayed on the south end and watched the swallows. They all gathered in the dead phragmites just east of the first biggest dune. There were about one-hundred and fifty swallows of three species. Basically it was half Barn, half Bank and three Cliff Swallows. They were more difficult to indentify becuase the juvenile birds have very drab plumage.

Further down the beach I stopped for a visit with the Least Bittern. It wasn’t very well hidden due to the thinness of the dead phragmites. I didn’t get too close, wanting to give it some room. After a while Al, Bob, Cici and Rob all showed up. Oddly enough the bittern tolerated all of us. After they all left I took a few photos. When the shutter went off the bittern adopted his defense posture. I hadn’t seen him do this before. I felt a little bad because I knew that I was stressing the bird. Soon he flew north to the greener area of the backwater.