About time I got the dust shaken off of this blog. To be honest, the long delay from the previous post is just laziness since I have PLENTY of blog fodder from a number of recent birding outings with my brother Ron. Well, maybe not all laziness since there was a big running event earlier in the month, which I’ll be getting to soon. Since my last post was all about a race, figured it would be a good time to break out a bird post. Not just any bird post mind you – a +1 on the birding type of featured bird
Before I go any further, these shots of this bird are sub-par at best from an execution perspective. I totally blame the bird for this! As eluded to earlier, I’ve had the pleasure of birding with my brother at several locations recently. These shots came from Chain O’ Lakes State Park up in Antioch, IL. Chain is one of my favorite State Parks (second to Jubilee) because it never fails to produce good subjects to shoot. If you recall, I’ve already featured inhabitants like Sandhills (link Sandhill Cranes), Egrets (link here), Deer (link Deer) and Teals (link Blue Winged Teal). Linda, the boys and I were staying the weekend at the park for an agility dog show. This left me a whole day to trek the land, so called up Ron who was glad to see what they had to offer. I cannot remember at the moment how far or how long we spent that day, but let’s just say it was a loooong time. We covered the entire perimeter of that park and then some more along the Fox River. I had found some interesting trails on a previous visit and was lucky enough to find them again this time. This particular bird was shot next to what appears to be a gravel pit of some sort. It is also bordered by an archery range which is a little unnerving. A little bit into the trail we noticed some rustling in the underbrush. For the next 20 minutes we hunted for the source, catching glimpses of it from time to time. The following was one of the few luck shots that actually came out from the brush that showed any characteristics at all.
Hit the jump to find out what this intriguing bird is
