Sand Bluff Bird Observatory

08/22/2026

Saturday, August 22, 2026-Volunteers began opening the nets today at 5:30 am under mostly clear skies, a temperature of 61 degrees F, and some ground fog. We are starting to see a little more variety in species as we head toward the end of August. Not a lot of birds by the time we closed at 10:45 am this morning; we ended up with 31 new birds, an additional 14 recaptures, both making for 15 species. Tonight with an additional cold front pushing through the area, migration predictions are that a couple hundred birds will be migrating. So hopefully tomorrow should be a great day.

No real surprises but a few new species for the season; first a couple of Black-and-white Warblers (Picture #1), a Veery (no picture), Scarlet Tanager (Pictures #2-3), and a Magnolia Warbler (Pictures #6-8). Our complete listing of the birds from today is as follows: Red-eyed Vireo, Northern House Wren (1 new, 1 recap), Gray Catbird (14 new, 9 recaps), Veery, Swainson's Thrush (2), American Goldfinch, Field Sparrow (2 new, 1 recap), Eastern Towhee (Pictures #4-5), Ovenbird (2 new, 1 recap), Black-and-white Warbler (2), Magnolia Warbler, Scarlet Tanager, Northern Cardinal (1 new, 2 recaps), and Rose-breasted Grosbeak.

Many thanks to today's volunteers; Mike, Deb, Ashton, Meaghan, Steve G., Damon, Lee, Dave, Jane, Daniel, Thelma, Donna, and John. We also recognize our newest volunteer from the Madison area, Sheenu, welcome aboard and thank you for your volunteering. Thanks also to our many FB friends who continue to like, comment, and share our posts. And lastly, many thanks to all of our visitors and donors, both of whom help us support the birds.

Next banding session, Sunday, August 23, 2026.

08/20/2026

Thursday, August 20, 2026-Volunteers began opening the nets this morning at 5:30 am under mostly clear skies with some ground fog and a temperature of 55 degrees F. Migration is starting to pick up this week with the cold fronts that have been moving through the areas so we were hoping to benefit from some of that movement today. By the time the nets were closed at 10:45 am we had trapped and banded 44 new birds, with an additional 11 recaptures, both representing 14 species.

No real surprises but we picked up a few first of the season birds; Baltimore Oriole (Pictures #1 & 2), Ovenbird (Picture #8), Rose-breasted Grosbeak (Picture #7), Eastern Bluebird (Picture #6), and a Yellow-bellied Flycatcher (Picture #9). Our complete listing of birds for the day is as follows: Downy Woodpecker (1 new, 1 recap), Yellow-bellied Flycatcher, Blue Jay, Black-capped Chickadee (2), Northern House Wren (3), Gray Catbird (22 new, 9 recaptures), Brown Thrasher, Eastern Bluebird, Field Sparrow, Baltimore Oriole, Ovenbird (4), American Redstart (Pictures #3-5), Northern Cardinal (1 new, 1 recap), and Rose-breasted Grosbeak.

So overall a good day today with birds moving through the area and we would like to thank all of our volunteers who made today's banding possible; Mike, Deb, Cindy, Ethan, Damon, Lee, Anna, Daniel, and John. Thanks also to our many FB friends who continue to like, comment, and share our posts. We also want to thank a wonderful group of ladies who came out to visit, the Sorority Sisters from SIU (Picture #10), they were enjoying their annual get together. They all seemed to have a good time and enjoyed the birds that came through today. And lastly, many thanks to our many donors who keep us going in our efforts for the birds.

08/16/2026

Sunday, August 16, 2026-Volunteers began opening the nets this morning at 5:30 am under mostly cloudy skies and virtually no wind with fog in the area. As we reach the mid-point in August we have banded 4 days now this fall. No real surprises and not a lot of actual migrants coming through quite yet. That situation should now begin to change as we move into the balance of the month. By the time we closed the nets today at 11:00 am, we had trapped and banded 29 new birds, with an additional 10 recaptures, both representing 14 species. After the first 4 days of banding we have trapped and banded 113 new birds.

No real surprises today but a few first of the season birds; Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, Eastern Warbling Vireo, and Chestnut-sided Warbler. Our complete listing of today's birds is as follows: Eastern Warbling Vireo (2), Blue Jay, Black-capped Chickadee (4 new, 1 recap), Blue-gray Gnatcatcher (Pictures 3-4), Northern House Wren (2), Gray Catbird (10 new, 6 recaps), House Finch, American Goldfinch (3), Field Sparrow (1 new, 1 recap), Common Yellowthroat (recap), American Redstart, Chestnut-sided Warbler (Pictures 5-6), Northern Cardinal (1 new, 1 recap), and Indigo Bunting (Pictures 1-2).

Many thanks to today's volunteer crew; Mike, Deb, Donna, Steve R., Ivy, Damon, Meaghan, Megan, Ashton, Matt, Lee, Kurt, and John. Thanks also to our many FB friends who continue to like, comment, and share our posts. And we also give a special shout out to our many donors who continue to help us support our mission for the birds.

Next banding session scheduled for Thursday, August 20, 2026.

08/15/2026

Saturday, August 15, 2026-Volunteers began opening the nets this morning at 5:45 am under cloudy skies and a threat of rain all morning. Another rather quiet morning overall with trapping more residents than migrants as we hit the mid-way point of August. We closed the nets at 10:45 am just ahead of the rain and ended up with 32 new birds, an additional 13 recaptures, both representing 15 species of bird.

A couple of nice surprises; first, a rather early Swainson's Thrush arrived and is in the process of molting some of its flight feathers so it will probably stick around and fatten up (Pictures 1-2) and the second one was a juvenile Black-billed Cuckoo. The Black-billed Cuckoo is a bird on the Illinois Threatened Species list and this is the first one that we have trapped and banded here in 2 years. The cuckoos are depended upon the tent caterpillars and other such type of insects for food. This cuckoo is probably one of our local birds. Our complete bird listing for the day is as follows: Black-billed Cuckoo (Pictures 3-4), Downy Woodpecker (recap), Least Flycatcher (2), Northern House Wren (5), Gray Catbird (14 new, 5 recaps), Brown Thrasher (recap), Swainson's Thrush, Wood Thrush (2), House Finch, American Goldfinch (3 recaps), Song Sparrow (2), Eastern Towhee, Common Yellowthroat (2), American Redstart (recap), and Northern Cardinal (2 new, 2 recaps).

We thank today's volunteers for all of their help; Mike, Deb, Jane, Meaghan, Ashton, Matt, Kurt, Steve, Lee and John. Thanks also to our many FB friends who continue to like, comment, and share our posts. And we also thank our many visitors and donors who continue to help support our efforts for the birds.

Next banding session, Sunday, August 16, 2026.

08/13/2026

Thursday, August 13, 2026-Volunteers began opening the nets this morning at 5:30 am under mostly cloudy skies and a temperature of 67 degrees F and heavy fog. We are very early in the fall migration process and the fields and woods are generally pretty quiet these last days of summer. So one never knows what one will trap other than some of our resident birds and late summer nesters. By the time we closed the nets at 10:45 am, with a storm only miles away to the west, we ended up the day with 25 new birds, 12 recaptures, both representing 14 species for the day.

Only one true migrant today, a hatching year Northern Waterthrush (Pictures 1 & 2); our complete listing of birds for the day is as follows: Mourning Dove, Red-bellied Woodpecker (recap), Hairy Woodpecker (recap), Yellow-shafted Flicker (Northern), Eastern Wood-PeWee, Red-eyed Vireo (Pictures 3 & 4), Northern House Wren, Gray Catbird (13 new, 4 recaps), Brown Thrasher (recap), Eastern Towhee, Brown-headed Cowbird (recap), Northern Waterthrush, Northern Cardinal (1 new, 1 recap), and Indigo Bunting (recap).

We thank all of our volunteers who made it out today; Mike, Deb, Donna, Meaghan, Steve, Lee, Ivy, and John. We welcome our new volunteers Lucy and Daniel, as well as special guests Bob and Sarah. The Forest Preserves of Winnebago County crew that came out to check on things with introductions to our new biologist, Taylor. Thanks also to our many FB friends, its so nice to hear from so many of you on our posts. And lastly we thank our many donors who continue to help support us in our efforts for the birds.

Next Banding session, Saturday, August 15, 2025. Watch the weather this weekend, if it is raining during the morning we typically do not band.

08/09/2026

Sunday, August 9, 2026-Welcome to Fall Banding 2026! Volunteers opened the nets this morning under mostly cloudy skies and a temperature of 58 degrees F at 5:30 am. Eastern Whip-poor-wills were heard calling as the nets were opened which is always a wonderful way to start the season. One never knows how well the first day will turn out but with threatening skies we closed the nets at 10 am. We ended up with 27 new birds, 8 recaptures, both representing 17 species and one other taxa. Not bad of a morning.

Our one true migrant this morning was a beautiful adult male Mourning Warbler, which was flagged by eBird as rare for this time of year (Pictures 1 & 2). The following is our complete bird listing for today; Red-bellied Woodpecker (recap), Downy Woodpecker (3 new, 1 recap), Eastern Wood-Pewee, Traill's Flycatcher (2), Eastern Phoebe, Northern House Wren (3 new, 1 recap), Gray Catbird (5 new, 1 recap), Brown Thrasher (recap), House Finch, American Goldfinch, Baltimore Oriole (recap), Brown-headed Cowbird, Mourning Warbler, Common Yellowthroat, American Redstart, Northern Cardinal (3 new, 2 recaps), and Indigo Bunting.

We thank today's volunteers; Mike, Deb, Sharon, Damon, Donna, Lee, and John. Thanks also to our many FB friends, who we welcome back after our summer break. And we also thank our donors who continue to help us carry out our mission for the birds.

Next banding session, Thursday, August 13, 2026.

08/08/2026

Saturday, August 8, 2026- Volunteers met this morning to get the station set up for the Fall 2026 Banding Season. A great crew of volunteers were able to get all the nets up in time for tomorrow, Sunday's banding session.

Many thanks to Mike, Deb, Daniel (new volunteer), Megan, Meaghan, Ashton, Damen, Matt, Cindy, Ethan, Chris, Sharon, Thelma, Anna, Dawn, Donna, Steve G., Steve R., Ivy, and John. (Not pictured-Chris, Steve R., and John).

First banding session scheduled for Sunday, August 9, 2026.

Just a reminder for everyone SBBO's scheduled banding days are Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday from dawn until roughly noon on good weather days (we do not band if it is raining). Hope to see you soon, the birds are already migrating.

07/25/2026

Greetings and hope that everyone is enjoying their summer as we are about to enter fall banding at SBBO in early August. More about that later.

Today, Saturday, Mike Eickman and I were privileged to attend Camden Greenfield's Eagle Scout Court of Honor held out at the Hononegah Forest Preserve in the Forest Preserves of Winnebago County. If you remember Camden and his Troop 620 from Roscoe, Illinois came out at the end of April and built our new swamp net extension that should help us trap and band more birds from the swamp area. The SBBO Board of Directors was extremely pleased with the work done by Camden and his troop and once again extend our appreciation for a job well done and on Camden's successful completion of his Eagle Scout rank.

Attention all volunteers: Nets are scheduled to go up on Saturday, August 8, 2026 at 7:30 am. Please break you work duds and cutting tools for our work day. Many thanks in advance and looking forward to seeing you all.

07/13/2026

Another success story about bird banding and the ability to age birds based upon data gathered from when the bird was first banded!

A sea duck hunter on the New Jersey coast shot a surf scoter, checked its leg, and found a band so worn it was paper-thin. He had seen plenty of bands in 30 years of waterfowl hunting, including a 14-year-old black duck and a 19-year-old Canada goose. This one was different. He reported it to the USGS Bird Banding Laboratory. The report came back: oldest surf scoter ever recorded. At least 22 years old. Banded in 2004 in Nain, Labrador, more than 2,000 miles from where it died. An estimated 90,000 miles under its wings.

The bird had been banded by Canadian Wildlife Service biologist Scott Gilliland and his team during the first year of a Sea Duck Joint Venture project based out of Nain, a small Inuit community on the northern Labrador coast. Gilliland's crew was testing new capture methods for surf scoters in a remote area where nobody had tried to catch one before. They were not sure their traps would work. The project ran for four years. The bird they banded in 2004 outlived the study by 18 years.

The hunter, a New Jersey guide who runs sea duck trips along the coast, had been watching decoys bob in a light ocean swell when a small group of surf scoters passed over. He fired. Missed. Fired again. Missed. On the third shot, he connected with a drake. When the group retrieved the bird, the aluminum band on its leg was so thin from two decades of salt water, sand, and wear that it looked ready to fall off on its own.

Scott Gilliland learned about the recovery the way most people learn about anything now. A Facebook group dedicated to banded waterfowl. He reached out to the hunter and shared photographs from the exact day in 2004 when the bird had been captured and banded in Labrador. The hunter said seeing pictures of where the bird was banded was wild. He described the open, rocky habitat and the small remote community and said it connected him more closely to the species and to a completely different world from where he lived.

Then someone else appeared in the same Facebook thread. A person from northern Labrador mentioned that his father, Gus Dicker, an Inuit resident of Nain, had been part of the crew that helped capture the surf scoter 20 years earlier. A biologist in eastern Canada. A hunter on the New Jersey shore. The son of the man who held the net in Labrador. Three people in two countries connected by a worn-out aluminum ring on the leg of a sea duck that had been flying between their worlds for longer than some of them had been alive.

A surf scoter is not a bird most people would recognize. It is a stocky, dark-bodied sea duck with a heavy sloped bill and a black-and-white pattern on the male's head that earned it the nickname old skunkhead. It breeds in the boreal forests and tundra of northern Canada and Alaska, molts in sheltered Pacific or Atlantic coastal waters, and winters along both coasts from Alaska to Baja and from Nova Scotia to Florida. Its entire life is spent on water. It dives through breaking ocean waves to eat mussels, clams, and crabs off the bottom. It is built for cold, rough, open ocean, and it does not come inland unless a storm forces it.

Ninety thousand miles is a rough estimate based on 22 round trips between Labrador and the mid-Atlantic coast, approximately 4,000 miles per year. The actual number is almost certainly higher because surf scoters do not fly straight lines. They follow coastlines, detour to molting areas, and stage at intermediate sites for weeks before continuing south. The bird that died on the New Jersey coast had been making that circuit since 2004, through hurricanes, nor'easters, oil spills, and two decades of ocean that most humans never see from anything smaller than a ferry.

Despite its age, the bird looked healthy and was in full breeding plumage. Whatever 22 years of open Atlantic had done to its band, it had not done to the bird.

Source: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service / Sea Duck Joint Venture / USGS Bird Banding Laboratory / Canadian Wildlife Service / Born Hunting.