Tag Archives: Lake

Birding Rainy Milwaukee

On a cold Thursday in May, a report came through of Willets and American Avocets at Lakeshore State Park in Milwaukee. In spite of the fact that the temperature was in the 40s and a steady rain poured over the entirety of southern Wisconsin, we decided to brave the weather and go see these annual, but still difficult to find birds.

When we arrived we could see numerous Herring Gulls dotting the grass and sand but couldn’t make out anything that looked like shorebirds. As we got closer, we noticed two dark shapes a few feet out from the beach. We were excited to see that these were American Avocets. We then noticed a group of five Willets that were tucked behind a large boulder and just now coming out. We stayed to enjoy these interesting birds for as long as we could until we were soaked to the point where we feared that our cameras would get too waterlogged.

We moved up the coast of Milwaukee to McKinley Beach. Here we found many Caspian Terns and two significantly smaller Common Terns. Also out over the water were hundreds of migrating Double-crested Cormorants.

Willet
Willet

Further north, we surveyed the area near Linwood treatment plant where we had a nice variety of sparrows including Swamp, Savannah, Song, and White-crowned. We also located Hermit Thrushes, Ruby-crowned Kinglets, Bonaparte’s Gulls, Yellow-rumped Warblers, and our first of year Black and White Warbler. Perhaps the biggest surprise was a lone male Bobolink calling from a large tree. I have had them in this location before so perhaps its a more common area for them than I realize.

Our final stop of the afternoon was Lake Park. Here we found White-crowned Sparrows, Northern Flickers, more Hermit Thrushes, and a Brown Thrasher. In the trees was a large group of warblers but the persistent rain and dark sky made them appear to be nothing more but black shadows against gray. A few of them dropped low enough for us to start distinguishing some features. The only non yellow-rumped in the group was an Orange-crowned Warbler. At this location, the most interesting bird was a Wilson’s Snipe that was feeding in some of the puddles in the grass.

Overall, for such a nasty weather day, we had a pretty good time birding. Even so, we were happy to go back home and change into some dry clothes.