Hie thee to a rookery!

Not far from where we live is the Heron Rookery Nature Preserve in Plainfield, Illinois, part of the Lake Renwick Preserve.  Although it looks like a wrecked pirate ship in the 200-acre lake, what you see is actually a nesting area for a variety of birds.  Great blue herons, great egrets and cormorants were the main occupants of the island, while geese, ducks, and coots paddled back and forth.  During the nesting season, May 1-August 15, hours are very limited so as not to interfere with the birds.  Fortunately, we stopped in on Saturday morning, one of only two times we could have gotten in and thanks to a combination of free viewing scopes and the spotting telescopes set up by a volunteer birder, we were able to see the birds much closer than with either our binoculars or the telephoto lens of my Nikon.  This is one spot where a phone camera is useless!

The main group of islands resembled New York City for birds!  Every nesting area was packed as well as every spot on the ground.  There was originally an island but the trees couldn’t take all the nesting birds, so artificial structures were built.  There are also some other islands with trees and we could see birds on those as well, although they were farther away from our spotting area.

Most of the people we encountered were birders, so we were constantly being advised to look one place or another and saw other types of birds as well.  We plan to go back during the restricted times and then after August 15th so we can walk the trails.  But you don’t need a telescope of any type to see a sample of what we saw.

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I’ll be without internet much of this weekend and upcoming week, so don’t worry if you don’t see me around much.  I”ll still be posting, but I won’t have time to do much else, but I’ll do the best I can.  Thanks for stopping by anyway.  You’re very much appreciated!