Here are some highs and lows I found in my statcounter logs for July.
For some reason I found a lot of loon activity last month. Common Loons pass through Illinois in spring and fall migration, with numbers peaking around the first week of April and mid-November. They winter off of Florida, with birds recorded in most months from November through April. Since those two states feature almost exclusively on this blog, I’m pretty sure the person searching for where is the best place to hear loon during july and august didn’t find their answer here. This eBird map shows Common Loon sightings globally during those months. Again, eBird has the answer. 🙂 Though I’m not sure how much calling the birds do outside of courting. Someone else wondered are there loons in chain o lakes illinois? To which I answer YES, get out there in April and your chances will be very good. You could even join a group specifically out looking for loons! Finally, someone was looking for a loon like birds in illinois. Since there are loons in Illinois, that loon-like bird may have been a LOON. However, if the bird was seen in July, my suggestion would be to look at the Double-crested Cormorant.
Owls dominated once again, with lots of searches for owls in Illinois ending up on my post (My) Owls of Illinois. Folks were also looking for information on the lake county illinois audobon owl boxes (voilà ) and other specific searches for barn owl endangered illinois and related. I like that someone wondered how many babies does a barred owl have at once. My guess would be two. I checked BNA, which indicates that clutch size ranges from 1 to 5 with the average being 2-3. Someone wanted to know Is there an owl in Illinois that has yellow claws. Some have yellow feet, but a very quick check leads me to believe they all have black talons. Finally, someone needed some more personal advice when searching for what kind of owl in my backyard? I’m not a psychic, yo.
I love that someone searched for green caterpillar with horn missouri because that’s pretty much what I do when I want to ID a caterpillar or moth or butterfly or snake or bug I don’t know – start with a Google search of the unknown creature’s physical characteristics and where it was found. I usually have pretty good luck. I hope this seeker did as well.
The person looking for bird- themed movies landed on this old post. I hope they found two upcoming titles: A Birder’s Guide to Everything and The Birder.
Someone wanted to know names & photos of the birds that preen. Um, all of them?
And last, here’s my favorite typo of the month: paragon falcon eating pigeon.
Happy August!