Squeezed in two quick birding stops in northwest Indiana near the Lake Michigan lakefront in May 2011, finding a couple nice rarities and two other statebirds. The first stop was at the McCool Road storm water impoundment in Portage, IN. This is a well-known local hotspot for shorebirds when water levels create some nice mudflats – I’ve stopped there twice before over the years with some good results. A White-rumped Sandpiper and Dunlin had been reported there recently so there was good potential. I was able to quickly find both species which were new for my IN state list. Then a scan of a different part of the mudflat revealed a previously unreported Wilson’s Phalarope, also new for IN and pretty unusual for that area. Also had a smattering of other shorebirds like Pectoral, Semi Sands, Semi Plovers, Killdeer, and Lesser Yellowlegs. Not bad for a 15 minute stop!
A second stop was at the Cline Ave. wetlands in Highland, IN. This is a large impoundment that features a rookery of Great Blue Herons and many acres of cattail marsh – plus there has been a Monk Parakeet nest at an adjacent substation. I’ve had Moorhen there in the past, but have tried unsuccessfully for Sora and Least Bittern at least three times there before. Sure wanted to try for them again on this trip. A complication for this site is that the marsh is near a very busy highway, which means road noise is extreme. I got there early in the morning hoping to beat the traffic, but with no luck. Undeterred, I played Sora and Least Bittern tape hoping for the best. At my 2nd stop I started playing a Sora tape and a got a fleeting glimpse of a bird fly toward the call into the phragmites right next to the road. It seemed way too big for Virginia or Sora. A few seconds later I started to hear single “kick” calls in the phrags near my feet lasting at least 30 seconds. I was just about ready to add King Rail to my state list when I started hearing double “kid-dick” calls of a Virginia within a couple feet of where the single “kick” calls were coming from. I never heard any more single “kick” calls after the Virginia started calling. Did the King morph into a Virginia? A few seconds later the Virginia came into the open, and while watching it I heard rustling and a single grunt near the location of the original “kick” calls. So I know there were 2 birds, and based on the calls and the larger size of the bird seen briefly in flight, my conclusion was that it was one Virginia and one King Rail. I’ve been told that King Rails are reported from the Indiana lakefront roughly every couple of years.
I never did have any Soras or Least Bitterns – but King Rail is a great consolation prize. Maybe my next trip there has to be at 4 AM to avoid some of the road noise.
With 4 new birds in Indiana my statelist is at 216, which is still just barely over the ABA reportable threshold but slowly increasing.
My statebird map for King Rail, with states where I’ve seen/heard it shaded in blue, is copied in below. I’ve now had King in three inland states (IL, IN, and KS) in addition to most of the Gulf and Atlantic coast states.
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