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Just couldn’t believe this today: biking to work on concrete beach north of Lake Point Tower when I see a gull drop something. It went right after it as did I. Looked like a salamander, had to be a mudpuppy. It was. Put it back in water, it seemed to be too buoyant and floating at surface, which is probably why Ring-billed Gull got it in the first place. Knew they are on our lakefront, but no idea they were this far north. Guessing just on size this was an immature mudpuppy.

FINALLY!

Though the BRM may have wanted to keep reports of these two birds from we plebian birders, they did not manage to supress the information on this Black Rail observation, this time.

Beau Schaefer posted about hearing a kiki deer-ing Black Rail Tuesday, May 17, 2022, at 1145am, from IBSP. Rather immediately, it was heard by others who could get to the location. Then in the afternoon, it was reported that there were actually two Black Rails on site, doing competing songs.

I went up on Wednesday from 150pm to 330pm, but no luck. At 4pm, others again heard at least one Black Rail in the same location, but I think they only heard the grunting call, though I believe they saw at least one of the rails too.

This morning one Black Rail was again heard between 945-1045am. As soon as I was done with my COS LaBagh bird walk, I decided to head up to Lake County. I arrived at 1145am, and I got to the location at 1150am. I found one birder already there, and walked in with another. They each left. I had decided I was staying until I heard these rails or died trying, LOL. I sat down and started listening. Carefully.

At 129pm, I heard the low grunting of one Black Rail, the same "call" that can be heard on "All About Birds" recording #3 as of today. Very unsatisfying, but it was clear and undeniable. I wanted to hear the song of the Black Rail. I also wanted to get a recording to prove the encounter.

Just before 2pm, a Black Rail began kiki deer-ing and grunting from the north side of the levee/path. After about 2 minutes of it singing and calling about 3 feet from the levee in or near some shrubs at a wet ditch edge, another Black Rail began calling directly behind me, across the levee from the first bird in the wet ditch there.

I noted birder AS walking up, and frantically waved him over, but both rails stopped singing. But in about 2 minutes, after some brief hellos, the bird south of the levee began singing again, loudly and quite clearly. We were both quite glad of the encounter, and this is a recording of that second singing episode.

Both AS and I looked hard to see the bird, but not only did we not see it, I didn't even see any grass move, even though the bird was likely no more than 3 feet away from me, and was moving to the East, slowly, but unmistakeable based on the location of where the song was coming from.

I will admit, the two hour wait was tough, but what a wonderful encounter. No playback was used, and thus far it seems that everyone has been pretty great about just listening and dealing with their fate. Are these two males? Are there females here too? We can only hope.

Nice testament to Brad Semel and his team for the resotration work that has been done here to rehabilitate this habitat. In addition to these rails, I had at least 5 Virginia Rails, one Sora and for sure one Least Bittern, and maybe two.

This is Lake County species #273 for me, and Illinois bird #386. Very pleased to finally add this to my Illinois bird list. Now to get it in Cook.