With the IBWO back in the news this month – even though it’s bad news – I thought I’d highlight a few of our Ivory-billed Woodpecker t-shirts.

First up is this t-shirt with John James Audubon’s Ivory-billed Woodpecker painting from his epic Birds of North America.

Finally, this snarky design is perfect for any hard-core believers: My Ivory-bill is smarter than your skeptic.

ENDING SOON(ISH)

10,000 Birds and the Nature Blog Network are giving away four copies of the book Life List: A Woman’s Quest for the World’s Most Amazing Birds by Olivia Gentile. There are three ways to enter and three ways to win, with deadlines on 15 July and 20 July.

Born Again Bird Watcher has a photo caption contest running until 15 July. Enter your witty caption and you could win a Born Again Bird Watcher ball cap.

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Celebrate Urban Birds project is running a Funky Nests in Funky Places contest until 31 July. Prizes include a Leica C-Lux 3 Digital Camera camera and signed bird-themed books.

Register online to win a limited edition collector’s print from Bird Watcher’s Digest. The drawing will be held on 31 July.

The Swarovski Digiscoper of the Year Contest runs through 31 October. First prize is an EL 32 binocular. Be sure to read the rules before entering.

The Rainforest Alliance is running their 2nd Annual Picture Sustainability Photo Contest. Enter photos to win prizes including a trip for two to Costa Rica. Click here for the rules. Contest ends 1 November.

ONGOING CONTESTS of interest to birders

Each month the Birds & Blooms website runs the Where’s Webster? contest. Find Webster the duck on the website and enter to win. Prizes vary and the contest runs month to month.

The Eagle Optics Email Contest is ongoing for anyone subscribed to their newsletter. A new winner is chosen every month. Click here for details.

If you are running a contest this week or know of something that should be added to this list, please let me know by leaving a comment or sending me an email.

They were perched on service wires and flying around a man-made stream. The birds also frequently made stops under a pair of small pedestrian bridges that crossed the stream.

These Cliff Swallows were life birds for us and it was a lot of fun to watch their antics.

Bird Photography Weekly is a regular collection of user-submitted bird photos from all over the world. The new edition comes out every Sunday. Thanks to Birdfreak for hosting this great blog meme – go have a look!

Prior to reading Owlman’s post, I had never heard of Waterfall Glen. I had, however, heard of Argonne National Laboratory. The forest preserve property surrounds the lab’s property, making the preserve doughnut-shaped. Argonne is a U.S. Dept of Energy research facility focused on national security, energy and biological & environmental systems.

The main trail at Waterfall Glen is a nearly ten-mile loop. There are several parking areas around the preserve and smaller looping trails are available. We walked about 3.5 miles on the northwest side of the park, taking the Tear-Thumb trail shortcut from the main trailhead parking lot.

First, as expected, we were eaten alive on the grass path.

The gravel main trail was much better – no mosquitoes but plenty of birds and other creatures.

The main trail was virtually crawling with these slugs and tiny thumbnail-sized frogs.

And we also saw & heard Indigo Buntings, yes! Unfortunately most of our views were like this:

After this little hike we drove to another area of the park to see the waterfall.

We had a lovely morning there and will surely visit this preserve again. Many thanks to Owlman!

He used a piece of oak firewood about 16″ long and drilled four 1 3/8″ holes for suet logs or suet dough.

With a hook screwed in on top we can hang this almost anywhere.

We’d seen our resident Downy Woodpecker struggle a bit on a cage suet feeder, but she has no trouble with this one.

Arthur noticed the feeder birds scatter and even the resident bunny high-cottontailed it out of the yard. Because of this Arthur was on the lookout for a hawk when Coop landed in the tree behind our yard. It had a look around and did a bit of preening in the tree.

Next it dropped down behind the fence for a few seconds and then flew into a tree in our neighbor’s yard. Just a few seconds after that, it landed on our fence where we oohed and aahed (more like “Where’s the ?$&#!?! camera!?” and “Try to get the scope on it!!”) over it for a short, precious minute.

There’s something light and feather-covered in one of the Coop’s talons, but it looks much too small to be an entire bird. Probably no more than 30 seconds passed from the hawk flying between the tree, ground, tree and fence again, so what’s in the talon and what was left behind (and where?) is a bit of a mystery.

We love our feeder birds – all of them! Welcome, Coop!

This is a late addition to this week’s Bird Photography Weekly. BPW is a regular collection of user-submitted bird photos from all over the world. The new edition comes out every Sunday and everyone is welcome to participate. Thanks to Birdfreak for hosting this great blog meme – go have a look!

I’ve thought of buying them out just to prevent them from falling into the wrong hands, but I’m afraid that will just encourage them to stock more. You can click on the above photo to see it bigger at flickr or just look at the partial close-up below.

Of course I’d prefer a Birdorable clock anyway, if I’m looking for a bird-themed wall clock (even if they don’t sing).

First we did some leisurely birding from the car on the drive in to the parking area.

Wild Turkeys hanging out by the side of the road

Despite this lousy photo, we did have a pretty good look at this lifer Swallow-tailed Kite as we approached the parking area.

Swallow-tailed Kite

An Eastern Bluebird greeted us at the parking area

The Preserve, established in 1992, spans 12,000 acres and includes several different habitats including swamp, wetlands, scrubland and flatwoods. Parts of the preserve are home to the endemic Florida Scrub Jay, but this area of the park is normally off-limits to visitors.

Again it was hot so we limited ourselves to a short walk on the John C. Sawhill Interpretive Trail.

The first sign of life on the trail

Our second lifer of the day a Brown-headed Nuthatch, which we saw along the trail shown above.

When we left the trail we signed out of the preserve’s trail register and noticed the only other recent visitor had been on the trails the day before, for just 15 minutes. We lasted about an hour and a half in the heat.

Part of the park is woodland. An interpretive sign showed aerial photos of the land taken in 1939, when the former forest was cleared as farmland. In another photo you could see that by 1993 the farmland was gone and the woods were returning.

Yay for suburban parks and restored habitats! Have a great Independence Day, fellow Americans, and a great July weekend to everyone else!