The legs and feet are red. Diet includes fish, crustaceans and insects. Face, sides of rump, underparts are white.

It shows white wing linings in flight. Soars to great heights. This list of birds of Illinois includes species documented in the U.S. state of Illinois and accepted by the Illinois Ornithological Records Committee (IORC). Young birds that have never migrated before may get off course, and hurricane season can also send birds out of their range—many of the state’s rarities have occurred in October and November. Underparts white but strongly suffused with orange wash, heavily barred and streaked with dark brown. Eurasian Collared-Dove: Medium dove, pale gray overall with darker cinnamon-brown wash over back. The wings and tail are dark gray. The very limited number of recent accepted records for the other two species leaves their status as less than regular. Head is black with numerous small white spots, facial disks bordered with black, eyes are yellow-orange.

Stotz, and K. Winker. Bright red bill with black tip, lower mandible longer than upper. In fall, the birds born that summer (juveniles) as well as adults migrate through Illinois, often at different times. Wings and tail are edged with olive-yellow. Head has buff face with dark brown cap, eye patches.

The head is black, and the short black neck has a partial white ring.

In fact, one small site on Lake Michigan’s shore harbors more bird species than any other destination in the state. White morph is white with dark spots and markings on wings, nape, and sides.

Tropical Kingbird: Large flycatcher with olive-gray upperparts, gray head, inconspicuous orange crown patch, pale throat, dark eye patch, and dark upper breast. Powerful flight alternates flaps with short glides. Sandwich Tern: This is the only medium-sized tern with a long slender black bill tipped with yellow. 1 Ruffed Grouse in NW Illinois may represent a remnant native population or wild dispersals from Wisconsin or Iowa. Legs and feet are black. Parasitic Jaeger: The dark morph of this medium-sized jaeger has a brown body, darker cap and pale underwing patches near tips.

Female is gray overall with blue wings, rump, and tail. Black legs, webbed feet. Head and neck are bright rust-brown during summer.

Throat and breast are paler blue, and belly and undertail coverts are white. The head is gray, bill is short and slightly decurved. Feeds on insects, caterpillars, fruits and berries. In flight it shows long pointed wings with black flight feathers and white wing linings.

Tail is thickly banded black and white.

Broad white stripes on black wings are visible in flight. Tail is black with strongly contrasting white outer tail feathers. Yellow eyebrows turn white behind eyes. Red Knot: This medium-sized sandpiper has black, brown and gray scaled upperparts, a red-brown face, neck, breast and sides, and a white lower belly. Wings with black tips and black bases of primaries. Black bill, legs and feet.

September is the peak time for migrating songbirds such as warblers, grosbeaks and tanagers — most of the bird species in these groups only eat insects and have to continue south as the weather turns cold and the population of their prey diminishes. Weak fluttering flight. 6 Broad-billed Hummingbird is represented by an incomplete specimen (ISM 660432, a tail feather) and a series of photographs. The belly and under tail coverts are white. Yellow-billed Loon: Large loon, white-spotted black upperparts, white underparts, gray sides with fine white spots. Dark wings with white wing bar. Legs and feet are yellow-orange. Eastern populations are red-brown, Northwestern birds are more brown, and Western Interior birds are gray-brown. It has a direct flight and hovers before diving for fish. Legs are yellow to pale brown. Swift direct flight, hovers when feeding. Legs and feet are gray. White-tailed Kite: Small hawk with gray upperparts, black shoulders, and white face and underparts. Steady deep wing beats. Short flights, alternates rapid wing beats with brief periods of wings pulled to sides. Whooping Crane: Adults are nearly all white except for red crown, black mask, and black primary feathers most visible in flight. Snow geese come in two phases: the white phase, in which birds are all-white with black wing patches and the blue phase, in which birds are dark bodied with white heads. Feeds on aquatic plants, cultivated grains, seeds. An irruptive species is one that moves irregularly, and not every year, when its food source in its northern habitats is depleted. Reddish Egret: Medium egret with blue-gray body and shaggy, pale rufous head and neck. It feeds on fish, small birds, or almost anything. The sexes are similar. Represented on the list are 62 families and 21 orders of birds. These are: Recent Additions: Barnacle Goose, Limpkin, Little Stint, Lewis’s Woodpecker, Red-naped Sapsucker, Pacific-slope/Cordilleran Flycatcher, White-crested/Small-billed Elaenia, Cassin’s Kingbird, Cassin’s Vireo, Plumbeous Vireo, Wandering Tattler, Recent Removal due to Taxonomy Changes in the 58th AOS Check-list Supplement: Thayer’s Gull, Recent Additions/Removals due to Taxonomy Changes in the 57th AOU Check-list Supplement: Green Violetear replaced with Mexican Violetear, Western Scrub-Jay replaced with California/Woodhouse’s Scrub-Jay. Sexes are similar. Fish Crow: Medium-sized crow with black body and dark, heavy bill. 3 The native Wild Turkey population in Illinois was extirpated in the early 1900’s. Pink legs, feet. Sexes similar, but male is smaller with a brighter bill base. Direct and hovering flight with very rapid wing beats. Walks on ground, wades in water to forage. The face is black with a broken white eye-ring. Long-billed Curlew: Very large sandpiper with brown mottled upperparts, buff-brown underparts with dark streaks and spots. The wings have white shoulder patches and a green speculum visible in flight. The crown and nape are pale blue; distinct bill is orange-red, sweeping upward into a large, orange basal knob outlined in black.

The tail is long and squared with a black-bordered gray center and edged in white. Legs, feet are red. Underparts are white, and buff-brown wash on throat. Compiler: Daniel Moorehouse (dmoorehouse@frontiernet.net) Please email the count contact (not the compiler) to participate. American Black Duck: Stocky, medium-sized dabbling duck with dark brown body, paler face and foreneck, and purple speculum bordered with black. Eyes are red, bill is black.

Black Skimmer: Odd-looking, tern-like bird with black upperparts and white underparts. Direct flight on deep wing beats. Head has brown cap, white face, and dark eyestripe. Bill, legs,feet are yellow.

Legs, feet are orange. 2 During the summers of 1991-98 Greater Prairie-Chickens from out-of-state were introduced into Illinois’ only remaining populations in Jasper and Marion counties. White wing patches are visible in flight. Legs dark, bill dusky with yellow tip. On a warm September day at dusk, nighthawks can be seen, even right over your house, as they feed on the wing. Bobs tail and often makes short flights to hawk insects.