Listing Through Life

parus (titmouse) atricapillus (from atri, black and capillus, crown)

Saturday, June 30, 1979 – 1:30 p.m.

Des Plaines, Illinois

Exactly 12 hours after proposing to my girlfriend, we were looking out the window of my bedroom into the backyard and saw two Black-capped Chickadees foraging in the row of bushes by the shed. This came as something of a surprise to me. I never knew you could see chickadees by my house. A few years later, a pair actually nested in a bird house hanging off the roof of this same shed.

picoides (from picus, a woodpecker, and eidos, appearance) pubescens (with hairs of puberty)

Tuesday, June 26, 1979 – 12:15 pm

Highland Park, Illinois – residential area

I was on my roofing job.  I had just returned from the lunch break during which I spotted my lifer Red-headed Woodpecker.  The house we were roofing was in a heavily-wooded residential area with a deep, heavily-wooded ravine, about 200 yards across, immediately behind the house.

The Downy Woodpeckers were foraging in a tree right at the edge of the ravine.  After picking at the branches for a short time, they flew down into the ravine out of my sight.

melanerpes (from melanos, black and herpes, a creeper) erythrocephalus (from erythros, red, and kephale, head)

Tuesday, June 26, 1979 – 12:00 noon

Highland Park, Illinois – Rosewood Park

I was on lunch break from my roofing job.  The guy I was working with this day drove us to a sandwich shop for lunch and then to a lake shore park to eat.  I had just finished when I saw this bird fly across an open area and land in a nearby tree. I got up and followed it as it continued to a strip of large trees on top of a bluff above Lake Michigan.  It foraged tree-to-tree north along the lake and soon disappeared from my sight.

colaptes (to peck with bill) discolor (of different colors)

Monday, June 11, 1979 – 6:50 am

Glencoe, Illinois – residential area off Dundee Road

I was driving to work at my roofing job when this flicker flew across the road in front of my car and landed on a wooden post-and-rail fence.  I backed up my car to get a better look, but when I got close to the bird, it took off and flew over a nearby house and out of sight.

cardinalis (important dignitary of the Roman Catholic Church who wears scarlet robes) cardinalis, ditto

Friday, June 8, 1979 – 3:00 pm

Glencoe, Illinois – residential area

I was on a roofing job. I had just seen my lifer Chimney Swift a half hour earlier. The cardinal was one of the few birds that I knew well before I began birding that I hadn’t yet seen since I started listing.  I’d been watching for one every day. I was on the roof when I spotted this bird.  It flew to the top of a tall, dead tree, landed on an exposed perch, and began singing while I shingled and listened.