Birding by Number: 87th St. Steel Mills

Hi all,

This is a master post about the area I call 87th St. Steel Mills. What I consider to be the property boundaries are below:

For listing purposes, I count what I can see while I'm standing within the boundaries of the 87th property. In this property, there are a few places where I focus my birding. This is because a majority of it is private property. I am going to attempt to get permission to access these lands, but it is currently unclear if that will work. I used to get access from the security office, but they decided to stop allowing us in. In the short time I had access to these lands, I got Prothonotary Warbler, Yellow-throated Warbler, and a pair of Smith's Longspurs, so these lands get good birds.

The first area I bird is Steelworker's Park.

The map below is how to bird Steelworker's Park. Along the blue line is great for passerines. I get large sparrow and warbler numbers here in migration. The best ones so far are Pine Warbler, Rusty Blackbird, Pine Siskin, Sedge Wren, and Upland Sandpiper. The green dashes are where I stand to scan the lake. I usually see large numbers of ducks and grebes, including Red-necked and Western Grebes and Harlequin Duck. Make sure to scan the breakwalls throughly as Snowy Owls and gulls both like them. The red is potential parking areas. The yellow line on the bottom of the map is where I have been getting Snowy Owls recently.

The next location in 87th I bird frequently is Park 566, which just got a large expansion on the boundaries.

The western boundaries are easy to not overstep because there is a fence running along it. The map below is how to bird Park 566. The pink trail is an old asphalt road. I get large numbers of sparrows, typically hundreds, along this path. The best birds I have gotten are Hoary and Common Redpoll, Nelson's Sparrow, and LeConte's Sparrow. The red path is a berm (very overgrown now) that runs right along the lakeside.You can stop anywhere along it and scan the lake. There are often hundreds of mergansers and Aythya ducks in the water off of the berm. The best birds seen from the berm are Sabine's Gull, Black Scoter, Snowy Owl, and Cackling Goose. I also get good sparrow numbers in the grasses along the berm. At the base of the berm bordering Rainbow Beach property, there is a treeline that is a good place for passerines. The green dash is where parking is and the light blue line is how to get to both the old asphalt road and the berm. Parking along the Rainbow Beach entrance drive is unclear whether it is legal or not.

EDIT: Parking is available on the south side of S Lake Shore Drive just east of where it intersects with S Farragut Drive.

The last area I frequently check is the Dragonfly Pond/ Park 503. I typically just call it the Dragonfly Pond.

While birding the Dragonfly Pond, make sure to look north at the power lines, highlighted in blue, because I got a Western Kingbird on them. The namesake pond is the yellow and green area below. While a good variety of dragonflies occur at it, the best one by far is Band-winged Dragonlet. They were documented breeding in this pond, which constitutes the first Illinois breeding record for this vagrant dragonfly. The green line is a good place to stand and pish for passerines.