Artwork by Evan Smith
Plan now for your team or your individual Big Sit. Learn more about how to participate as a team or an individual, how to register a fundraising page, how to donate, and how to join in the fun!
The Illinois Ornithological Records Committee (IORC) recently concluded evaluations of 31 records of the occurrence of rare birds in Illinois. IORC accepted 26 of these records and did not accept five.
The records involved are summarized below. For each record, we indicate the species or form, with number of individuals in parentheses if greater than one, followed by date or date range, location, and county. The record number is indicated in parentheses, followed by, for accepted records, names of the documenters. If multiple documenters are listed, those understood by IORC to have been the original finders of the bird(s) are listed first and separated from the others by a semicolon. IORC thanks all the documenters, for accepted and unaccepted records alike, for their submissions. All documentation is maintained in the IORC archives so that there is a permanent record of all these observations. Documentation, regardless of the Committee’s decision, is a valuable part of the record of bird life in Illinois.
Records Accepted
Records Not Accepted
This year 7 grant proposals were fully funded, totaling $17,000 in research dollars! IOS has now funded 140 grants, awarding over $137,000 since the program’s inception.
One of IOS’s objectives is “To promote scientific research and education in order to improve knowledge and awareness of birds in Illinois”. The IOS Grants Program was initiated several years ago to support this objective with funding.
The 2024 IOS Grants Program received fourteen requests for funding, representing a notably diverse set of study goals. The IOS review team evaluated each proposal to determine this year’s recipients. In addition to money provided directly by IOS, donations by five organizations and many individuals made it possible for the 2024 grant recipient to receive full funding for their projects.
Sponsor Organizations:
Dupage Birding Club
Illinois Audubon Society
Lake-Cook Audubon Society
Chicago Ornithological Society
Evanston North Shore Bird Club
Thanks to all! Without the generosity of these organizations and IOS members and friends in the bird conservation community, IOS would not be able to support these projects. The support exemplified by this funding sends an important message to these students and researchers: We believe in your work, and we care about the future of our state’s bird life!
Thanks to Dustin Weidner, John Leonard and Matt Hayes for reviewing and evaluating all the requests.
Congratulations to the grant recipients! Watch for their project articles in future issues of Meadowlark. Following is a synopsis of the 2024 grants. Where noted, individuals and organizations targeted those grants for their donations.
| Project Lead | Project | Fully Sponsored by |
| Mike Avara University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | The stopover and wintering behavior of Northern Saw-whet Owls in Illinois | Bob Fisher |
| Avi Berger University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | A Novel Approach to Investigating Developmental Changes in Eggshell Thickness | Illinois Audubon Society |
| Carlos Calzada University of Chicago & Field Museum of Natural History | West Nile Virus Epizootic in the FMNH’s Bird Collection: Evidence for Pathogen-driven Selection? | Dupage Birding Club |
| Mac Chamberlain University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign | Social and genetic monogamy in the Brown-headed cowbird (Molothrus ater) | Individuals & Illinois Ornithological Society |
| Avery Dart Illinois State University | Effects of extra-pair paternity on provisioning effort in male house wrens (Troglodytes aedon) | Illinois Audubon Society |
| Ramona Pollard The Nature Institute | Mapping Birds for Restoration: Use of Passive Bird Monitoring to Create Targeted Restoration Efforts | Individuals, Chicago Ornithological Society & Illinois Ornithological Society |
| Anastasia Rahlin Illinois Natural History Survey, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | Investigating Marsh and Sedge Wren diets with fecal metabarcoding across a wetland urbanization gradient | Lake-Cook Audubon Society |
IOS will be hosting its annual August Shorebirding Weekend on August 24th and 25th, within the Emiquon and Chautauqua Wildlife Refuges. This is one of Illinois’ premier hotspots for migrant shorebirds and is host to numerous shorebirds each season. It’s not uncommon for us to see over 20 species of shorebirds on this trip! In addition to the numerous possibilities of shorebirds, the area also offers a nice assortment of passerines, herons, terns, and waterfowl. We look forward to sharing another weekend with all of you for some great birding! Lunch will be provided at the Dixon Mounds State Museum on Saturday, where we can cool off and relax before we continue birding for the afternoon.
CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE AND REGISTER
The Illinois Ornithological Records Committee (IORC) recently concluded evaluations of 25 records of the occurrence of rare birds in Illinois. IORC accepted 15 of these records and did not accept 10.
The records involved are summarized below. For each record, we indicate the species or form, with number of individuals in parentheses if greater than one, followed by date or date range, location, and county. The record number is indicated in parentheses, followed by, for accepted records, names of the documenters. If multiple documenters are listed, those understood by IORC to have been the original finders of the bird(s) are listed first and separated from the others by a semicolon. IORC thanks all the documenters, for accepted and unaccepted records alike, for their submissions. All documentation is maintained in the IORC archives so that there is a permanent record of all these observations. Documentation, regardless of the Committee’s decision, is a valuable part of the record of bird life in Illinois.
Records Accepted
Records Not Accepted
To the Illinois birding community, please consider supporting the IOS Grants program.
Since 2004, the IOS Grants Program has awarded multiple grants to applicants conducting projects relating to birds and/or birding in Illinois. Funding has been provided from a variety of sources including individual donations from IOS members and friends, donations from birding and bird conservation organizations and local birding groups around the state, the Gull Frolic, Big Day pledges, and more. We couldn’t offer this program without the generosity and support from the Illinois birding community!
Each year we receive many applications, 2024 (our 21st year) is no different, with four proposals submitted and the deadline still ahead. The submissions will be reviewed in detail by our Grants team, and we are striving to fund as many of the proposals as possible. We are hoping to notify applicants if they will receive funding by May 19th.
Many come from graduate students at various universities around Illinois, to support their research on birds. Some requests are projects in their 2nd or 3rd year of field research.
The IOS Grants are important on multiple levels:
Supporting the IOS Grants program is one way that the birding community can show how we value the commitment and dedication of the applicants doing bird-related research. By donating to the IOS Grants program, individuals like you are supporting the work that builds our future, helping maintain and expand high quality habitat, identifying and mediating conservation issues, and ensuring that birds will continue to thrive in Illinois.
Please donate what you can, contact your friends, neighbors, family, local clubs and organizations, and ask them to help. IOS will help combine contributions to fund requests. Any amount is appreciated! If you or your organization would like to fully fund a request, we will help you contact the recipient and make the award yourself, if desired.
To make a contribution
Mail checks to:
Illinois Ornithological Society
c/o Grants Program
PO Box 931
Lake Forest, IL 60045
Thank you for your support!
IOS Grants Team
Dustin Weidner
Grants Program Director
Weidner: 214-697-9266
grants@illinoisbirds.org
The Illinois Ornithological Records Committee (IORC) recently concluded evaluations of 20 records of the occurrence of rare birds in Illinois. IORC accepted 19 of these records and did not accept one. Among the accepted records are two additions to the official state list: Broad-tailed Hummingbird and European Goldfinch. Broad-tailed Hummingbird was accepted on the basis of an individual observed in Champaign County during November. European Goldfinch was accepted based on an argument that this introduced exotic species is now established with a viable breeding population in the state.
The records involved are summarized below. For each record, we indicate the species or form, with number of individuals in parentheses if greater than one, followed by date or date range, location, and county. The record number is indicated in parentheses, followed by, for accepted records, names of the documenters. If multiple documenters are listed, those understood by IORC to have been the original finders of the bird(s) are listed first and separated from the others by a semicolon. IORC thanks all the documenters, for accepted and unaccepted records alike, for their submissions. All documentation is maintained in the IORC archives so that there is a permanent record of all these observations. Documentation, regardless of the Committee’s decision, is a valuable part of the record of bird life in Illinois.
Records Accepted
Records Not Accepted
Wednesday, January 24th at 7:00pm
Hawaiian Honeycreepers and the Conservation Crisis – Past, Present and Future
A group of rose finches from central Asia migrated over the Pacific Ocean, thus irrupting, as finches tend to do, 6,000 miles, landing on Hawaii more than 5 million years ago. This may have happened a few times. These finches found unique foods and habitats, and they adaptively radiated to dozens of species. This is similar to the story of Darwin’s finches, and these rose finches adaptively radiated into more 50 new species that exploited these food resources.
After settlers arrived, rats, cats, pigs, mongooses, invasive plants, diseases, and the most current threat, mosquitos carrying avian malaria, were introduced. From a high of 53-56 species, now only 16 remain. New efforts are being done to help the last remaining species.
Matt Young, FiRN Founder and Executive Director
Matt has been observing and enjoying nature since a very young age. He’s lived in Central New York for 26+ years and it was during this time when he really started studying everything from birds to orchids, and bogs and fens. Matt received his B.S. in Water Resources with a minor in Meteorology from SUNY-Oneonta and his M.S. in Ornithology from the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry/Syracuse University in 2003. Matt did his masters research on avian diversity in restored wetlands of central New York at the Great Swamp Conservancy. He was a Regional Editor of the Kingbird for 10 years, the state ornithological journal in New York, was an Adjunct Professor in Environmental Studies at SUNY-Cortland, and currently teaches an Intro to Birding class for Cornell University and was the Board Chair at The Wetland Trust.
Over the last 26 years he’s worked as a social worker (and is currently) with special needs young adults and adolescents for close to 12 years, and worked at the Cornell Lab across 15+ years where he did extensive field work for the Lab’s Cerulean and Golden-winged Warblers atlas projects, and was project lead on the Lab’s first Finch Irruptive Bird Survey for Bird Source in 1999. He was the Collections Management Leader/Audio Engineer at the Macaulay Library ~12 years where he edited sounds for several Merlin packs around the world in addition to being the lead audio engineer on guides, the Songs of the Warblers of North America, Audubon Society Voices of Hawaii’s Birds, and the Cornell Lab’s Guides to Bird Sounds, the North America Master and Essential Sets. He’s been a tour guide leader for Victor Emanuel Nature Tours, written finch species accounts for breeding bird atlases and Birds of the World, and has published several papers about the Red Crossbill vocal complex including describing a new call type Type 12. He’s currently working on Finches of United States and Canada with Lillian Stokes and is also the President and Founder of the Finch Research Network (FiRN).
Nathan Goldberg, FiRN Hawaiian Honeycreeper Project Lead
Nathan Goldberg is a graduate of Cornell University, and a tour leader and guide for the Red Hill Birding team. He is an avid birder for over a decade and from the Chicagoland region. In 2020, he set the Illinois Big Year record, seeing 341 species over the course of the year. After leading a trip in Hawaii in 2021 he reached out to Matt to get involved in helping raise awareness around the conservation crisis in Hawaii.
To learn more about the Honeycreepers Project, click here.
This year we were able to fund 3 grant proposals! This brings the total to 133 grants and over $120,500 awarded since the program’s inception, through this year.
One of IOS’s objectives is “To promote scientific research and education in order to improve knowledge and awareness of birds in Illinois”. The IOS Grants Program was initiated several years ago to support this objective with funding.
The 2022 IOS Grants Program received ten requests for funding, representing a notably diverse set of study goals. The IOS review team evaluated each proposal, and determined that all were suitable for funding within the scope of that key objective described above. In addition to money provided directly by IOS, donations by four organizations and many individuals made it possible for all of the 2023 grant requests to be fully funded.
Sponsor Organizations:
DuPage Birding Club
Illinois Audubon Society
Lake-Cook Audubon Society
Illinois Ornithological Society
Thanks to you all! Without the generosity of these organizations and IOS members and friends in the bird conservation community, IOS would not be able to support these projects. The support exemplified by this funding sends an important message to these students and researchers: We believe in your work, and we care about the future of our state’s bird life!
Thanks to John Leonard and Scott Meister for reviewing and evaluating all the requests.
Congratulations to the grant recipients! Watch for their project articles in future issues of Meadowlark and watch for short summaries on the IOS website. Here’s a synopsis of the 2023 grants. Where noted, individuals and organizations targeted those grants for their donations.
| Recipient | Affiliation | Project | |
| Abhay Agarwal | Sanctuary for the Skies | Sanctuary For The Skies | |
| Avery Dart | Illinois State University | Effects of extra-pair paternity on provisioning effort and nest defense in male house wrens (Troglodytes aedon) | |
| Adrianna Yoder | DePaul University | Habitat Characteristics & Seasonality of Red-headed Woodpecker Cavity Use |
The Illinois Ornithological Records Committee (IORC) recently concluded evaluations of 26 records of the occurrence of rare birds in Illinois. IORC accepted 26 of these records and did not accept one.
The records involved are summarized below. For each record, we indicate the species or form, with number of individuals in parentheses if greater than one, followed by date or date range, location, and county. The record number is indicated in parentheses, followed by, for accepted records, names of the documenters. If multiple documenters are listed, those understood by IORC to have been the original finders of the bird(s) are listed first and separated from the others by a semicolon. IORC thanks all the documenters, for accepted and unaccepted records alike, for their submissions. All documentation is maintained in the IORC archives so that there is a permanent record of all these observations. Documentation, regardless of the Committee’s decision, is a valuable part of the record of bird life in Illinois.
Records Accepted
Records Not Accepted
