Birding in North Pond

The North Pond Area

North Pond is located in Lincoln Park, a beautiful urban park on the north side of Chicago, Illinois. The North Pond area is bounded on the north and the east by Cannon Drive, the south by Fullerton Parkway, and the west by Stockton Drive.

This photo shows North Pond and the immediately surrounding area. The top of the photo is east, left is north, right is south, and bottom is west. You can see Diversey Harbor at the top, with its array of docking piers. The Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum is the large building in the upper right of the photo at the east end of North Pond. The "X" shape in the pond next to the museum is the Casting Pier. At the north (left) end of the pond you can see North Pond restaurant

This small area has hosted 195 different species of birds. Beavers and Red Fox have visited the pond site, though Gray Squirrels are the more common mammalian residents (other than Homo sapiens and Canus domesticus).

The North Pond Photo Gallery

Here is a Red-eared Slider with all four legs stuck out to catch the sun. It looks like it has visions of Superman in its head. John Purcell and I found this sunning slider on 10 September 2011.

The 7 September 2011 walk was a good one, with 44 species of birds seen, including the unexpected bonus of seeing an Eastern Whip-poor-will. Here the bird is perched on a limb of one of the trees east of the pond.

This Halloween Pennant, seen on the 8 June 2011 walk, was a new species of dragonfly for me in Lincoln Park..

One of the better spots for warblers at North Pond is the grove of trees just west of the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum. Unfortunately, the birds are often high in these trees. In this photo, taken 8 Sep 2010, John Purcell, Judy Friedman, and Ward Boulten (three of the North Pond Bird Walk "regulars") work either on their warbler identification or on muscle strain in the neck.

When June rolls around, our attention on the bird walks is often drawn to the breeding birds. Here is a Red-winged Blackbird fledgling that we watched on the 16 June 2010 walk.

On the same walk, we saw a male Downy Woodpecker bring some food to his nest hole. He briefly disappeared inside, re-emerging a short time later with a fecal sac. This photo shows him before he entered the hole. [Note: a couple of weeks after this photo was taken, and major wind storm took down this tree.]

On the 9 June 2010 walk, the group went "out of bounds" by walking over to Diversey Harbor to see if we could find some swans that we saw (briefly) flying south along Lake Michigan. We didn't find the swans, but this gave us an excuse to look at the swallow nests under the Lake Shore Drive bridge at the mouth of Diversey Harbor. Here are some Cliff Swallow nests (left) and a Barn Swallow nest (right), showing the different nest styles.

On the 19 May 2010 walk, Cheri Thompson spotted this Least Bittern lurking in the cattails at the north end of the pond. Paul Doughty blackberried a message up to IL-Birds alerting the birding community to its presence, and by the end of the walk there was already a stream of people coming over to the pond to see the bittern.

After that same walk, John Purcell (left) and Ward Boulton (right) discussed the bittern over coffee and doughnut holes in the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum. This is where the group gathers at the end of the walk to tally up the morning's sightings.

Here are some of the North Pond Bird Walk regulars, gathering on the casting pier near the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum prior to the 28 April 2010 walk. That's Michael Teller on the left, and then to his left is Joan Norek with John Chalmers standing behing her. Off on the right is Judy Friedman; notice how intent she is, all ready to pick out birds at the south end. The fellow in black with his legs crossing is Stanley Greenberg, a photographer from New York City who was visiting Chicago to oversee the set-up of an exhibit of his work at The Art Institute of Chicago. You can see some of what Stanley has produced by visiting his web site (click here).

This junco was initially spotted at the very start of the 17 March 2010 walk, when it was up high in a tree and backlit by the rising sun. We couldn't get a good look at it, but it seemed like a possibility for an "Oregon-type" Junco. It flew over to near the Nature Museum's feeders, and I chased it over there, but it wasn't readily visible and I had to get back to the group. By the time everyone had wandered over to the feeders, not a junco was to be seen. Fortunately, at the end of the walk, a group of sparrows were feeding on birdseed thrown out on the sidewalks near the museum, and this one was among them. I am presuming that this is an Oregon Junco, but I am not sure if I can definitively rule out the possibility that it is what people refer to as Cassiar Junco. The flanks in this photo look mostly gray (like what a Cassiar would have), but other photos of what I assume is the same bird show much buffier color there (as would be expected for Oregon).

Julie Samansky pointed out the Cackling Goose shown below on the 30 September 2009 walk. This is the first Cackling Goose recorded at North Pond, on the walks or otherwise. They have probably occurred there before, but no specific prior record exists to our knowledge. The photographs were taken by Janet Swenson.

On the 16 July 2008 walk, Ted Bretter took the following photos showing a Blue Dasher (one of the common summer dragonflies at the pond) and an American Kestrel having an aerial meal.

On the 13 June 2007, a large Red-eared Slider was seen walking in the park grass north of the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum. After the walk, Chris Traynor and Geoff Williamson relocated the turtle and saw that it was digging a hole in the lawn, presumably to lay eggs.

Edward Warden found a Snapping Turtle on the 6 June 2007 walk. Here it is, presumably digging (or filling in) a hole for eggs.

On the 12 July 2006 walk, we were treated to close-up views of juvenile Black-crowned Night-Herons fishing on the shore next to the casting pier.

The group spotted this Painted Turtle on our 14 June 2006 walk. We see mostly Red-eared Sliders, so a Painted Turtle was a nice find.

This Red-spotted Purple butterfly entertained the group on 7 June 2006, a day when we saw five different species of butterflies along with 39 different species of birds.

This Barred Owl, found and photographed by Veronica Cook on 9 November 2005, represented the 193rd species recorded in the vicinity of the North Pond.

Here is North Pond, looking south from the north end, in July 2003. That's the John Hancock Building (third tallest in Chicago) that you can see in the distance with the two antennae on top.

Here is a view of the North Pond Cafe at the north end of North Pond. The bronze statue you can see on the rise behind the cafe is of Richard James Oglesby (1824 - 1899). Oglesby was a Civil War soldier who later served as governor of Illinois for "three" terms (1865 - 1869; Jan. 13-23, 1873 after which he resigned to become U.S. Senator; 1885-1889) and as a U.S. senator for one term (1873-1879). This statue sits atop the highest point in Lincoln Park. The North Pond Bird Walks often climb this hill to take advantage of the elevation while checking the nearby trees for migrant birds.

Photo by Prakash Pandit, who visited Chicago from India during 2003 and enjoyed the North Pond Bird Walks during his stay. On his departure, Prakash said, "I am leaving Chicago tonight with memories of bird watching especially at North Pond every Wednesday. I had no idea while coming to Chicago that this area serves as an 'airport' for so many birds."

During the warmer months you can see Red-eared Sliders, a type of turtle, basking on the logs at North Pond. Here is one, peeking through the reeds.

One can also find dragonflies about the pond. Here is what I believe to be a freshly-emerged Blue Dasher. This photo was taken on 15 June 2005.

This site last updated on 24 May 2012.
Contact Geoff Williamson with any comments, updates or suggestions.

Bird Walks around North Pond

The North Pond Area

The North Pond Photo Gallery