Category: Photos

Weekend Recap 05/16-05/17

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Saturday (05/16) we stopped at Burger King to grab some breakfast on our way to Fullersburg Woods to see what warblers we could spot. Not as many as I had hoped, unfortunately, but I did add two to my life list – the Magnolia Warbler and Blackpoll Warbler!

A little rant: why is it so hard to find a quick breakfast at 7 am? Taco Bell and Wendy’s stopped serving breakfast in our area, I’m trying not to patronize McDonald’s as much, and Tropical Smoothie Cafe opens too late. Even most of the gas stations have little to no breakfast sandwiches ready in the mornings and I don’t like starting the day eating pastries because I need the protein to not only feel full but to avoid a low blood sugar crash later. I guess I need to start making breakfast burritos again.

On the way home we stopped at Rainbow Cone for a sweet treat. I got a small cone with the traditional flavors and Joe got an espresso milk shake. The dumpster enclosure at the back of the building is painted to match the Rainbow Cone colors which made me laugh.

Afterwards we stopped at Murphy’s Farm to pick up flowers for the patio. We got vicas, some purple flowers I forgot the name of, and red New Guinea Impatiens.

Sunday (05/17) morning we did a little birding at Churchill Woods and picked up some Coleus at Hacker’s Garden Center.

In the afternoon we met up with Joe’s daughter at Sagawau Environmental Learning Center in Lemont to watch them trap and band birds. It was quite the learning experience and really cool to see birds up close and personal even if they mostly caught orioles.

Baltimore Orioles aren’t as large as they seem from a distance.

Afterwards we all went to Matt’s BBQ in Lemont for a delicious lunch. No pics, though, but it was delicious. The pork belly burnt ends and Texas Twinkie in particular were phenomenal.

Extended Weekend Recap 05/07-05/10

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Every year on the anniversary of Wookie’s passing Joe takes the day off work and we go birding because that’s what we did after leaving the vet without her on that horrible day. We couldn’t bare to go home to an empty house so we went to our happy place, the arboretum. This year because it landed on a Thursday Joe took Friday off too.

Since Thursday (05/07) was rather cold, we opted to do a Costco run around 11 am thinking it would be nice and calm. Boy were we wrong! It was pretty crowded, but we got what we came for and then stopped in the food court on the way out to get hot dogs. They also added chicken fingers to their menu and a caramel churro sundae so we decided to try those too. The chicken fingers were pretty good, as was the very generous container of dipping sauce that seemed like a cross between Raising Cane’s and Chick-fil-a sauce.

That sundae, though, wow!

I’m not big on churros or caramel but it was delicious.

Later in the afternoon we ran out to a nearby park to do a little birding before heading back home to wait for the Xfinity tech to work on the ongoing upload issues we’ve been having.

Friday (05/08) we decided to check out the DuPage Wildlife Conservation Center, formerly known as Willowbrook Wildlife Center. The new building is huge and you can peek in on some of the animal rehabilitation going on in there, including surgery, if you’re lucky. I miss when they had different birds, reptiles, and amphibians on display. Now it’s just very cold and lifeless with some educational materials which is rather sad. Sure, the former building was small and old but this big building doesn’t offer much to visitors and despite following them on Facebook I didn’t even know it finally opened in January after years of being under construction because they didn’t post about it.

The trail behind the building is still there but gone are the birds, foxes, and mammals that used to be on display. And I get it – that was probably stressful for them, so they have been moved away from the public eye. But did they have to take out the butterfly garden and koi pond too? The trail still offers something worth exploring, and it’s quiet back there, but I miss the old site.

Oh, and inside the building by the restrooms there is a box with a suggested donation of $5 per person. I thought about it while using the bathroom and decided against it since my property taxes, which have now exceeded $8000 annually, paid for that entire site. If we didn’t live in the same county then I would have left a donation.

Saturday (05/09) we finally visited Montrose Point Bird Sanctuary during spring migration!

We wanted to go during the week but the weather wasn’t cooperating. The nice thing about going into the city on the weekend is traffic is better.

We arrived at 6 am and headed to the pier by Montrose Beach first to see if we could spot a Piping Plover since they’re back for the season. To our delight, there was one running around the beach within camera range. They are so small and cute!

The lack of bands suggest she’s new to the area.

We could see a row of people on the opposite end of the cordoned off area probably trying to get a glimpse of the plovers as well but based on the fact that no one was taking any photos I don’t think they were in sight for them so we didn’t go over to that area. (We did end up over there right before we left the sanctuary a few hours later though to look for the burrowing owl that has been spotted in the grassy hill nearby but didn’t see it).

Once we headed into the sanctuary we could see it was busy. It only got more crowded as the morning went on! That being said, everyone was very quiet and respectful. We even had a nice conversation with one of our fellow birders while watching various warblers flit around the tree canopy by the magic hedge area.

Had we visited on a weekday, our next stop would have been the zoo, but we decided to skip it. We knew it would be packed on a Saturday, especially with how beautiful the weather was.

We stopped at Trailside Museum for a short walk around the nature center building to look at the bird feeders and see if there were any nearby places to grab lunch that weren’t as chaotic as the Cava I had bookmarked, but we didn’t find anything so we headed home where I made some crispy tacos instead.

Montrose Point Statistics

Photos taken: 662
Photos immediately deleted: 416
Lifers: 3 (piping plover, backburnian warbler, dunlin)

Species seen, with photos (12)
American redstart
Black and white warbler
Blackburnian warbler
Black-capped chickadee
Black-throated green warbler
Blue-gray gnatcatcher
Common Grackle
Dunlin
Piping Plover
Ruby crowned kinglet
Warbling vireo
White-crowed sparrow
Yellow-rumped warbler

Without photos (8)
American goldfinch
American robin
Common Yellowthroat
Gulls
Flycatcher – exact unknown (technically got very bad photos)
Killdeer
Northern cardinal
Palm warbler
Spotted sandpiper
Yellow Warbler

Dis-honorable mentions, just because I dislike these birds (2)
Canada goose
Red-winged blackbird

Sunday (05/10) after grabbing groceries from Aldi we stopped at ActiviTea so I could try their cookie butter iced latte.

I have to say, wasn’t impressed. 7 Brew is much better, and the cost is pretty comparable.

Update: I later learned ActiviTea uses Monin syrups. 7 Brew uses a combination of Torani syrups to achieve the cookie butter flavor, which I wish I had known before ordering the cookie butter from Monin because it sucks. I usually like all the flavors I order from them but that one is awful.

Later in the day we went to Lincoln Marsh.

Too Good To Go

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Too Good To Go is a service that was created to suddenly prevent food waste. Restaurants and gas stations offer surprise bags – for a pre-paid price you get items nearing expiration (but not yet expired). Usually at places like gas stations it will specify whether it’s a general surprise bag which can contain any consumable they sell or a baked goods surprise bag which could include muffins, cookies, croissants, etc.

All that to say we got a general surprise bag from a gas station recently that was actually very good for $4. Inside was a yogurt parfait, fresh fruit, two muffins, a stuffed croissant, and some Kraft mac and cheese.

This morning we stopped at Speedway to pick up a baked goods surprise bag for $4. First off, it wasn’t ready so we had to wait while they put it together. When it was handed to me I could see through the bag it had a can of Pringles and some candy in it. I pointed out it was supposed to be a baked goods surprise bag and the lady started arguing with me, saying it can include anything. I replied, “no, that would be the regular surprise bag”. I could tell the guy working the counter was looking at her sideways. She was treating ME like I didn’t know what I was talking about when that was HER. I even pointed out in the app it said “baked goods” and she told me they don’t sell cooking items, as if I was asking her for flour and sugar to bake a cake or something! Finally she threw in two packages of mini donuts off a nearby rack to get me to leave.

I got home and opened the bag.

None of the stuff was expiring anytime soon except one of the peanut butter cups which was over a month past expiration. What that means to me is they aren’t following the spirit of the app and are merely trying to pawn off their poor selling items.

Those egg shaped items are bath bombs, by the way. The lady who I dealt with didn’t seem too bright so I wouldn’t be surprised if she thought they were candy due to their shape.

When I got home I looked closer at the baked goods description and it literally said it would include donuts. Wish I had been able to pull that up to show them in store but I was frazzled from being admonished by that stupid woman.

Needless to say I gave them a 1 star rating in the app and explained why. I won’t ever be going inside that Speedway again anyway – it was very dirty and disorganized. Their entire hot food area was completely empty except for some old slices of pizza. No wonder we were the only customers.

Extended Weekend Recap (04/17-04/19)

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Joe took Friday (04/17) off work so we could get out in nature and enjoy the beautiful weather. Our first stop was the arboretum, naturally. We didn’t see any unique birds, but the turtles were out in abundance and a robin was chirping loudly in the tree by our car when we were getting ready to leave.

Our next stop was Whalon Lake because there had been reports two days prior of an American Avocet along the shore. Spoiler alert: we didn’t see it. We knew it was a longshot, though, and were both too tired to make the trek around the lake to look everywhere, so it may have still been there (although the lack of further reports on eBird suggests it wasn’t).

That was ok, however, because it gave us the excuse to stop at Minnie Bird again to get more delicious pimento cheese wraps! I tried a dirty soda called The Peachy Pibb. Thank goodness there isn’t a location too close to home because it had been less than a week since our last visit.

We took the food to a nearby forest preserve so we could people watch before heading home.

Saturday (04/18), after a trip to the library, we tried a place called Jollibee for lunch. We weren’t impressed with their chicken, but their take on spaghetti is pretty unique – it includes cut up hot dogs, which sounds gross but is actually good.

It’s Sheldon approved! IYKYK

Sunday (04/19) after grocery shopping we stopped at a new coffee drive-thru called 7 Brew. It opened last month so there’s usually a massive line, but at 7 am there were only two cars so we figured why not. Joe got a large hot vanilla latte and I got a medium cookie butter iced latte. The person who took our order did so on an iPad so we had no idea what anything cost; the $13 total was a bit of sticker shock. Those are Starbucks prices, damn!

Someone also drove past the people taking orders basically cutting the line so we had to sit behind them and wait for them to get their order since they brought ours out to the car. I really can’t stand people like that who think they are more important and don’t have to follow the rules.

That being said, I thought my drink was very good. Joe wasn’t impressed with his.

We were pretty lazy the rest of the day, watching 90’s comedies on some a Roku channel called National Lampoon. Never heard of Senseless, starring Marlon Wayans and David Spade, before but it was pretty decent. Even bad 90s comedies seem to be more interesting than good comedies these days.

Weekend Recap (04/11-04/12)

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Saturday (04/11) we headed to the Schaumburg Container Store to pick up an order I had placed. They were having an online only 30% off sale and I wanted a few more multi-purpose bins like I bought years ago. I also bought a reusable microfiber duster. I had to pay for everything though because at some point Discover removed them from their gift cards offering. Our cash back balance keeps increasing because most of the gift cards now being offered by Discover are for places we don’t frequent. I joked with my friend I’m going to be ordering $500 worth of Taco Bell since they are one of the gift cards we actually use. I also can’t believe they added McDonald’s when those jerks won’t even let you pay with the gift card in their own app. I submitted feedback to Discover how I don’t like that they added McDonald’s for that reason.

Afterwards we hit up a nature center I used to frequent when I worked in Schaumburg and needed to get away from the office for a bit. It was surprisingly crowded, and other than briefly spotting what I think was a winter wren, it was a dud bird-wise.

Since we ran errands earlier in the morning, it was after 1 pm by that point so we headed over to KD Market (a Polish store) where we loaded up on all the things like stuffed cabbage, pierogis, soups, Polish sausage, etc.

We stuffed ourselves silly when we got home and not one, but two hermit thrushes showed up in the backyard while we were eating lunch. There’s something about seeing uncommon birds in your own backyard that is so thrilling!

Sunday (04/12) we headed over to a hidden gem near the house to see the white pelicans a fellow birder texted me about the day before. Luckily they were still there!

Afterwards we went to the arboretum. We spent three hours driving around and hiking some of the trails, one of which we hadn’t been on before but might be perfect when the warblers make their appearance soon. Also, we’ve been hearing frogs calling in big puddles for weeks now but can never see them. Well, I thought I had finally spotted one and got a photo, so I was excited!

Upon checking my photos I see it was a northern leopard frog. I guess it was hanging out with the chorus frogs who were making all the racket.

After the arboretum we stopped by At Home to look at a container (are you sensing a theme here?) I was interested in. I decided to pass after seeing it in person (looked cheap even though it was more expensive than The Container Store stuff I got).

Next we visited Whalon Lake in Naperville which had been a goldmine in waterfowl the first time we visited it last month. Unfortunately it was a bit of a dud this time around. The migrating ducks are moving north and won’t be seen again until late fall.

Our next stop was a place I’ve been wanting to try for awhile – Minnie Bird. It’s basically a chicken place that has an extensive dirty drink menu (sodas and coffee). We split a 3 wrap combo and tried a dirty soda called The Marshmallow which is basically Mr. Pibb with marshmallow cream. It wasn’t my favorite, but the chicken wraps (especially the pimento one) and fries were so good we’ll definitely be going back soon and will try a different dirty soda flavor. Or maybe a coffee since those look delicious.

Across the parking is a Korean store called H Mart that we’ve been wanting to check out so we ended up buying a bunch of things there before heading home in pure exhaustion. Now the freezer is full of leftover Polish food and dumplings, and the fridge has Asian drinks and desserts. Not sure what to try first!