{"id":12429,"date":"2026-03-30T17:00:55","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T22:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nicole.sleepyfroggie.net\/blog\/?p=12429"},"modified":"2026-04-09T11:52:32","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T16:52:32","slug":"whalon-lake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nicole.sleepyfroggie.net\/blog\/?p=12429","title":{"rendered":"Whalon Lake"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve heard Whalon Lake in Naperville is one of the best places to see Common Loons this time of year, so Sunday afternoon (March 29th)<\/strong> we headed out there to explore. <\/p>\n

Upon arrival we spotted a group of American Coots near the shoreline. Shortly thereafter we saw Lesser Scaups, Buffleheads, Red-breasted Mergansers, Horned Grebes, Ring-billed Gulls, and way too many Canada Geese. It was a treasure trove of waterfowl, all on the parking lot side of the lake no less!<\/p>\n

Some guy started talking to us and very confidently pointed out that a few of the birds were a species called Goldeneye. I wanted to correct him, having already identified them as Lesser Scaups, but I didn’t bother in case I was wrong. But after going through all my photos, I was in fact correct. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Just because it HAS a golden eye, does not make it a Goldeneye. Although that would have been cool because I don’t think I have that one on my life list yet.<\/p>\n

In any case, we decided to walk around the lake to see what else we could spot, but other than the exercise from our 1.5 trek, it was pretty pointless: just more gulls and geese.<\/p>\n

I was happy to see so many water birds in one place, but disappointed there were no loons to be found. Until…<\/p>\n

I was going through my photos the following day and found a few I took of a bird we spotted way out in the middle of the lake. Even with our binoculars and my camera zoomed in, we couldn’t identify it in the moment. However, with my software zoomed in another 300%, I could tell it was a common loon! Even with the pixelated blurry image, those markings around the neck are unmistakable. It’s too bad it disappeared from sight and wasn’t seen again as we made our way around the lake.<\/p>\n

I really wish this place wasn\u2019t a 40 minute drive because I would be there often. It even has a big dog park nearby.<\/p>\n

After our little birding adventure we were starving. On our way to the lake we had passed a Mexican restaurant called Guzman y Gomez<\/em>. We had wanted to try them one day, so we decided to pick up some food and take it to a nearby forest preserve. It was a whole ordeal signing up for their rewards program and trying to take advantage of their free burrito offer, but what was even worse was the food wasn\u2019t good. It was like it was trying to be Chipotle but failing miserably, or at least how I remember Chipotle since I refuse to eat there after they stole my reward points and ignored my messages asking why. In any case, we won\u2019t be ever eating there again because the food wasn\u2019t good and the portions were pathetic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve heard Whalon Lake in Naperville is one of the best places to see Common Loons this time of year, so Sunday afternoon (March 29th) we headed out there to explore. Upon arrival we spotted a group of American Coots near the shoreline. Shortly thereafter we saw Lesser Scaups, Buffleheads, Red-breasted Mergansers, Horned Grebes, Ring-billed Gulls, and way too many Canada Geese. It was a treasure trove of waterfowl, all on the parking lot side of the lake no less! Some guy started talking to us and very confidently pointed out that a few of the birds were a species called Goldeneye. I wanted to correct him, having already identified them as Lesser Scaups, but I didn’t bother in case I was wrong. But after going through all my photos, I was in fact correct. Just because it HAS a golden eye, does not make it a Goldeneye. Although that Read More …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,8,142,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-excursions","category-food","category-nature","category-photos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nicole.sleepyfroggie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12429"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nicole.sleepyfroggie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nicole.sleepyfroggie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nicole.sleepyfroggie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nicole.sleepyfroggie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12429"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/nicole.sleepyfroggie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12429\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12434,"href":"https:\/\/nicole.sleepyfroggie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12429\/revisions\/12434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nicole.sleepyfroggie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nicole.sleepyfroggie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nicole.sleepyfroggie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}