The Midwest is rightfully famous for its spring migration, when 30+ species of warblers and dozens of other migrants pour through the region. Our partners on this tour, Red Hill Birding, love to show off the birding right in Chicago and the western Great Lakes, which they think deserve much more recognition from the birding community than it receives. Add in a bit of birding culture, partake in some of Chicago’s great cuisine, and cross the state line to spend time birding in Central Wisconsin, and you have yourself a first-class spring birding trip. 

Chicago boasts an incredible spring migration, not just with its most famous migration hotspot, Montrose Point, but with many wonderful birding spots both along the immediate Lake Michigan shoreline as well as inland. Mid-May is peak time, when a good day nets 20+ species of warblers, including Blackburnian, Blackpoll, Cape May, and Mourning. 

We will also head north of the Cheddar Curtain (aka Wisconsin), where we could find Kirtland’s Warbler in its Wisconsin outpost, breeding Whooping Cranes and other wetland species, Upland Sandpiper and Greater Prairie-Chicken in remnant prairie, the suite of Midwest grassland birds like Henslow’s Sparrow and Bobolink. In between, we’ll look for one of the newest additions to the ABA checklist, European Goldfinch, which has a small resident population in far northeast Illinois.

This trip is timed for the peak of spring migration; it will be entirely possible to find 25+ species of warblers during the trip. Among those could be Connecticut and Mourning Warblers, which we will make an effort to find on the Chicago lakefront leg of the trip. We will also have a good chance to see Cerulean and Golden-winged Warblers on their breeding grounds in Wisconsin. 

We will also find loads of other migrants and breeding birds, perhaps including uncommon birds like Black-billed and Yellow-billed Cuckoo, Scarlet Tanager, Yellow-bellied and Alder Flycatchers, Philadelphia Vireo, Gray-cheeked Thrush, Red-headed Woodpecker, and much, much more. During spring migration in the Midwest, you can run into migrant warblers, vireos, thrushes, and others virtually anywhere along the route. Additionally, we will have an opportunity and get a behind-the-scenes tour of the Field Museum’s world-class bird collection as well as a tour of the International Crane Foundation in Baraboo, Wisconsin.

Adam Betuel, Executive Director of Birds Georgia

Two expert guides from Red Hill Birding

The trip will start at the group’s hotel in Evanston, the first suburb north of Chicago on Lake Michigan and perhaps best known as the home of Northwestern University. We will be here for a three-night stay, giving us two full days and a third morning to enjoy the area.

We will spend much of our birding time on the lakefront at places like the famed Magic Hedge (these days better known as Montrose Point Bird Sanctuary) and the Jarvis Bird Sanctuary. Montrose is rightfully known as one of the Midwest’s best migration hotspots, where it is possible to see 20+ species of warblers in a single morning, along with vireos, cuckoos, thrushes, tanagers, sparrows, and many others. Chicago’s celebrity Piping Plovers nest here. Five species of swallows breed at Montrose as well, including an impressive colony of Bank Swallows, and a sixth species, Cliff Swallow, breeds nearby.

This time of year, the second half of May, is the best time for finding Connecticut and Mourning Warblers and Yellow-bellied and Alder Flycatchers. Migrants will be pouring through. Among the most common will be Magnolia, Blackburnian, Tennessee, Black-and-white, and Nashville Warblers, Ovenbird, Swainson’s Thrush, and Indigo Bunting. But we stand a good chance of finding many less common migrants, like Bay-breasted, Blackpoll, Golden-winged, Cape May, Canada, and Wilson’s Warblers, Gray-cheeked Thrush and Veery, and Philadelphia Vireo, among many others. We could get lucky and find a Nelson’s Sparrow, which, though rare in spring, is best found in the second half of May. Beaches and marshes in and around the city can host shorebirds if conditions are good, and we will be sure to get good studies of various shorebirds if they are around.

One of the afternoons that we are here, participants will get a behind-the-scenes tour of the world-class bird collection of the Field Museum. This is a fascinating part of the city—especially for bird lovers—that most people don’t even know exists, let alone get to visit.

We’ll pack up, leave our hotel, and head north to Lake County, Illinois, home to a small but growing population of Eurasian Goldfinch. We won’t ignore other birds during our search, and this being spring migration, no doubt we will encounter some nice migrants as well. Depending on how long the search takes (and where the search takes us), we may have time to visit some forest preserves along the route to look for migrants.

Continuing, we will cross into Wisconsin and head west to the small town of Baraboo, known to birders as the home of the International Crane Foundation (and to non-birders as the one-time home of the Ringling Brothers Circus). We will have a visit to the ICF planned for either this afternoon or the following morning. 

We will start the morning birding around Baraboo, perhaps in Baxter’s Hollow, where there is a small number of Cerulean Warblers breed, along with Kentucky Warbler, Acadian Flycatcher, and a few other species that will give us a taste of the south. 

After our tour of the International Crane Foundation, we will be continuing north towards Adams County, home to an isolated breeding population of Kirtland’s Warbler. If we arrive in time, we will have our first try at finding it before even getting to our hotel in Wisconsin Rapids, where we will stay for two nights.  

We will have one full day and an additional morning to explore this area. If we did not find Kirtland’s Warbler the evening before, we will start out looking for them this morning. Other stand-out birds we could find in the area include Black-billed and Yellow-billed Cuckoos, Golden-winged, Blue-winged, Nashville, and many other warblers, Merlin, Broad-winged Hawk, Alder Flycatcher, and Vesper and Clay-colored Sparrow.

We will also visit the Buena Vista Grasslands, home to a population of Greater Prairie-Chickens (which we will keep our eyes peeled for it, but is far from guaranteed at this time of year). It is also home to a sizeable population of Upland Sandpiper. As we drive the area looking for those two species, we will find many other birds of the high-quality habitat, including Sedge Wren, Bobolink, Brewer’s Blackbird, Vesper, Henslow’s, Grasshopper, and Clay-colored Sparrows, and Dickcissel. In the evening, Common Nighthawks display overhead, and Whip-poor-wills sing away from the woods. 

We will start our second Wisconsin morning at Necedah National Wildlife Refuge. Among birders, Necedah is best known as the place where Whooping Cranes were reintroduced into the Eastern United States, and they continue to breed there today. While looking for Whooping Crane, we could get lucky and find American Bittern, which breeds in the same wetlands, as well as Black Tern, Trumpeter Swan, and a variety of other waterfowl. Golden-winged Warbler and Alder Flycatcher also breed here, along with many other woodland and wetland birds. We may also get lucky and find the federally endangered Karner Blue butterfly, as the first adults emerge from patches of wild blue lupine, its host plant. 

We will end the tour that evening in Madison, where you can catch an evening flight out or stick around to enjoy Wisconsin’s capital.