24 THe) AUDUBON WRsU sia Ee sie 
an acceptable substitute. Chimney Swifts, Robins and Purple Martins have 
moved to town. Now these insect eaters face the menace of the indis- 
criminate use of insecticides. 
“Every sportsman knows the powerful impact that clean farming 
has on game birds and animals,” Lodge said. It is hard on many song 
birds also. The Brown Thrasher, Mockingbird, Orchard Oriole, and king- 
bird prefer a savanna-like habitat. an area of open country with scattered 
trees and fence rows. The widespread elimination of trees and fence rows 
has been an important factor in the reduction of certain song bird popula- 
tions in Illinois. 
“It seems that most of man’s activities are harmful to bird life,” 
Lodge said, “but he can help them, too; one of the most beneficial acti- 
vities and one appropriate for Arbor and Bird Day is the planting of the 
trees and shrubs that song birds need in their environment.” 
Department of Conservation, Springfield, Ill. 
fl 
FI ff FI 
WHOOPING CRANE SIGHTED IN ILLINOIS 
By Betty Groth 
Two miles inside the Illinois border, near Geneva, Wisconsin, a giant. 
Whooping Crane was seen on Sunday, April 19, 1964, at about 4:10 p.m. 
by me and by my brother, Douglas Groth of Trans World Airlines, a vet- 
eran sportsman who saw the bird first. Immediately I took field marks 
and forwarded a written report to Milton Thompson, I.A.S. Technical 
Consultant and Director of The Illinois State Museum. Outstanding were: 
the red face, the black wing primaries of the 50-inch pure white bird, and 
the long black legs stretched straight in back. 
A puzzling feature was an angular outline two-thirds up the legs; a 
diagram in Peterson’s Field Guide to Eastern Birds showed this to be 
the tail feathers. Two and one-half hours of careful study of the Guide 
excluded any other possible species. Milton Thompson sent the report to 
The Illinois Natural History Survey to determine if any other persons 
sighted the crane in the area, and has asked that this sight record “be 
entered into the literature for future observation.’ Mr. Thompson states 
that this is the “second appearance of the Whooping Crane in Illinois in 
about 70 years; 3 or 4 years ago they saw one near the Hull Buttoms at 
Hannibal, on the Illinois side of the river.” 
I was worried about the possibility of someone shooting the bird, as 
it was cruising like an airship over open farmland, with the red face 
clearly visible, in an area heavily watered with lakes, streams, and 
meadows flooded by spring rains. This was a record day for waterfowl 
birding at Lake Geneva, a few miles away. In Williams Bay I saw half 
a dozen Florida Gallinules slip off the wet grass into the lake as I ap- 
preached with my camera. Then taking up my field glasses to identify 
the great floating flocks in the bay, I saw hundreds of coots, gallinules, 
grebes, Lesser Scaup, and innumerable ducks. 
To this report I must add a note of thanks to the Editor of The Audubon 
Bulletin, Paul H. Lobik. for starting 1964 as the greatest birding year of 
my life. On Jan. 1, 1964, at luncheon in his home near the Morton Ar- 
boretum, he and his wife showed me some new birds at his feeder in Glen 
Ellyn — six male and two female Red Crossbills. and eight female and two 
male Purple Finches. 
179 Villa Road, Addison, Illinois 
