TWENTY YEARS OF BIRDING IN CHICAGOLAND 
In Which Nearly Halt the Species 
North of the Rio Grande Have Been Notea — 
And Written About Here — by Mrs. Janet Zimmerman. 
Does anyone know how many species of birds have been identified in the 
Chicago area in the past twenty years? I have just completed the laborious 
task of putting my records in order, and find that they cover a neatly- 
rounded period of twenty years. To attempt a summary, and to revive the 
memories of good birding through the years, was irresistible. 
From 1948 through 1967 I have seen about 310 species of birds in this 
area. This is about one-half the total number of species in North America 
north of the Rio Grande. The field records of the Chicago Ornithological 
Scciety, the Evanston Bird Club, and such expert “birders” as Mrs. Amy 
Baldwin, Albert Campbell, Charles Clark and Theodore Nork, who have 
been active over the twenty-year period, would produce a considerably 
larger figure. 
There are two field cards of “Birds of the Chicago Area.” One was 
prepared by the C.O.S. in 1960, the other by the Evanston Bird Club in 
March, 1959. (The C.O.S. and I.A.S. have just revised and reprinted the 
former P.H.L.) The cards differ somewhat. The Evanston card includes 
the Eared and Western Grebes, the two godwits, Sabine’s Gull, Black- 
backed Three-toed Woodpecker, Townsend’s Solitaire, and Pine Grosbeak. 
The C.O.S. list omits these, but includes the Goshawk, Western Kingbird, 
Sprague’s Pipit, Sharp-tailed Sparrow, Gambel’s Sparrow, and Northern 
Horned Lark (no longer recognized by the American Ornithological Union 
as a separate species). None of these appears on the Evanston card. The 
combined list, excluding the Northern Horned Lark, contains 289 species. 
My 20-year list includes all except the Great Black-backed Gull, Western 
Kingbird, Three-toed Woodpecker, and Sprague’s Pipit. 
The “write-ins” (personal additions to the card) are the “collector’s 
items” of the dedicated birder. In making up my total of about 310 species, 
however, I find some dubious entries. Some of the Evanston Bird Club 
members may recall the Kumlien’s Gull at Tower Road, Winnetka, in 
February, 1950. Roger Tory Peterson calls it a race of the Iceland Gull. 
I could never have identified the bird myself, and couldn't today. 
Aside from the fine point of listing birds you cannot recognize unless 
they are pointed out to you, does a “race” count on one’s list if a sub- 
species does not? Such hybrids as Brewster’s and Lawrence’s Warblers do 
count. But how about our ‘“titadee’”? This curious little bird, which spent 
several weeks at a feeder in Glen Ellyn early in 1949, was apparently a 
cross between a titmouse and a chickadee. 
While reviewing my own records, I examined the published material 
on the subject. Serious studies of birds in the Chicago area go back more 
than 100 years. A compilation of these records, issued in 1907 by the Chicago 
Academy of Sciences, was Frank Morley Woodruft’s THE BIRDS OF THE 
CHICAGO AREA. In 1934 the Academy published BIRDS OF THE CHI- 
CAGO REGION by Edward R. Ford, Colin C. Sanborn, and C. Blair Coursen. 
