Field trip recap: Humboldt Park during the Urban Birding Festival

words and photos by Vinod Babu

Six Urban Birding Festival participants met on a beautiful afternoon Sept. 13 at the Humboldt Park boathouse. We munched on donuts from the storied Roeser's Bakery on the northwestern corner of the park and took in the grand architecture and landscaping of Humboldt Park.

Wood Ducks paddled across the lagoons that are the highlight of this park. As we walked through the planted prairies and copses around the lagoon, we got to see Wood Ducks in much closer detail and in a variety of activities—resting, picking their way around lily pads and, most amusingly, walking across our path to gobble up fallen hawthorn fruit in the grass. I'd always wondered what would eat the unusually large fruit of ornamental hawthorns and that day I had an answer.

Wood Duck. Photo by Vinod Babu, Humboldt Park, Sept. 13, 2025.

Another unusual (to us) activity we saw was a flock of Rock Pigeons alighting in a hackberry tree to feed on the fruit. We sampled a couple of hackberries too—the fruit are sweet, but there is only a thin skin of sweet flesh around the seed.

We observed American Goldfinches and their movements as well as Swainson's Thrushes, a Great Blue Heron and a few migrant warblers. We saw a total of 27 species. As we completed the loop back to our starting point, we observed a patrolling American Kestrel! A great walk and a great afternoon!