Illinois & MIdwest Weekends

These trips are designed as two- or three-night weekend birding getaways to some of the best birding destinations in Illinois and around the Midwest. These trips start on Thursday or Friday evening and conclude after a morning of birding on Sunday; the price includes the cost of lodging, meals, an expert guide, and, one some trips, transportation. Unless otherwise specified, trips are limited to 8 participants.

Most of our trips are limited to weekends within Illinois, but we have started expanding to wonderful birding locations across the Midwest. Have a Midwest trip in mind? We are happy to take suggestions.

Illinois River Valley: Early Spring Migration Spectacle

February 23-25, 2024 (Fri-Sun) with Steve Huggins Price: $750 per person sharing. Single supplement: $180 Price includes two nights’ accommodation in Pekin, meals from dinner on Friday night through breakfast on Sunday morning, and an expert guide. This will be a self-driving tour.

The Snow Goose numbers in early spring at Emiquon can reach well into six figures, making it one of the Midwest’s great avian spectacles. We are timing this trip in hopes of seeing those peak numbers, along with a variety of other waterfowl, perhaps including Trumpeter Swan, Ross’s and Greater White-fronted Goose, and a variety of diving and dabbling ducks. A Friday evening outing offers a good chance to find Barred Owl as well.

Southern Illinois in Spring

In Collaboration with Lake-Cook Audubon!

ONLY TWO SPACES REMAINING

April 25-28, 2024 (Thu-Sun) with Adam Sell & Jeff Bilsky Price: $810 per person sharing. * No single supplement. Guests will pay for their own cabins at Giant City State Park from a block we have reserved. The cost is $390 + tax for three nights. We will send details on how to reserve your cabin after registration. Price includes transportation (including tolls, parking fees, and fuel) from Lake County in vans driven by your guides; Meals from dinner on Day 1 through breakfast on Day 4; two Red Hill Birding guides. *Accommodations are not included in the price. See note above.

Birding in Southern Illinois is special and there is no better time to explore the region than the final week of April. Migrants are at their peak and most of the southern breeding specialties are already actively setting up territories. We will be searching for many of our favorite migrants like warblers, vireos, tanagers, and shorebirds, while also seeking out specialties like Chuck-wills-Widow, Prairie, Worm-eating, and Kentucky Warblers, Bell’s Vireo, Blue Grosbeak, Yellow-crowned Night-Heron, Fish Crow, Loggerhead Shrike, and many others. The trip will leave Lake County on the morning of Thursday, April 25, aiming to make it to southern Illinois with some time for evening birding (or, perhaps, stopping along the way for birding). After some early morning birding, we will head back north on Sunday, April 28, returning to Lake County by late afternoon. We will be staying at the Giant City State Park Lodge, giving us the opportunity to have many migrants and breeding birds right outside our door, including birds like White-eyed Vireo, Worm-eating Warbler, Kentucky Warbler, and Red-shouldered Hawk.

Some of the places we are likely to visit include the Pomona/Natural Bridges area of Shawnee National Forest, which is one of the best places for forest birds like Cerulean, Worm-eatingWarblers, Kentucky, and Hooded Warblers, Louisiana Waterthrush, Yellow-billed Cuckoo, and migrants. Cache River State Natural Area, home to towering cypress trees, and Heron Pond, with its boardwalk through a beautiful cypress swamp that hosts Prothonotary and Yellow-throated Warblers, Summer Tanagers, and, if they have arrived, Mississippi Kite. Porterhouse Road’s scrubby fields and grasslands host Yellow-breasted Chat, Prairie Warbler, Bell’s and White-eyed Vireos, and Dickcissel. Various locations along the Mississippi River, depending on conditions, can have great habitat for wading birds like Yellow-crowned Night-Heron, Little Blue Heron, Snowy Egret, shorebirds, and, if we’re lucky, an early arriving Least Tern.

The Mississippi River in Central Illinois

September 19-22, 2024 (Fri-Sun) with Steve Huggins Price: $1080 per person sharing. Single supplement: $230 Price includes three nights’ accommodation in Nauvoo, meals from dinner on Thursday night through breakfast on Sunday morning, and an expert guide. This will be a self-driving tour, though we may be able to accommodate some people riding with the guide.

This three-night weekend tour offers a chance for exploration in a beautiful and seldom-birded part of the state. The entire county, Hancock, has only twelve eBird hotspots, and its neighbor to the north, Henderson, has only six, but those small numbers do a disservice to the excellent birding in the area. Based out of Nauvoo, a fascinating historic town, where that history lives today through its many Mormon cultural sites, you will explore the Mississippi River Valley, far from any interstate, during the peak of fall migration. There will be a good chance to find a variety of warblers and other migrants, and shorebirds, too, if conditions allow. Birds that are more common in the southern half of the state—Pileated Woodpecker, Carolina Wren, and the like, should be easily found, along with American White Pelican, Bald Eagle, and other river birds. And given how little birding goes on in this area, there’s always the chance for a nice surprise or two!