Birding from the climbing wall at Steelworkers Park

Edward Warden called out, "Two hummingbirds," as we settled atop the climbing wall at Steelworkers Park.

The pair flitted around goldenrod and brushy growth between the remnant walls of the U.S. Steel South Works. It's startling to see hummers from 30 feet up and a good start to the birding/climbing trip leading off the second Urban Birding Festival on Sept. 12-14.

Real birding started earlier when Chuck Stark, senior program specialist for the Chicago Park District, photographed an eastern meadowlark atop the climbing wall while setting up.

Stark and climbing instructor Amani Jackson oversaw the climbing. Stark detailed wearing the harness, lanyards and helmet, then safety, including attaching lanyards to the cable atop the wall. The climb was with an auto belay. The wall top was wide enough to set chairs and scopes.

"Part of what you look for in a suitable hawkwatch spot is someplace where you can see as much of the sky and horizon as possible in order to spot distant raptors," explained Warden, president of the Chicago Ornithological Society. "That is certainly the case with the climbing wall at Steelworkers."

Steelworkers has advantages other than just elevation.

"Now when wind conditions are right, any raptors migrating through the area are pushed toward the lakefront," Warden explained. "Not wanting to fly over open water, these birds are funneled down the lakefront and Steelworkers is perfectly poised to take advantage of that. So between those two factors, there can be some really awesome and unique opportunities to observe migration like nowhere else."

Warden, atop the wall, and COS board member Jake Vinsel, with the ground group, co-led/guided the trip.

The birding/climbing idea came from Warden and Stark, who share a history of bird programming in Calumet area parks. In 2023, Stark mentioned he spotted a bald eagle while atop the wall during a climbing program.

"It was at that moment that the light bulb went off and a few weeks later we piloted our first one," Warden emailed earlier.

The park district and COS began birding/climbing in 2023. A climbing/birding trip there was part of the inaugural Urban Birding Festival last year, though it was a slow birding day. Mid-September is early for prime hawk migration.

This year the birding was solid with 35 species, including multiple raptors. The eBird outing list is at ebird.org/checklist/S272968077.

Cormorants, mallards and a mourning dove got us started. Cormorants were the most prevalent with 269, the bulk in a raft of 250 north of the Calumet Harbor breakwall.

Then came the hummingbirds, followed by Warden calling out, "Goldfinches coming in hot."

An hour in, there was a red-winged hawk, followed by a turkey vulture, Canada geese and two distant kestrels. Two church steeples, northwest and southwest, provided landmarks when calling out birds.

Warden confirmed a warbling vireo in the space between the remnant walls. There were our common gulls, ring-billed and herring. Three chimney swifts flew, followed by three barn swallows swooping to the west.

Next to me was Rachel Bladow, who lives in Uptown and said, "I didn't even know this was here."

By nature, she is a herper with interests in amphibians and reptiles, but said, "I got into birding on a trip to Costa Rica after I saw a resplendent quetzal, it was splendid. I even got tears in my eyes. I downloaded a bird app [Merlin] on that trip."

A birder down the wall said, "A spark bird."

A spark bird is the bird that sparks interest in birding.

The universe had spoken. The next day I attended Jenn Lodi-Smith, Ph.D., leading a session on the Spark Bird Project (spark-bird.org/).

She had discovered there is no scholarly work on spark birds and birders. There are plenty of first-person accounts.

"Birders are good at community science, not as good at community social sciences," she noted.

In her studies (250 people so far), the cardinal (nine) and blue jay (seven) are the most common spark birds. There's a wide variety of spark birds. Hope is to have 500 people in the study by the end of `25, 1,000 in `26.

A Cooper's hawk passed. Ground birders spotted a Nashville warbler, causing a stir. A bigger stir came when Warden said, "A falcon coming in hot."

It buzzed the south side of the wall sending the group into a a tizzy when ID'd as a merlin, a first for several birders.

"It was fun being able to get more of a ‘birds-eye view’ by birding from the top of the wall," Bladow emailed later. "The merlin and warbling vireo are new lifers for me, which is always exciting to add species to the list!"

It was time.

We belayed down with talking down, so to speak, and professional help from Stark.

The Urban Birding Festival (theurbanbirdingfestival.org/) has fast become part of our fall scene.