Wednesday's trip to Banner March and other points

Wednesday we drove up to the Flanigan area to see if we could see a Snowy Owl, well no luck so we drove thru the country to just North of ElPaso and then headed into ElPaso for route 24 West. It was a cloudy day that had promised to be somewhat sunny but only reached the partial sunny stage for a few minutes. Sight seeing as we drove we went through Eureka to the bypass around Peoria and then South on 24 through Bartonville, Mapleton and Kingston Mines to Banner, the town. Supposedly Eagles had been spotted in this area. We did see a couple of birds high up in the air, around Kingston Mines but couldn't tell if they were hawks or Eagles.

At Banner we drove out the dyke road which parellels the Slough from Copperas Creek to Rice Lake and the Illinois River. The drive was pretty but would have been better had the sun been out. While we heard a few birds we mostly saw hawks perched in the trees. I would like to go back on a nicer day maybe next Spring. I have posted a few pictures of the trip below.