Chicago Bird Alliance is hosting a webinar to highlight bird advocacy and conservation projects in and around Chicago on Wednesday, February 11th from 6-7:15 pm Central. Leaders from local organizatio...

Chicago Bird Alliance is hosting a webinar to highlight bird advocacy and conservation projects in and around Chicago on Wednesday, February 11th from 6-7:15 pm Central. Leaders from local organizatio...

Readers submitted more than 3,200 ideas for our 50 States, 50 Fixes series. Before the year ends, we wanted to share just a few more of them.

Chicagoans have been going gaga over a pair of snowy owls that have settled in at Montrose beach. Maybe a little too gaga.

“Montrose Plover , 2019 ( In a Mirror of Chicago , Tomorrow )”…In the late Spring of 2019 my phone rang in the Studio. It was a local Music Promoter wanting to know if I knew any of the "Bird People" in Chicago. I assured him that I , in fact, considered myself one of the "Bird People" . He told me that he had scheduled an EDM music festival on Montrose point , and that he'd been getting some resistance from said "Bird People". I reminded him that Montrose point was, in fact, a Bird Sanctuary , and more importantly the nesting site of two critically endangered Piping Plovers ; who were the beloved "Monty and Rose". If they successfully bred there ? They'd be the first nesting Piping Plovers in over a half of a century. There were fewer than 60 breeding pairs of Piping Plover's left on the Planet.This is where the intersection of "Critically endangered and Extinction" was. I told the Music promoter this. He assured me he wanted to "mitigate" any fears the "Bird People" had. He seemed to think that the big worry was the noise , when in fact the big worry would be the human traffic a music festival would bring into a nesting site. He assured me he would find another beach. He didn't. He said they moved the festival 3000 meters away from the nesting site and had "Directional Sound" . I told him that again, the sound was not the big worry -- the big worry was 15 to 20,000 people walking around the site . The Plover nests are--at best haphazard in their construction-- usually 6-8 twigs and the eggs laid on the sand. They are tiny birds who are not exactly architects for this reason. For centuries they nested here unmolested by humans -- the big concern was other predators -- When humans showed up ? Habitat destruction became the biggest threat along the lakefront...Except on Montrose Point which became an ideal landscape for Water and shore birds. Piping Plovers are not the only endangered species there.Bank Swallows also nest there and are also endangered . All manner of Pelagic Birds travel through there-- often breeding there ; it has become one of Nature's few success stories of late.

To prepare for the return of plovers to Chicago and help address some of the biggest threats to their habitat, we’re hitting the beach. Join us for a stewardship day as we tackle trash, invasive speci...