Wild Things 2025

Once a common sight devouring insects at your favorite night games, the increasingly un-Common Nighthawk is now in steep decline across its range. And yet, despite being one of the fastest disappearing birds in North America, very little data or trends exist to help explain why or how to slow these trends. In 2021, Chicago Ornithological Society launched a volunteer monitoring program to study and conserve them; one of the only such efforts in the country. This presentation will highlight the lessons learned from the last three seasons of monitoring and explore opportunities to help ensure Chicago remains a haven for these mysterious creatures.

This session will provide an overview of the development and implementation of Illinois’ State Wildlife Action Plan over the past 20 years and current efforts to review and update the SWAP.  The Illinois Comprehensive Wildlife Conservation Plan & Strategy version 1.0 and the 2015 Implementation Guide to the Illinois Wildlife Action Plan make up the currently approved State Wildlife Action Plan for the State of Illinois.  The SWAP is organized around Campaigns and Conservation Opportunity Areas that allow opportunities for public and private partners to engage in conservation actions designed to maintain and enhance native species and natural communities throughout Illinois.  

In 2023, 4 captive reared piping plover chicks were released at Illinois Beach State Park in Waukegan. They were monitored by the Lake County Audubon Sharing Our Shore-Waukegan volunteers. A 30 minute film tracks the life cycle of these birds from their release as fledglings, their 2023 migration to southern wintering grounds and their amazing return to nest and successfully raise young in 2024. Their story is beautifully shared in this film and will be followed by a panel of Piping Plover volunteers and others involved in the Sharing Our Shore-Waukegan project and Great Lakes Piping Plover Recovery Effort.

In 2018, a pair of endangered Great Lakes piping plovers attempted to nest in a busy gravel park lot at the Waukegan Municipal Beach. Due to the dangers posed to the nest, the eggs were salvaged and brought to a facility in Michigan for captive-rearing. That plover pair relocated to Chicago in 2019 and went on to become the internationally famous 'Monty & Rose.' The Lake County Audubon chapter chose the challenging route of transforming a bird tragedy into a positive community impact. The chapter approached the city with a plan to put in place a program to help monitor birds on the Waukegan lakefront, including a special piping plover monitoring team and to provide education and public outreach for the community. The partnership, named Sharing Our Shore - Waukegan, was created in 2019.

After the film, a panel will be available for a questions and answer session. Panel members include:

Sharing Our Shore - Waukegan Initiative Members Carolyn Lueck, Glen Moss and Diane Rosenberg
Sharing Our Shore - Waukegan Initiative Piping Plover Monitoring Team members including Carolyn Lueck and Lisa Rundle
Illinois Department of Natural Resources: Brad Semel, Endangered Species Recovery Specialist
Our final panel is still being assembled so watch for updates.

In 2024, Tarik set out on a Cook County “Big Year:” a personal challenge to identify as many unique species of birds as possible within a calendar year. With a retelling of his adventure, Tarik will impart his learnings about Cook County’s diverse natural spaces, the growing birding community, the steep decline of birds in our region, and how the environmental community can work to better protect our avian friends for generations to come. As a member of The Nature Conservancy in Illinois’ government relations team, he will weave in potential policy and advocacy solutions to our worsening biodiversity crisis.

Getting visitors excited about natural history via public displays is a huge part of the museum mission. But did you know that museum scientists and collaborators conduct research locally and globally on a wide-variety of organisms? Dr. Sara Ruane, the Curator of Herpetology at the Field Museum and collaborators will speak about their research program, which has a strong focus on snakes. Topics may include projects centered in Chicagoland, including conducting re-surveys for reptiles and amphibians; in Madagascar, with a focus on the island’s endemic snake species, such as the Malagasy boas; and on what can be discovered right in the museum’s extensive collection of reptiles and amphibians from around the globe.

Grassland bird populations are declining faster than any other group of birds in North America. Grassland habitat loss resulting from agricultural development is widely accepted as the primary driver of this population decline. With so little remnant prairie left in the Tallgrass Prairie region, effective intervention will require landscape-level grassland restorations. This session will review key concepts in grassland bird behavior, ecology, and conservation before diving into new research on the relationship between grassland birds and plant biodiversity. The session will conclude with an overview of how The Nature Conservancy's approach to land conservation and restoration furthers grassland bird conservation in Illinois.

Muirhead Spring Forest Preserve, 1121 acres of prairie and agriculture landscape, was recently converted into a mitigation bank wetland. Immediately after construction, the bird demographics changed dramatically. We will discuss the rare breeding & migratory species that have made this site the birding hotspot of Kane County.

The Chicago city lakefront is currently home to four active purple martin colonies. Martins (Progne subis) are the largest swallow in the world, the highest flying insectivore in North America, and a long distance migrant to the Amazon Basin each winter. In 2020, a collaboration between the Chicago Park District and Field Museum began to study this charismatic bird that faithfully returns to our shores each spring to mate and raise its young. Ahead of the fifth year of the research, project co-founder and CPD site monitor Lauren Nassef will share the story of the project's inception and plans for future growth.

I will provide a summary of our research on the factors associated with the decline of eastern Whip-poor-wills in the Midwest. This includes data on pesticide loads, insect abundance, habitat quality, and nesting success. The talk with discuss the challenges and opportunities to recover the species.

Since 1910, conservation and environmental studies have been an integral part of Scouting America (formerly the Boy Scouts of America). Scouts have rendered distinguished public service by helping to conserve wildlife, energy, forests, soil, and water. Past generations of Scouts and their adult advisors have been widely recognized for undertaking conservation action projects in their local communities. A panel of three Scouts from the Pathway to Adventure Council will share their experiences with environmental explorations and conservation service projects.

The Art of collecting trees, shrubs, and vines seed for propagation, the talk will included the selection of plants, seed collection, seed processing, and stratification. I will talk what we do commercially. Also include how home owners and and how to successfully secede in collecting , storage, for succesful seedling growing,

The American Bird Conservancy (ABC) works across the Americas to address alarming declines in bird populations, in part by restoring and protecting the habitats these species depend on. Much of this habitat is privately owned, making conservation efforts on private lands absolutely essential. One way that ABC works with private landowners is by partnering with the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service through the Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP). One such program offered in this area focuses on protecting and restoring oak ecosystems. Oak habitat is disproportionately valuable to a long list of wildlife species and is facing critical regeneration issues which threaten their persistence across the region. This presentation will go over threats to our oak ecosystems and the birds that depend on them, and how financial and technical assistance offered by RCPP can advance stewardship on private lands.

Seeking out herpetofauna, also known as “herping,” is a niche hobby akin to birdwatching. Herping has great potential for growing interest in conservation, citizen science, and connecting with nature. Many herpetologists got their start as hobbyists, and the rise of social media has helped herping into the limelight. Herps are often seen as uncharismatic, but growing exposure of these reclusive animals may help bolster support for their conservation. This talk is about what herping is, how to herp responsibly without disturbing herpetofauna, and how to harness a passion for herping to help conservation through citizen science.