Birding News and Features
Welcome, birders of the Chicago Wilderness region...
This is the reporting location for the Bird Conservation Network census, designed for bird monitors of the Chicago Wilderness region and anyone who wants to contribute to the understanding and conservation of birds in our region.
Are you a regular or occasional birder in our area? (See map.) Just keep a record of the location(s) you visited, the time you started and finished and the numbers of each species you identified. Then use this website to report your results as a timed observation. We have nearly 250 locations listed as hot spots. If yours is not among them, you can easily create it using Google maps.
Bird Monitors Brunch: July 6, 2008
Let's celebrate the end of this year's nesting season with a walk at Rollins Savanna, followed by a brunch to honor some very important people - monitors who work with stewards at restoration sites. Good collaboration is critical to our success!
All bird monitors and their friends are invited to join us on Sunday, July 6. (Non-honorees pay for their own brunch.) Click on the link above for details.
Please report RUSTY BLACKBIRDS and nesting BLACK-CROWNED NIGHT-HERONS
Cornell University's Ornithology Lab wants reports of Rusty Blackbirds seen anywhere between April 1 and April 7, 2008, to be reported to eBird.
The Illinois DNR wants to know about nesting Black-crowned Night-Herons in the Chicago Wilderness area (except at Calumet and Bakers Lake) during 2008 and 2009.
Summer 2008 monitoring opportunities
The 2008 BCN Census nesting season is June 6 to 30. We encourage monitors doing point counts and transects to visit their site(s) twice during that time, with at least a week between the visits. We hope you'll monitor your sites at other times of the year as well. There are several other monitoring opportunities this summer, for which click on the link above.
Help conserve habitat & protect threatened birds!
The Chicago Wilderness region provides nesting habitat for a number of threatened or declining species: Henslows sparrow (right), sedge wren and bobolink in the grasslands; eastern towhee (next page), brown thrasher and field sparrow in the shrublands; red-headed woodpecker (next page), wood thrush, and ovenbird in the forests; and many others. We know that the best way to protect these species is by protecting and enlarging the habitat they require for nesting. Our region is fortunate to have active programs of habitat restoration, and many monitors of plants, butterflies, herps, dragonflies.... As a bird monitor, you can be a force for habitat improvement and critical bird conservation.
Here is how!
See Results of Your Monitoring!
The Chicago Region Bird Population Trends is an analysis of data from 8 years of the BCN Census and additionally of combined data trends for the years 1988-2004. The results are now available for viewing on the BCN website.
Take a look and see what your work is revealing about bird populations in our area!