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.
2009 BCN Survey - and BIRD BLITZES!
The 2009 BCN Survey nesting season is June 5 to 29. 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 additional monitoring opportunities this spring and summer, for which click on the link above.
Please report nesting BLACK-CROWNED NIGHT-HERONS
The Illinois DNR again would like to know about nesting Black-crowned Night-Herons in the Chicago Wilderness area (except at Calumet and Bakers Lake) in 2009.
Click the link for more information.
See Results of Your Monitoring!
The second Chicago Region Breeding Birds Trends Analysis, an analysis of data from BCN Census 1999-2007, has now been released in preliminary form. The results are available for viewing on the BCN website.
Take a look and see what your work has been revealing about bird populations in our area!
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!