2024: The Year in Birds
Mourning Warbler. Montrose Point, May 18, 2024. Photo by Kelly Ballantyne.
As we begin the new year, let’s take a moment to revisit some of the top local bird stories of 2024. Some stories delighted us, while others broke our hearts. Perhaps the most meaningful were those that inspired community engagement in 2024 and encourage us to act in 2025.
Birds in Surprising Places
One of the great things about being a bird fan is how they can regularly surprise you by showing up in unlikely locations, and 2024 definitely delivered on such novel bird sightings. Illinois’ first ever confirmed sighting of a Short-tailed Shearwater occurred at Montrose Point on December 8. Bald Eagles have been cruising the Chicago River, delighting neighbors in even the most crowded urban settings. A Burrowing Owl, normally spotted near the prairie dog towns of the southwest, was sighted near Montrose’s sandy dunes by Kay McNab. Demond McDonald recorded the first sighting of a Common Raven in Cook County. And one Osprey banded in suburban Lemont, instead of showing up in Louisiana or Florida, was recorded nearly 2.500 miles away in Columbia, South America. The bird, dehydrated and stressed, was provided water and flew off to continue their odyssey.
Plovers on the Beach
The Great Lakes Piping Plovers of our region were once again media rockstars in 2024, with stories of birth, death, resilience, and hope. We eagerly followed these tiny, endangered birds throughout their brief breeding season. Our local stories began with the return of Imani, son of Monty and Rose, to Montrose Beach Dunes on April 25. It was his third time returning to the beach where he fledged, and fingers were crossed he would find a mate. The female Sea Rocket, one of three captive-raised chicks released at the dunes in 2023, joined Imani on May 24 and the birding community began waiting, monitoring, and hoping for new chicks. Sea Rocket laid four eggs, which were carefully incubated by both parents and four chicks emerged at the end of June. The celebration of the success of the new parents was sadly short lived, as three of the chicks did not survive.
One resilient little chick, named Nagamo, did thrive on our beach and was officially fledged on July 21. Just a few weeks after hatching, Nagamo began trying their wings. As part of their test flights before heading south, Nagamo visited the nearby beach at Waukegan, which was experiencing its own plover baby boom of sorts. Blaze and Pepper, which were released and monitored by Save our Shores – Waukegan in 2023, returned to Waukegan in 2024 and successfully raised three fledglings.
Even after their departure from our shores, the plovers continued to capture our imagination and show up in our news feed. The Illinois Department of Natural Resources named Tamina Itani one of its volunteers of the year for her work protecting plovers and their habitats. On October 29, our community’s affection for Great Lake Piping Plovers was proudly on display at the Great Chicago Bird Debate, where to the surprise of no one, they earned the title of the “unofficial bird of Chicago.”
You can be part of the effort to protect these tough but still very vulnerable Great Lakes Piping Plovers in 2025. Follow updates at the COS ,Chicago Bird Alliance and Chicago Piping Plovers Facebook pages. In spring, sign up for Montrose Beach Dunes stewardship events or explore being part of the monitoring effort by reaching out to piperwatch@chicagobirder.org.
Death of a Family of Owls Spurs Action
Chicago once again earned the dubious honor of being named the rattiest city by pest control giant Orkin. The city’s battle against the Norway rat had fatal consequences for a family of Great Horned Owls that took up residency in Lincoln Park. For a while, the two adults and their single offspring were the darlings of birders and other curious visitors to the base of a hollow tree near the Peggy Notebaert museum. Beautiful photos of the fluffy owlet and majestic adults with arresting golden eyes showed up across Instagram. Heartbreakingly, over a span of a few weeks, the entire family of owls succumbed to rodenticide toxicosis and died slowly from internal bleeding.
Responding to the death of the popular birds, the Chicago Bird Alliance (CBA) issued a detailed statement in August calling for the reduction of the use of anticoagulant rodenticides and offering solutions to protect our local hawks, eagles, and owls. The CBA formed a task force to advocate for addressing the city’s rat problem by more humane and less ecologically destructive means. The CBA argues for focusing less on chemicals and more on making the environment inhospitable to rats by cutting off food supplies, like accessible trash, and shelter.
Paula Chmiel, a member of the task force, shared that progress is slow but ongoing. “[W]e have been meeting with public officials and Streets and Sanitation leaders, as well as other activists and conservation groups. While there are talks of potentially doing a rat contraceptive pilot program in one ward, it can be a long road to create change without more public and government support.”
You can get involved by following the latest science, writing to your public officials on this issue, making your house unappealing to rats, picking up food and dog waste, and reporting broken trash bins to 311 or other local authorities. Chmiel invited people to email her if they are interested in exploring other advocacy opportunities or joining the task force.
Protecting Birds in One of the Deadliest Cities for Migrating Birds
Our distinctive location along Lake Michigan puts us on a major highway for millions of migrating birds. This front row seat makes our eBird lists sizzle but also means we are confronted with the grim reality of what happens when birds meet the sparkling glass towers of our skyline. Chicago is considered one of the most dangerous cities for migrating birds, a fact painfully demonstrated by one deadly night in 2023 at McCormick Place. The event reverberated throughout 2024 as community members advocated for bird-friendly design and bird-sensitive development at the lakefront.
First—the good news—after extensive public outcry, media coverage, full-page ads, and passionate, persistent pushing by local, national, and international bird advocates, McCormick Place began installing film with tinted dots on its acres of windows. Completed at a cost of $1.2 million and installed over the summer, the effort should help birds distinguish windows from open space. Preliminary results suggest that the intervention is making a difference and reducing strikes: the Field Museum reports a 95% reduction in collisions this fall after the Feather Friendly product was installed.
Of course, that is just one building. For years, advocates like Bird Friendly Chicago (BFC), have been working for bird-safe building ordinances. Recent efforts have focused on making bird-friendly design a mandatory element in the Chicago Department of Planning and Development’s Sustainable Development Policy (SDP). In April, the department unveiled a draft of the SDP which was a significant disappointment for those working hard for bird protection standards. New projects or extensive remodels are not required to implement bird protections at all. Instead, bird-friendly designs earn higher points on an optional sustainability checklist.
Despite this setback, the BFC continued its push for a new, mandatory ordinance. Audrey Vicks, a local conservation-minded photojournalist who has participated in some of the BFC’s efforts, helped the coalition establish Speak Up for the Birds. Volunteers hungry for change and eager to act go to monthly Chicago Plan Commission meetings and use their voices to support bird-friendly designs in upcoming building projects. Vicks is hopeful about the power of this kind of action. “[I]t’s been quite a success so far, garnering media attention, leading to conversations with developers and architects, and educating alderpersons and commissioners. We need all these folks to be on board with enacting important local legislation that will literally save the lives of countless thousands of birds.” People interested in this initiative can reach out to speakupforbirdschi@gmail.com.
Quantum Computing and Birds
Some of the same local environmental and bird advocacy groups that came together to push for bird-friendly design joined to express concerns regarding the development of the Illinois Quantum Computing Microelectronics Park at the vacant U.S. Steel South Works on Chicago’s south side. The 440 acre commercial development, which was just announced in July, has already received the green light from the Chicago Plan Commission and the City Council. Ground-breaking is expected in early 2025. Though the former U.S. Steel site has lain fallow for decades, it is certainly not empty or barren. Anyone who visits Rainbow Beach Park or Park 566, adjacent to the proposed computing campus, knows that the area supports hundreds of bird species and offers a unique and bustling ecosystem. The coalition of organizations that make up the BFC, including COS, reached out to the developer, government officials and allies to call for centering the environmental, wildlife, and community impacts in the development of the facility and recommend ways to improve plans for the birds.
This advocacy, and the engagement of neighbors and volunteers at council hearings and developer updates, is making a difference. Vicks, who has observed its impact notes that “thanks to volunteers reaching out and speaking out, efforts are now being made to incorporate bird-friendly landscapes into the design of the huge campus, as well as to expand park district property and ensure all future buildings use bird-friendly windows.”
Shaping the News of 2025
This is just a snapshot of last year’s news about the birds, birders, and the community organizations that support them in our city. There is ample opportunity for each of us to write the headlines for 2025. There are always great volunteering opportunities through local bird and environmental organizations. Whether it’s going to Plan Commission meetings, sharing posts on social media, picking up injured birds with Chicago Bird Collision monitors, or letting your elected officials know what your value—individual action can have a big impact.
Through advocacy, working together, and celebrating the amazing birds and natural spaces in our hometown, we each have the chance to take action to shape the news stories we will be reading in 2025.