Notes package, as always with help from readers and those who know. Good mix this week. chicago.suntimes.com/outdoors/202...

Column for today. Steelworkers Park is for far more than just perch fishing. Interesting concept combining climbing and birding. Birding from the climbing wall at Steelworkers Park chicago.suntimes.com/outdoors/202...

Notes package with the usual help from readers and those who know. There's an insect theme of sorts. Chicago outdoors: Big blue catfish, a walkingstick and a question on a walking leaf chicago.suntimes.com/outdoors/202...

All my brothers and I are having a gathering in Virginia. Today we did a nice section of Skyline Drive. Some of us hiked to Dark Hollow Falls, a spot I love. The steep descent and ascent reminded me the years are piling up.

I took in one last Sox game, then enjoyed the downtown view one last time for the year. Heading over to speak at Southside Muskie Hawks at the Village Sportsmen's Club on 115th in Alsip at 7:00 p.m. That makes quite the day.

The Chicago Fishing Advisory Committee has been around for decades, grinding at representing the fishing community. It is a grind to walk stuff through the bureaucracy. We'll see what happens next. chicago.suntimes.com/outdoors/202...

Sunday column on some of the wild areas around the Southeast Side, the forgotten side of Chicago. More changes are coming there. chicago.suntimes.com/outdoors/202...

Notes package, as always with much help from readers and those who know. A reader beat me to the first sighting of a woolly bear. But I did run across my first fallen hedge apples of the fall this week. chicago.suntimes.com/outdoors/202...

Sunday column on consumptive and non-consumptive pursuits. You can and many do. Straddling the two paths into engaging in the outdoors chicago.suntimes.com/outdoors/202...

Notes package with help from readers and those who know. I enjoy the improbability of catching the same muskie by brothers. Chicago outdoors: Catching the same muskie twice and a resting monarch chicago.suntimes.com/outdoors/202...

Amber Sproul and steward Beckie Green showed me a white obedient plant while we worked this morning at Rock Creek Wildflower and Pollinator Area. First morning in my three years of working there that we started in dense fog as the sun rose. Beautiful morning with other good finds, too.

Sunday column. Desparately seeking spotted bass and other quixotic quests around the outdoors chicago.suntimes.com/outdoors/202...

Notes package, as always with much help from readers and those who know. chicago.suntimes.com/outdoors/202...

After being gone for a week, I have more tomatoes than we were going to eat so I made spaghetti starter. But this year I had to make the admission that life has changed, so I only made it in pint sizes instead of the usual quart.

Good travel is about the stops. Coming home from Florida, we stopped at the National Quilt Museum in Paducah. A special gallery celebrated 50 years of Caryl Bryer Fallert-Gentry's quilts, quite unlike the hundreds of basic quilt tops my dad made for the Mennonite Central Committee.

Melbourne Beach These are not the rat-a-tat-tat roll pound roll pound of Lake Michigan waves. No these are langerous as afternoon delight. I'm assuming the waves from the Northeast come sliding off the backside of Erin before pounding the beach, then retreating sucking shells and sand

Sunday column on the O'Hare expansion mitigation turning into expanded restorations, including at a site I've been by many times but never visited before. Plus Gougar Road used to be one of my life hacks for getting around the southwest suburbs. chicago.suntimes.com/outdoors/202...

Notes package with help from readers and those who know as summer winds down. chicago.suntimes.com/outdoors/202...

Tonight works out that I can make another News Night, think Q&A with reporters. It's being held at a space I want to see and experience, the South Side Hackerspace in Bridgeport. I enjoyed being invited to opening News Night last year. That was held on the North Side. I'm curious how things are now.

Forward Progress - A Chicago Bears Podcast debuts on 8/26 on 312Sports. Make sure you're subscribed: www.youtube.com/@ForwardProg...

First heirloom tomato I picked yesterday. These days I need stuff like this. I originally got the seeds from my oldest brother's wife a couple years ago. It goes back to her grandmother, the late 1800d I think. Unnamed. It's literally a family heirloom.

Good morning at Rock Creek Wildflower and Pollinator Area with steward Beckie Green & Amber Sproul. Notable was a monarch caterpillar on milkweed, spotted by Amber or Beckie. Also had blazing star, a goldfinch (my first sighting it there), wild senna & a cuckoo wasp, first for me anywhere I think.

Sunday column that ties together a Chicago history, Chicago fishing and the Chicago lakefront. chicago.suntimes.com/outdoors/202...

Notes package with much help from readers and those who know. That vulture photo just gets me. chicago.suntimes.com/2025/08/16/c...

Joy this morning of working at Rock Creek Wildflower and Pollinator Area with steward Beckie Green and Amber Sproul was obedient plants. We found a good number in bloom. We also saw lots of butterflies, especially monarchs and a few swallowtails.

Column on work to bring back Franklin's ground squirrels at Kankakee Sands. And it looks promising. chicago.suntimes.com/outdoors/202...

Notes package, as always with much help from readers and those who know. Another week with a good variety. Chicago outdoors: Muskrat love (duckweed), "Trash Panda," doubling on muskies chicago.suntimes.com/outdoors/202...

Haven't pulled up memories like this from 40 years ago from Weeds' glory days with Sergio Mayora until tonight. Our second son, the drummer David, and friend Max of Tonsure brought it at the Drunken Donut in Joliet. Think fringe people, artists, artwork jammed in and musicians putting it down.

Late getting my Sunday birthday column posted online. Yes, I enjoyed the family and myself over my birthday. Well, and gave Lady some love. chicago.suntimes.com/outdoors/202...

Notes package, as always with much help from readers and those who know. chicago.suntimes.com/outdoors/202...

Another example of the changes on southern Lake Michigan. chicago.suntimes.com/outdoors/202...

Sunday column on a rare find at Langham Island setting off some buzz in the plant world. Plus I know her a bit. chicago.suntimes.com/outdoors/202...

Something different tonight with my wife. We went to the Edgar Allan Poe Speakeasy at the Design Barn in Hebron Indiana. Well done, including aptly named cocktails between the four acts. Karyn's a Poe buff. As an English major, I love the concept. Interesting venue that I never heard of before.

Notes package, as always with much help from readers and those who know. I am most proud of the variety of observations sent in. chicago.suntimes.com/outdoors/202...

American dagger moth caterpillar this morning on the sidewalk as Lady and I returned from our morning ramble. Had to look it up on Seek. Maybe I should think about restarting Ramble with Lady.

Showy tick-trefoil was the highlight of this morning working at Rock Creek Wildflower and Pollinator Area. Well, that and sightings of three different monarchs.

Keep your damn cats in the house. Reminded of that again tonight. While prepping to grill sausages and corn, I had a male & female cardinal doing distress calls. Looking around, I found two fledglings trying to go airborne. Fuss stopped when one of the neighborhood free-ranging house cats appeared.

Sunday column focused on Project FeederWatch and other citizen-scientist efforts. chicago.suntimes.com/outdoors/202...

Notes package with the usual good help from readers and those who know. I especially like the variety this week. chicago.suntimes.com/outdoors/202...

Notes package, as usual with much help from readers and those who know. Not sure why, but a wide variety this time from invasive plants and poop to a Blackhawk catching a salmon. chicago.suntimes.com/outdoors/202...

As steward Beckie Green and I walked back from working this morning at Rock Creek Wildflower and Pollinator Area, she spotted a monarch, my first of the year. Hard to believe, but I was able to be to walk up close and took some decent shot, decent at least by my standards.

Column for today about experiencing the world through fly fishing. chicago.suntimes.com/outdoors/202...

Every couple months a S-T metro editor Saji Mathai and I meet to talk/eat. Tonight was Virtue in Hyde Park. Unbelievable. Starters were fried green tomatoes with shrimp & romoulade, gizzards & dirty rice, and biscuits with pimento cheese & honey. Main dishes: short ribs and drum, grits & etouffee.

Yellow was the color of the week at Rock Creek Wildflower and Pollinator Area. Though I found a nice patch of purple prairie clover. Every Tuesday I work with steward Beckie Green and Amber Sproul. It's very rewarding, even when a red-winged blackbird sasses from six feet away.

Sunday column on researching suckers migrating and what can be learned. chicago.suntimes.com/outdoors/202...

The notes package, as always with much help from readers and those who know. It's quite the mix this week. chicago.suntimes.com/outdoors/202...

Sunday column on doing something different in fishing on Lake Michigan. Specifically targeting burbot on the deep-water reefs. chicago.suntimes.com/outdoors/202...

Scientific names matter. I know the flowers behind Karyn's head as trumpet vine. To her, they're campus vine. My late mother-in-law called them outhouse flowers. That's old country with good reason. We're at Allerton Park for an anniversary weekend and this is at Fu Dog Garden.

Notes package, as always with much help from readers and those who know. That's especially true this week. chicago.suntimes.com/outdoors/202...