The red-bellied woodpeckers are a favorite winter sight 🪶

A yellow-shafted northern flicker with wings retracted for landing. 🪶

Red-breasted nuthatch looking dapper 🪶

The pileated woodpecker's prodigious tongue encircles its brain when retracted and serves as a shock absorber. 🪶

A male pileated woodpecker, making solid progress pecking a new hole 🪶

A female pileated woodpecker, sipping some creek water 🪶

French Canyon at Starved Rock State Park

A Carolina wren, foraging in the winter woods at Starved Rock State Park 🪶

Bald eagle zooming over the Illinois River after catching a fish 🪶

Big bird beach day 🪶

A northern flicker, adding a pop of color to the winter landscape 🪶

I encountered a group of about 15 monk parakeets today -- these adaptable birds seem to be undaunted by Chicago winters. 🪶

Rusty blackbird, one of North America's most rapidly declining species 🪶

Portrait of an eastern bluebird on New Year's Day 🪶

Wilson's snipe, an expected sight in January 🪶

3 young bucks, hightailing it 🦌

Coyote in meal detection mode, which is pretty much the only mode.

A northern harrier looking for one last meal before the early nightfall on the winter solstice 🪶

Raccoon, curiously hanging out on the ice along the side of the Fox River. 🦝

Bald eagle perched above the Fox River 🪶

Hooded mergansers doing hooded merganser things 🪶

Red-eye flight of a red-breasted merganser 🪶

Portrait of a Blue Jay 🪶

A nicely tufted titmouse, with a sunflower seed 🪶

This great horned owl is a new rehab resident at the Little Red Schoolhouse Nature Center 🪶

Portrait of a red-bellied woodpecker 🪶

A goldeneye drake zooming down the Chicago shoreline. They beat their wings 8 or 9 times per second to reach their remarkable flight velocities. 🪶

Snowy owl bestowing the gift of its presence 🪶

Merganser splashdown in Montrose Harbor 🪶

The long-tailed duck is still fishing in the harbor 🪶

Frozen fruit for breakfast 🪶

Late fall color palette

An American tree sparrow, bobbing up and down while eating seeds on a very slender stalk. 🪶

Lift off. A red-tailed hawk departing one of the high lightposts above Montrose Beach. 🪶

Snow doe - a white-tailed deer in the snowy dunes along the western shore of Lake Michigan on Saturday. This past weekend was open deer hunting season in Illinois. I read that some hunters are using drones, e-bikes, and ChatGPT to pursue deer these days. Sigh. 🦌

upside downy 🪶

Portrait of a Lapland longspur 🪶

The happy couple 🪶

Into The Sphere.... #Lightscape at Chicago Botanic Garden

A long-tailed duck (male) in Lake Michigan 🪶

Horned grebe in Montrose Harbor 🪶

Skaters at Millennium Park ⛸️

And this is the other hawk, the would-be pirate, vigorously whining about wanting that bird meat 🪶

A Cooper's hawk, defending its kill (held in its left talon). Another Coop had been chasing it through the air before it landed on the lake wall and assumed this impressive defensive stance. 🪶

In berry heaven 🐿️

Lapland longspurs foraging in the snowy dunes at Montrose Point 🪶

View of downtown Chicago from Montrose Harbor 🏙️

Christmas tree at Wrigley Field 🎄

Red-tailed hawk examining the merchandise at Montrose Point 🪶

A brown creeper, doing some upside-down creeping. 🪶