A fox sparrow at Montrose Point 🪶

Birds with pine nuts 🪶

More pictures of the coyotes patrolling the Chicago lakefront yesterday morning. They are impressively adaptable animals.

Closer view of the horned grebe's breeding plumage 🪶

Breeding plumage coming in nicely on this horned grebe in Montrose Harbor 🪶

An urban coyote (one of at least 3) doing some rabbit hunting in the Montrose Point Bird Sanctuary early this morning

Cooper's hawk close-up 🪶

Greater Scaup, in a Great Lake, looking Great. 🪶

Cooper's hawk intensely surveying the surrounding woods, looking for breakfast 🪶

Catkins blooming on a poplar tree that has mostly fallen over

Eastern bluebird arrival 🪶

Splashdown in black and white 🪶

Double-crested cormorants are on the move again after their winter break down south 🪶

A Carolina wren, making a proclamation 🪶

Eastern phoebes are back in town 🪶

A juvenile bald eagle lifting off from a branch, looking mottled. It takes several years for their adult plumage to come in. 🪶

A small portion of a very large flock of red-winged blackbirds and starlings traveling together 🪶

Red-tailed hawk fly-over 🪶

A Northern shoveler in the Black Tern Marsh 🪶

The GOAT of goats. One of the dwarf Nigerian goats at Elawa Farm Foundation 🐐

Sandhill crane flyover 🪶

American black duck 🪶

Red-breasted merganser shake-off in the Des Plaines River 🪶

A common goldeneye - one minute she's placidly paddling upstream, then suddenly she's outta here 🪶

Mourning dove in the bird sanctuary 🪶

Foggy sunrise over Lake Michigan, late winter

"Hereby claiming the entire sanctuary as my territory" 🪶

A red-headed woodpecker, shortly after successfully grabbing some tidbit it was pursuing 🪶

Poodle moss provides a bright pop of green in the winter woods

Tufted titmouse, one of the birds that just looks like it should be a character in a Disney movie 🪶

Some major scampering was afoot at Ryerson Conservation Area. The chipmunks have emerged from their underground dens. They seemed to be delighting in the chance to run around, and who can blame them?

This red-bellied woodpecker found a secluded spot for breakfast 🪶

A broad-winged hawk, in the slammer for crimes against Rodentia. Actually, a beautiful rehab bird at the Little Red Schoolhouse Nature Center 🪶

Florence Nightingale. The International Museum of Surgical Science is an interesting place.

Portrait of a house sparrow with a crumb at the end of his beak 🪶

The courtship display of the common goldeneye is not exactly suave and sophisticated 🪶

Horned grebe in Lake Michigan, giving me the eye 🪶

A pair of mallards, doing their head-bobbing courtship dance. They were both bobbing very enthusiastically, so I think it's on. 🪶

A pair of ring-necked ducks patrolling the harbor 🪶

Back to the Orchid Show. Spring is coming.

Back in town and staking territorial claims. 🪶

Bufflehead at North Point Marina in Winthrop Harbor 🪶

Close-up of a bugling Sandhill crane. The nictitating membrane is closed, which is commonly the case when they vocalize. 🪶

The Des Plaines River in Lake County, up near the Wisconsin border. It's little more than a creek at this point, but it becomes a major waterway by the time it reaches Will County.

A leucistic Canada goose in the Des Plaines River 🪶

Eastern bluebird found a February caterpillar and gulped it down 🪶

One more picture from the Goose Wars 🪶

It's that time of year when the Goose Wars are getting underway. Months of peaceful co-existence degenerating into Canadian-on-Canadian violence 🪶

Mallard arrivals 🪶