Three plover eggs were documented Saturday in Waukegan, and 30 miles down the Lake Michigan shoreline, another egg was confirmed at Montrose Beach.

“This is an historic event for the Great Lakes Piping Plover Project,” said Brad Semel, endangered species recovery specialist for the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.

Three of the four parents-to-be, Blaze, Pepper and Searocket, hatched in a captive-rearing facility in Michigan last summer. They were released as chicks near Montrose Beach and Illinois Beach State Park in Zion last July, and have returned from their southerly wintering locations to start families.

The fourth plover is Imani, born in the wild at Montrose Beach to Monty and Rose, the famous plover pair that first captured Chicago’s attention in 2019.

Captive-reared plovers have never laid eggs in Illinois before, only in Michigan, Semel said.

If all goes well, in another month, the new parents will be doting on up to four hatchlings at each nest, he said.

The three captive-reared plovers began as eggs laid on a New York beach in the spring of 2023. When a hawk killed one of their incubating parents, the eggs were whisked away to a Michigan facility where they would have a better chance to survive. About a month after they hatched, Semel picked them up and drove them in a cat carrier to Illinois to release them.

“It’s been a very long time since piping plovers were nesting in two different locations along the lakeshore in Illinois,” Semel said.

Volunteer monitors at both locations are overjoyed and cautious as they work to educate people about the need to protect the rare birds and the shoreline ecosystem in which they live.

Piping plovers in Chicago: How the ‘love story’ between Monty and Rose unfolded at Montrose Beach

Carolyn Lueck, a volunteer plover monitor with the Lake County Audubon Society’s Sharing Our Shore-Waukegan program has been visiting Blaze and Pepper almost daily since the plovers returned from two different wintering homes within a day of each other in May.

“By Saturday, we had three eggs and were anticipating a fourth,” said Lueck, a former Lake Forest and Chicago resident who now lives in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin. If the captive-reared plovers can raise wild piping plovers, that will show the “great experiment,” to save the endangered shorebird species can be successful, she said.

“Blaze and Pepper have been very diligent,” Lueck said. “They never leave that nest unattended. They’re protecting it from the grackles and other threats.”

However, volunteer monitors acting as plover protectors had to intervene recently when a grackle, a type of blackbird that eats crops and garbage and also raids bird nests, got inside the cage.

“On Saturday, Pepper was on the nest, and he got up a few times to get a couple of bugs,” Lueck said. “Blaze was out foraging for a very long time. She has to have been using lots of energy to lay her eggs.”

Piping plovers typically lay one egg every other day, for a total of four. After that, they incubate the eggs and the young hatch simultaneously about a month later.

On Montrose Beach, Tamima Itani, lead volunteer and interagency coordinator for the Chicago Piping Plovers monitors, said she marvels that Searocket, at only 11 months old, was able to return to where she was released, mate and lay an egg.

“I also celebrate the fact that Imani’s need for a mate is now fulfilled after two seasons without one,” Itani said.

Imani’s parents, Monty and Rose, attempted to nest in Waukegan in 2018 and then successfully raised young at Montrose Beach in 2019, 2020 and 2021.

Monty died in 2022 waiting at Montrose for Rose to return.

She never did, but their son Imani has returned to his birthplace the past three years hoping to find a mate. When Searocket arrived this spring, Imani courted her and they mated. Pepper is Monty’s great-nephew.

“As monitors, we have such a feeling of responsibility because so many people, organizations and partners are working to bring this species back from the brink,” Lueck said.

With help from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, a cage has been installed around the Waukegan and Chicago nests.

“The cage allows plovers to easily come and go from their nest, but it restricts potential predators like foxes and raccoons,” Semel said. “One critical part is that the birds accept the cage. After placing the cage (in Waukegan), we hurried away and watched their behavior.”

In a little over a minute, the pair returned to the eggs, he said. “I was very relieved to note that both birds accepted the cage,” Semel said.

In addition, surveillance cameras have been placed at Montrose and Waukegan so Semel and others can monitor the plovers’ whereabouts and any potential for disturbance around the clock.

Approximately 500 to 800 piping plover pairs once nested annually throughout the Great Lakes, but by the 1980s that number had declined to about a dozen pairs, resulting in the bird being put on the federal endangered species list.

In 1876, Illinois ornithologist E. W. Nelson wrote that the piping plover was “a very common summer resident along Illinois’ lakeshore.” He noted that 30 pairs were breeding along the beach in Waukegan within a space of 2 miles, according to H. David Bohlen, author of “Birds of Illinois.”

Nelson also mentioned numerous breeding plovers along the Lake Michigan shoreline in the late 1800s near Lake Calumet.

A dramatic population decline occurred in the 1940s in Illinois, according to Bohlen, who cited recreational and industrial buildup in Zion, Waukegan and the Calumet region as reasons why the plovers did not return to nest.

For the past four decades, captive-rearing programs, monitoring and habitat restoration have helped the species throughout the Great Lakes.

Last year, a record 80 pairs of piping plovers were documented in the Great Lakes region, according to Stephanie Cabal Schubel, a team member at Great Lakes Piping Plover Conservation.

“The work of citizens and officials to clean sites and monitor piping plovers shows the resilience of nature,” Semel said.

Lueck said that when she started monitoring the plovers she didn’t realize how important the Lake Michigan shoreline was to a variety of migratory species.

Near where the plovers nest, she said she’s seen shorebird species including ruddy turnstones and sanderlings stopping in spring. “They are so dependent on our shores for food so they can make it to their northern breeding grounds,” Lueck said.

Montrose Beach is also a safe respite for migratory birds, with roughly 12 acres set aside specifically for nesting plovers, according to Itani, of the Chicago Piping Plovers.

The piping plovers have, in effect, created a protected part of the beaches in Chicago and Waukegan that benefits many other animals and plants, according to Itani, Lueck and Semel.

“It’s because of the piping plovers that people are recognizing the ecological value of the lakeshore,” Semel said.

Spring ephemerals can bloom early because they store food in their bulbs from last year’s growth. The amount of moisture in spring also contributes to how prolific they are, and when they are in full bloom.

It’s become my tradition to visit, for example, Reed Turner Woodlands to look for Virginia bluebells in mid to late April, and then on to Wright Woods in early May to admire the great white trillium.

The last hurrah for me is finding wild hyacinths, usually at the end of May or beginning of June. It’s often the dramatic ending to the spring wildflower season.

This year is different, however. Wild hyacinths were already blooming in the middle of May at both Wright Woods and Reed Turner Woodland. As a group, they created lilting, white patterns that seemed to connect one oak tree to another.

I have never seen so many wild hyacinths blooming so early. The mostly warm, wet spring likely favored the early and copious growth of the wild hyacinths, as well as some of the other ephemerals that bloomed earlier than normal.

One of the largest expanses of wild hyacinths in the world occurs at Wolf Road Prairie in Westchester. If you hurry right now, you can still see them before they wilt away for summer.

Before discovering wild hyacinths, I only knew about the non-native garden hyacinths, sometimes called Dutch hyacinths, that come in blue, pink and white, among other colors of cultivated varieties.

Native to Africa and the Mediterranean region, these perennials can be grown fairly easily here, and produce a lovely spring scent. In our climate, gardeners plant the hyacinth bulbs in the fall and watch them come alive with blooms in spring. They do fine if left in the ground even over the winter, and don’t need to be planted every year, like some other bulbs require.

I have a few pink garden hyacinths that appear in early spring, and I let them be since they don’t spread. They are not closely related to the wild hyacinths, and belong to the genus Hyacinthas, while the wild hyacinths are in the genus Camassia.

When I discovered wild hyacinth years ago, that’s when I really understood the joy of watching the parade of spring ephemerals emerge. By late May, bloodroot, an early bloomer, had long ago dropped its blooms and the white trillium was looking pink and tattered.

That’s when wild hyacinth, native to the eastern half of North America, including Ontario and the eastern United States, are in their prime.

The bluish-white flowers bloom beginning at the bottom of the stalk, which bears narrow, long, grasslike leaves. As time passes, the entire plant is in blossom, and a large stand of them appears as if a multitude of long, bluish-white feathers were gently swaying in the wind. Inspecting one closer reveals the bright yellow stamens emanating from the six petals.

Wild hyacinth, specifically Camassia scilloides, is endangered in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, threatened in Michigan and North Carolina, and not all that common in Illinois.

But centuries ago, they surely must have been common, as records show that both Native Americans and early European settlers ate the bulbs raw, as well as baked, roasted, boiled and dried.

Another look-alike native plant, Zigadenus elegans, known as white camas, which is more common in the western United States, but still can be found in Illinois. This species’ bulbs look identical to those of the wild hyacinth. But white camas bulbs are poisonous. Indeed, eating one could kill a grown person, and the plant is often called death camas. The non-native garden hyacinth bulbs are inedible and contain an acid that irritates the skin.

I’d love to grow wild hyacinths in my yard, and though the plant prefers moist, fertile soil, I’ve read it might be able to handle clay soil, which is in my yard.

I’ve rarely heard of gardeners planting this species. If you have planted it successfully, I’d love to hear about it. I’m considering adding some to my spring ephemerals in my garden, which contains bloodroot, wild geraniums, May apples and Jacob’s ladder among others.

Bloodroot is long gone, and the Jacob’s ladder has dropped most of its soft, delicate blue flowers. It would be wonderful if I could find a way to add wild hyacinths to my spring ephemeral collection.

Find some time this weekend to visit Wright Woods, Reed Turner Woodland or Wolf Prairie to enjoy one of the best showings of wild hyacinth I’ve seen in a long time.

Sheryl DeVore has worked as a full-time and freelance reporter, editor and photographer for the Chicago Tribune and its subsidiaries. She’s the author of several books on nature and the environment. Send story ideas and thoughts to sheryldevorewriter@gmail.com.

One man sprays herbicides on every one of those little puffballs to kill them all. Meanwhile, someone else is picking dandelion greens to make salad. But how many dandelion salads can you eat? And can you really kill them all?

The better question might be to ask what is good about those unwanted lawn ornaments that torment some of us each spring.

Dandelions are not native to North America. However, they’ve probably been here for as long as the first European settlers visited the continent. Some records indicate the Pilgrims on the Mayflower brought the dandelions over here as either food, medicine, or both.

Native to Eurasia, the dandelion was cultivated by the Chinese to treat liver and digestive problems. Even in the 10th century, long before North America was born, Arabian doctors used the plant for medicine.

The name dandelion comes from the French, “dent de lion,” translated as lion’s teeth referring to the tooth-edged-shaped leaves of the plant.

Some invasive plants, like buckthorn, can really wreak havoc on an ecosystem, and must be removed. But dandelions are not in that same category. In most, if not all of the United States, dandelions don’t take over native species, nor do they disrupt ecosystems. They don’t crowd out big bluestem, golden Alexander and other native plants in the prairies, for example.

On a recent walk through a Lake County nature preserve, I saw thousands of blooming trout lilies, native to this region. Here and there were a few dandelions, mostly at the edge of the trail and the woods. But they did not encroach on the large stand of native wildflowers blooming beneath native oak trees.

Dandelions, however, do take over lawns, which aren’t native to the U.S. either. But a clean, green lawn with no weeds, especially those dandelions, became a symbol of wealth in Europe and early on in North American history. Those who had dandelions covering their lawns were often considered lazy or poor.

We do not herbicide our dandelions, but my husband definitely is not lazy, because he handpicks them so they don’t take over what little lawn we have. Quite frankly, I think just leaving them alone makes more sense, and certainly you can just mow them over from time to time. However, admittedly, the dandelions will come right back up a few days later because they have fat, deep taproots to store plenty of energy needed for the next flowers.

The best reason to leave the dandelions alone is because they provide nectar and pollen to the first awakening bees of springtime in a suburban yard that is not overflowing with native blooming plants.

And once the hot summer sets in, they seem to mostly disappear until a few pop up in the coolness of autumn.

I’ve thought more than once about collecting dandelions and adding the leaves to a salad. Nutritionists say dandelion leaves contain iron, calcium and other vitamins and minerals.

I decided against making a dandelion salad, because there are just too many folks in my neighborhood spraying their lawns with herbicides and pesticides, which I don’t want to ingest.

Besides that, you just are not going to stop them. Each dandelion flower produces up to 200 seeds. A week or two after a dandelion bloom turns into a white puffball, all of those seeds disperse. The seeds get carried by the wind, and so even if someone has doused every one of the dandelions on their lawn, floating seeds from other yards may land there and germinate again next spring.

Some migratory bird species, for example the white-crowned sparrow and indigo bunting, eat dandelion seeds on their way to their breeding grounds. These birds help plant dandelions, too.

Perhaps it would be more fun to pick up a dandelion when it’s gone to seed, blow on it and scatter the seeds into the air. It’s just such a delicious childhood memory, one I wonder if young people experience in the 21st century.

Dandelions are somewhat sacred in Waukegan, where author Ray Bradbury lived and wrote his famous book, “Dandelion Wine.” Bradbury described how dandelions were harvested and used to create wine, which would be ready at the end of summer.

I have tasted dandelion wine at the annual Dandelion Wine Festival in Waukegan and it is quite good. So while most folks are grousing about dandelions, I would prefer sitting on a lawn full of them, sipping wine made from them and reading Bradbury’s book named after them.

Sheryl DeVore has worked as a full-time and freelance reporter, editor and photographer for the Chicago Tribune and its subsidiaries. She’s the author of several books on nature and the environment. Send story ideas and thoughts to sheryldevorewriter@gmail.com.

Within the next 30 years, however, there may be few if any migrating loons in Illinois, according to Walter Piper, researcher and professor of biology at Chapman University in Orange, California.

Loons, which winter along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and migrate through the Midwest to nest farther north, are not successfully raising as many chicks as they have in the past, said Piper, who has studied the birds in Wisconsin for years.

“Increased rainfall associated with climate change is washing organic matter into northern Wisconsin lakes, reducing water clarity, and making it harder for adult loons to find food for their chicks,” Piper said.

One of Piper’s studies, published last month in the journal Ecology, suggests that climate change, through water clarity, profoundly affects freshwater ecosystems. The extra moisture has also increased the population of black flies, which can disrupt nesting loons.

“Climate change could result in long-term decline of the loons and their breeding ranges,” predicted Piper, who runs the Wisconsin Loon Project. “We could lose all U.S. breeding populations. We could only have loons breeding in Canada. That would be tragic.”

Loon reproduction, however, is also declining across southern Canada, where the Canadian Lakes Loon Survey has been tracking the breeding habits for the past 40 years.

“The number of babies just goes down and down and down,” said Doug Tozer, director of waterbirds and wetlands for the conservation organization Birds Canada, which coordinates the loon survey.

The reasons are unclear, but Tozer said he thinks the decrease in Canada is related to warming temperatures causing a rise in mercury pollution. Tozer has co-authored papers looking into the connection between the drop in the loon population and mercury, acid rain and climate change, among other factors.

“The number of breeding loons in southern Canada is also starting to decline. This is what we’ve all been dreading,” said Tozer, who has joined forces with Piper to work on a project analyzing all loon data from North America.

Karen Lund of Genoa, who does annual loon surveys with Johnson in northern Illinois, worries about those statistics.  “It would be sad if there will be fewer loons and that people of the next generation might not see or hear them,” she said.

Loons once nested in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa and Ohio, but now they breed in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. They also breed in the New England region and a few northwestern states including Montana, but most nest in Canada. Illinois’s last breeding pair of loons was recorded in 1892 in Lake County. Reasons for their demise could include habitat destruction, pollution and other factors, Piper said.

Loons can live to be 30 years old, he said, but if they’re not producing enough chicks their numbers will keep dropping. Loons typically raise two chicks annually, enough to replenish their population.

“Overall, Wisconsin’s adult loon population has fallen an estimated 22% in the last 25 years,” Piper said.

The number of migrating loons in the Chicago region peaks around the end of March and beginning of April, but some will remain until early May before heading north.

“You can find them along the Lake Michigan shoreline (including at Montrose Beach) and lakes such as Maple Lake in DuPage County and Axehead Lake in Cook County,” Johnson said. “But the hugest numbers are on the Chain O’ Lakes, including on Pistakee Lake, Lake Marie, Bluff Lake and Channel Lake.”

While leading a recent trip around the Chain O’ Lakes area, Johnson said he and the participants heard loons yodeling as well as giving their haunting tremolo calls.

In breeding plumage, “the common loon has beautiful white reptilian spots on the back and a ruby-red eye,” Johnson said.

Each year for decades, Johnson, who is from Buffalo Grove, has picked one day in late March or early April to gather data on migratory loons in the Chain O’ Lakes area. He said he has noticed a drop in numbers. “But I wouldn’t say it’s precipitous.”

“Our highest count was 676 on April 6, 2013, but 401 this year is a good number too,” he said.

Still, Johnson said he thinks Piper’s findings are “concerning.”

Piper heard and saw his first loon in the north woods as a child. “I was in Ontario on a lake,” Piper recalled. “I was underneath my warm Hudson Bay blanket and in our primitive cabin on the lake shore and heard this ethereal, haunting sound coming across the lake.”

Piper began researching loons in 1993 focusing on territory defense, habitat selection and breeding behavior in three counties in Wisconsin. He nets and weighs adults and chicks, and fits them with leg bands for identification.

“Over the years, I started to realize that the chicks weren’t as heavy as they used to be at a certain age, and sometimes only one chick instead of two would survive,” Piper said.

His data showed that the total weight of chicks four to five weeks old had decreased by 11% over the last quarter century. “That equates to more chick mortality. I had to explore this and find out what’s going on.”

Piper worked with Max Glines and Kevin Rose, water clarity specialists from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York,  who co-authored the study published in Ecology. They gathered data from the lakes where the loons he studied were breeding. They discovered water quality had declined at the same time rainfall had increased.

“That link between rainfall and water clarity is quite strong,” Piper said. “We can clearly point to rainfall as the culprit. Heavy rains especially in July when adults are feeding chicks, make the water cloudy, making it more difficult for parents to see their prey. … The chicks really suffer,” Piper said. “The parents cannot find enough food.”

Piper began similar studies in Minnesota in 2021. He also will work with colleagues to find out what kind of substances rainfall is bringing into the lakes.

“We haven’t nailed down exactly what it is that’s washing into the lakes that make them less clear,” he said. “It could be fertilizer, pet waste or something else. We have to get to the bottom of this.”

His loon conservation work has also shown that loons abandon their nests when harassed by black flies. Black fly populations have increased in the past few decades in Wisconsin, he said. Their population is boosted by more rain.

In 2020, nearly all loons nesting in 108 lakes abandoned their nests due to black flies, and that is related to climate change, Piper said. “Only three breeding pairs were able to nest because of black flies,” he said.

Tozer said what’s happening with loons in one breeding region may be different from another.

“I think it’s going to vary regionally, what the problem is,” he said. “Water clarity looks like one of the smoking guns in Walter Piper’s area. Southern Canada, it might be mercury. In other places, it will be something else.”

But the reasons, they believe, are all related to climate change. They are working with postdoctoral students to analyze data on loons throughout North America. This information includes long-term data from research projects in individual states and across particular regions.

“We cannot control rainfall or climate change,” Piper said. “It’s an ocean liner we can’t turn around rapidly.

“If there are changes people can make, it would be to take better care of their shorelines,” he said.

​Piper said more research is needed to find ways to help loons so people like Johnson can continue to watch them, hear their otherworldly calls and introduce them to others.

“I am crazy about loons,” Johnson said.

He’s been that way since he was 18 years old and heard his first calling loon in northern Wisconsin. “It was a starry night and the loon was wailing,” he recalled. “They still nest there …. I think.”

It’s not a colorful bird — Its body and wings are grayish-brown, its head is slightly darker and it has a white breast.

Getting excited about a grayish-brown and white bird may not make much sense. But this species, called an eastern phoebe, is a sight for sore birders’ eyes. By middle to late March, the phoebe returns to Illinois from the southeastern United States and Mexico to set up territory. In early April, it’s in full-fledged nesting mode.

It perches on tree branches even before the leaves have emerged. It lifts its tail up and down, and when it gets the inkling, it sings its name. Phoebe. Phoebe. Sometimes the second “phoebe” has a buzzy quality to it.

Flycatchers are a family of birds that eat insects and cannot live in northern Illinois in winter when their food choices are scarce. But phoebes seem to come back even before there’s an insect to be seen, by humans anyway.

Eastern phoebes have a knack for getting insects that other flycatchers cannot. A birder once observed a phoebe hovering above the ground around the end of December. The birder bent down and looked closer. There he saw what he called, “these little bitsy teen weeny gnat-like things hovering around a small open section of otherwise frozen water.”

The phoebe was getting plenty of protein from the insects rising above the water.

Phoebes tend to nest around human-built structures, such as bridges and overhanging decks where there may be more insects. Before these manmade buildings were commonplace, phoebes nested on bare rock outcrops.

One of my favorite bridges to look for eastern phoebes early in the season is at Wright Woods in Vernon Hills. The bridge goes over the Des Plaines River leading to Half Day Forest Preserve. For years, I’ve seen a pair of phoebes nesting underneath the bridge’s metal support beams.

I peer over the bridge and look for a phoebe sitting on a low perch and moving its tail while seeking flying insects. When an insect is seen, the phoebe quickly chases its prey, swallows it and returns to the same perch or one nearby. I return again and again through mid-summer to look for the phoebe.

Phoebes build nests made of moss, mud, grass, stems and animal hair. This time of year, a lucky and patient nature-lover might see a phoebe with a mouthful of green moss that she will deliver to her nest site.

Phoebes eat wasps, dragonflies, butterflies, moths, midges, spiders and cicadas. With the emergence of the 17-year cicadas in northern Illinois sometime in late May, phoebes will have more than enough food to feed their young. I’ll be at the bridge watching the show.

Beginning birders can confuse eastern phoebes with another similar-looking flycatcher, the eastern wood-pewee. But this flycatcher doesn’t return until May. It has a much longer flight to get up north, coming all the way from its winter home in the northwestern part of South America.

The best way to tell these two flycatchers apart is by listening to their songs. While the phoebe sings a buzzy two-syllable song, the eastern wood-pewee sings a clear “pee-wee, pee-a-wee-pee-a-wee” and “pee-ur.”

The wood-pewee has a grayer body than the phoebe, and a bit of a crest atop its head. The phoebe has an all-black bill, while pewees typically have a two-tone bill, orange on the bottom, and dark on the top.

Pewees also have white bars on their wings. Phoebes can have wing bars, too, but they are much duller.

This is a good time to examine the plumage of phoebes, before the pewees arrive later.

What’s fun about phoebes is that they often use the same nests and nest sites from previous years, which is why I know right where to go at Wright Woods to find this bird species.

Take a walk in a wooded area with some sheds, bridges or other manmade structures and listen for the phoebe. If you’re lucky you may find it building a nest and showing off its fly-catching prowess.

Sheryl DeVore has worked as a full-time and freelance reporter, editor and photographer for the Chicago Tribune and its subsidiaries. She’s the author of several books on nature and the environment. Send story ideas and thoughts to sheryldevorewriter@gmail.com.

In central Illinois, bloodroots are already in full bloom. That’s typically how it goes each spring here in northern Illinois as the parade of wildflower blossoms begins a good week to two weeks after what’s happening farther south.

It’s the science of phenology – the timing of biological events in a plant or animal’s life such as flowering, migration, and reproduction. Plant phenology shows that farther south where it’s warmer, the bloodroots are already in bloom, but here in northern Illinois, they’re just beginning.  Plant phenology also can be used to study flower blooms in the same place year after year to see if the timing is changing in their life cycle.

The earliest I have documented bloodroot in full bloom in my yard was April 7. That was in 2020. I wonder if the blooms will open even earlier this year, and even earlier than that a few decades from now.

Through Project BudBurst, created at the Chicago Botanic Garden in 2007, researchers, educators, gardeners and community scientists are adding phenology information to a large database to determine how humans impact the natural world. They’re examining whether some wildflower species are blooming earlier. The more years of data they have the more they can determine how seasonal patterns change in the midst of global warming. You can contribute your data by visiting budburst.org

A voice from the past lends credence to what may happen to wildflower bloom times if the climate continues to warm.

It’s Henry David Thoreau. The naturalist writer known for his book, “Walden Pond” still read in classrooms today, documented the times at which wildflowers were blooming in his neck of the woods in Massachusetts.

“We have learned that wildflowers are now flowering earlier than in Thoreau’s day because of warming temperatures,” writes Richard B. Primack, author of “Walden Warming: Climate Change Comes to Thoreau’s Woods.”

One example is the pink lady’s slipper orchid, which Primack writes was observed blooming in late May by Thoreau, but now blooms in the same location in mid-May or earlier.

“Trees and shrubs are leafing out earlier too,” Primack writes.

While you might rejoice that the bloodroot will bloom earlier and the trees will turn green earlier in spring in northern Illinois, there’s something more complex to consider and it’s not something to be happy about.  The phenology of plants and animals doesn’t change unilaterally across all species as the climate warms.

For example, bird migrations are not as closely tied to local temperatures. “As a result, birds that are not advancing their migrations may become mismatched with their habitats and sources of food,” Primack writes.

An example of what could be happening here in northern Illinois is that caterpillar eggs are hatching earlier on oak trees, which are also leafing out earlier. Migratory songbirds rely on the caterpillars for food.  What if the birds arrive too late to get their meals?

Primack also explains that wildflowers depend on spring sunlight for energy before the tree canopy forms and shades them. If trees shade them earlier, they will lose that sunlight. He offers this example: “Jack-in-the-pulpit (a common spring wildflower in Illinois) has lost up to 26 percent of energy from sunlight compared to Thoreau’s time.” He postures that this plant species may lose as much as 48 percent of its sunlight-derived energy by the end of the 21st century.

I recently learned that bloodroot obtains its nutrients and water from beneath the soil from what’s known as mycorrhizal fungi (underground mushroom roots). The bloodroot in turn provides the fungi with sugars it needs to flourish.

What might happen to that underground network if the bloodroot blooms earlier?

As the climate changes, interactions among plants and animals as well as the ability for humans to get what they need from the earth also will change.

As I wait for the bloodroot to bloom in my yard, I contemplate human impact on Earth. There are no easy solutions and it’s complicated, but we are smart enough to work together to understand and help our changing natural world thrive.

Sheryl DeVore has worked as a full-time and freelance reporter, editor and photographer for the Chicago Tribune and its subsidiaries. She’s the author of several books on nature and the environment. Send story ideas and thoughts to sheryldevorewriter@gmail.com.

The gulls you see while you’re walking along a lakeshore, a huge river bank or even driving by a landfill, are not always the same species. They are typically found near water, whether the ocean, a lake, a river or wetlands. But birders don’t like when folks refer to them as just a bunch of seagulls.

When winter comes, birders who love gulls are out searching for some rarities. That’s the time when northerly breeders spend winter here along the cold and icy waters of Lake Michigan, as well as along rivers and even near landfills.

At all times of the year in the northern Illinois area, you’ll see mostly ring-billed gulls. It’s one of North America’s most common gull species, though believe it or not it actually once was nearly extirpated due to hunting for its feathers and eggs.

The ring-billed is a medium-sized gull that takes up to three years to mature to its adult plumage, with a white head and breast, yellow bill with black ring around it, gray wings, black tail with white wing spots and yellow legs. But not all ring-billed gulls look alike. A 2-year-old ring-billed, for example, has lots of streaking and a pink bill with a black band. Same species, different look.

The next most common gull in these parts is the herring gull, which is larger than the ring-billed and takes four years to reach adulthood. Jonathan Livingston Seagull, the bird that wanted to be more than just a seagull, was a herring gull. He looks like a ring-billed gull, but is larger and has pink instead of yellow legs and a red dot on a yellow bill.

In winter, you’ll find plenty of herring gulls and ring-billed gulls, but others you might see this time of year include the great black-backed gull. This species has a black back that contrasts with its pure white head, neck and belly. The great-black backed is quite lovely and large, and fairly easy to identify in its adult plumage. A great spot to look for this and other wintering gull species is along Lake Michigan in Winthrop Harbor, Zion and Waukegan.

Another one you may see is the glaucous gull, which in certain plumages can appear almost pure white and ghostlike. But then, in different plumages, glaucous gulls also can have variable brown streaking, and they may be difficult to pick out among all the gulls in a huge flock.

Birders who enjoy the challenge of identifying gulls are called lariphiles, lovers of the family Laridae, to which gulls belong. I must admit I enjoy seeing a rare gull when someone else finds it and points it out. I don’t have the patience or keen detail knowledge of gull plumages to try to pick them out on my own.

This winter, someone found a California gull way out of its range in Lake County. I went once to look for it. and didn’t find it. Someone else recently reported a glaucous-winged gull. I did not even try to go see that one.

My response is: Birds have wings. They fly. The gull has probably gone.  And that’s often what seems to happen with the rare ones.

Gulls are great fliers. A birder once reported that an ivory gull, one of the rarest gulls in the world, had stopped by the Lake County Fairgrounds. I was there in fewer than 10 minutes and the bird was gone, never to be found again. He had excellent photos for proof, and I knew that probably was my last chance to see such a rare species unless I traveled to the Arctic region and scanned among the ice floes.

If I haven’t deterred you from wanting to identify any of the “seagulls” you encounter, then here’s a suggestion for a new winter activity. Dress warmly, take a walk along a Lake Michigan beach and bring some binoculars. Focus on the first gull you can clearly see and try to pick out some of its plumage markings, for example, the color of its feet, bill and back.

Perhaps you’ll then be convinced that you’re looking at more than just a bunch of seagulls.

Sheryl DeVore has worked as a full-time and freelance reporter, editor, and photographer for the Chicago Tribune and its subsidiaries. She’s the author of several books on nature and the environment. Send story ideas and thoughts to sheryldevorewriter@gmail.com.

On the heels of the mid-January storm — and even in the wake of it — thousands of sandhill cranes, trying to winter farther north in Wisconsin, responded by flying south over the Chicago region to where they can find open water and food. 

The trumpeting calls filled the sky as they typically do in November and early December. On Saturday, just before the temperatures began dropping to single digits, flocks of cranes flew over Deerfield and Long Grove. The day before, thousands of migrating cranes were counted in the region. They were still coming on Monday.

Migratory birds like cranes experience a restlessness called zugunruhe, when it’s time to begin flying south or north. Changing amounts of daylight as well as inner cues like hormonal changes can unlock this restlessness. Why then would a crane that typically gets its innate cues to begin migration in November wait until January? The answer lies, in part, with food, and it’s also likely related to climate change.

Sandhill cranes feed on waste grains, especially in cornfields, and on snails, frogs, lizards and insects in wetlands. Sandhill cranes have little blood flow in their legs and feet, and are able to withstand cold temperatures. If food is plentiful, they may linger longer than normal, and they have been doing that for the past few decades.

Still, when snow begins to fall and the wetlands freeze over, they must fly to where there’s more food. Sandhill cranes are large birds capable of catching updrafts to glide rather than flap their wings constantly. They are also much stronger flyers than the small birds. That gives them an edge over other bird species such as the ovenbird, a regular migrant in Illinois, and the black-throated gray warbler, a very rare species in Illinois.

Both species, which weigh less than an ounce and measure about 5 or 6 inches long, have been seen in the Chicago region this January. The ovenbird should be in the southern United States or northern Venezuela right now, and the black-throated gray warbler should be in Mexico. Both are mostly insect-eaters.

In early January, the ovenbird found a warm spot in downtown Chicago where some insects remained. The black-throated gray warbler found a little haven of evergreens in a Chicago suburb next to a feeding station with peanut shavings and other foods it found palatable. It was still being seen on Jan. 14, after nearly a foot of snow fell in some places. Temperatures dropped to below zero after that.

In this cold and snow, the ovenbird and the black-throated gray warbler likely will not survive. They certainly cannot fly in this weather. They may have to rely on humans to keep them fed, and they may perish nonetheless.

One study showed that ovenbirds cannot survive when the temperature goes below a certain threshold, about 24 degrees for a sustained period. Different bird species likely have different thresholds of temperatures they can withstand. Even though they really are not supposed to be here this time of year, it’s sad to think of these two species perishing.

What’s also sad is wondering what happened to the more than 30 limpkins seen through Illinois for the past several months, including in Lake Forest and Glencoe. The limpkin lives in tropical areas, from southern Florida to the Caribbean islands, Mexico and Central and South America. It does not migrate, and eats snails in wetlands.

For various reasons related to food and habitat, it is expanding its range northward, and has found plenty of snails and mussels to eat in Chicago-area wetlands. Still, it does not have adaptabilities like other species that live year-round here in the north.

For example, the black-capped chickadee can maintain a body temperature of 100 degrees, even when temperatures are hovering around zero degrees, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Chickadees also grow more feathers to provide better insulation in winter and store their food, remembering on cold days exactly where they left it. Some scientists think that the part of their brain where memory is stored, gets larger in winter.

A limpkin has not evolved to grow extra insulation in winter. When water freezes over the snails it eats, the limpkin is left without food. No food and colder temperatures than it is used to surely will not help these individuals survive.

The last time the limpkin was seen in Lake Forest was Jan. 11. Then came the snow and the freezing temperatures. What happened to this limpkin, and the others hanging around in our region? Did they die? Did they fly back south, even though they have not evolved to migrate?

One limpkin that remained in Ohio into December died after its wetlands froze up and it could not get to its food. A sad photo shows the limpkin staring at a snail embedded in ice.

Though we’d like to think of birds as simple creatures that need food, a place to live and a place to raise young, they remain the canaries in the coal mine, telling us stories of how habitat loss, climate change and invasive species affects their survival.

Sheryl DeVore has worked as a full-time and freelance reporter, editor and photographer for the Chicago Tribune and its subsidiaries. She’s the author of several books on nature and the environment. Send story ideas and thoughts to sheryldevorewriter@gmail.com.

My husband Steve and I were participating in one of many Christmas Bird Counts, known as CBCs, held in North America. The first one was held in 1900 on Christmas Day as a new tradition in which people would count birds instead of shooting them during the holidays.

Roughly 25 birders counted species in New England, California and Missouri. Today, roughly 80,000 people worldwide participate in the counts, held for a certain time period each year around Christmas.

Over the years, I have participated in many CBCs, including along the Des Plaines River in Illinois as well as amid below-zero temperatures in northern Minnesota and at Lost Mound, where we receive special permission to document birds within the closed portions.

The Lost Mound CBC this season would be one of my most memorable.

One of the first CBCs held in Rock Island near Lost Mound began at 11 a.m. and ended at 12:40 p.m. in 1903. A single observer, Burtis H. Wilson, reported time, weather and number of species in a scientific magazine called “Bird-Lore.”

He wrote that the wind was, “becoming a gale, with blinding clouds of snow” in the late morning. He counted a total of seven species, including hairy woodpecker, downy woodpecker, redheaded woodpecker, blue jay, junco, black-capped chickadee and white-breasted nuthatch, with 31 individuals.

Born in 1872, Wilson spent time in Iowa and Illinois searching for and documenting birds. He left his journals to a museum in Davenport, Iowa.

What a joy it would have been had Mr. Wilson been alive to hear about our experiences counting birds this season near where he grew up.

While leaving our hotel at 6 a.m. when it was still dark, Steve noticed a license plate that had the same initials, JOS, as his longtime birding friend, James O. Smith. Jim died last year at the age of 96 and had likely participated in CBCs for at least 60 years.

He and Steve canoed central Illinois on CBCs for decades, and Steve, though not particularly superstitious, thought the license plate number he saw might be some sign from Jim. At the very least, it reminded him of his deceased friend.

Past Lost Mound counts were riddled with snow, ice and cold, just as the Rock Island one in which Wilson participated more than 100 years ago.

But this year, it was nearly 60 degrees for a high. I’ve never been on a CBC in northern Illinois where it’s been that warm. Dressing in layers and slipping on ice during CBCs was just a distant memory this year. It was pleasant, but disconcerting at the same time.

While driving along a road, I noticed a robin-sized bird with a bold, black mask and hooked bill sitting atop a tree. This was a northern shrike, whose numbers are declining. They breed in far northern North America. They’re rarely seen in Illinois, and almost always only in winter. We also counted robins, chickadees, woodpeckers and nuthatches.

At lunch, we met with fellow counters, sharing our shrike story and eating homemade chili, cookies and cornbread. We would have loved to have shared that experience with Jim. But there were two even more exciting CBC memories to come.

Within Lost Mound are thousands of eastern red cedar trees, which attract birds that eat their small blue berries, as well as an owl from the north that roosts in the conifers in winter.

We combed the cedars, searching for whitewash, owl droppings on the trunks of cedars. I took a small right turn into a grove of cedars, and a long, dark, lean bird flew out. It was a long-eared owl, followed by another in flight and then four more.

These are mysterious, enigmatic birds that even the most avid of birders don’t get to see every year in Illinois. The long-eared owls roost in conifers during the day, looking like a piece of bark, and only leave if disturbed. They hunt for food at night.

About an hour or so later, we were driving along the back roads when Steve heard a bright, sweet call. “It sounds like a Townsend’s solitaire,” he said.

Indeed it was. Townsend’s solitaires live in the western mountains, and make rare appearances in Illinois in winter. The robin-sized bird has a grayish body, buffy wing patches and a bold, white eye ring. As Steve pointed his camera to the tree, another solitaire landed next to the first one, and then another flew in.

We saw three Townsend’s solitaires in one tree. Several different Townsend’s solitaires were discovered at other CBCs in Illinois this year, but not three in one place.

Ornithologists may question why so many solitaires showed up at some CBCs in Illinois this year, and they may likely look at past data to see if there are any trends. Apart from making memories, this is why we count the birds, to contribute to science.

Data from CBCs across the nation, in fact, have been used to examine population trends of bird species. For example, in 2006 and 2007, an analysis of CBC and breeding bird survey data showed that 20 of the most common birds in the continental United States and southern Canada had decreased by more than 50% over the past 40 years.

The birds we document during the CBC period, held from mid-December to early January, will contribute to the database and shed light on population changes of birds over the years.

What will someone discover at the Lost Mound bird count 100 years from now? The hope is that there still will be birds to be counted, and that their appearance will still be magical to those who hear and see them.

Sheryl DeVore has worked as a full-time and freelance reporter, editor and photographer for the Chicago Tribune and its subsidiaries. She’s the author of several books on nature and the environment. Send story ideas and thoughts to sheryldevorewriter@gmail.com.

Sometimes, it even has the power to brighten my dark mood.

The December full moon, occurring this year on Dec. 26, is called the cold moon, and no one living in northern Illinois can argue with that name.

On that day, you can see the full moon rise in the east as the sun sets in the west. The moon will be at its brightest at about 6:30 p.m. It will be the longest-lasting full moon of the year, spending more time in the sky above the horizon at night than in other months.

That effect is caused by the moon’s alignment with the sun and the Earth during the winter solstice. The December full moon is also called the long night moon. A day or two before and after Dec. 26, the moon will appear to be full to the human eye.

Seeing a full moon reminds me that amid all the changes in life, there is a constancy in the world, at least in space. The moon always rises in the east and sets in the west. It goes through the same phases every 29.5 days, starting as a new moon, which was the case on Dec. 12 this year.

No moon light is visible in the sky on the new moon, and that’s when we are seeing the so-called dark side of the moon.

Over the period, the moon waxes or grows larger to our eyes into a crescent shape and then into the full, round, lit moon. It then wanes back to a crescent shape, and then another new moon.

The moon, of course, isn’t shining, which adds to the mystique of the sky. The only large source of light in our solar system is the sun, which shines on the moon to make it appear lit up. Astronomers say another small source of light from the moon comes from distant stars. We see the full moon when it is opposite the sun as it orbits Earth.

In astronomical terms, the moon is full when it is exactly 180 degrees opposite the sun. That’s when it’s easiest to see the dark craters and other landmarks in the moon made famous by the likes of James Lovell.

Each month of the year has a different name for the full moon. The Native Americans realized the moon’s movements corresponded with changes in seasons. For example, November’s full moon Is called the beaver moon because it occurs about the same time beavers start stashing food for winter. It may also refer to the time when humans began trapping beavers to obtain fur to provide warm clothing for the winter.

The January full moon is named the wolf moon, referring to hungry wolves that might be howling because food is more difficult to find in winter. Summer full moons also have names. For example, the August moon is known as the sturgeon moon, referring to a species of fish easily caught in large bodies of water in the summer in the northeastern United States.

Twelve lunar cycles occur within 354 days, a 13th full moon is seen in a calendar year. It is often called a blue moon. Our modern day calendar doesn’t line up perfectly with the moon’s phases.

Folklore and legends about the full moon include stories of werewolves emerging, and humans going insane. Psychologists have concluded that the full moon does not cause more fatalities, accidents or people going crazy. It’s an urban myth.

The truth is that the moon is a remarkable object in the sky that has fixed phases connected with the sun and the Earth. It has an otherworldly beauty that can remind us that long after we’re gone, the moon will still be there.

This Dec. 24, look to the sky at nighttime and see if, as Clement Mark Moore wrote, “The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow” gives “the luster of midday objects below.” Moore wrote the words in “A Visit From St. Nicholas.”

And as I’ve been told, the nearly full moon this year will help Santa make his rounds on Christmas Eve.

Sheryl DeVore has worked as a full-time and freelance reporter, editor and photographer for the Chicago Tribune and its subsidiaries. She’s the author of several books on nature and the environment. Send story ideas and thoughts to sheryldevorewriter@gmail.com.