Lincoln Park Black-Crowned Night Herons

[left_turns]

I went up to Chicago a couple months ago and keep forgetting to post this. I spent a day at the zoo and conservatory in Lincoln Park near the lake shore. I nearly didn't bother with the children's zoo, but I ended up over there looking for something else. The trails through it are set up like a woodland trail--sort of narrow and winding through a lot of birch plantings, and covered in bird poo. Near one stand of trees, the zoo had posted a few signs saying basically "yes, we know the paths are messy and please also don't bother the herons above you; those aren't ours."

Apparently black-crowned night herons are on the Illinois state endangered list, but there's been a flock of them nesting in the zoo and somewhere else further south in the park for the last few summers.







These were sort of hard to get; they were twenty or thirty feet up and either it was pretty breezy above the ground or the birds were bouncing around a lot.




This was a different tree across the path. I'd say it had at least four nests in it, maybe as many as seven or eight. The trees were so dense that I couldn't tell quite how many had herons in them; I probably saw nearly a good dozen adult birds.


And also the view from the zoo's south gate across one of the park gardens and down the river. Oh, Chicago, you magnificent beast.

Comments

[yourlibrarian]

Great to see the nest, thanks for posting these!