Jeff Sundberg, Education Chair, Chicago Audubon Society

Some birds are here all year. Some birds are here in the summer only, or winter only. Some birds are only seen in the spring and fall. Here are ways to enjoy the bird life of each season. A local bird club or Audubon Society can tell you about places near your home where you can see all this cool stuff!

• field guide
• binoculars

• In March and April, woodcocks do their sky dance at dusk in a clearing. Listen for a harsh “peent” repeated about 50 times, and then watch them take off. They let the wind whistle through their wings to make a chirping sound as they flutter down.
• In May, the warblers migrate. At migration hotspots such as Montrose Point’s Magic Hedge, you can watch swarms of migrants at eye level. Visit the lakefront on a morning with a warm southwest wind; choose an inland river on a cool day with winds out of the east.

• A heron rookery in May or June, a multi-layered “apartment building” of heron nests, is a great place for beginners to practice with binoculars. Lake Renwick in Will County or Baker’s Lake in Cook County are two places to find these.
• To find a nest near your house, hang some cotton or other nesting material in a wire basket, and watch where the birds bring it. Observe the nest over the course of a few weeks as the parents incubate the eggs, feed hungry babies, and finally help their young learn to fly. A bird flying with food in its bill is another clue that a nest is nearby.
• As the summer goes on, children should be able to distinguish adult birds from young birds, especially if there is a feeder to watch.
• Put up a nest box. Maybe your yard can host a bird family. House wrens are often interested in nesting in urban yards.

• Put a feeder in your yard, or even on a balcony or window, to observe birds more closely. Feeders should attract cardinals, woodpeckers, house sparrows, house finches, and others. Keep a list of birds that have visited your yard.
• On late August evenings, large flocks of common nighthawks migrate along our rivers and the lakefront.
• At the lakefront on a November morning with a cold northwest wind, you’ll see great flocks of ducks, and a few loons, birds of prey, and others — all heading for warmer weather. Dress warmly, and have the hot chocolate ready!

Lack of foliage makes it easier to find them and their abandoned nests.

• Join a local Christmas bird count for a few hours. Most groups are happy to have beginners.
• In February, visit the biggest grassland you can find at dusk to see a true prairie bird, the short-eared owl, making its hunting flights. If you get there a little early, you may see its daytime counterpart, the northern harrier.

Migrant birds face many dangers on their exhausting journey. Make your yard or local park a refuge for them.

• Plant a variety of seed- and fruit-bearing native plants for food and cover. If you can, include all levels — trees, shrubs, and ground covers. Birds also like compost heaps, brush piles, and gardens with dead vegetation left standing.
• Orange halves and some spring-flowering fruit trees attract nectar-loving birds, like orioles. Offer peeled bananas: as they spoil, they attract fruit flies for insect-eating birds.
• Keep a birdbath filled with clean water.
• Please, don’t use pesticides and keep the cat indoors! Cats kill over a billion birds a year in the U.S. — even cats with bells.

About 5 million birds migrate through our region every year. WOW! They may be going as far as the Arctic Circle or the southernmost points of South America. Chicago Wilderness is especially important to many of them because they stop here to rest before or after crossing two places that don’t have much food or shelter for them — Lake Michigan, and the “sea” of cornfields to the south and west.