The endangered black-crowned night herons aren’t captive, they just happened to build their nests on the grounds of Lincoln Park Zoo. Why? Because they like having bodyguards.

Chicago’s tree canopy is in decline and ranks far below the national average, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which also indicates a disparity in trees on the city’s South and West sides. The local conservation organization Openlands has been working to reverse these trends.

All signs point to a cicada-induced vitamin deficiency as the cause of a mystery disease that affected some birds during a 2021 emergence and now again in 2024.

The U.S. has been thrashed with 11 extreme weather disasters with costs exceeding $1 billion so far this year, with a total price tag of $25.1 billion, according to an updated tally from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It’s tied for the second-most such disasters on record and doesn’t even include the extreme weather in the second half of May, said Adam Smith, an applied climatologist with NOAA.

The Chicago Park District also received nearly $1.5 million to conduct an inventory. Morton Arboretum's Chicago Region Trees Initiative is administering the grants on behalf of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.

After Saturday, the Field Museum’s newest dinosaur fossil will be off display until fall while staff works on building a permanent exhibit for the Chicago Archaeopteryx.

Members of the first wave of cicadas have done their thing: They came, they molted, they screamed, they bred, and now they’re dying.

The Field Museum has more than 10 million specimens in its insect collection and — believe it or not — not a single 13-year periodical cicada among them. So what better time than now to fill that gap?

The egg is the product of a recent pair bond between native-born Imani, who hatched at Montrose Beach in 2021, and Searocket, one of the 5-week-old captive-reared piping plover chicks released at the beach last year.

While financing for the Chicago Bears’ proposed new lakefront stadium remains in doubt, opponents of the plan have sent an unequivocal “hands off” message regarding any use of lakefront property for private interests.

If you wouldn’t eat a vegetable grown in that soil, don’t eat a cicada.

Some of the early “They’re here!” excitement has definitely given way to “Wait, they’re staying for how long?” At the opposite end of the spectrum, Chicagoans are wondering why they got left out of the great 2024 emergence.

The tiny critters are almost impossible to spot, but you can’t miss their bubbles.

Chicago’s own Imani has been joined by at least two other plovers, one believed to be a female. Let the mating games begin.

Since April 1, 2023, the landscaping community in Evanston has been tasked with making a drastic change for climate and noise concerns: switching from gas- or propane-powered leaf blowers to electric. But not all landscapers are feeling pressure from the ban. The largest landscaper in Evanston also filed the most complaints against fellow landscapers. 

May 23 is World Turtle Day. Sure, it’s a fake holiday, but it’s a good reason to take a closer look at the many species that make their home in northern Illinois.