Aurora’s popular baby falcons, which have left their nest outside city hall, seen as sign of Fox River’s resurgence

Lifelong Aurora resident Tom Schrader said he’s always loved the Fox River, even 60 years ago as a child, when he said the river smelled like sewage, the fish had sores and birds of prey were scarce.

But what he didn’t expect was to be standing along that same river decades later and be nearly dive-bombed by screeching peregrine falcons chasing a morning dove just outside the Paramount Theatre in downtown Aurora.

Or, that he would be standing in an Aurora City Hall elevator with city employees and a baby falcon preparing to release the bird from the roof of the building after rescuing it from the Fox River. Or, that some of those same city employees would set up web cameras so that hundreds of residents could watch the baby falcons grow up in their nest on a ledge outside city hall.

These falcons and other birds of prey were once rare in the region, with their population even reaching zero at one point.

Schrader credits their return to the Fox River — and a surprising choice by a pair of falcons to nest outside Aurora City Hall in early April that enamored the town — to a long history of river cleanup efforts. One effort, restoring water willow to the river, even helped save one of the baby falcons when she fell into the river, he said.

Now that those city hall baby falcons have left the nest, Schrader and other residents are reflecting on the birds’ citywide impact and awaiting their possible return next year.

“This is kind of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see these falcons … because normally they’re in a nest box or nesting on a ledge or the balcony of a building 25 stories up or they’re in the wild,” Schrader said.

“They really caught the imagination of the town,” he said.

The baby falcons hatched in early May after their falcon parents, Vixen and Dave, nested in a crevice on the second floor of the exterior of Aurora City Hall. Schrader said he and other residents watched them learn to fly, be fed by their parents and grow up enough to leave the nest.

Brittany Everett, the city’s human resources benefits coordinator, and Schrader said they often heard the falcons discussed in places they never thought they would hear about birds, such as city hall offices, downtown restaurants, neighborhood gatherings, and a checkout line at Home Depot.

Local residents even helped rescue one of the young falcons using a bucket and a towel in late June when it was trapped in the Fox River.

Perhaps the strongest evidence of that local interest, Everett said, was the hundreds of views on a city livestream of the birds, where people were even able watch the birds hatch.

The livestream setup took immense effort and some trial and error, she said. It was set up by city staff in an empty space without Wi-Fi just above the Riverfront Playhouse, which let the city use its Wi-Fi. Riverfront Playhouse also let the city run an electrical cord through a small opening in its ceiling for the cameras, she said.

It did not take long, she said, for that livestream to intertwine into the city hall work life, with it usually streaming on screens around the offices. The falcons became a common conversation topic, and she said some city employees even started referring to the falcons as family members.

She said she has found herself more curious about birds due to her experience with the falcon frenzy.

“Just the culture of city hall, like you’d walk past groups of people standing around, watching the livestream in someone’s cubicle,” she said. “I think it really improved our employee engagement, like everyone felt like they were connected to these falcons.”

Schrader said this local interest and care is exactly what started some of the river cleanup efforts decades ago. It still remains one of the primary goals for the nonprofit Friends of the Fox River group, which focuses on river cleanup and education.

At one point, the peregrine falcon population had dwindled to zero in the state, when pesticides like DDT thinned their eggshells, so parents often crushed their chicks before they even hatched, Schrader said.

The river, less clean in the past, offered less of a food supply, he said. Simply put, he said, birds of prey depend on fish, and clean water brings more fish. While falcons do not largely eat fish, they hunt shorebirds and waterfowl that do, he said.

“The Fox River had some fish but not like it does now,” he said.

A long history of cleanup efforts helped bring the peregrine falcon population back and even led to the species being removed from a list of bird species needing aid in the state in 2015, according to Chicago officials at the time.

Schrader pointed to one person who helped spark awareness of cleaning the Fox River back in the 1960s — Jim Phillips, otherwise known as “The Fox.”

“The main thing, people got involved, people cared, like ‘The Fox,’ and he increased awareness of what was happening around the area, and that’s kind of what Friends of the Fox River is trying to continue to do is maintain that level of awareness that the river is important,” he said.

Phillips, an Illinois teacher nicknamed “The Fox,” was known for fighting polluters, first in the Fox Valley and then throughout the Chicago area, for two decades.

Schrader said he remembers Phillips’ legacy, and the importance of new regulations through the federal Clean Air and Clean Water Acts enacted under former president Richard Nixon.

He said there were other regulations and efforts as well to help bring birds of prey back to the Fox Valley, long before the falcons settled in outside Aurora City Hall in the spring.

Schrader said he hopes the falcons return to city hall next year, as the birds tend to be loyal to their nests. He said they could also return to a nest on top of the 22-story Leland Tower at 7 S. Stolp Ave. on Stolp Island, where five falcons have nested downtown since 2016.

Either way, he said the falcons brought people together in Aurora, and an increased number of new and longtime bird enthusiasts already are holding meetings to prepare to support another round of downtown Aurora falcons.

“It seemed like it kind of brought the city together,” he said. “People have gotten more interested in the river. People got more interested in nature.”

awright@chicagotribune.com