May is Monarch Butterfly Month in Illinois. Yes, it's official: Gov. Bruce Rauner signed the proclamation last fall. Soon we might even see a monarch license plate. The idea is to raise awareness about the falling population of our state insect; mon...

Sharing good news is a natural human instinct. When I'm excited about a bird sighting, I'll sometimes tell the nearest bystander, birder or not. The reactions I get are interesting. Strange looks and quick walk-aways are normal. But another common ...

Sorry, but my recap of the 2016 birding year was incomplete. Two of the biggest stories in birding last year were late-breaking news, coming too late for my December deadline. Both involved stunning individual achievements. A little background is ne...

A Christmas tree decorated by Pets Assisting Wounded Warriors and displayed in the Robert R. McCormick Museum at Cantigny Park in Wheaton during the holiday season received the most votes in public balloting. By winning the popular vote, the organi...

Cantigny Park visitors voted and the results are in. The top three prize winners of the 2015 Cantigny in Focus amateur photo contest are: • First place: Mary Brown of Clarendon Hills for her close-up of a big-eyed bullfrog, taken in the park's Idea...

Birding deserves a year in review story just like the myriad other categories of American life and culture. So for all the watchers out there, here's my compendium of birding news, notable sightings and random thoughts from a year that flew by fast...

Does anybody else remember The Nature Company? The retailer had a store at Oakbrook Center in the 1990s. It was a fun place to look around, like a shop you'd find in a natural-history museum but on a grander scale with Disney-like branding and merch...