Chicago Bird Alliance

10/08/2026

Help save the Ospreys!

Tomorrow is the last day to submit a public comment to the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission regarding the Atlantic Menhaden Draft Addendum Il to reduce menhaden fishing in the Chesapeake Bay and the East Coast by 50%.

Osprey populations along the East Coast, including in the Chesapeake Bay, have been sharply declining due to a food shortage, and has affected the Illinois Osprey Hacking Project. It's not too late to submit a public comment to help Ospreys gain more access to menhaden.

Submit a public comment today, linked in the comments below! To learn more about the Illinois Osprey Hack Project, check out article and video interview with Tih-Fen Ting, Ph.D., the head of the project from University of Illinois Springfield, also linked in the comments!

🔴 Comment Deadline: Friday, October 9th!

More than 5,000 Osprey chicks are starving to death each year in the Chesapeake Bay.
The reason: a shortage of menhaden, a small, nutrient-rich fish that is an essential food source for Ospreys and foundational to the Chesapeake Bay food web. Millions of these fish are being caught and processed into fishmeal and fish oil — with devastating impacts.
The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) is considering changes to how menhaden are harvested in the Chesapeake Bay, including options that would reduce the number that can be harvested each year.
🚨
Take action for Ospreys, menhaden, and ecosystems across the Eastern Seaboard now!
https://abcbirds.info/4y6NnGk

10/07/2026

Friends of Chicago Bird Alliance - It's time for our annual bird seed sale! Shop high-quality mixes for your feeders and support Chicago Bird Alliance at the same time. This is one of our biggest annual fundraisers and we appreciate your support!

How does it work?
🐦 Order online (orders must be received by Oct 25th)
🐦 Pick up your order IN PERSON at one of two locations (Chicago or River Forest) on Saturday, November 7th.

Link to the sale in the comments.

09/30/2026

We’re partnering with our friends at Lincoln Park Zoo for Bird Week this Friday with fun-filled activities to raise awareness for a more bird-friendly Chicago!

A well a bird, bird, bird, the bird is the word this week at Lincoln Park Zoo 🎶 🐦

In honor of fall migration season, we’re spreading our wings for Bird Week at the zoo!

One of the leading human-caused threats to birds is collisions with glass. In the U.S., these collisions kill more than 1 billion birds each year, and a 2019 study identified Chicago as one of the most dangerous cities for bird-glass collisions. The good news? Buildings can be made safer for birds! Bird-friendly designs and deterrents can significantly reduce collisions, and there are simple ways we can all help migrating birds safely navigate our city. Lincoln Park Zoo is proud to support a proposed municipal code amendment that would formally establish requirements for bird-friendly building design. This Chicago amendment would ensure that all glass and other transparent or reflective surfaces on applicable building projects are designed, treated, constructed, or installed to deter bird collisions, based on criteria established by the American Bird Conservancy.

Tune in throughout Bird Week to learn how you can make a difference and fly on by this Friday, October 2, for a full schedule of fun activities in partnership with the Chicago Bird Alliance!

09/30/2026

This is a precarious time for migrating birds, but we can help them out by requesting our alderpersons co-sponsor the bird-friendly building ordinance. Go to the Chicago Collisions Coalition website (link in comments) for more information.

If you have done so, or accomplished something else that benefitted birds, we want to know! Visit ‘Help a Bird Out’ on our website to submit an entry (link also in comments) detailing what you did and view more information about the Help A Bird Out Challenge.

09/23/2026

Welcome back to another round of Ask a Bird Nerd! The question this time: why did we have to wait so long for Chicago eaglets?

Earlier this year we learned the astonishing news that Chicago, our big urban city, had not only one nest with Bald Eagle chicks, but two! All of the news reports mentioned that these eaglets were the first born within city limits in over 100 years. Why the wait? In our latest Ask A Bird Nerd response, we look at the known, or at least published, local history of Bald Eagle nestings in the last 100 years, and successful strategies to increase the feasibility of future nests. Check out what we learned on our website, linked in the comments below.

Got any questions about birds that you’d love to have us answer? Send them to us using the Ask a Bird Nerd Google Form, also linked in the comments, and we’ll do our best to answer them in the future!

Image descriptions:
(upper right) Graphic of eagle from OpenClipart-Vectors
(Middle) Photo of a Bald Eagle nest tree sign, Juneau, AK Gillfoto/Wikimedia Commons

09/20/2026

Thank you, Lemont Park District, for sharing our coverage of the local Ospreys!

Read the full article and watch the video below!

09/18/2026

Dexter Patterson is an educator, storyteller, and huge bird nerd who wants everyone to experience the joy of birding. Online he is known as the Wisco Birder, sharing dynamic “You Ready? Let’s Go!” videos, vivid photography, and inclusive content to bring more people into bird-watching. You can find him IRL with the BIPOC Birding Club of Wisconsin, which Dexter co-founded, as well as at the 2026 Urban Birding Festival, where Dexter will be the keynote presenter during Birds and Brews and a trip leader for two bird outings.

The Chicago Bird Alliance recently got the chance to interview Dexter, and we are excited to share his responses in our latest article (link in comments)!

09/17/2026

A bird that represents conservation during an important time!

Ospreys are fascinating predatory birds, and they’ve been sighted nesting around Chicagoland in recent years, as far as the suburb of Lemont, thanks to the method of hacking! Learn about the ongoing Illinois Osprey Hacking Project and how you can help these magnificent raptors in our exclusive interview with Tih-Fen Ting, Ph.D., head of the hacking project from the University of Illinois in Springfield, in our latest article with the full video interview, linked below, and on our YouTube channel, also linked below!

Photo of an Osprey soaring above Athens Park in Lemont, IL by Joseph Bruno.

09/14/2026

We’re counting down the days! See you this weekend! 🦆

We had a tremendous response to festival registration this year!
We hit our max capacity for online ticket sales before the time deadline yesterday, sorry about that! We're grateful to the Chicagoland Birding community for supporting us in our journey of growth, and are already making plans for increased capacity in 2027.

Onsite registration will be available Friday-Sunday, September 18-20, at Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum. You can select from available field trips on a first come first serve basis. Onsite Registrants are not guaranteed festival lanyards or swag bags due to limited supply.

09/10/2026

Learn about the music and sound design of a popular birder production!

If you didn’t get a chance to see 𝘉𝘪𝘳𝘥𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘕𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘩 𝘈𝘮𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘢 earlier this year, it is back at A Red Orchid Theatre, running September 10 through October 4! This poignant, introspective play focuses on the relationship between a father and daughter, both birders, and their struggle to truly understand each other.

Ethan Korvne, the composer/sound designer of 𝘉𝘪𝘳𝘥𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘕𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘩 𝘈𝘮𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘢, recently sat down with Chicago Bird Alliance for an absorbing, in-depth interview covering how he developed music for the production, considerations around including certain sounds, what he learned working on the show, his favorite bird sounds, how 𝘉𝘪𝘳𝘥𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘕𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘩 𝘈𝘮𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘢 made him a better birder, and more.

The interview video can be found on the CBA YouTube channel (link in comments). Ethan’s compositions are available for listening on his website.

Heartfelt thanks to Ethan for his time, and a strong recommendation to see 𝘉𝘪𝘳𝘥𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘕𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘩 𝘈𝘮𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘢 if you haven’t already!