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Birds, Bees & Butterflies: Native Garden Tour Returns to Oak Park & River Forest

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Birds, Bees & Butterflies: Native Garden Tour Returns to Oak Park & River Forest

The annual West Cook Wild Ones garden walk “Birds, Bees & Butterflies: A Native Garden Walk” is back Saturday, July 23, from 1 to 5 p.m. The walk is designed to inspire and teach home gardeners about the beauty, ease and usefulness of the plants that have lived here for thousands of years, and the animals and insects that depend on them. Habitat loss is among the primary factors driving population declines of important local and migratory species. Each new native plant garden—no matter how small—can help support vital insects, birds and other wildlife.

Food Aid 2022 Concert Battles Hunger July 22 to 23

Food Aid 2022 Concert Battles Hunger July 22 to 23

According to Feeding America’s Map the Meal Gap Study, one in seven people in Cook County will experience food insecurity this year. Want to do something? Come out to “Food Aid,” a two-day music festival July 22-23 to enjoy local bands and tackle food insecurity in Oak Park and surrounding communities. The weekend promises to be full of fun, as well as helping fill people’s tummies with nourishing food.

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Toward a Plastic-Free (or Free-er) July

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Toward a Plastic-Free (or Free-er) July

My husband and I are pretty highly functioning when it comes to plastic-consciousness/plastic-avoidance: For years, we’ve brought our own reusable bags to the grocery store, and we’ve picked up plastic bottles during our walks so we could put them in the recycling bin. We drink from reusable water bottles. Pre-COVID, when we went to restaurants, we brought our own containers for leftovers. . . . And yet, as I look around my home—at the shampoos and conditioners, moisturizers, dish and laundry soaps, toothbrushes, sun block, the bottle that holds my calcium supplements, the one that holds the Tylenol I took for my headache the night I started thinking about this—I feel daunted at the challenge of living plastic-free.

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Widening the Circle with Full Circle Everest

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Widening the Circle with Full Circle Everest

In spring of 2022, an inspired group of climbers became the first all-Black team to summit Everest, the highest mountain on earth. And as stated on the project’s website, Team Full Circle hopes that their historic trek will “inspire the next generation of outdoor enthusiasts, educators, leaders, and mountaineers of color to continue chasing their personal summits.” More than 6,000 have summited Mount Everest. Fewer than 10 of those climbers have been Black.

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Remembering Monty and Rose + Why There is Hope

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Remembering Monty and Rose + Why There is Hope

Monty and Rose are the two beloved piping plovers that surprised the Chicago birding community by settling at busy Montrose Beach to nest and raise their young for three consecutive years. When they first arrived in 2019, the number of their endangered species had diminished to 70 nesting pairs in the Great Lakes region.

After Monty died recently after making the spring migration back to Northern Illinois, and after Rose did not return, we reached out to Bob for his thoughts and those of others in the birding community.

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Rare Prairie's Survival is Threatened: Save Bell Bowl Prairie

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Rare Prairie's Survival is Threatened: Save Bell Bowl Prairie

One of the last remaining prairies in Illinois—8,000-year-old Bell Bowl Prairie in Rockford—is slated for destruction as the Chicago Rockford International Airport expands. Bell Bowl is a gravel prairie—among the rarest type of remaining prairie—and it contains some of the most intact and undisturbed natural plant communities found anywhere in the state. If the expansion occurs as the airport currently proposes, then rare, threatened, and endangered species will be destroyed—driven by growth in international shipping and Rockford’s role as a cargo hub for Amazon and UPS.