Hidden in plain sight

Most people’s conception of urban wildlife is something along the lines of a squirrel in the tree, or maybe a rabbit in the backyard or an opossum or raccoon in the alley. There are certain species that we are fairly accustomed to seeing, perhaps almost daily. But there are other more exotic species that live among us, that we rarely notice. They may in fact be in within feet of you as you read this.

This week, I was walking in the loop in Chicago when a bird landed on the ground in front of me. When I stopped to look at it wasn’t moving and I assumed that it had hit a window and broken it’s neck. It was not a very common looking bird so I reached down to pick it up. As I held it in my hand, it’s talons gripped my finger and it’s head moved a little. The bird was stunned but alive. I saw that it had red flecks emerging on its head and recognized it as a juvenile woodpecker. After taking a picture of it, I put it on a ledge up off the sidewalk in hopes that that it would recover; marveling at the magic of that moment.
 

There are many encounters to be had with wildlife in Chicago and sometimes in very surprising places.
 

There is a beaver lodge at Wolf Point where the North Branch of the Chicago River meets the main near the Merchandise Mart. If you go further up the up the North Branch you will find evidence of beavers near Division Avenue too.
 

Near the Finkle steel plant at Courtland Avenue there is a shallow area that is choked with weeds and you can find descendants of discarded Japanese gold fish called Koi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koi ) (pronounced Ko-ee). Multicolored fish that range up to 15 inches in length they are incredibly long lived. The oldest recorded Koi was 226 years old.
 

Further up the north branch close to the B’ahi Temple in Wilmette you will find a colony of Night Herons which are an aquatic bird that fishes for prey at night. They occasionally can be spotted in down along the main branch as the sun begins to set.
 

In May and early June of each year, if you look over the side of the north end of the Orleans street bridge you will see hundreds of giant carp congregating at the surface near the pilings that protect the base of the bridge.
 

Hyde Park has had a colony of green parrots that have lived year round near heat exchanges since the 1930’s.
 

There have also been some famous interlopers to Chicago in the last several years as well. Such as the coyote that walked into a Quiznos Sandwich shop, the albino deer or the Mountain Lion that came all the way from western South Dakota to unfortunately be shot by police.
 

Luckily for us, while we have done a good job of trying to knock back the wild in the last 180 years but it has never really gone away.
 

As for the young woodpecker, the office building staff put him in a box to give it a chance to recover and a few hours later he flew happily away.
 

Keep your eyes open!