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Chicago Tribune
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Chicago's museums for summer 2025: ‘Reptiles' at the Field, brews at the zoos and ‘Spider-Man' the exhibit
The movement du jour is for a museum to describe its offerings as 'immersive.' It's become a cliché, but it does nod to a cultural trend that predated, then was amplified by, the pandemic: Experiences, not exhibitions, are coaxing folks off their couches and into cultural institutions. That trend crops up in our museum preview this year. In fact, some of these suggested events don't even take place within the confines of their host institution. But if you find that a classic, walk-and-read exhibit can't be beat — I tend to be in that camp — we have plenty of those, too. Adventurers, academics and all-around-curious-people, read on! Kayaking for a cause: Dreaming of afternoons idling down the Chicago River? You can live out your summer fantasy while doing good thanks to the Shedd Aquarium, whose experts will lead conservation tours by kayak all summer long. Fridays and Saturdays through Sept. 27 on the Chicago River; $65 per person; reservations at 'Reptiles Alive!': This exhibit builds on the work of Field Museum herpetologist Sara Ruane, also featured earlier this year as part of the museum's rotating 'Changing Face of Science' exhibition. If you come expecting the usual models or taxidermy, you're in for a treat: 20 live reptiles, including a spitting cobra and emerald tree boa, are housed onsite for the exhibition. June 20 to April 5 at the Field Museum, 1400 S. DuSable Lake Shore Drive, open daily 9 a.m.-5 p.m.; requires all-access pass, $43 adults, 'Native Pop!': For generations, activists have pushed museums — including many in Chicago — to depict Native Americans' lives as they are, rather than presenting them like a relic of the past. The 'now' is palpable in this Newberry Library showcase of Indigenous artists working in various pop mediums. Through July 19 at the Newberry Library, 60 W. Walton St., open Tuesdays through Thursdays 10 a.m.-7 p.m. and Fridays and Saturdays 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; free admission, On at the Art Institute: In addition to its exploration of 'Paris Street; Rainy Day' by painter Gustave Caillebotte, the museum is hosting the largest local retrospective of thought-provoking wartime sculptor H.C. Westermann in decades, open through May 2026. Contemporary art lovers will be agog at Raqib Shaw's epic 'Paradise Lost,' a 21-panel artwork that has never been displayed in its complete form until now (through Jan. 19). Meanwhile, the museum continues to show off its huge collection of Japanese prints with 'The Dawn of Modernity: Japanese Prints, 1850–1900,' in which artists document Japan's encounters with the industrialized West. All at the Art Institute of Chicago, 111 S. Michigan Ave., open Wednesdays through Mondays 11 a.m.-5 p.m., except Thursdays, open 11 a.m.-8 p.m.; admission $26-$32, Become a researcher for a day: A new exhibition opening at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum allows visitors to try their hands at activities inspired by real-life fieldwork. 'By A Thread: Nature's Resilience' emphasizes that conserving the natural world isn't a passive proposition: It requires everyone's help, including yours. The exhibit opens the same day as the museum's Summer Nature Fest. For $10 admission ($8 children), you can stick around for food and activities after the museum closes. June 20 to June 2026 at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum of the Chicago Academy of Sciences, 2430 N. Cannon Drive, open daily 10 a.m.-4 p.m.; adult tickets $12-$17, A peek inside: The Griffin Museum of Science and Industry's upcoming 'Beyond the Surface,' exhibit is a deep dive into the X-ray photography of Andrei Duman, starting July 3. The images show the inner workings of everyday objects, such as the many components of a car or the delicate wiring of a corded telephone. If you can't wait for that, a current exhibition in the spirit of the museum's recent '007 Science' feature, 'Marvel's Spider-Man: Beyond Amazing.' is open through February, though it's a little light on the science. Both at the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry, 5700 S. DuSable Lake Shore Drive, open daily 9:30 a.m.-4 p.m.; admission $26 adults. 'Marvel's Spider-Man' requires an additional ticket costing adults $18-$22; reservations and more information at Boozy zoos: The Brookfield Zoo is becoming a watering hole in the name of wildlife conservation. Next up are 'Tequila and Tails' and 'Wines and Vines,' the latter doubling as the opening of the Zoo's new Tropical Forests habitat. (Non-drinkers rejoice: Mocktail tickets are available for a lower price.) Lincoln Park Zoo also revives its own drinker-friendly summer events with craft breweries and wineries posting up on zoo grounds. 'Tequila and Tails' on June 14 and 'Wines and Vines' on Aug. 23, both 6-9 p.m. at Brookfield Zoo Chicago, 31st Street and Golfview Avenue, Brookfield; non-member tickets $105 or $70 for mocktails, 'Craft Brews' on June 28 and 'Summer Wine Fest' on July 25, both 7-10 p.m. at the Lincoln Park Zoo, 2001 N. Clark St.; admission $57; tickets and more information at Waltz of the flowers: After experiencing the lushness of the Chicago Botanic Gardens in midsummer, step into Nichols Hall for a reprise of 'Superbloom,' the dance work premiered by Chicago company The Seldoms in 2023. For those who can't make the three performances, Art on the Mart has commissioned a video version to be projected in full view of the Riverwalk (Thursdays through Sundays July 10-Sept. 7). July 25-27 at the Chicago Botanic Gardens, 1000 Lake Cook Road, Glencoe; tickets $27-$29 adults. Show times and more information at Museum multiplayer: On your hands and knees, begging your kids to do something besides playing video games all summer? Take them to the American Writers Museum, whose 'Level Up: Writers & Gamers' shines a rare spotlight on the scribes behind their favorite titles. Open through Nov. 2 at the American Writers Museum, 180 N. Michigan Ave., open Thursdays through Mondays 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; admission $10-$16, Home is where the history is: If you haven't yet been to the recently opened National Public Housing Museum in Little Italy, it's high time to fix that. Spend an afternoon exploring its attentively curated exhibitions for free, or, for a small sum, take a guided tour through recreations of real families' units on museum grounds, in the former Jane Addams Homes. 919 S. Ada St., open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Wednesdays through Sundays; free admission, $15-$25 apartment tours can be scheduled at
Chicago Tribune
01-06-2025
- Climate
- Chicago Tribune
Neighbors ban together to preserve open space at Washington Square Park during maintenance
Since its inception in 1842, Washington Square Park has seen its fair share of eras. As the oldest park in Chicago, it was the landing spot for many people who lost their homes after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. The space earned the name 'Bughouse Square' in the early 1900s when people would come to the park to stand on soapboxes and crates to give long lectures about their theories, passions and ideologies. Now, the Near North Side's nearly 3-acre landmark park is frequented year-round by residents and visitors alike — even in the bitter wintertime when the foliage is dead and the ground is snowed over. But like any green space, the square needs its maintenance and upkeep. City officials say that in recent years, the park's grass has significantly deteriorated and needs to be aerated and seeded. The original plan, initiated by the Washington Square Park Advisory Council, was to close off all four grassy quadrants from September 2025 to spring 2026, making those areas inaccessible to residents for nearly eight months. But for the residents of the neighborhood — particularly the dog owners — that plan felt disrespectful. 'I was shocked,' Nicole Barron, a local resident, said. 'I'm here two to three times a day. I have a dog and we don't have an outdoor yard, so this is our only outdoor space I can bring my dog.' The fervent pushback from the neighbors appeared to catch the city by surprise. At a May 14 meeting at the Newberry Library, over a hundred people packed the room to advocate for the city to leave some grassy areas open while the city completes its beautification plan. The city changed course after the meeting and says it will take a phased approach to the aerating and seeding, scheduled to begin this fall. 'Washington Square Park has a formal architectural design that has allowed the Park District to work on one quadrant at a time for the past several years,' Michele Lemons, spokesperson for the Chicago Park District, said. 'We intend to continue this approach this fall by closing access to sections of the park to aerate and seed to restore the park's green areas. This will allow public access to sections of the park while other sections undergo restoration work.' Lemons said cost for materials and labor are absorbed in routine park operating expenses, but did not respond to a question how much the project will cost overall. But the threat of the park's closure, even if only temporary, seemed to spark a sense of unity in the neighborhood, reminding dog owners, parkgoers and neighboring schools what the historic park means to them and the community. 'People have been calling me, like, 'the girl that spoke at the dog meeting,' and like recognizing me at the Starbucks nearby,' Courtney Clay, who frequents the park with her cocker spaniel, said. 'And they'll say things like, 'Thank you for saving our park.'' It is also a reflection of how the city's oldest park, which served as the site of Chicago's first gay pride march, has evolved over the years. The park was deeded in 1842 by developers eager to boost land values in the area. It was at first surrounded by the large homes of the well-to-do, even after the 1871 fire leveled most of the nearby buildings. Eventually, after the wealthy had moved to the north and east, it became a gathering place for those who lived in nearby rooming houses, hotels and small apartments. And many of those people liked to get on soapboxes and speak their minds. Some famous folks were attracted to this free speech oasis, such people as Carl Sandburg, Emma Goldman and Eugene V. Debs. Others were anonymous anarchists, dreamers, poets, preachers and lunatics.'Washington Square Park is a special place, but it's not a unique story about how green spaces evolve,' said Taylor Evans Ghosal, who worked on a documentary about the park's history. 'Green spaces and parks in general, they evolve. They evolve and change to fit the communities that surround them, and I think they're just a really interesting microcosm of their community.' Six Loyola University students have captured the magic of Bughouse Square, the city's oldest parkThat was a sentiment echoed by neighbors who frequent the park, some of whom emphasized that the park was not always a gathering place for the immediate community. 'When I came here, there really wasn't a park like it is now. It was pretty scary. It had a lot of trees, but it did not have a fence, and it wasn't really maintained,' said Mary Lou Sydel, who moved to the area in 1985. Sydel, who is part of the Washington Square Park Advisory Council, also noted that when she first moved to the park, it was not frequented by her neighbors. In the 1990s, Washington Square Park was given landmark status and more people started to invest in the park to make it a more welcoming space. After the pandemic, Sydel noticed a boom in people using the park as a gathering space — particularly those with dogs. Now, nearly every day between 4 and 6 p.m., Sydel finds dozens of people enjoying the space and frequenting it to play with dogs in particular. Some of her neighbors say that if it were not for Washington Square Park, they would have left the area long ago. That was the case for Rhonda Sanderson, a longtime resident who felt herself become more involved with her neighborhood during the pandemic when she started frequenting the park more. 'If there weren't the dogs at that park, it would not have any kind of atmosphere like it has. It is joyous,' Rhonda Sanderson said. 'People stop their cars to watch dogs play. Tourists walk through here … and they just go, 'Oh my God.' When they sit down, they're so fascinated with the interaction of all of us with the dogs, how we're all friendly and busy.' At the same time, the proliferation of dogs has caused some tensions in the park, with some neighbors citing issues with off-leash dogs, torn-up grass and a general frustration with how the dogs appear to take over the space at times. 'I'm a dog owner, and I get it. I want to have a place to let my dog run free, but Washington Square Park is not a dog park,' said Willa Lang, executive director of the Chicago Parks Foundation. Lang emphasized that due to the park's landmark status, it is not possible to make the area a dog park. 'Off-leash dog activity significantly contributes to turf damage,' said Lemons, spokesperson for the Park District. 'The Chicago Park District Code states that domestic animals must be continuously restrained by a leash not exceeding six feet in length, except in areas designated as 'Dog Friendly Areas.'' Dog owners who violate leash laws are subject to a $300 fine, according to the city's municipal code. If the violation results in 'severe injury' to another person, the fine could run up to $10,000. That tension came out at the May 14 meeting, which some owners say have prompted them and others to be more mindful about their behavior at the park. 'Everyone's trying to get along and be mindful that when there's children out there, the dog should be on the leash,' Brian Berg, a local resident who helped get the word out about the initial closure plan, said. 'And so I think everyone's trying to do better, and everybody's got a stake in their park. And I think that's, as a result of being listened to, that's one of the positives that comes out of that, too.'
Chicago Tribune
09-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
With comics and video games, ‘Native Pop!' exhibits shows Native American history is not ancient history
When River Kerstetter was asked about three years ago to help curate an exhibit at the Newberry Library about Native Americans and pop culture called 'Native Pop!,' she said getting involved with the exhibit was a 'no-brainer.' The artist, who is a member of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin, had not only worked with archival materials before, but is a self-described nerd. 'I play video games. I read comics. So, yeah, it was just like a perfect fit,' Kerstetter said. But for Kerstetter, working on the exhibit was more than just an opportunity to learn about different games and comics created by Native people. It was also an opportunity to shape how others think about Native people through mediums such as science fiction, photography and film. 'So, so often Native stories get pigeonholed as ancient history, or it's very romanticized,' Kerstetter said, emphasizing how Native stories historically have been featured in natural history museums rather than contemporary art museums. 'I think a show like this kind of contextualizes Native people as like, we're still here. We've been here this whole time, and also, we have many diverse perspectives and stories,' Kerstetter said. 'And I think pop culture is a really good vehicle to sort of share those stories and kind of get to the heart of what they're about.' 'Native Pop!' opened on March 20 at the Newberry and features everything from 'Star Wars' clips in the Navajo language Diné Bizaad to three video games by Native creators loaded onto an arcade machine specially designed for the exhibit. The Newberry is home to one of the strongest collections of Native American archival materials in the country. The collection was started in 1911 when American business magnate Edward E. Ayer donated more than 17,000 materials. Ayer's materials had a strong focus on early contact between Native Americans and European settlers and was later expanded to include materials on Indigenous Hawaiians and Filipinos. In all of these cases, the materials focused on accounts from Europeans and European Americans. The collection has since grown, but most items in the collection were older materials. But about five years ago, Hansen said the Newberry formally revised their collection development policy to intentionally focus on gathering more material by Native creators and from the present day. 'We never wanted to have a collection that made people think, 'Oh, these people used to be around and they're not anymore,' which could be the impression you got if we had a collection that really didn't have a lot from the last century,' said Hansen, who has been with the Newberry for nearly 11 years. 'So we've been doing much more collecting on material from, say, the second half of the 1900s up to the present day.' That mission to collect more contemporary materials from Native people is part of what inspired the creation of 'Native Pop!' From daguerrotype portraits to Polaroid pictures, the exhibit seeks to not only show Native people in a contemporary context, but also demonstrate how Native people examine and reimagine their past, present and futures. 'I don't know of an exhibit like ours that has drawn on both rare books, manuscripts and other kinds of artworks that are more historical and put them into a kind of dialogue with more contemporary Indigenous art in the way that ours does,' Hansen said. Old traditions and contemporary iconography One primary example of work in the exhibit that mixes the old with the new is ledger art. Its origins are rooted in the practice of people in the Great Plains painting on bison and other animal hides to decorate their everyday items and to tell stories. But that all changed around the mid-19th century with the near extinction of bison. 'When you're not allowed to roam on the prairie and go kill buffalo or deer and you're confined to the reservation, you have to find something else,' said Holly Young, a Thizáptaŋna/Wičhíyena Dakota artist located in Bismarck, North Dakota. Then comes the paper from ledger books, which were some of the most common sources of paper Plains people had back in the day. 'And Native people sort of use those kinds of ledgers to tell the kinds of stories that they would have previously told on hides, often exploits in warfare or battle, but other kinds of things too,' including courtship scenes and dances, Hansen said. Ledger art has seen a revival in the last 40 years. While the ledger paper may be hard to come by, many artists still seek it, scouring eBay, antique stores and trading with other artists for the paper. Now, some artists are mixing traditional and contemporary imagery in their ledger art to tell their stories. In one of Young's pieces, two Native people are take a selfie together with a bison in the distance — an image that was inspired by her daughter, who likes to take selfies. In another piece, created by Hunkpapa Lakota artist Gilbert Kills Pretty Enemy III, an Incredible Hulk is turned into a Native warrior and is seen fighting a black snake that represents an oil pipeline. The piece was created in opposition of the Dakota Access Pipeline, a crude-oil pipeline stretching from North Dakota to Illinois that sparked months-long protests for threatening the drinking water and sacred sites of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. 'I just believe with my ledger art, and I'm sure with everyone else too, is we're just continuing to express ourselves, our culture, our personal experiences, and record and document those,' said Terran Last Gun, a Piikani ledger artist inspired by his father, who gave him his first ledger paper. Last Gun's ledger art tends to take on more abstract forms, inspired by both the symbols his tribe paints on their lodges and the bright colors used by Western artists such as Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein. In a piece featured in the exhibit, a yellow and pink hard-edged triangle is juxtaposed against a smaller blue and orange circle in the center. The triangle represents a mountain, a prominent symbol for the Piikani people who are originally from the Rocky Mountains area. 'I like to express to people that there was this geometric, abstract way of thinking already here in North America,' Last Gun said. 'I'm very much inspired by Western artists that are doing that type of work too, but it's very much my own tribal imagery that I'm trying to continue on.' Cara Romero and photography Like other pieces in the exhibit, Cara Romero uses her photography to tell the stories and experiences of Native people in the modern day — but she didn't always intend to become a photographer. Romero, who currently lives in New Mexico, stumbled into a black-and-white film photography class in college, and while she lacked some of the technical skills, she quickly fell in love with it. 'It was one of those professors and one of those college courses that really opened up my heart and mind to different possibilities,' said Romero, an enrolled citizen of the Chemehuevi Indian Tribe. 'Wanting to communicate the contemporary, lived experience of native peoples and my community was something that I was really searching for — and I just instantly understood that photography was going to be the vehicle for communication.' In a photo titled 'Dans l'Ombre,' which translates to 'in the shadows' in French, Romero plays on the film noir genre. A woman is dressed in traditional Native American clothing and backed up against a wall with a scared expression on her face. What she is fearful of is left up to the viewer to imagine. The woman is wearing a red dress — symbolizing the epidemic of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women. 'I think within the Native community, we understand what might be in the shadows, but it's really a chance for, cross-culturally, non-Native people to wonder and hopefully explore what she might be scared of,' Romero said. Another important aspect of Romero's work is helping young people understand their origins and Native culture, as well as their place in the modern day. 'Indigeneity becomes this timeless way to visually communicate that we are both modern and still carry all of that ancestral knowledge and cultural transmission, even though we're living in contemporary times,' Romero said. 'And I think that that's really important, primarily for our young people, to have that cross-cultural understanding that they're every bit as Indigenous as they ever were in these contemporary times.' Romero does just that in a featured photo called 'Coyote Tales no. 1.' The photo is inspired by the tale of the trickster but heroic coyote, who appears in hundreds of tales across different tribes. The coyote represents the side of humanity that is always making mistakes and learning from those mistakes, but is still loved regardless. In the image, the coyote is turned away from the viewer while two women in the photo look forward. The coyote is hiding a pair of flowers, suggesting that he intends to give one of the women the flowers, but his intentions are left to the viewer to ponder. 'There's ideas of painting the town red, of whatever is about to happen if the coyote is involved, there's bound to be some lessons learned,' Romero said. 'But the girls look very in control … And so it just kind of became this really beautiful composition that, for me, is really fun. It kind of brings back our storytelling into contemporary times, instead of just in, you know, ancient context.'
Chicago Tribune
25-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Column: Shakespeare Project of Chicago will present a new dramatization of Ben Hecht's memoir at the Newberry
Writers William Shakespeare and Ben Hecht will make quite a pair on Saturday afternoon when some fine local actors well versed in and passionate about Shakespeare will be speaking Hecht's words at the Newberry Library Saturday afternoon in a new dramatization of Hecht's memoir, 'A Child of the Century,' by Shakespeare Project of Chicago, one of the city's great, if relatively quiet, treasures. 'You might think of us as Shakespeare unplugged,' said Peter Garino, one of the founders of The Shakespeare Project of Chicago and longtime artistic director, when I first met him a decade ago. 'We are unadorned and direct, and sometimes a person will tell us after a reading, 'I finally get this play.' That means a great deal to us. … We are under the radar. We are barely, if ever reviewed, mentioned by the mainstream press. We are up and gone in a weekend.' There is something charmingly 'Brigadoon'-ish about that, and The Shakespeare Project is in the midst of celebrating its 30th season, which started in November with 'Measure for Measure,' then 'The Winter's Tale' last weekend, with 'The Tempest' scheduled for April and 'King Lear' in June. Garino has been there from the start, explaining how he and other actors and Shakespeare fans would often bump into one another at auditions. A group of eight decided to meet once a week. One thing led to another and after a public performance attracted an enthusiastic crowd, The Shakespeare Project of Chicago was formed. No one is in this for the money and all shows are free to the public. The group is a nonprofit and, 'the classic itinerant company,' says Garino. It presents shortened versions of the plays with casts composed of theater pros, all members of Actors' Equity, the professional union of actors and stage managers. All of these people have long lists of credits, from dozens of local stages and Broadway to TV and movies. Hundreds of actors have participated, tackling the work of other writers too, a few of them Shakespeare's contemporaries, but also such offerings as Lynn Redgrave's 'Shakespeare for My Father' and Truman Capote's 'A Christmas Memory,' shows based on Shakespeare's poetry and a few musical offerings. (It should be noted that a decade ago, as an acknowledgment of The Shakespeare Project of Chicago's ongoing importance, the Newberry invited it to contribute artifacts such as scripts, production notes, photographs, programs, posters and other materials for a permanent archive). This Hecht presentation came to them through Scott Jacobs in 2018. Wisconsin-raised (as was Hecht), Jacobs came to Chicago in the mid-1970s. He wrote for the Sun-Times before devoting himself to a career as a pioneering videographer and writer. In 1985, he and Michael Miner, the Chicago Reader columnist and his former Sun-Times colleague, used Hecht in their play, 'Kiss It Good-Bye,' which had its world premiere in 1985 with Organic Theater. He was introduced to actor-director J.R. Sullivan by a mutual friend, actor-director and former newspaperman Gary Houston, who knew of both men's affection for Hecht's work. Amazingly, they had never met before but Sullivan too had a connection to Hecht, having written and performed in a one-man show based on 'A Child of the Century.' I reviewed that production for the Tribune in 1995, writing, 'The few periods of dullness that afflict this show might be erased with some judicious, if for Sullivan painful, editing. Hecht's life and times … tote an inherent romanticism that has never had a problem capturing readers and easily could grab audiences as well.' Jacobs and Sullivan's collaboration sadly ended in October 2021 when Jacobs died of a heart attack. Sullivan was determined to finish what they had started. 'This book is a treasure trove of fantastic tales. The real challenge is to structure it, to bring it down to two hours,' he tells me, and it's exciting to hear that Saturday's reading will also feature music and many photos, most taken from the mountain of Hecht materials now housed at the Newberry. 'A Child of the Century' was published in 1954, Hecht died in 1964 and in 1979 his wife Rose donated all of his papers, correspondence, photographs and other materials to the Newberry. That includes material from his Hollywood years, very fruitful years since, thought likely most famous for writing, with pal Charles MacArthur, 'The Front Page,' he is also credited with writing 65 films, including 'Spellbound' and 'Monkey Business,' and had his uncredited hand in dozens more, including 'Gone With the Wind.' It is a vast gathering, 92 linear feet that includes a small statue. It is an Oscar, handed out at the first Academy Awards ceremony in 1929. Remember this if you are watching Sunday night: The first bash took 15 minutes to present awards in 13 categories. 'Wings' won best picture, and the award for best original screenplay, then referred to as best original story, was won by Hecht for 'Underworld.' He would later write, 'A movie is never any better than the stupidest man connected with it. Out of the thousand writers huffing and puffing through movieland, there are scarcely 50 men and women of wit and talent.' He was surely one of them, and his shadow abides.
Chicago Tribune
29-01-2025
- Science
- Chicago Tribune
New bird-watching record marks Cook County as prime hot spot for bird-watching
On his way to setting the Cook County record for spotting the most bird species in a year, one bird in particular eluded Tarik Shahzad. Every morning and every afternoon for a month last summer, he staked out a spot at the Montrose Point Bird Sanctuary in Chicago, searching for the marbled godwit. Every night, he went home empty-handed. Finally, in August, after heading to the remote Deadstick Pond near Calumet Harbor, he spotted it. 'That's the hardest I've ever worked for a bird, or maybe anything,' he said. Shahzad, who works for the Nature Conservancy, said he spent almost every free moment last year looking for birds. The 27-year-old ended up logging 294 birds, a new record for Cook County, which is a hot spot for bird-watching in the Midwest. Located along a longtime migratory path on Lake Michigan, Cook County attracts a wide variety of birds to the lakefront, as well as forest preserves, wetlands and prairies. As if to emphasize that point, Shahzad set the record with his sighting of a short-tailed shearwater, a seabird whose natural habitat is the Pacific Ocean from New Zealand to Alaska, and which has only been sighted a couple of times in the Great Lakes. Along with the variety of birds, bird-watchers are becoming more diverse, Shahzad said. 'We have a really robust bird-watching community,' he said. 'I couldn't have seen a fraction of my birds without the inclusive, growing Chicago birding community.' Where birding often used to be more of a solitary pursuit, now people are connected through apps like the Cornell University Lab of Ornithology's Through ebird, Shahzad was alerted to a location whenever a birder spotted a bird he was looking for, and he would drive out immediately from his apartment in Evanston to find it. Every spring, ebird holds a Global Big Day for birders to report their bird sightings. The event attracted nearly 67,000 birders last year, who reported almost 8,000 species worldwide. The lab also offers tips for helping birds, like putting markers on windows to avoid bird strikes, keeping cats indoors, avoiding pesticides and providing more natural habitat. In Chicago this June, the Newberry Library will mark growing interest in the field with an exhibit called ' Winging It: A Brief History of Humanity's History with Birds.' The exhibit will draw from the library's collection, which includes woodblock carvings of birds from the 1800s by Thomas Bewick, and hand-colored lithographs from the 1700s in the South and the Caribbean by Mark Catesby, long before the more famous bird documentarian John Audubon. Bob Dolgan, an avid birder who is working on the Newberry exhibit and has made documentaries about piping plovers in Chicago, said the local birding community is thriving. Prime hot spots for viewing include North Park Village, Garfield Park and Washington Park in Chicago, Gillson Park in Wilmette, the Morton Arboretum in Lisle and the Little Red Schoolhouse Nature Center in Willow Springs. All new birders need is a pair of binoculars and an app, book or friend who can help identify birds. 'We have a concentration of good birders here and a lot of potential birds because we have such diversity of habitat,' he said. 'So we have a plethora of locations where people can find birds.'
