Pam Otto

Many bird species show us that clothes – I mean feathers – really do make the man.

She realized, after a lifetime of gardening and a career in horticulture, what a tremendous impact even a small amount of native plants can have on a landscape.

What I’m still talking about with my nature nerd friends (and anyone else who will listen) are the strange projections emanating from the tiny creature’s back.

Last year, this local wildlife rescue group took in between 800 and 900 animals that found themselves in unfortunate circumstances, usually due to some sort of human action or interaction.

Doing amazing work to help birds and other critters is KARE, Kane Area Rehabilitation and Education for Wildlife.

Find some time soon to celebrate the ground-nesting peaceable pollinators.

Little bits of nature were flying through the air, and I was bound by the Nature Nerd’s creed to investigate.

Tree encroachment is one obstacle to attracting the sought-after birds.

As the days get longer and the sunshine gets stronger, aquatic turtles will be rousing from brumation – a cold-blooded creature’s equivalent of hibernation.

Mink frequent stream banks, ponds and wetlands throughout the area to hunt prey.

The awareness campaign Make Mine Chocolate aims to reduce the number of bunnies that end up in animal shelters once the thrill of Easter has passed, and the complexity of rabbit ownership has set in.

There in the Zinanni yard, atop a wooden fence, stood an immature yellow-crowned night heron! Holy state-endangered species, Batman!

With undeniable signs of spring appearing everywhere, here, in handy checklist form, are 10 of our naturalist department favorites.

For the next few months, people in Kane County can choose to become a part of a body of data known informally as the Spring Ephemerals project. The effort seeks to document the time at which various species of woodland wildflowers start blooming.

Plants such as these that have been left high and dry, so to speak, by the whims of climate change and evolution, are known as ecological anachronisms.