This is Bird Note. When you think of Chicago, you might think of the Cubs, Navy

Pier, maybe a pungent Chicago dog, maybe not bird diversity. But Judy Pollock

says the Chicago area is crucial to birds and has a grassroots conservation

movement that supports many nature preserves. A lot of people don't realize, but

the Chicago area has the highest concentration of endangered species in the

state because of these preserves. As the founding president of the Bird

Conservation Network, Judy has helped organize a team of more than 200 volunteers

to survey birds each summer throughout the Chicago Metro area. After completing

22 years of surveys, the organization has a much clearer picture about the

birds that nest there. There were some troubling declines over the two

decades, particularly among grassland birds such as bobbolinks and grasshoppers

burrows, which were also declining nationwide. But there were also encouraging

signs that diverse habitats in the region are helping keep birds around. There

were increases in the populations of birds that used woodlands and wetlands,

including the charismatic sandhill crane.

We've got so many birds coming back, you know, like from the time I started

birding, you never saw a sandhill crane, you never saw a bald eagle, you

never saw a pelican, you never saw an osprey. Okay, and now all those birds are

coming back and they're nesting in our area. It's really exciting.

Sometimes you tend to think that people are the problem, but in our area, they're an

asset. For bird note, I'm Connor Gehrin.