This Saturday, WTTW News is sharing highlights from our nature beat. It's cold outside but you can still enjoy a glimpse into the great outdoors from the comfort of your home.
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(yancymckiddy / iStock)
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Last year’s “snow drought” in Chicago — one of the least snowiest years on record — is likely to end this winter, according to a seasonal outlook released by the Climate Prediction Center. The strong El Niño that held sway in 2023 — which brought warmer temperatures and lower precipitation to Chicago — is expected to give way to a weak La Niña, which will largely deliver the reverse. Among the conditions to prepare for: Arctic outbreaks, which El Niño minimized last year. Experts expect a high level of lake effect snow. A milder start to the winter in the Great Lakes, temperature-wise, is likely to give way to colder weather in late December, January and
February.
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Sandhill cranes in flight. (Jeff Huth / iStock)
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The biggest buzz in Chicago is actually more of a trumpet sound. Sandhill cranes were on the move by the thousands this week, winging their way over the city and suburbs in a mass migration. The bird’s signature call could be heard from Prospect Heights to Valparaiso, Ind., with one Hyde Park resident reporting 400 cranes passing overhead in a five-minute span. It’s a highly anticipated annual tradition that even non-birders have come to enjoy as the cranes head from their northern breeding grounds to their winter home in Florida. Chicago is in perfect position to see — and hear — the birds on their migratory journey, particularly because the cranes tend to rest up in
Indiana before making their final push south.
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A juvenile osprey given a metal ID band as part of Cook County’s program. (Courtesy Forest Preserve District of Cook County)
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For more than 30 years, Cook County wildlife biologist Chris Anchor and his colleagues have been attaching metal ID bands to the legs of various birds — thousands in all — and every great once in a while, one of those birds, or maybe just its tag, is found. They mostly turn up in expected places — the Gulf Coast and areas along the Mississippi River — but this past summer, Anchor received a report from the federal bird banding lab in Maryland that one of Cook County’s ospreys had landed in Colombia. Of the billions of birds on the planet, a lone osprey with a unique ID band was found in Colombia and linked to Cook County. The likelihood of that occurrence is so slim as
to warrant all the superlatives.
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To ID an adult invasive brown marmorated stink bug, look for alternating black and white bands on its antennae and legs and alternating black and white triangular markings on their abdomen. (Backyard Production / i Stock)
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Stink bugs — specifically non-native brown marmorated stink bugs (Halyomorpha halys) — aren’t fans of the cooler fall temperatures and have started heading indoors to over-winter. Don’t freak out, experts said. These invasive pests, which hail from China and were first identified in the U.S. in the late 1990s, are more of a threat to commercial growers, damaging crops like apples, corn and soybeans. They’re also found in home gardens, feeding on both fruit, vegetable and ornamental plants. Indoors, these stink bugs don’t carry disease, bite, reproduce or feed on houseplants. They’re just looking for a place to ride out the winter — attics, bookcases, behind
baseboards, or under beds and sofas — before heading back outside in the spring.
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Where is your favorite place in the Chicago area to go holiday shopping? Tell us why.
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Email DailyChicagoan@wttw.com with your responses and your answers might be published.
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Newsletter Producer: Josh Terry
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