Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum and Lincoln Park Zoo
/The headquarters and registration for the Urban Birding Festival in Chicago was at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum. We were in and out of the building during all three days of the festival. They have a small butterfly house with some exotics…some natives.
I managed to make a short video of a butterfly feeding.
There were lots of activities for young children. It was fun watching them explore. A fiber mural appealed to me too.
We signed up for a walk at Lincoln Park Zoo – birds and botany – skewed toward botany.
The two birds that I photographed were in a wilder area of the zoo…where wild birds sometimes drop in…sometimes decide to stay. The wood duck was relatively close and preening. The green heron was further way and harder to see through the vegetation. On the underside of a bridge were some barn swallow nests; the birds had already left for the season.
There were turtles out and about – including a soft shelled one.
The plantings in the main part of the zoo are a mix of formal landscaping plants (non-natives) with some natives like coneflowers and turtlehead and sunflowers mixed in.
The zoo has a very old elm that is treated to keep it from succumbing to Dutch Elm Disease. They have started planting elms resistant to the disease.
The walk around South Pond is landscaped with all natives….as close as the horticulturalist can to get prairie…with a few woody plants mixed in on the outer edges. I was surprised at how many plants I recognized! There were lots of yellows and seed pods this time of year!
We made the mistake of using Google Maps to show us the shortest route back to our car; it had exits from the zoo that didn’t exist! We circled back to find an exit….had a much longer walk than we would have had without technology!
