Eat Eat

Display at Heller Nature Center, Highland Park, Illinois We moved to Highland Park when I was ten. Looking through eBird checklists from northern Illinois, Danny asked if I'd ever been to  Heller Nature Center where there were a number of good bird sightings being reported. I had to confess that I'd lived just down the street from the place, had routinely rode my bike past it, and still never summoned enough curiosity about the world around me to bother going in. We'd planned a day for hiking and birding, but the fickle Midwestern weather had other ideas. Alternating between sleet, freezing rain, and eventually snow, we tried braving the 40 mph winds but quickly understood it wasn't going to be a nice day for a walk in the woods. Earlier, we'd tried to explore the lakefront by the remains of what used to be Ft. Sheridan, but conditions were even worse at the shore. Defeated, but unwilling to just head back into Chicago, we stopped in the visitor's center at Hel...