In this companion program to our November 18 Zoom presentation, Beyond Monty and Rose: The Rise of the Great Lakes Piping Plover Population, we will explore two aspects of the endangered Piping Plovers that have returned to their historical nesting grounds in Waukegan over the past few years – courtesy of the Sharing Our Shore – Waukegan team.

First, we’ll tour the special exhibit Through the Eyes of the Piping Plovers: the Flora, Fauna & People of the Waukegan Dunes, a series of works inspired by the plovers and their local habitat. Highlights include From Fluff Ball to Fledgling, a painting by Carthage College student and 2025 plover monitoring intern Oliver Slater, capturing the birds’ journey from hatching to fledging, as well as art and photos by Brushwood Botanical Artists and Audubon award–winning photographer Steve Jessmore.

Then we’ll view the 30-minute film, Sharing Our Shore and the Return of the Piping Plover to Waukegan Shores, which highlights the plovers Blaze and Pepper, their offspring, and the remarkable story of their breeding success just yards from two Superfund sites.

Please register here to attend this special program.

The Waukegan History Museum at the Carnegie is located at 1 N. Sheridan Rd. in downtown Waukegan.

Peregrine Falcons were added to both the federal and state endangered species lists in the 1970s because of eggshell thinning caused by DDT exposure, but the bird has made a remarkable comeback since DDT was banned in 1972. In Illinois, where not a single peregrine chick was born from 1951 to 1998, there are now more than 20 breeding pairs including many in the Chicago metropolitan area – thanks in large part to reintroduction and monitoring efforts led by the Chicago Peregrine Program. The Field Museum’s Mary Hennen, who has headed the program since 1990, will join us to discuss the decline of the species, the museum’s role in identifying the cause, how the population has been restored, and how the birds are now banded, monitored and studied to help ensure their ongoing survival.

The shores of the Great Lakes were once home to nearly 800 pairs of Piping Plovers. By 1990 that number had dropped to 13, all in Northern Michigan. As of this summer, the Great Lakes population of this tiny shorebird had rebounded to a record 85 nesting pairs, with 124 chicks fledged in the wild in four states and Canada. But despite those numbers and the star power of Monty and Rose, the first of their species to nest in Cook County in 71 years when they bred on Montrose Beach in 2019 in a lineage that has continued every summer since, Piping Plovers remain on the federal endangered species list because 150 breeding pairs are necessary to have a solid population.  Dr. Sarah Saunders, a quantitative ecologist with Audubon Great Lakes, will join us via Zoom to discuss the recovery effort and research that is helping protect the species.

Two centuries ago, a handful of European-American naturalists trekked around North America, competing to find birds that were still unknown to science. What was that experience like for them? When Kenn Kaufman looked into that period in history as research for his newest book, The Birds That Audubon Missed, he found surprising connections to our own time. Despite all the changes in the world, the adventures of those pioneers have many parallels in the experience of birding today. In this program, Kenn will celebrate discovery and rediscovery, the lure of the unknown, and the endless power of birds to delight and amaze us.

Now a legend among naturalists, Kenn Kaufman burst onto the birding scene as a teenager in the 1970s, hitch-hiking all over North America in pursuit of birds—an adventure later chronicled in his cult-classic book Kingbird Highway. After several years as a leader of birding tours worldwide, he transitioned to a career as a writer, editor, and illustrator. Most of his energy currently goes into book projects and painting bird portraits. Kenn has published 14 books and is a field editor for the National Audubon Society, a Fellow of the American Ornithological Society, and the only person to have received the American Birding Association’s lifetime achievement award twice.

Every fall, the entire North American population of Broad-winged Hawks fill the sky in what is often called “a river of raptors” as they journey thousands of miles to their wintering grounds in South America. In 2012 and 2013, however, monitoring data suggested a population decline of 10 to 40% in some Eastern states. The next year, to better understand the threats to this forest-nesting raptor, biologists at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary in Pennsylvania began tagging adult and juvenile birds with transmitters to track them year-round. Dr. Laurie Goodrich, Director of Conservation Science at the sanctuary, will join us to discuss what’s been discovered about the bird’s migration patterns, stopover habits, nesting behavior, and other data that can help set conservation priorities for this species.