Quote of the week: Silphium flowers attract native bees and butterflies, plus in autumn and early winter, their dried seeds help feed hungry birds like American goldfinches.

Read about silphiums on the prairie in this outdoors column.

Compass plant photo copyright by Steven D. Bailey

Quote of the Week: Woodworth Prairie gives you a glimpse of what the first European settlers saw when they walked through virgin prairies packed with copious and variably colored blooms, some just peaking from beneath the soil, and others like compass plant reaching 6 feet or taller and sprouting copious happy yellow flowers in summer.

Read here to learn about the very rare cicada that lives in this prairie.

Photo of rare prairie cicada by Carl Strang.

Quote of the week: More than 100,000 marine mammals die each year by either eating or getting entangled in plastic balloons.

Entanglement Network cites this statistic — and there’s more. Read about how balloons harm the environment and what you can do to help:

Quote of the week: “It sounds like an oxymoron, but the Chicago urban area has a huge diversity of plants and animals.”

Cassi Saari is quoted in an article on the city Nature Challenge. Read more here.

Great white trillium might be blooming in time for the City Nature Challenge. (Photo by Sheryl DeVore)

Quote of the week: “We’ve had a pair at Illinois Beach State Park that frequently put on a courtship display of diving and twisting hundreds of feet above ground.”

Vic Berardi talks about courtship of red-tailed hawks in a story on the hawks and woodcocks. Read more here

American woodcocks start courting in the sky in March.

Quote of the week: As long as the cells don’t freeze, a fish, frog or turtle can survive in winter.

How do critters who spend time in winter survive frozen ponds in winter? Read here to learn more.

Photo of frozen wetland at Volo Bog by Steven D. Bailey.

Quote of the week: We’re in the beer business, and everybody always wanted to talk about beer. Now…people don’t want to talk about beer, they want to talk about solar energy.

Mike Kloss, COO of Kloss Distributing Co in Gurnee talks about converting his business to solar energy. All the electricity is obtained from 2,000 panels atop the building’s roof. Read more here.

Kloss Distributing Co installed 2,000 solar panels to provide all its electricity needs. (Kloss Distributing Co/PHOTO)

Quote of the week: Packed inside that beak is a really long tongue.

Edward Warden talks about woodpeckers in an article published in Natural Awakenings Magazine. Written by Sheryl DeVore. Photo below of red-headed woodpecker copyright by Steven D. Bailey.

Quote of the week:

“It’s an amazing conservation success story, and really illustrates the resiliency and adaptability of the bird.”

Luke Garver in an article about wild turkeys and turkey tail fungus. Read more here.

Jim Curtis took this photo of a wild turkey in Lake Villa a few years ago.

Quote of the week:

Four different great horned owls were talking in the dark. The most I had ever heard talking together was two. But this was a foggy, chilly night on a date when folks think scary thoughts.

Read all about the great horned owl.

Bob Schifo took this photo of a Great Horned Owl.