Blog

As summer starts to wind down, I wanted to share a few of the incredible places and experiences my work has taken me over the past few months. To start, I have had the opportunity to work with a variety of species in hand this summer, including many beautiful songbirds during my time as a bander with the Chicago Ornithological Society. On our last day of banding, I extracted a beautiful male Indigo Bunting that I will always remember fondly as my final extraction of my first banding season. I have continued to work with many amazing animals as a Program Instructor with the Ecology Center, such as our incredible ambassador animals, critters that the public brings in, and the fish we catch during our programs. I feel proud to work with such incredible native and exotic animals in hand every day, and I can't wait to continue to grow my skills in handling and husbandry.

Speaking of fishing, I have caught the bug! What started out as work has turned into a full-blown hobby, which has gotten me intimately acquainted with the many bodies of water that call Chicago home. I enjoy fishing the harbors, rivers, channels, and lagoons, and I find my favorite species to catch are Channel Catfish and Largemouth Bass. For a month or so, I only caught small panfish and bullhead, but after a few trips to River Park, I have landed some enormous Largemouth, Channel Cats, and Drum. August has been a slow and frustrating month fishing-wise, but I look forward to the fall to continue hunting Chicago monsters!

Finally, I have been continuing my work with Indiana Audubon and have even accepted a second contract as their Volunteer Engagement Coordinator. In this role, I will be working to increase volunteer engagement for Indiana Audubon's conservation programs across the entire state of Indiana. This is by far the largest scale I have operated on, and I am beyond excited to continue to work with their volunteer base. Besides that, I spent many a day in the Indiana wetlands conducting field work for my Marshbird Coordinator contract and have grown fascinated with the overwhelming biodiversity that can be found in local wetlands. I hope to continue working in Calumet wetlands.

Also, come see my first talk, Secretive Marshbird Monitoring in the Calumet, at the Urban Birding Festival on Sunday, September 20th, from 2–3 p.m. I will be discussing Audubon's work monitoring marsh birds in the Calumet and how the landscape of the Calumet has changed over the last 200 years.

My final extraction of the season: a male Indigo Bunting

Extracting a Northern Flicker

A feisty nuthatch, mid-attack

One of the Chicago monsters: a hefty Largemouth Bass

Out in the Calumet wetlands near Lake Station

Bison spotted out in the field near Kankakee

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I am proud to share that our home garden is now an Illinois Audubon Society certified bird and butterfly sanctuary! After just under two years of living here, we have transformed the two small plots around our home into a stunning local patch of gardens that feature attractive natives such as black-eyed Susan, prairie blazing star, and even a swamp white oak we started this year.

The 'before' picture shown below is from 2022. We moved in during the summer of 2024, and while there were a few flowers planted (a rose bush, some catmint, and a few salvias), we have worked almost daily through all seasons to improve our soil health, native plantings, and pollinator/bird suitability. We are beyond excited about our certification and can't wait to continue to improve the space.

I implore anyone interested in gardening to plant a native garden in their yard or parkway.

Build it and they will come! 🌻 🐝

Owen :)

Prairie blazing star in bloom

Before: 2022

After: 2026

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Hi everyone! This will be my first year attending the Indiana Dunes Birding Festival! You can find me tabling at the youth and family section from 10AM–3PM. Feel free to stop by and make a birdhouse or just chat about this incredible weekend/migration! I will also be leading two family-oriented bird walks with one from 9–10AM and one from 3–4PM. I am super excited to be both involved with the fest this year!

I also wanted to share some fun moments from my time at the Evanston Ecology Center thus far including the release of a baby snapping turtle someone brought in, some photos of our critters, and a shot of me with my buddy Mango the bearded dragon. Keep an eye out for more fun programs for us this year including a Twilight Bat Hike coming this August.

Baby snapping turtle release at the Evanston Ecology Center

Me and my buddy Mango the bearded dragon

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When it comes to my professional life, I often find myself worrying about the future and my status as an urban ecologist. Like many other scientists and educators, I rarely take the time to appreciate my current position. I often find myself too concerned with pushing ahead and making sure my career goals are maintained.

That being said, over the past week I have worked to recognize how lucky I am to be in the roles that I inhabit. With so many folks struggling to find any job, I find myself overjoyed to see how much I have grown in a few short years in this field. If you would’ve told me the day after I graduated that in just a couple short years, I would be working as an ecologist and educator I would’ve shaken you off.

This Thursday, I completed my first bout of fieldwork on behalf of the Indiana Audubon. This included visiting a couple sites and scouting them to be added to the program. While I’ve done plenty of fieldwork, I have never done it solo and nor on National Park land. This type of experience truly makes me feel lucky and like all my hard work is paying off.

On Sunday, I led two environmental education programs at Lighthouse Beach in Evanston, which will now be one of my primary programming locations. I am beyond excited to be working alongside such a unique dunes ecosystem. I look forward to leading more programs in such a small, but highly biodiverse location. I also love Lighthouse Beach for its interesting history and general vibe.

While I am still ever focused on my future in my career as an urban ecologist, I think it is extremely important to take time to realize just how special my field and my work is. We scientists and educators often go too long without stopping to take a look at the world around us that we fight so hard to protect. I challenge everyone to try and find some gratitude in their day to day, I promise it’ll make your life just that much brighter.

Hey everybody! I’ve been hard at work developing my skills in environmental education and program development. I’m super excited to announce that a new page will be coming to this site soon. A programs page will soon be added to host open-source educational programs for fellow educators, scientists, and whoever to use! The page will start with three programs for public use: a river ecosystem program that includes a species ID game using camera trap photos, a bio-blitz walkthrough that allows anybody to lead a large-scale bio-blitz through iNaturalist, and a bat acoustic science/call identification program that includes a fun bat call guessing game. Keep an eye out for more programs to come as I continue to educate!

On a more personal note, I have been working as a Program Instructor at the Evanston Ecology Center where I’ve gotten tons of awesome experience in animal care, nature education, and program development. Feel free to pop by the center during the week or weekend as I may just be there! I’d be happy to show you a few critters :). Furthermore, I collaborated with Urban Rivers to pilot the aforementioned river ecosystem program out at a class in Wheeling. The program went great and both the kids and staff loved it. I’m super excited to continue working with Urban Rivers and whoever else comes my way. I’m also starting to prep my seeds (trying for butterfly weed this year) and garden beds for the 2026 season. We planted a bazillion bulbs last year and we are starting to see some Crocus pop up!

I am beyond excited to share that starting in February, I will be working as Indiana Audubon’s Secretive Marsh Bird Coordinator. In this role I will manage a community science project focused on monitoring reclusive marsh birds in the Indiana-Illinois Calumet region. Furthermore, this will be my first role serving as an independent contractor, a new and exciting experience for me. Time to start saving receipts!

Aside from my proclivity for both birds and the Calumet region, the Secretive Marsh Bird project excites me as it is comprised of two of my niche research interests, acoustic monitoring and community science. This project challenges citizen scientists to monitor marsh birds (which often can’t be seen amongst the marsh vegetation) by using audio playbacks to elicit response calls from the birds. The volunteers then record which species respond to the audio and move to the next point.

If you wish to learn more about the project, check out the project data hub and article. I can’t wait to collaborate with the folks at Indiana Audubon, do some cool science, and catch some lifers along the way!

As my time with the Urban Wildlife Institute and as Community Science Coordinator comes to a close, I think of all the amazing shared memories that the bat tracker community and I made together. Whether it be in person or over email, I was constantly impressed by this community's dedication and passion to contribute to urban wildlife research. While I have worked with volunteer cohorts in the past, no group has felt as interconnected or as driven as Bat Tracker. I thank each and every bat tracker volunteer for their contributions to the program.

Beyond my experience with the bat tracker community, the Urban Wildlife Institute has been extremely welcoming and supportive of my interestes and career goals. While it is sad to leave such a great group of scientists, I will always think the folks at UWI as friends and look forward to future collaborations with them.

Historically I have not always been praised for my artistic talent or creativity. Therefore, in attempts to find a new winter hobby and become a bit more artsy, I have taken up lino cutting. Also known as lino printing, this art style requires carving into a surface to reveal an image and dates back to 2nd century Asia where artists would carve into wooden blocks and print them as textiles. A famous example of this is Hokusai's Great Wave off Kanagawa, probably the most famous example of this style. While many folks still carve into wooden blocks, most printing is done using rubber-like matted surface called linoleum. Thus the term linocutting.

My interest in linocutting has mostly centered around making prints of various birds. As of now, I have done several species including a Loon, Brown Creeper, Northern Cardinal (for Christmas of course), and a Ferruginous Pygmy Owl. I hope to one day expand my skills into landscapes and other types of wildlife.

I'm super excited to share that a scientific article has been published in Planet Forward surrounding me and my work! It is awesome to see the Bat Tracker project (and our amazing volunteers) getting some recognition.

Check it out here!

After a long winter of many applications and interviews, I am thrilled to share that I've been welcomed back to the Urban Wildlife Institute (UWI) as a Community Science Coordinator! This is an incredible position focused on engaging Chicagoland volunteers through UWI's BatTracker Community Science Program. I am truly honored to have been selected to contribute to this inspiring project.

Beyond the obvious intrigue of urban bat research, this position represents a sense of community that UWI strongly cultivates within its own team and with its volunteers. The ecologists at UWI showcase some of the best this field has to offer, and I am thrilled to join the team under a more full-time role.

On a separate note, I'd like to thank the wonderful support I've received through this journey. Although job searching in this field is no-doubt arduous, the resounding amount of support and advice I've received from senior ecologists along the way was nothing short of heartwarming. Over the past months, I have had the opportunity to speak and interview with some incredible ecologists who have cemented my faith in this scientific community. Beyond this, I am lucky enough to have a couple incredible women in my life that supported me through just under a hundred denials. A huge thank you to my extremely supportive partner and my inspirational and hardworking mother.

In conclusion, this is a huge and exciting step for me in my career. I am extremely proud to be fulfilling my dreams and aspirations in conservation biology under such an amazing organization. Thank you to all who have helped me thus far and stay tuned!