Angry birds more than just a game at Northwestern’s lakefill

A sign on Northwestern’s campus warns pedestrians of red-winged blackbirds, which make their nests along the Evanston lakefront every spring. Credit: Evanston RoundTable staff

An ice cream truck heads down Sheridan Road, students dressed in caps and gowns pose for pictures, and swimsuit-clad families line up outside of Clark Street Beach: Summer has officially arrived in Evanston.

After another Chicago winter and storm-filled spring, right now is as good a time as any to be outside. Walkers, runners and bikers flock to Evanston’s many lakefront paths and bike trails, a popular one being on Northwestern’s lakefill. Summer’s serenity is palpable.

Then suddenly, as if in a Hitchcockian nightmare, a bird descends on a passerby, its sharp beak knocking off a hat and pecking the scalp.

“I don’t like to run with hats, but this time of year, I always do, because they’ve drawn blood,” Evanston Running Club member Chuck Janczy said, referring to the notoriously aggressive red-winged blackbirds that build their nests along the Evanston lakefront.

Janczy’s first encounter with the red-winged blackbirds, however, was not while running. More than 40 years ago, Janczy was working at a biological field station in Evanston under a National Science Foundation grant. On a bright June day, he was ground trapping insects with coffee cans in a prairie habitat when he was first attacked – and so began a decades-long series of encounters with the birds.

An avid runner, Janczy now finds himself dodging the dive-bombing creatures on a regular basis. He has noticed the birds attack most frequently around Memorial Day and the Fourth of July.

“Some years it changes slightly,” Janczy said. “This year, they were definitely back early. I could hear them coming back in early March, and usually they don’t return until March 15.” (Beware the Ides of March!)

“They are not too aggressive in the early morning. Once the sun really starts getting hot, that’s when they start,” Janczy said. “It seems like the sunnier it is, the more aggressive they are.”

To avoid being attacked, Janczy has stopped running near the lake altogether, except on Saturdays, when the running club runs in a group. Thankfully, running in a large conglomerate seems to be one of the few strategies that deters the birds. Direct retaliation against them is out of the question for Janczy, who understands their place in the lakefront ecosystem. “You just have to live with it,” he said.

“I don’t know other birds that really attack like the red-winged blackbird does,” said Libby Hill, of the Evanston North Shore Bird Club.

While these birds are native to the northern United States, they make the journey south to escape the harsh Chicago winter. The red-winged blackbirds return to Evanston in the spring and make their nests. They can stay well into July, depending on the state of their nests. The birds nest near water, making the Northwestern lakefill an ideal home.

The male blackbirds have a distinctive look. They are black, stout birds with a patch of red and yellow at the top of the wing. The females have a plain appearance with a light brown coat and darker streaks on the breast. Their most noticeable feature, however, is not the flashy red feathers on the wing – it is their sharp and pointed beaks.

Passersby are likely to be pecked at by both males and females, but the males tend to be more aggressive, as they are defending their nests.

“They would attack anything that they feel is a threat to their nest, even another bird,” Hill said.

Hill and many others have long wondered whether the bird attacks were a purely urban phenomenon, as she has observed the blackbirds acting tranquilly when nesting in a more rural area. Hill, however, has concluded that male blackbirds seem naturally aggressive toward mammals in any setting because of a need to protect their young.

She, like other bird enthusiasts, does not believe in retaliation against the birds.

“What you don’t want to do is stress out birds,” she said, adding that if people are feeling threatened by the birds, they should take a different route. Runners like Janczy have already taken her advice.

Both Janczy and Hill agree the birds have a rightful place on the lakefill, and the city should not take any action to remove the birds or stop the disturbances. In fact, Hill said it would be against the law.

“Anything that is done to the red-winged blackbirds would be a violation of the Migratory Treaty Act,” she said.

According to Audubon, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, passed in 1918, stops people from harming birds. This includes removing them from their natural habitat. Hill believes that people should be more focused on protecting themselves than getting revenge on the birds.

“The red-winged blackbirds are just an annoyance to people, but not a danger,” she asserts.

The birds do not seem to have any plans to move – so the question stands; how do we coexist with nature in an urban environment?

The Evanston Running Club and the Evanston North Shore Bird Club have the same idea: wear a hat while on the path. Janczy has additional strategies. He has memorized the birds’ attack sounds – a screeching that is different from the call they make when nesting – and can hear them before they dive. Facing the birds head-on may also prove useful in scaring them away.

“They will only attack you from behind. So, if you turn around and face them, they’ll back off,” Janczy added.

While known as a waterfront nuisance to many, Hill suggests that to live with the blackbirds, Evanston residents must understand the birds’ lifestyle and their need to defend their nest better. Sometimes, though, the simple solution proves to be the best one: “The birds can’t move, but you can take a different route,” Hill said.

Northwestern’s lakefront will be rife with change this summer, as a temporary sports compound is being built at the Martin athletics facility on the lakefront. The facility will serve as a substitute Ryan Field for two football seasons, while fans eagerly await a new stadium in 2026.

So, what does this mean for the birds? Surprisingly, Hill does not predict the commotion will have a large impact on their home. The birds have already experienced so much change due to living on the lakefront for decades and are always prepared to rebuild if need be.

“If they are finding that they can’t nest somewhere, they will find another place to nest,” Hill said.

But, she said, the blackbirds have a bigger threat than Northwestern’s construction. Cowbirds, an invasive species, are laying eggs in the red-wing blackbirds’ nests.

While it is easy to blame birds that attack, remember, this is their home. We are just running through it.

I love birds and know they don’t act like that; so it doesn’t scare me.

But it was a really well-done movie and a lot of fun.

Not an attack report, but a near collision with Big Bird story -

My Saturday morning run took me by but out of sight of the shore of a fairly large gravel pit. The grass vegetation was just about my height. All of a sudden I heard a large “Flap, flap, flap.” just above and behind me. I was startled and looked back. There in the air, just behind me was a Great Blue Heron flying backwards. Didn’t take too long for him to gain altitude and fly away. My guess was that he had been near the edge of the water when it was time to take his morning flight to the east. Never before had he seen anyone or anything there while flying low over the vegetation.

BLACKBIRDS??

These Karens wouldn't last a minute in our area!

25 posted on 07/08/2024 2:33:36 PM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom (“When exposing a crime is treated like a crime, you are being ruled by criminals” – Edward Snowden)

Not an attack report, but a near collision with Big Bird story -

Great story. And, yes, a real collision with a Great Blue Heron would not be pretty…

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