I got back to the North Branch forest preserves after a long absence and continued to visit Loyola campus and the North Channel patch in Lincolnwood. I was glad to not miss out on spring ephemerals entirely.
Bird migration picks up during April, but unfortunately, the buildings at Loyola’s lakefront campus cut their long journeys short. When I find a window strike victim, I like to honor the bird’s life by drawing it in my sketchbook, like the white-throated sparrow included here. I mainly worked with pen and watercolor during the month in the “good” sketchbook and experimented with overlapping drawings done with different colored pens.
