Chicago outdoors: Green heron fledge, head acorns, suburban monarch & hummingbird, Wis. sturgeon

Notes come from around Chicago outdoors and beyond.

WILD OF THE WEEK

Paul Vriend photographed this green heron fledge two days out of the nest. “It looks away as if bashful but still keeps a wary eye on me,” Vriend emailed. “I am shooting from through a tiny seam in a dense canopy of foliage. The sun illuminates the top of the bird to highlight its snow-white down.”

WOTW, the celebration of wild stories and photos around Chicago outdoors, runs most weeks in the special two-page outdoors section in the Sun-Times Sports Saturday. To make submissions, email BowmanOutside@gmail.com or contact me on Facebook (Dale Bowman), Twitter (@BowmanOutside) or Instagram (@BowmanOutside).

WILD TIMES

HUNTER SAFETY

Sept. 17-18: Joliet, (815) 727-4811

Sept. 17-18: Momence, (815) 472-4900

Oct. 1-2: Mokena, huntersafety@frankfortsportsmanclub.com

Oct. 6 and 8: Bonfield, (815) 635-3198or, laura@isra.org

WINGSHOOTING CLINICS

Sept. 17-18: Des Plaines SFWA, Wilmington, (815) 423-5326 or click here for more

FISH GATHERING

Thursday, Sept. 8: Andrew Ragas on targeting smallmouth bass through the fall, Riverside Fishing Club, LaGrange American Legion, 6:30 p.m.

ILLINOIS SEASONS

Next Saturday, Sept. 10: Opening day, teal, rail (Sora and Virginia only) and snipe seasons

DALE’S MAILBAG

“OK, not quite WOTW, but, happy to spot what’s been a rare monarch this summer in my flower garden, also noticed the hovering hummingbird, at right, that seems to be keeping a watchful eye and waiting for its turn on the blazing star.” Paul Saltzman

A: The photo was wonderful, but it wouldn’t reproduce in the paper to a usable degree. Too bad because the image capture was cool.

BIG NUMBER

Over 70: Inches of a lake sturgeon at Yellow Lake in Wisconsin’s Burnett County, which the Wisconsin DNR speculates, “it’s possible some lucky anglers could reel in . . . “ in its announcement of the Wisconsin hook-and-line season for lake sturgeon in select waters that opens today, Sept. 3.

LAST WORD

“Acorns dropping over a deck with metal furniture can be annoying and sometimes dangerous, if you sit in the wrong spot.”

Howard Bass, with an astute late summer observation from northern Wisconsin.