Woodpecker tongues, nighthawks, blue jays, luna moth: Notes, Chicago outdoors

Notes come from around Chicago with help from readers.

WILD OF THE WEEK

Dr. Elizabeth Pector caught her best flight photo of common nighthawk (it’s their time) in five years of trying over Fermilab earlier this week. I’ve never took a good nighthawk photo.

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. Send nominations to @BowmanOutside on Twitter or Instagram, message Dale Bowman on Facebook or email BowmanOutside@gmail.com.

WILD TIMES

RIVER TALK

Monday: Aug. 26: Patrick McBriarty, author of ``Chicago River Bridges,’’ McCormick Bridgehouse & Chicago River Museum Lunch and Learn, 12:15-12:45 p.m., museum plaza on Chicago Riverwalk

FISH GATHERING

Wednesday: (Note location and time changes) Walleyes Unlimited, Social Night and grilled brats, Fox Lake American Legion Grounds, 6 p.m., walleyesunlimitedusa.org

ILLINOIS PERMITS

Saturday, Aug. 31: Final day, applications for free upland game hunt permits, bit.ly/2ZhJCOY . . . Final day, applications, first lottery, public duck/goose hunting blinds, https://www.dnr.illinois.gov/hunting/waterfowl/Pages/OnlinePermitApplication.aspx

DALE’S MAILBAG

Provided

``It just flew in. Don’t know what it is. . . . First I ever saw.’’ John Smialek email

A: It’s a luna moth, one of our more striking moths.

BIG NUMBER

3: Times longer a pileated woodpecker’s tongue is than its bill, according to an Audubon article tweeted by the Forest Preserve District of Will County. Read more at https://www.audubon.org/news/why-woodpeckers-can-safely-slam-their-faces-trees.

LAST WORD

``Beauty or Beast? Blue Jay’’

Headline, American Bird Conservancy’s Bird of the Week last week (If you ask, you know the answer.) More on blue jays at https://abcbirds.salsalabs.org/birdoftheweekbluejay.