Enjoying the freaks, mysteries and wonders of Chicago outdoors

Photographing an oddly marked big bird walking HeatherRidge Golf Course Oct. 11 in Gurnee, Jane Franz's mind roamed to Halloween.

"Do you know what this spotted bird or heron or egret is?" she emailed. "Is this a beautiful `freak' of Nature as Halloween approaches?"

Time to celebrate "freaks" in the outdoors.

Franz's bird looked like an oddly colored sandhill crane, especially when I looked at another photo of the bird with an ordinary sandhill. So I tweeted Doug Stotz, senior conservation ecologist for the Field Museum.

"As you suspected that bird is an adult sandhill crane with abnormal plumage," he replied. "I would call it a leucistic bird."

Leucism is the partial loss of pigment, different than albinism with its utter lack (generally) of melanin resulting in white hair and skin along with generally pink eyes.

Andy Gossens, sandhill crane project manager for the International Crane Foundation, emailed that the crane was leucistic, noting, "We've seen some cranes with this condition that are all white (some of these may also be albino), and some that look patchy like this one. It is pretty striking to see since they definitely stand out among other sandhill cranes."

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Not sure why, but woolly bears make me think of "The Old Farmer's Almanac." Maybe bad meteorology links them.

Jim Hantak recently spotted his first woolly bear of the season in a county park in northern Iowa.

"My grandfather always said these predicted winter," the Hillside man said.

I don't believe in that, yet, like most people who spend time outdoors, I am fascinated by their variations and check woolly bears every fall. The theory is that the darker the bars the harsher the winter. If you want to disappear into an information rabbit hole, look up research on woolly bears.

I thought I saw my first in early September at Loda Cemetery Prairie Nature Preserve, but when I stooped to look closer I am pretty sure it was the larvae of a salt marsh moth. Since then, I haven't seen anything close to a woolly bear, which are the larvae of the Isabella tiger moth (Pyrrharctia isabella).

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"Ever hear of a tilapia coming out of the Cal-Sag?" Pete Banach messaged. "The High School fished a tournament this weekend and one of the kids on my boat caught a 3.42-pound tilapia."

Tilapia are tropical fish native to Africa, introduced into Florida decades ago. Most of us know tilapia on the plate.

The angler who caught it was Alex Bielfeldt, who had qualified Bassmaster High School National Championship this summer on Tennessee’s Chickamauga Lake with Reed-Custer High School teammate Bret Cavanaugh.

About eight years ago, there was a spat of tilapia catches in the Chicago River downtown, but I had not heard of any coming from the Cal-Sag. However, last November, Eddie Reyes caught a tilapia well downstream on the Sanitary and Ship near First Avenue.

Most tropical fish caught are suspected to be pet releases. Don't do it. It's illegal, stupid and wrong. But tilapia have also been farmed in Chicago, so there might be another avenue.

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The mysteries of our urban coyotes roll on. Ken Maggiore messaged last week about a coyote with a tan collar in the Island Lake/Wauconda area.

"Just wondering if you have heard of any coyote collaring programs in Lake County," he asked. "I have a collared one on the property and was wondering what and if there was a study going on."

Maggiore has a unique place in Chicago outdoors history. He's the only angler to catch two Illinois record fish in one day. In half an hour at Montrose Harbor on March 22, 2017, he caught the then-Illinois-record burbot and whitefish.

As background, Maggiore messaged, "I've never seen one on the property in the 15 years I've hunted the property. It would be cool to see where the coyote was collared at and where it's traveled to."

I guessed it might be related to the Cook County Coyote Project. So I texted Stan Gehrt, principal investigator of the Cook County Coyote Project and author of "Coyotes Among Us" with Kerry Luft.

"We did have a coyote disperse there, but was shot by a deer hunter just a few days ago," he replied. "It likely is one of ours, I don't know of any others collaring coyotes in Lake County."

He added, "If it's the same one, it was coyote 1009, born in [Crabtree Nature Center in Barrington] in 2016. He was over 8 years old when shot."

Maybe more than one collared coyote dispersed.

Mystery makes a powerful draw outdoors.