Once farmland, this 57-acre area was once part of a 150-acre parcel purchased by the city and converted to a tuberculosis sanitarium in 1911. It’s now the largest city-owned natural area on the North Side. There are three main restored habitats to explore: oak savanna, woodlands, and wetlands. Take it’s looping trails surrounded by native grasses, flowers, and bur and white oak trees and you can discover wood ducks, geese, painted turtles, and deer live there. Raccoons, foxes, bullfrogs, kingfishers, crayfish, and great blue herons can also sometimes be found. 

When the city purchased this 21-acre site for $8 million in 2011, it was a part of Rosehill Cemetery mostly used as a dumping ground for dirt and debris. The park district worked with Hitchcock Design Group to design a park that’s more overgrown and uncultivated than most of Chicago’s green spaces. As of 2015, a multipurpose trail snakes though tall grasses, restored woodland, and four-acre pond. Both the nature area and the adjacent cemetery are known to contain a “phemonomal amount of biodiversity,” says Magle. “We’ve detected deer, coyote, tons of birds including belted kingfisher, kestrels, red-tailed hawks, and hooded mergansers—not to mention nocturnal species that are harder to see like bats and flying squirrels.”

Follow the Lake Michigan shoreline east from Montrose Beach and you can find this 15-acre wooded oasis of mulch-covered hiking trails and more natural habitat that attracts migratory birds looking for a green resting spot as they travel over Lake Michigan. Duck into “The Magic Hedge,” a 150-yard stretch of honeysuckle bushes, during traditional spring and fall bird migrations and it’s possible to see or hear up to 320 different species that have been identified there. “You’re quite likely to meet other birdwatchers there to share tips and rare sightings, too,” says Magle.

Parts of this historic 140-acre westside park looks like a natural landscape, but the rolling hills, waterfalls, stepping stone paths, and river were all part of landscape architect Jens Jensen’s original “Prairie-style” plan. “This gives a feeling of breadth and freedom that only the prairie landscape can give to the human soul,” Jensen wrote in his 1917 report to the Parks Commission. Columbus Park is currently a favorite gathering spot for Chicago’s hearty coyote population, which are easier to spot in the winter, says Magle.

The eastern tip of this man-made peninsula is an urban nature sanctuary that offers wild prairie grasses, a 5-acre pond, and strolling paths. Everything from coyotes, possums, raccoons, herons, red-tailed hawks, and rare butterflies have been spotted there. Northerly Island offers “amazing birding opportunities to go with incredible skyline views,” says Magle.

As is the case with many parks on this list, this 26-acre site in Bridgeport is an adaptive reuse. Once an ancient coral reef, a stone quarry, and a landfill, as of 2009— it’s become a public green space featuring a fishing pond, wetlands, preserved quarry walls, and 1.7 miles of trails. “It’s a phenomenal example of nature in the city. All manner of mammals and birds can be spotted,” says Magle.