About Rainbow Beach:
Located on the shore of Lake Michigan in Chicago, Rainbow Beach contains a small area of dune habitat that has attracted some hard-to-find birds for the area, such as LeConte's Sparrow, Yellow Rail, and Upland Sandpiper. These species, which used to breed in Chicago, now only make brief stops here during migration. They look for places that seem like home, even small patches of dune grass like those at Rainbow Beach. These fragments of nature in cities are important, not only to migrating birds that depend on them, but to us humans; they connect us to the past, and give us hope for a future in which humans and wildlife can coexist.