'The Owl Man' brings comedy, education to Barrington

If you have two smiles, you know what you have? Peregrines.
 
Mark Spreyer is the director of the Stillman Nature Center in South Barrington. He is a naturalist, ornithologist, biologist, scientist, educator and comedian—not just because he's constantly cracking bird-related puns—he was also part of a science-based comedy troupe in the mid-90s.

Humerous he may be, but Spreyer is passionate about environmental concerns.

Spreyer graduated with a bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan in 1978 and received his masters in biology, which a focus on ornithology, or the study of birds, from St. Cloud State University in Minnesota in 1985. His work spreads across six states—as a biologist in Kansas, for the Audubon Society in Wisconsin, the Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden in New York to name only a few. He has written for numerous local and national publications, co-produced a documentary for ABC and created a 5,000-square-foot traveling raptor exhibit at the Science Museum of Minnesota

Most notably, he headed the peregrine release project in Chicago before eventually finding his way to Stillman and back home to Barrington, where his interest in nature began.
 
“I was born and raised here,” Spreyer said of the Barrington area. “I played by the EJ&E [railroad], before it was the CN. That's why I do what I do: catching caterpillars, growing up on the lake, following muskrat tracks in the snow...”

Oddly enough, it was expertise in sprawling open spaces that brought him to one of the biggest and most dense cities in North America.
 
"Where I did my grad work [in Minnesota], there was 20-square-miles with nothing—nothing to urban dwellers, everything to me—peat bogs, wolves...six months later, I'm sitting in the city of Chicago."
 
Pair of grins
 
During the 1950s and ‘60s, DDT was widely used as an insecticide. The chemical agent kept bugs off crops, but also kept the peregrine falcon from reproducing. The pesticide interfered with calcium absorption, resulting in egg shells so thin that they broke under the weight of the incubating parent, Spreyer said.
 
The project started in 1989 after peregrines, an endangered bird species, were seen nesting on skyscrapers. Scientists discovered that the birds felt comfortable nesting in cities because the skyscrapers look like gray cliffs to the birds, Spreyer said.
 
"So creative people at Cornell thought, why don’t we release them in the city?" he said.
 
So they did. Spreyer led the team in Chicago, which thrust him into meetings with journalists, scientists and city and national government officials.
 
Dan Dinelli, a long-time associate and friend of Spreyer's, volunteered with the peregrine project to observe the birds from afar and ensure they stay safe and healthy.

"I remember [Spreyer] being very concerned with what the state and the DNR [Department of Natural Resources] wanted...working locally with building managers and insuring that air conditioning units were properly covered or window washing operations being pushed back during the breeding months to not disturb these young birds," Dinelli said. "There was a lot of thinking involved. Mark should be proud."

At the time he was working on the peregrine project, Spreyer performed with CHAOS. The group was part of the Lincoln Park-based Chicago Academy of Sciences and played venues such as science fiction conventions and Mensa meetings, Spreyer said.

"We appealed to a wide array of tiny markets," Spreyer joked.

CHAOS performed skits about Jacques Cousteau diving for his keys or "Puff the Maggot Dragon," a song about decomposition, which Spreyer can recite word-for-word today.

In the city, at least a half a dozen or more pairs were established, some of which were combinations of Chicago falcons and Milwaukee falcons, Dinelli said. Peregrines continue to nest on some of Chicago's tallest buildings today.

GH OWL
 
"He doesn't have a favorite [bird], but that's his favorite," Stillman intern Claire Roggeveen said as she pointed to Stillman's great horned owl.

It's evident in Spreyer's license plate, which reads GH OWL, and in the phone number at the Stillman Nature Center: 847-428-OWLS.

When he became executive director of the nature center, there was no copy machine, no computer, and no parking lot.

"There was just an answering machine with that phone number," he said.

Spreyer first called Stillman home in the 1980s, when he stayed there to "keep the place warm," he said.

Spreyer manages operations at Stillman—maintaining park trails, building new attractions and promoting the center's work at community events like Schaumburg's recent business expo.

"He's our first and only employee," said Susan Allman, president of the Stillman Board. "We've come a long way to put together an old estate into a nature center. We do it for the animals, not just people."

Spreyer's focus is on birds of prey, which he takes on tour, showing them to classrooms of young children, 4H clubs and Boy Scout groups, among others. He's shared the birds with enough students to build a reputation.

"When Mark goes to schools they all know him as 'The Owl Man,'" Allman said.

Do the 'Bird of Prey Shuffle'

Spreyer uses humor, anecdotal evidence and layman's language to bring the world of biological and environmental science to his classrooms, evidenced by a rarely seen video he created called the 'Bird of Prey Shuffle.' Falcons and owls dance a version of the 'Super Bowl Shuffle’, which Spreyer outfitted with facts about the birds.
 
"Students ask me, 'How come that's not on YouTube?' I say, I'm not giving it away for free," Spreyer said.

Besides presenting to classrooms around the northwest suburbs, 4H and Scouting clubs, he is a part-time professor of biological sciences at the College of Lake County.
 
"I love teaching at the College of Lake County," he said. "If it starts with an 'e' I'll teach it—environmental issues, evolution, environmental biology."

He said his classes consist of part instruction and part labs, many of which take place outdoors at nearby nature preserves.

"There are kids from Lake County that have never even been to these great places," he said. "It's not predictable. You never know what you'll do, never know what you'll see—well, I know something cause it's on the quiz—but that's the fun."

Allman said his personality and knowledge make him a great educator.

"He can talk to kids in the morning and adults in the evening," Allman said. "And not just about owls, he has knowledge of so many different areas."

He's so knowledgeable," Roggeveen said. "He can really captivate an audience." She often goes out to presentations with Spreyer, with whom she has a friendly and jocular relationship.

"He's kind of unique in the sense that he's serious but he also jokes around," Dinelli said. "He usually just enjoys making people laugh...Mark's a pretty bright guy. His way of thinking is probably not very traditional. He doesn't get trapped into or hung up on some of the environmental buzzwords. He's just got a unique way of thinking about things, that makes you think and question what the mainstream is trying promote."
 
In defense of what's common

There was a time when passenger pigeons would dominate the sky from horizon to horizon, a striking sight not seen today, Spreyer said. Huge populations of pigeons were killed off in a manmade attempt to control their population, an idea Spreyer dismisses.

"People seem to want to curse what's common," he said. Spreyer, however, sees what's common as a way for people to engage in the natural environment.. He promotes the idea that pristine nature is not a far-and-away destination; it is everywhere.

An article Spreyer wrote called "Home is Where the Heartland is" contains what he points to as his life philosophy.

"When you are ready for an honest wildlife experience...just look around your suburb or city. Wildlife lives there," he wrote. "Remember it's not the habitat; it's the attitude."

—By Michelle Stoffel, Triblocal.com reporter
 

Spreyer looks out onto the nature preserve through a viewing window installed at Stillman.	Spreyer with a peregrine falcon.
	A red-shouldered falcon launches off a branch in its enclosure at Stillman.

POST YOUR COMMENTSREPORT INAPPROPRIATE CONTENT