CHICAGO — Spiders and flies aren't the only animals living atop Chicago's highest buildings.
Yes, the city's high-rise exteriors are inhabited by countless spiders, but birds, bats and even rats and mice can live and produce young atop Chicago.
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Celeste Troon, Curator and Director of Living Collections at Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, said a wide variety of wildlife besides bugs hangs out on skyscrapers, apartment buildings and other multifloor buildings. Some, including peregrine falcons and rock doves (known by most as pigeons), nest atop high-rises. If you don't want rock doves on your balcony, remove potted plants because the birds like nesting in those areas, Troon said.
Common Nighthawks, which is actually not a member of the hawk family, love flat roofs and they'll rest during the day on them, Troon said. Bats, she said, roost on the side of high-rises during the day before their nighttime hunts.
Mice and rats can make their way to the top of buildings, too, but it's rare, Troon said.
"It's pretty hard to get established in a high-rise building," she said. "If a rat gets in, it usually gets eradicated pretty rapidly, unless it's a really rundown building."
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