CHICAGO — Here and there, more and more, the blue and orange bird known as the belted kingfisher is starting to appear outside its normal habitat of lakefronts and riverbanks.
It has become widespread around the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where its visage has been captured in neighborhood murals and on students’ T-shirts and face masks. It’s now showing up around Chicago, where alumni distribute logo-laden merch.
The bird’s widening range is part of a student-led, two-years-and-counting campaign to make the bird the university’s official mascot. Backers say that judging by kingfisher sightings, the flock of admirers is growing.
