Of the thousands of birds that Willard’s team inspects, a few attain places of special reverence.‬ ‪Willard opens a drawer where a pinky-sized brown creeper lies as if asleep. Found by a collision monitor on April 17, 2009, along the city’s North Michigan Avenue, the creeper weighs less than a drinking straw.‬ ‪The birds are so small that they’re rarely seen in flight.‬

When this particular bird was found, one leg was banded, denoting that it had once survived a window strike, recovered, and was set free. Records showed that exactly one year before its death, the bird had hit another building, also on North Michigan Avenue, no more than two blocks away from the window that would mark its final flight.

The April 17 creeper wasn’t sent to the beetle room. It was carefully skinned, cleaned, stuffed with cotton, and sewed back together — and placed in a drawer, deeply respected for the story it told.