Hands down, the outdoors is the best place to learn about nature and things wild. But sometimes, time spent indoors can be enlightening, too.

Last Saturday was Wild Things, an all-indoor biennial conference described in promotional materials as “organized by Audubon Chicago Region in cooperation with the Habitat Project, the Volunteer Stewardship Network, and Chicago Wilderness through funding from the USDA Forest Service and US Fish & Wildlife Service.”

Which is a fancy way of saying that Nature Nerds and EcoGeeks came from miles around to renew old friendships, make new ones, network, bond, commiserate and learn, all within the mostly friendly confines of the University of Illinois-Chicago’s Student Center East.