Goldenrod galls

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September in Lake County, Illinois is a month of big sky punctuated by tips of tall prairie plants in an array of autumnal colors. Before the trees really get going with their own colorful show, sparks of bright yellow from the many varieties of goldenrod (Solidago spp.) dominate the open spaces. Most of the summer these plants go unnoticed, adding merely another green hue to the lush surroundings, but September is their time to shine. What may also go unnoticed, even now as goldenrod demands our attention, is the hidden world inside each plant in the form of a gall.

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Crayfish tales

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When most adults hear someone mention crayfish, what most likely comes to mind is a culinary dish rooted in the South. However, mention crayfish to a group of Summer Campers at the Lake County Forest Preserves, and you will see eyes light up and hands reach for pond-scooping nets and buckets while their minds contemplate questions of “how big?” and “how many?” During our hikes to the edge of a pond the campers exchange crayfish stories about the best techniques for catching these crustaceans, the size of earlier catches growing the closer we get to the water.

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Campfire serenade

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One hallmark of a good camping trip in my family is an evening spent huddled around a crackling campfire as the sun and moon exchange places and dusk settles around us. The smell of the fire, the taste of gooey marshmallows smashed into S’mores, the silhouettes of bats and moths in their nightly chase—all create a moment completed only by the haunting calls of whip-poor-wills (Antrostomus vociferus). These elusive nocturnal birds, although rarely seen, announce themselves boldly by calling their own name over and over again in a seemingly endless serenade.

The eastern whip-poor-will is part of the Caprimulgidae family of nocturnal birds commonly called nighthawks and nightjars. Robin-sized and cloaked in impressive camouflage, whip-poor-wills breed in open woodlands and nest on the ground. Their nest is a shallow area among the leaf litter that is carved out by the weight of the incubating parent and two eggs. Whip-poor-wills have been known to lay their eggs in phase with the lunar cycle, so that the chicks hatch about 10 days before a full moon. Thus, the parents can take advantage of the longer and brighter light of a waxing moon to forage an abundance of flying insects when the chicks are at their hungriest. Continue reading →

Ant parade

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With June comes the arrival of many eagerly awaited events. It’s the end of the school year and the beginning of a season of bare feet, beaches, camping trips and baseball games. In my house, one thing we are not excited about is the return of ants that parade around our kitchen. We know these ants are not going to cause us any harm. But, when a horde of them begins an organized march around the rim of my sons’ cereal bowls, it starts to bug me. At the same time, I realize they are just doing their job. It is a highly evolved social structure that allows these ants such precision in the tasks at hand—carrying away crushed Cheerios from the kitchen floor for their own pantries, taking to the air for a ritualized mating flight, deciding which eggs will be fertilized, or starting a new colony from the ground up.

Marching ants

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Heron highrise

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This past weekend I had the pleasure of hearing Kenn Kaufman, a naturalist and bird expert, speak at the Smith Nature Symposium. He is somewhat of a “rock star” in the birding world. His novel, Kingbird Highway, chronicles a personal adventure hitchhiking around the country at the age of 16 on a quest to find birds—a story that has reached the status of folklore. Many years later, and surely a much longer “life list,” his keynote address at Ryerson Conservation Area focused on warbler migration: the phenomenon of these teeny tiny birds in every hue of the rainbow that travel thousands of miles across entire continents each spring and fall. He presented complicated doppler maps and in-depth scientific research on these migratory dynamos, but by the end of the discussion the focus had shifted to something more simple: the children from his young birders club.

guide-bookLate that evening, as I settled down with one of his many guide books, Field Guide to Advanced Birding, I was struck by this same theme of simplicity. Kaufman urges folks to slow down and focus not on looking for the birds, but instead to spend time looking at the birds. He stresses getting to know the common birds of an area very well. By doing so, we are well on our way to knowing when a rare bird may enter the scene. This concept brought to mind one of the best places to take a long look at one common bird of Lake County, Illinois: a great blue heron rookery.

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Water Connects Lake County

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It comes as no surprise that in a place named “Lake County” you are never more than a stone’s throw away from water. Lake County, Illinois is scattered with thousands of acres of wetlands, dotted with over 170 lakes and rivers, crisscrossed with 400 miles of streams, and bordered by massive Lake Michigan. This year at the Lake County Forest Preserves, we are celebrating this wealth of water by exploring how Water Connects Lake County through educational programs and recreational opportunities.

One way water connects the critters of Lake County is through the magic of metamorphosis. Ponds, streams and other wetlands host and hide well-known animals in surprising forms. Take a look at the picture below. This is a type of insect found in most local bodies of water. Can you identify this creature?

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“Flying” to a feeder near you?

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One of our volunteer naturalists recently shared a story of an exciting discovery she made at her bird feeders. She loves to tell anecdotes about the slew of birds that frequent her backyard feeders during the day. However, this time her visitors were not birds, and they appeared in the middle of night. She had seen odd things at night when passing by the windows that looked out towards her yard: a bird feeder swinging wildly with no wind and shadows cast by the moonlight that moved in a herky-jerky scuttle up  nearby trees. It wasn’t until one night this winter, with the flick of a light switch, that she caught these mysterious critters in action: Continue reading →

Drought and maple syrup

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With the recent snow and cold weather, last summer’s dry heat seems like a distant memory. Yet, it was only this past week that the National Weather Service officially changed its “moderate drought” designation to “abnormally dry” for most of Lake County, Illinois (although, a small northwest portion of the county is still considered to be in a “moderate drought”). While every drop of rain and flake of snow is helping to slowly ease our way out of the past eight months of drought, the damage already done will decide the sweetness of this spring.

Each spring for the past three decades, the naturalists at Ryerson Conservation Area have tapped sugar maple trees to harvest the sap and turn it into pure maple syrup.

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Freshwater shrimp?!

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Post by Allison

What is clear and looks more like dancing water than an animal? Freshwater shrimp! Well, that’s one answer at least—and local ecologists have had their first encounter. During stream monitoring this past summer, restoration ecologists of the Lake County Forest Preserves discovered several dozen Mississippi grass shrimp, Palaemonetes kadiakensis, in a forest preserve along the Des Plaines River in southern Lake County. Due to the fact that you can see right through them, this species is also commonly called glass shrimp. At first sight, the ecologists did not recognize the inch-long crustaceans. It was clear that this find was something rare and exciting.

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The winter world of cottontails

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Now that the icy days of January have arrived, everyone in my house has that cooped up feeling and needs to get outside for a view of the expansive winter sky. We need to breathe a bit of fresh air, regardless of how cold it might be. At dusk, my sons and I have been hiking a nearby trail that takes us through scrubby meadows and thickets. During these forays, the boys are often loud and boisterous—until they flush out a cottontail rabbit. They quickly hush. We spend the rest of the hike searching for “our” rabbit (or signs of it) as we crisscross the worn network of trails trodden with tracks.

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