The River Landing

Up in the Clouds: Reflections on Hawkwatching

          As I scanned the early August skies above Quiver Lake, an Illinois River backwater, my mind was on migrating shorebirds.  The river level was still high, but falling; so it would be at least a few days before mudflats would form and provide suitable shorebird stopover habitat.  A few ring-billed gulls soared above nearby Chautauqua National Wildlife Refuge holding my attention, just as a steadily flying double-crested cormorant came into view over the distant tree line.  At that instant, in my mind’s eye, I was abruptly transported back to the late 1980s.

          At that time, I had only recently discovered a popular activity known as “hawkwatching,” which involves placing oneself at a strategic location where migrating raptors tend to pass over, all the while scanning the skies over and over for hours, in order to count every raptor within sight.  A gathering of like-minded folks at such a location engaged in watching and counting hawks is what constitutes the phenomenon known as a “hawkwatch,” although it is certainly possible to watch hawks alone.

          My first hawkwatch experience was at the Blackwell Forest Preserve in DuPage County, Illinois, on top of an old landfill, called Mt. Hoy, that was converted to a park.  The landfill, covered with mowed grass with numerous vents that allow for escaping gases from the breakdown of garbage, is the highest elevation for miles around in the otherwise rather flat terrain of northeastern Illinois.  Fall migrating raptors from the north tend to be guided by the north-south oriented shoreline of Lake Michigan.  So Mt. Hoy, only about 30 miles west of the lake, is a good place to intercept the migration before the birds move further south and disperse into the vast Midwestern interior.

 

At the top of Mt. Hoy with gas vent.

 

          Sitting on top of Mt. Hoy, staring into the clouds for hours at a time, almost seemed like the act of flying itself.  Sometimes I would lose the sense of being on the ground and see nothing but sky.  After finding a high-flying raptor, I would keep the bird in sight as long as possible, watching it fly into and out of billowy clouds, soaring ever higher, until settling upon a purposeful glide, sometimes directly overhead, and then continuing southward out of sight.  If there were other hawkwatchers, they would continually be calling out sightings of different raptors:  “Red-tailed hawk!”  “Cooper’s hawk; I’ve got a Cooper’s hawk just over the tree line at 45 degrees.”  “Adult bald eagle!”  With many eyes and binoculars focused on the sky, it is doubtful that any raptor could pass overhead without being noticed.

          Some of the hawkwatchers are competitive; they wish to be the first to sight a bird and the first to proclaim a positive identification.  When the less experienced attempt to join in the competition, the result can sometimes be a humiliation, which is what happened years ago when I misidentified a double-crested cormorant for a migrating hawk.  “Raptor in the west,” I proudly announced.  “No, it’s a cormorant,” someone quickly and authoritatively corrected.  One soon learns to defer to the more experienced hawkwatchers; challenging an identification is not a smart move for a novice.  Sometimes the more experienced of the novices will engage in a debate, for example, discussing the finer points of differentiating between a red-tailed hawk and a red-shouldered hawk.  I recall one instance when the red-tail advocate was shouting at one individual he must have deemed his subordinate:  “Look at the belly band!  Look at the belly band!”  Red-tailed hawks have a dark, mottled pattern across their otherwise light-colored underside; seeing the belly band pretty much clinches the identification.

 

A hawkwatch at Hawk Mountain, Pennsylvania.

 

          The social interactions and debates can be amusing, and listening is a great way to learn hawk identification.  But my preference is for a lonely, remote hillside near my home at Sand Ridge State Forest, along the Illinois River valley.  Few visit this site, except the occasional botanist looking for the unique plants that occur there.  The river presents somewhat of a leading line for hawks to follow, but it is not like Lake Michigan.  At Sand Ridge, I’ve never seen more than a trickle of raptors even on days when, according to my understanding, the birds should be moving.  At Mt. Hoy, much greater numbers of raptors over the course of a day are not uncommon.  Counts closer to the lakeshore, such as Illinois Beach State Park, are even better.

          It has been years since I have attended an official hawkwatch.  In my part of central Illinois, far from a large urban area with an energetic birding community, few seem excited by such an activity.  Even so, I’ll try to visit my favorite hillside perch at Sand Ridge Forest at least a few times during both spring and fall migrations.  This year, the first osprey of August along Quiver Lake has already signaled the beginning of the fall hawk migration.  And soon, when weather conditions are right, large numbers of broad-winged hawks will be soaring overhead.  Though I sometimes wonder what is happening at Mt. Hoy, for the time being I’m content with a good memory.  And I will never again mistake a cormorant for a hawk.

 

[To read more about hawks and hawkwatching, readers may download chapter 16, “When Hawks Fly” (Download Chapter 16 - When Hawks Fly) from my book Side Channels.]     

Waiting for the Mud

          A little over a week ago, the late July Illinois River level was holding steady at about 12.9 feet, which is more than several feet above its normal low level at this time of the year.  My hope was for falling river levels.  So I was not happy with the high water.  While a spring flood is a normal part of the river’s yearly pattern of highs and lows (hydrology), by late July into August and September, the expectation is for relatively steady, low levels, which would expose mud flats in the many floodplain lakes that flank and are connected to the river.  These flats attract migrating shorebirds, the objects of my attention at this time of year.

 

 

          A favored vantage point for observing shorebirds is on the upper end of Quiver Lake, an Illinois River backwater, where my small, rustic cabin is located.  Typically, I’ll find a shady spot along the shore to set up a spotting scope, and then leisurely wait for the birds to show up.  But Quiver Lake is directly connected to the Illinois River; so when the river’s level changes, as it usually does, the same happens to Quiver Lake.  Even in August, I cannot always count on seeing mud flats.

          And yet, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the river’s level is projected to gradually fall through at least the middle of August.  If this does, indeed, happen, then the lake bottom will eventually be exposed all around the lake’s periphery.  And if the river continues to fall, mud flats from more exposed lake bottom will expand in area and become an irresistible target for shorebirds.

 

*  *  *   

          Since my observations about a week earlier, the river has fallen over five feet.  Along the mainland shore of Quiver Lake, sandy seeps have become exposed, feeding pure groundwater to the lake and river.  Elsewhere, further out, there are narrow strips of mud along the shoreline.  The bulk of the lake, though, is still open water.  From a quick scan of the shoreline, I counted 50 great egrets in the shallows, about a third as many great blue herons, and a few killdeer, but no other shorebirds.  Yet I know that they are in the area, because at nearby Chautauqua National Wildlife Refuge, which is along the northern boundary of Quiver Lake, observers on July 27^th noted 20 shorebird species (from the Illinois Birders Exchanging Thoughts web site, posted on July 27, 2016 by Colin and Sharon Dobson).  Shorebirds were at the refuge because within the levee system (an earthen walled enclosure) refuge managers have kept water levels low so that mud flats are exposed and marsh vegetation can grow.

 

 

          For the time being, I will remain patient and hope that our regular summer drought period begins and river levels continue to fall and then somewhat stabilize.  An examination of NOAA‘s data from recent years, however, leaves some doubt that this will happen.  For example, last year the river topped out at 27.24 feet on July 1^st, breaking the 1943 record of 27.10 feet; and the previous year, it crested at 17.34 feet on July 5^th and crested again at 14.36 feet on September 13^th.  River levels are, of course, directly related to precipitation.  And according to the Illinois State Water Survey, this year’s July was the third wettest on record for Illinois (7.12 inches).  Another year that stands out in memory is 2008; I vividly recall the summer of that year, when July turned out to be the 10^th wettest on record (see chapter 19, “As the Rivers Rise Again” [ Download Chapter 19 - As the Rivers Rise Again] in my book Side Channels).  In recent years, only 2012 provided good shorebird habitat at the Quiver Lake bottoms; but that year also presented Illinois with severe drought conditions.

 

Quiver Lake, September 23, 2015 during medium water levels.

 

          It has always been give and take along the Illinois River.  Boaters prefer the river at higher levels, so obstructions are kept well under water.  For fishing, lower levels might be better, with fish more concentrated at habitat structures that still remain submersed.  Birders looking for shorebirds should prefer the lowest river levels throughout the late summer season, before marsh vegetation grows too high; but at that point, countless flowers will provide nectar sources for migrating monarch butterflies; and in the fall, seeds from maturing vegetation will attract thousands of migrating ducks.  At the same time, one summer flood can overwhelm all of the shorebird habitat and severely set back vegetation growth.

 

Quiver Lake, 28 July 2012 during low water.

 

          And though each year is unique, I look forward to witnessing these natural repeating patterns from year to year, which are still evident despite all of our modifications to the river and its floodplain.  And that is what I intend to do in my folding lawn chair, in the shade along Quiver Lake, while waiting for the mud.

Change and Comfort in Nature

(with acknowledgement to D.B. Botkin)

 

"When learned men state a fact in a voluminous report one feels it impertinent to doubt their word." - From A Hive of Bees, John Crompton 

 

By Thomas V. Lerczak

 

            There is great comfort in the concept of stability.  It makes me feel good, for example, returning to a favorite forest, even after many years between visits, and finding it appear to be unchanged and stable.   Even as I grow older, the forest seems the same, and it makes me feel young, as if I have stepped back in time.  In what seems like a chaotic world at times, having something to count on is important and maybe even necessary.

            But it works only if I don’t think about it too much.

            In his book Discordant Harmonies, Daniel B. Botkin writes:  “Wherever we seek to find constancy [in nature], we discover change…[and] we find that nature undisturbed is not constant in form, structure, or proportion, but changes at every scale of time and space.  The old idea of a static landscape…must be abandoned, for such a landscape never existed….”  He made these statements after many years of studying the natural world in great detail in a scientific manner and from a variety of angles. 

            I have been thinking about these topics because of recent drought years in the Midwest followed by a record-breaking flood on the Illinois River, and then the harshest winter in decades; these weather events have led me to think about the concept of stability in nature.  On this topic I cannot help but think of the climate.  A stable climate, of course, is highly desirable for a variety of reasons; agriculture and preservation of natural areas are two that immediately come to mind.  Our wants and needs notwithstanding, however, historical records bear out very clearly that over the long term, climate is no more stable than any other aspect of nature, and there is no reason why we should expect it to be any other way.  One example is the Medieval warm period, a time when the Vikings were able to colonize Greenland.  It was not long, though, before the onset of a colder climate called the “Little Ice Age,” which may have continued through the 19^th century.  During the Little Ice Age, crop failures and famine were common.  In Illinois during 1816, cold weather and frosts occurred repeatedly in July and August.  Going back further, we find many examples of the climate changing, not the least of which were several great ice ages, where the last one, called the Wisconsin Glaciation, ended only about 10,000 years ago.

            Another example that stands out is the 1930s drought combined with the misery of the Great Depression.  Folks who can relate firsthand accounts of those days are, alas, dwindling in number with each passing year; even so, memories can be unreliable.  To even get a sense of the 1930s, I might read a book such as John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath or listen to a few of Woody Guthrie’s dust bowl ballads, with titles like “The Great Dust Storm” and “Dust Bowl Refugee.”  And still, I’ll never really know what it was like back then.

            The article “Late Quaternary Vegetational History of Illinois,” by James E. King of the Illinois State Museum, has shed even more light on past climate changes.  He made a study of ancient bog sites in Illinois in order to reconstruct changes in Illinois’ natural landscape following the Wisconsin glacial period.   He did this by studying the pollen that had fallen into the bogs and then remained ever since.  By constructing detailed graphs showing years versus pollen abundance for a variety of plant species, King was able to show what types of plant communities occurred in the area over thousands of years.  One of the most striking of his findings was that prairie grasslands, which covered about half of the state just before settlement by Americans of European descent (roughly before 1800), did not occur in Illinois until about 8,500 years ago; before that, Illinois for a time was covered in deciduous forest.

            How did prairie take over the landscape from forest?  The answer seems to be extreme heat and drought combined with fire.  A drought not measured in decades, but in centuries.  Perhaps 35 centuries.  It was the mother of all droughts.  For all that time, the climate must have been so severe that prairie was able to move into Illinois from the even dryer West on the Great Plains; trees died, and forests and the advancing prairies became tinderboxes, which must have burned on such an intense scale that, over time, prairie vegetation—which requires open, high-light conditions—supplanted forest.  Following the expansion of the prairies, the climate changed yet again allowing wooded communities to expand as much as they were able to against frequent prairie fires, most probably set by the Native Americans.  When the first Europeans viewed the Illinois country in the late 1600s, what they saw was really the latest state of a dynamic landscape that had been ebbing and flowing with climate changes and other factors for thousands of years.     

            Currently, prairie communities in Illinois, the few that are left from the pre-1800s landscape, struggle against encroachment by woody plants.  The 1,500-acre Sand Prairie-Scrub Oak Nature Preserve, in Mason County, Illinois, provides a good example of this phenomenon.  The preserve is a mosaic of remnant and restored sand prairie, woodland, and savanna; it has been managed by the Illinois Department of Natural Resources with controlled fires for several decades.  With an excellent fuel source of dried oak leaves and prairie grasses, the fires can be intense, especially with warm temperatures, low humidity, and even moderate winds.  Yet even though trees may show fire scars, most survive the fires intact.  Saplings are typically top-killed, but readily re-sprout from the undamaged root systems, later sending up multiple shoots.  Fire management may have slowed the advance of the woody vegetation onto the sand prairies, but the advance continues nevertheless.  The prairies have not advanced into the woodlands, despite all of the controlled burning.

 

Oak encroaching on the prairie at Sand Prairie-Scrub Oak Nature Preserve

 

            Because decades of fire management have not been adequate to maintain the natural communities at this site, as a desperate attempt to reverse these successional changes to a previous state, to prevent further loss of the prairies, state biologists have made the decision to begin cutting back the advancing oaks with chainsaws and treating the cut stumps with herbicide, thereby preventing regrowth.  On one workday, I joined a crew of resource managers to cut advancing oak trees on the periphery and within the highest quality prairie opening at the preserve.  At day’s end, I looked back upon our work at this nature preserve, a site that has had a special place in my life for over twenty years, a place to escape the rigors and complexities of the modern world, not just in imagination but in reality; it is a place wherein, according to the Illinois Natural Areas Preservation Act, which allowed for the creation of the Illinois Nature Preserve System, “…one may envision and experience primeval conditions in a wilderness-like environment.”  What I saw were slash piles and stumps, and my feelings were ambivalent.  But what was the alternative?  Continued succession to forest and eventual loss of the prairie, and I did not wish that.  And what of the primeval, wilderness-like qualities?  Does a natural area maintained with chain saws and herbicide still qualify to be called a natural area?  Perhaps imagination must now play a larger role.

            With these thoughts in mind, it seems clear that rather than seeking in vain for constancy in nature, our labors might be more fruitful if we looked for signs of change, which are all around us.  But because the clues are usually subtle, patience and attention to fine details will be required.

 

*  *  *

            One of my favorite hikes is through the Funks Grove Natural Area, just west of Interstate 55 in McLean County, Illinois.  It is an old-growth tract of forest, with portions protected as part of the Illinois Nature Preserves System.  Every time I visit this site, I hear the words “forest primeval” in my mind.  Some of the oak trees are the largest I have ever seen, and the forest interior is quintessentially dark and quiet.  At first glance, it epitomizes stability.

            But even this forest is changing, although the change is not usually discernible from year to year.  Giant red oak, bur oak, and sugar maple trees may still form the forest canopy, but seedling and sapling oaks are nearly absent.  There are, however, an abundance of pawpaw trees and sugar maple trees in the forest’s sub-canopy.  These species create deeply shaded conditions that can prevent oak seedlings from surviving.  What will happen when the mature oaks die of old age?  This forest primeval is changing.  The Funks Grove Natural Area may be protected by state law from direct destruction, but the state law cannot change the laws of nature.  Another Botkin quote, from his book Strange Encounters, may help to inform our expectations of the natural world, though the quote may not exactly bring comfort, and it doesn’t make me feel young again:  “Ideas about our relationship with nature…[are] confused by wish, want-to-be, and imaginary worlds that have never existed.”

 

Dead canopy oak with understory sugar maples, Funk’s Grove Natural Area

 

            Many years ago, well before I entered the natural resources field, it pleased me to view natural areas as places where nature was left unhindered to follow its own course, wherever that may have led.  So when I first became aware of the notion of “managing” a natural area, I was quite taken aback:  No, such a view could not possibly be right!  How arrogant, I thought, for people to think they could maintain a natural area better than the natural processes that allowed it to form in the first place.  But those ideas I have left far behind, mainly as a result of studying the science of ecology in detail and corroborating what I learned with my own observations.  For others, though, I wonder if one of the reasons folks in general so easily expect stability in nature is because our increasingly urbanized, computerized population has learned to compartmentalize the natural world; it is a place to visit for a time, much like a museum, that can be left behind and later returned to with the expectation that nothing will have changed in the interim.  Meanwhile, the real world, where the serious business of living occurs, is unreliable, chaotic, stressful, and noisy, offering little in terms of comfort and peace.

            In fact, if a common public perception of an undisturbed, old-growth forest is of stability, then the opposite would have to be along the advancing front of a growing suburban area.  Here subdivisions gobble up the farms, fields, forests, and wetlands faster than one can keep track; nothing is sacred and everything has a price that reliably and inexorably rises with time and more development.  After the wave of intense change passes, there is usually little of the previous landscape left behind:  perhaps only the shape of the land itself as rolling hills and basic drainage patterns, but not much else; a protected nature preserve may remain and be completely surrounded by buildings, roads, and concrete.  In such an environment, the human hand is a tornado, an agent of rapid change and complete transformation.  Who with a love of nature would not prefer an imaginary world of wish and want-to-be?

 

*  *  *

            Along the central Illinois River valley in May, it is worthwhile to take a good look at the landscape of forested bluffs with deep hollows, steep hills, and complex ravine systems.  The forest has an unmistakable patchiness of white against the deep green of new growth from trees such as sugar maple, white oak, shagbark hickory, and hackberry.  This patchiness is caused by the white flowers of black locust trees, which can occur as single trees or small groups.

            Only at this time of year do these trees stand out from the rest of the green, and show just how pervasive black locust has become.  The flowering black locusts add a subtle texture and beauty to the forests as seen from afar.  Yet I find the widespread distribution of this tree troublesome, because black locust trees are fast-growing and spread rapidly.  Black locust is, in fact, increasing at the expense of native trees such as the oaks and hickories, spreading not only by seed, but also by underground runners; a small patch may actually be a single organism, connected together by the root system. 

            Black locust, a member of the pea family, did not originally inhabit central or northern Illinois.  Its natural distribution is mostly south of Illinois, extending into the state only in the southern counties.  It was purposely brought elsewhere mainly for its utility as fence posts, railroad ties, firewood, and erosion control.  But by bringing this invasive species into areas where it normally did not occur, we have changed our forests apparently forever.

            But why should this matter?  Leaving the ecological effects on the forest aside, it is really a question of what we decide to label as natural, which is by default judged as good and desirable, or unnatural, which is usually thought of as undesirable.  Unnatural, with its negative connotation, also implies a human-mediated situation.  But is this really what we want, a dark cloud over ourselves?  Do these labels truly reflect reality?  Why not cultivate a view of nature that also includes human influences?

            Ethnoecologist M. Kat Anderson suggests that human-nature interactions be considered from the perspective of a continuum, where complete use and destruction of nature is at one extreme (clearcutting, bulldozing, and then paving over an area) while pure wilderness (no human influence) is at the other extreme.  An area could then be evaluated not simply as natural or unnatural; but rather, its evaluation could be based on where the site places on the human-nature interaction continuum.  The judgement, then, of whether a human influence is good or bad loses its meaning.  And the question of what is natural also loses its meaning.  For example, it makes little sense to suggest that the prairies of central Illinois maintained by Native American burning for thousands of years were any less natural than the changing climate that allowed the same plot of ground in central Illinois to support Arctic tundra during the Ice Age, then deciduous forest, and finally tallgrass prairie.  Each of these natural communities while they prevailed probably would have seemed stable, though, because changes noticeable at the plant community level would have more than likely occurred over time spans much greater than a human lifetime.

 

*  *  *

            Noticing gradual change over the long term and observing events in nature without bias are difficult tasks.  Sometimes I’ll think about this when crossing the Spoon River’s route 97/78 bridge, west of Havana in Fulton County, Illinois.  The river’s channel is constrained by the bridge, but elsewhere it is active, changing its course ever so slightly with each year.  I know this is happening, even though I can’t actually see it in progress.  The changes are subtle.  It is our poor ability to notice gradual change in nature that enables us to expect stability, especially wherever human influences are absent or minimal.  People speak of “the balance of nature.”  In his book Our Natural History, Botkin wrote about this phenomenon when he stated that “In our minds, we have an idea of nature undisturbed by human influences as constant, fixed, and permanent.”  In other words, “in balance.” 

            Botkin points out that a natural river is an example of how something may be constantly changing, and yet still seem the same, giving the illusion of stability.  A river will be continually changing its course over its floodplain in a very gradual way as it slowly, over periods of years, meanders over the landscape, randomly forming curves, sand bars, pools, and islands.  Channels are eventually abandoned even as new ones form.  View a particular stretch of a river from one day to the next and, barring catastrophes, nothing may seem different; but see the same scene after ten years, and it will be obvious how much has changed, though the same types of features will likely be there as before.  Of course, not all rivers are equally active.  Still, in general, a meandering river epitomizes how changes tend to occur in nature.

            I have noticed this phenomenon along many rivers, but at no better site than the Salt Creek in Mason County, Illinois.  Salt Creek has been channelized over most of its length.  But at Barton-Sommer’s Woodland Nature Preserve, in the far southeastern corner of the county, Salt Creek meanders like a natural river.  I wrote about this site in my book  Side Channels:  “…there is…evidence of previously shifting stream channels [at this preserve]:  curved undulations of the ground that fit together like a giant jigsaw puzzle.  The meander scars in the ground show that over the long-term, the floodplain is a dynamic environment, altering its shape as the stream slowly moves across the land….”

 

Salt Creek at Barton-Sommer’s Woodland Nature Preserve

 

            Our view of how nature works—static versus dynamic—is important because, as Botkin noted, again from Our Natural History:  “…when we sit down to work out how the environment should be, when we set down plans to manage and conserve nature, we get ourselves into trouble because we forget about the naturalness of change…and we revert to our belief in the constancy of the environment.”  Since this is our natural inclination and it provides a feeling of security and comfort, I am not surprised, within the context presented above, to find a group such as the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change seeking in recent years to prevent no less than the earth’s climate from deviating away from some apparent optimum—dare I suggest, “stability.”  The notion causes me a certain degree of uneasiness.  Because, with all due respect, it has been my experience that our understanding of nature is not complete—computer wizardry (modeling) notwithstanding—which makes predicting future conditions, especially on a global scale, problematical, let alone determining cause and effect.  For example, I would contend that even small systems like remnant native prairies are not understood well enough in order that they can be adequately managed and not continue to fade away.  How well have we done at managing larger ecosystems such as the Great Lakes, referred to by author William Ashworth as the “late Great Lakes”?  Are we ready to tackle the entire biosphere in its unimaginable physical and biological complexity?  Is that even possible?    

            In spite of this, I am still optimistic that progress will continue to be made at improving our understanding of nature and at least properly addressing our environmental problems—as long as we see things as they are and remain inquisitive and bold enough to challenge favored ideas that fail alongside of unbiased observations.  For as Albert Einstein said, “The important thing is not to stop questioning.”  And that is a comfort.

 

Selected References

Anderson, M.K.  1996.  Tending the wilderness.  Restoration and Management Notes 14(2):154-166.

Ashworth, W.  1987.  The late, Great Lakes:  an environmental history.  Wayne State University Press, Detroit, Michigan.

Botkin, D.B.  1990.  Discordant harmonies:  a new ecology for the twenty-first century.  Oxford University Press, New York.

Botkin, D.B.  1995.  Our natural history:  lessons of Lewis and Clark.  G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York.

Botkin, D.B.  2003. Strange encounters:  adventures of a renegade naturalist.  Jeremy P. Tharcher/Penguin, New York.

Clark, R.W.  1971.  Albert Einstein:  the life and times.  The World Publishing Company, New York and Cleveland.

Illinois Natural Areas Preservation Act.  http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/ilcs3.asp?ActID=1739&ChapterID=44 referenced on 15 February 2015.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.  http://www.ipcc.ch/index.htm referenced on 16 February 2015.

King, J.E.  1981.  Late Quaternary vegetational history of Illinois.  Ecological Monographs 51 (1):  43-62.

Lerczak, T.V.  2011.  Side channels:  A collection of nature writing and memoir.  Mill City Press, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Pirtle, C.  2000.  Escape betwixt two sons:  a true tale of the Underground Railroad in Illinois.  Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale and Edwardsville, Illinois.

Steinbeck, J.  1939.  The grapes of wrath.  P.F. Collier and Son Corporation, New York.

Taylor, C.A., J.B. Taft, and C.Warwick (editors).  2009.  Canaries in the catbird seat - the past, present, and future of biological resources in a changing environment.  Illinois Natural History Survey Special Publication 30.  Illinois Natural History Survey, Champaign, Illinois.

 

[NOTE:  A pdf file of this essay is available by clicking on Download Change and Comfort in Nature-with columns.] 

 

[This essay first appeared in Big Muddy:  A Journal of the Mississippi River Valley Volume 16.1 (2016) published by Southeast Missouri State University Press.]

A Matter of Chance (Or A Unique Nuthatch Encounter)

        The weather forecast was for a sunny, windy day.  So while my wife left to scout for garden flowers and pottery, I headed to Emiquon National Wildlife Refuge for a muddy hike at the confluence of the Spoon and Illinois rivers. 

        As I left my vehicle, the wind howled through the tree tops, blowing steadily at about 25 miles per hour with gusts to nearly 40.  In the stand of young, closely packed cottonwood and silver maple trees near the parking area, treetops intermingled in the wind, the sound of wood hitting wood, with occasional cracking sounds and falling branchlets.  The larger, mature trees moved less, but their canopies were in constant motion.  The big gusts sounded as if, in an instant, everything would be swept up and scattered to a thousand destinations.

        It occurred to me that a hike through this bottomland forest, with abundant standing, flood-killed timber, may not be the smartest thing to do.  But then I considered the situation from the standpoint of chance or probabilities:  the likelihood that some event may or may not happen, such as a coin toss coming up heads or tails.  What, I thought, were the chances of any particular tree or branch falling at just the moment when I would be in precisely the right location to be hit?  The chances could not be very high, even in the heavy winds, as the few branches that fell were small and random.  I have often had similar thoughts when passing beneath a widowmaker (i.e., a large tree leaning over so far, it seems just about ready to fall):  nothing about my presence beneath the tree could cause the tree to fall at that exact moment, so there would be no need to rush.  And yet, most people would never do such a thing; or if they did, would do so with high anxiety and as quickly as possible.

        So I continued on my hike, but stayed away from standing dead timber just in case.  When I reached the Spoon River, I saw that the river bank had recently collapsed.  The Spoon River in this area is an actively meandering river, where the outside curves are typically vertical drop-offs due to the riverbank collapsing and washing away; while the inside curves, or opposite bank, have a much gentler slope, where sediment is deposited.  A few feet in front of where I stood, it was a sheer 10-foot drop-off to the river below.  If the bank collapsed at just that moment, I would have been in trouble, but then I realized that the likelihood of that happening must be very low.  Still, it made sense not to get too close to the edge, for I had no idea whether or not an added 230 pounds could have tipped the precarious balance toward further bank collapse.  I stood back and gingerly peered over the edge for a quick look, then tempted fate no longer and moved back toward the forest.  The bank held…as I knew it would.

 

Confluence of the Spoon and Illinois rivers

 

        Finally at the point where the Spoon River joins the Illinois River, I found a comfortable place to sit beneath a large cottonwood tree (with no dead branches above) that leaned backward at about the same angle as my backyard furniture.  At this point on my Spoon River hikes, I usually make a few notes, read, or even take a nap (ten years before, I wrote my wedding vows in the same location). The wind continued to blow as hard as ever, but I felt safe under this particular tree; it had withstood worse winds and maybe even tornados during its many decades of life.  And then I was hit!  Not by a branch, but by a load of excrement dropped from a white-breasted nuthatch high above; it landed directly on the page where I was writing in my journal.  Naturally, my first thought—well, maybe my second thought— after this highly improbable event was:  what were the chances of a bird letting loose with a salvo at the precise moment when I would be in the proper place with my open journal in the path for a direct hit?  I had no idea of the answer, but I certainly hoped that the probability for such an event occurring would be orders of magnitude higher than any particular tree along the trail falling at a highly inconvenient moment. 

        I fully admit that I looked around a bit more at the swaying trees on the way back, glad that I chose to stay away from the very edge of the river bank, and a little less sure of myself than on the way out.

Another Old Oak Done Gone

          After only a few years standing dead, the hackberry tree finally fell, blocking the driveway to our cabin on the Illinois River bluffs.  So I hired Big Jim’s Tree Service to remove the snag and, while he was at it, an old dead black oak that would surely be the next to fall over the driveway.  After Big Jim finished, I counted the tree rings on the stump and was astonished to find the 23-inch diameter tree around 200 years old.  This knowledge caused me to step back and pause.

 

Black oak stump at the cabin, November 11, 2015

 

          At that moment, I became overwhelmed by the amount of history and change that had taken place since the tree was a seedling; it was almost too much to contemplate.  But at once, I thought of the Lewis and Clark expedition up and back down the Missouri River from 1804 to 1806, the 1809 birth of Abraham Lincoln in Kentucky, the War of 1812, Illinois becoming a state in 1818, undisturbed sand prairie and savanna communities dominating the central Illinois landscape where I now reside, and our cabin built in 1950 as a summer weekend getaway.  And I thought about the advance of science and technology since that time.  Later I would sit typing at my computer—the world, through the Internet, at my fingertips—a cell phone on my hip, and recall watching a high-flying jet airplane streaking across the Illinois skies, barely visible thousands of feet overhead.  In 1815, most travel was still at the pace of a slow-moving beast of burden, the wind, or a gently flowing river.  At that time, the steamboat was cutting-edge technology.  And for the last 70 years, we’ve tapped into the power of the atom, the ultimate consequences of which may be to our peril.

          Of course, the list goes on.  And I am by far not the first to contemplate such things.  In fact, Aldo Leopold covered this ground very well in Sand County Almanac (1949) in a chapter called “Good Oak,” in which he describes his saw cutting through the growth rings of a dead oak, recounting history along with each cut.

          In recent years, I’ve noticed the death of quite a few old oaks, each at least 200 years old by my estimates.  Oaks, though, are really not long-lived trees, compared, for example, with California’s redwoods; a typical oak life span might be measured only in the hundreds of years at most, it seems, before disease, insect damage, heart rot, wind, drought, or fire take their tolls.  One suggestion I’ve heard is that recent drought years, such as occurred in 2012, were too severe for some of the oldest oaks.  Perhaps.  But these same old oaks, at the very least, survived the drought decade of the 1930s and the very severe drought of 1988.  The ultimate cause must be something else, or a combination of factors including drought.

 

This white oak (the "Gudgel Oak") near Athens, Illinois

began life in the 1750s.  The photo was taken in January

2014.  The tree has since died.

 

          It seems strange and unfortunate, though, to have more than a few old oaks dying within the space of a decade, as far as my recollections are accurate.  This is especially so because oak trees seem to be having a difficult time reproducing under current ecological conditions.  In the landscape where our oak got its start, fires regularly moved across the prairies and into the adjacent woodlands, keeping them open, letting in the abundant sunlight that is necessary for oak seedlings eventually to make it into the canopy.  Our oak, in fact, has a fire scar deep within its heartwood, a tell-tale sign of a different world.  Most of our modern Illinois forests, with fire long removed as an abiotic influence, have thick understories and closed canopies, where whatever acorns manage to germinate in the dim light never make it even to the sapling stage.  But while showing my wife the narrow growth rings on our old oak’s stump, we discovered a black oak seedling several feet away.  We will be closely keeping track of this small tree over the next several decades, and make sure that it survives.

 

A recently dead ancient oak at T. Stubblefield Grove

Nature Preserve in McLean County.  Sugar maples,

not oaks, will eventually fill in the canopy gap.

 

*  *  *

One day before too long, I plan to cut up at least part of our fallen oak, so that it can be used to heat our cabin.  We’ll then work its ashes into the soil of our vegetable garden.  And eventually all of its elements will be incorporated into something else and all of its stored energy from two centuries will dissipate, as entropy inevitably increases.  It’s the law, after all.

 

[Note  1.  A story from the State Journal Register about the recent death of a 400-year-old white oak tree at Carpenter Park Nature Preserve in Springfield, Illinois, can be found by clicking on this link.]

[Note 2.  Chapter 23 of my book Side Channels is called “Eulogy for an Oak.”  It is about a white oak tree along one of my favorite hiking trails in the Cook County Forest Preserves near Chicago.  To download a pdf file of chapter 23, click on Download Eulogy for an Oak-Chapter 23.]

For more information on Side Channels, please click on my Amazon Author page. 

Woody Vegetation Regrowth Following Fire

          The vegetation assemblage that I call "Sand Hill Savanna" is about an acre and a half of tallgrass prairie vegetation (a variety of forbs, otherwise known as wildflowers, and grasses) and scattered trees, mostly oaks and hickories, located near my home on the west half of the property, near Havana, Illinois.  I planted the first small patch of prairie about fifteen years ago, enlarging it to its present size about eight years ago, while occasionally adding species as opportunities arose.  Fire is the main tool used to maintain the prairie and keep the always encroaching woody vegetation in check.  It is well known that given Illinois' overall climate, without fire, prairie can rapidly be overtaken by trees and shrubs (White 2001; Taft, Anderson, and Iverson 2009; Betz 2011).

          Even with periodic fires burning off all of the above-ground grasses and forbs and top-killing small trees and shrubs, everything resprouts again from root systems the following year.  This process of trees and shrubs resprouting from the intact root systems that are undamaged by fires is normal and, in fact, has long been noted, as ecologist John White illustrated when quoting from an 1836 guidebook for immigrants to Illinois (White 2001):

 

"When the fires are stopped, these barrens produce timber...Dwarfish shrubs and small trees of oak and hickory are scattered over the surface, where for years they have contended with the fires for a precarious existence, while a mass of roots, sufficient for the support of large trees, have accumulated in the earth.  As soon as they are protected from the ravages of the annual fires, the more thrifty sprouts shoot forth...." 

 

          This process has drawn my special attention because it brings the human influence into the equation, not just on my prairie-savanna restoration, but within the context of the grassland ecosystem that once covered millions of acres in North American for thousands of years.  That is because this ecosystem was maintained by fire caused by either lightning strikes or purposely set by the Native Americans.

          Just how important were these fires in keeping trees and shrubs from overtaking the prairie is illustrated by how rapidly and easily the top-killed woody plants resprout after a fire.  To see this effect, I photographed selected woody plants on my prairie-savanna as the resprouts first appeared in spring, following a fire the previous fall, and then later in the growing season when regrowth had mostly reached the final state for the season. 

          The following photographs show the same plants on April 21, 2015 and August 8, 2015 (click on each photograph to enlarge). 

 

Figure 1.  Black oak, April 21, 2015.

 

 

Figure 2.  Black oak, August 21, 2015. 

 

Figure 3.  Black walnut, April 21, 2015.

 

Figure 4.  Black walnut, August 8, 2015.

 

Figure 5.  Hazelnut, April 21, 2015.

 

Figure 6.  Hazelnut, August 8, 2015.

 

Figure 7.  Pignut hickory, April 21, 2015.

 

Figure 8.  Pignut hickory, August 8, 2015.

 

Figure 9.  Smooth sumac, April 21, 2015.

 

Figure 10.  Smooth sumac, August 8, 2015.

 

Figure 11.  American elm, April 21, 2015.

 

Figure 12.  American elm, August 8, 2015.  Of all the species illustrated above, elm is the most sensitive to fire.  While elm trees can be found in a variety of habitats, historically, elms, tolerant of flooding, were most common on floodplains or other moist environments (Adams and Anderson 1980), where landscape-scale fires were probably rare events.

 

          Sand Hill Savanna is small and surrounded by woods that support several aggressive species (non-native black locust, Siberian elm, white mulberry, and bush honeysuckle; native sassafras and black walnut) that would be problematic in any case even if it were not for the high perimeter-to-area ratio that ensures the savanna is easily invaded from the outside.  It is clear that with any relaxation on my part, as far as controlled fires, the prairie vegetation would soon lose out to woody invasion.  This illustrates one of the challenges involved in maintaining or restoring prairie and savanna habitats in Illinois. 

 

Selected References

Adams, D.E. and Anderson, R.C.  1980.  Species responses to a moisture gradient in central Illinois forests.  American Journal of Botany  67(3):  381-392.

Betz, Robert F.  2011.  The prairie of the Illinois Country. DPM Ink, Westmont, Illinois. 

Taft, J.B., R.C. Anderson, and L.R. Iverson.  2009.  Vegetation ecology and change in terrestrial ecosystems.  Pages 35-72 in C.A. Taylor, J.B. Taft, and C. E. Warwick, editors.  Canaries in the catbird seat:  the past, present, and future of biological resources in a changing environment.  Illinois Natural History Survey Special Publication 30.  Champaign, Illinois. 

White, J.  2001.  A survey of native vegetation in the Big Rivers Blufflands of Calhoun, Greene, and Jersey counties with recommendations for protection, restoration, and management.  Report to the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.  Ecological Services, Urbana, Illinois.

 

Note:  Additional background on Sand Hill Savanna can be found by following this link and this link.

    

The Call of the Frog: A Search for Illinois Chorus Frogs

“Oh the night life, ain’t no good life, but it’s my life.” – Willie Nelson

           It was nearing midnight, and I was standing alone on the edge of a remote Mason County road intently listening.  The mid-April night was so quiet that I could hear barking dogs miles away and the slight breezes passing through newly leafed-out trees.  But I tried to filter out all other sounds in order to focus on the breeding calls of the rare Illinois chorus frog, of which I heard none.

Illinois Chorus Frog (Photo credit:  Missouri Department of Conservation)

          So after the required five minutes of listening, I jumped into my Chevy Trail Blazer and dashed to the next stop on my 65-mile chorus frog survey route.  When I arrived and shut down my vehicle lights, I became engulfed in the pure darkness of a moonless sky.  From where I stood, I could see lights from several home sites miles away and the blinking lights from an airplane; but otherwise I stared into clear skies that opened to the universe.  By starlight I again listened for the high-pitched, squeaky-wheel-sounding Illinois chorus frog.  And heard nothing for five minutes.  Not even a barred owl, which I did hear earlier in the evening just after sunset.  And certainly no frogs, which did not surprise me since the area I was sampling, chosen at random, held no standing water.  Without water I have learned not to expect frogs.  So I proceeded on, quite a bit less energetically than the first stop of the night, 13 miles to the Illinois River bluffs and the final square-mile section of the survey route.

          At well past midnight, far from any town, I was the only car on the road.  I fought to stay alert and ready to avert the occasional white-tailed deer, raccoon, or rabbit that might dart in front of my vehicle at the last second.  Driving the back roads at night required a constant awareness of where I happened to be at any given moment.  Once disoriented, precious time could be lost finding my way again.  So I paid close attention to the trip meter, county road map, key intersections, and whatever landmarks I could make out in the darkness.

          After finishing the last of the survey stops, I had still not heard any Illinois chorus frogs.  I knew, however, that my survey run was not wasted effort.  This was only the first year in a ten-year survey conducted by the Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR), and my sample route was one of nine being conducted by other IDNR staff in southern and central Illinois, from Alexander County on the south to Tazewell County on the north.  My data would feed into the larger analyses conducted by the IDNR.  In addition, because the Illinois chorus frog is state-threatened (if populations fall, it could become state-endangered or even extirpated), any information on its abundance, distribution, and behavior is valuable.

          Gaining insight into the habitat needs of such a secretive species, I’m sure, has not been easy.  Because except for the brief spring breeding season, the Illinois chorus frog spends all it its life buried underground, where it survives on small invertebrates.  Its forelegs are highly adapted for digging in pure sand, which is why it is only found in areas with open sand, in only 10 of Illinois’ 102 counties; the Mason County sand area, about 25 miles northwest of Springfield, with wind-blown sand dunes, native sand prairie, and ephemeral wetlands (lacking fish that prey upon tadpoles), is of special importance to the Illinois chorus frog.

 Sand Lake, Mason County, in 1993, along Route 97

           As it turned out, I did finally hear Illinois chorus frogs during the second run of my midnight frog surveys a few days later; on this second run, though, I heard Illinois chorus frogs at only two listening stops:  a good number calling at the nearly dry Sand Lake, just south of Havana, and one calling frog at a listening stop near the Illinois River.  But calling whip-poor-wills at several stops—sometimes western chorus frogs, gray tree frogs, and American toads—made up for the lack of the missing target species.

           Following my last stop at one o’clock in the morning, with a slight tension behind the eyes, I wearily headed for home.  Staying up late is not as easy as it was decades ago.  I was not meant for the night life, and I expected my biorhythms to be out of kilter for days.  But I eagerly looked forward to next year’s survey, and the next eight years after that.  Being part of something larger makes it all worth the effort.  So the night life can, indeed, be a good life.

[The Illinois Department of Natural Resources published an expanded version of this essay (@ORC Issue #40), with graphics, side bars, and more photographs.  It is available as a download by clicking Download @ORC Issue #40 Lerczak ICF Article.]

The Acorn Year

By Thomas V. Lerczak

    The day I moved into the first house I ever owned in rural central Illinois, I planted a few bur oak acorns and three small seedlings.  Much of the 3.7-acre property was mowed lawn.  But there were some woods around the edges and several large trees, including the biggest, most massive hickory I had ever seen.  I arrived with my final few possessions in the back of my car and the bur oaks.  I remember a new feeling of satisfaction at owning my own home and land, the fulfillment, I believe, of a natural human desire.

    Immediately, though, I saw the need for brushy vegetation around the property’s boundaries; for I could see without obstruction to the neighbor’s house across the road.  If that was what I had wanted, I never would have left the Chicago area many years before.  So I planted the acorns and seedlings, collected from near my former rental house on the Illinois River bluffs, toward the front edge of the property.  With each year, they grew almost imperceptibly in height and width, struggling in the sandy, nutrient- and water-poor soils.  But after seven years, they had far exceeded my height; and one of the oaks, originally planted as a seedling, even provided a fine photo backdrop on my wedding day.  

    The bur oaks, in fact, have become a benchmark in time, never failing to bring me back to that first day when I became a landowner at age forty-two:  from a renter, subject to the rules of others, to the owner and decision maker.  I recall standing beneath the big hickory, thinking that it was likely to have been a contemporary of Lincoln, and now it was my tree.  And it did not escape from me that I was privileged to live in a nation of freedom, where anyone could own their land and home if they chose to do so and work hard toward achieving that goal.  At that moment I finally understood and felt in sympathy with the emotion behind private property rights and the right to live my life as I saw fit.

 

***

    On about one acre surrounding the oaks I have set up conditions for a competition of sorts.  It is not a commercial or sporting event, but rather, may be viewed as a natural interplay between one particular assemblage of plants (prairie) and another (forest).   A few years after planting the oaks, following a time of “letting nature take its course,” I cleared most of the area, leaving only a few oaks, hickories, and red cedars; then I burned off the area and scattered thousands of seeds from a variety of native prairie wildflowers (forbs) and grasses, along with nuts from black oaks and American hazelnut shrubs.  With germination, the competition began.

    As the vegetation has grown, the habitat has become more diversified.  So where once the buzz cut land appealed to few bird species, it increasingly has provided a more complex structure, and more species find what they need to survive.  Robins, for example, still prefer the mowed lawn around the house for foraging, but large saplings now provide a proper structure for nesting.  The taller prairie grasses and low shrubs appeal to nesting field sparrows and song sparrows.   Foraging lark sparrows use the bare sand between bunches of little bluestem grass and sand love grass.  And red cedars, growing from seed that I had haphazardly thrown in the air years before, contribute structural diversity to the habitat, with at least one suitable for a brown thrasher’s nest.  Gray catbirds, northern mockingbirds, indigo buntings, bobwhite quail, and eastern towhees all find the shrubby landscape more appealing for nesting habitat than its crew-cut past.  There are more birds around over the winter too; my record keeping shows that the number of species observed each year is on an upward trend.  In addition to the birds, I have been astounded by the different types of bees and butterflies drawn to the prairie wildflowers, with different species blooming at different periods throughout the growing season, following a natural cycle. 

    The lesson of diversity is clear and needs little elaboration on my part.  Still I know that at first glance, many would continue to think I have simply let the property go.  The former owners once asked if they could dig up and remove some of the flower bulbs they had left behind, concluding that I "didn’t care for flowers."  One neighbor from far down the road once belligerently asked, “Hey! When are you going to cut your grass?”  I simply answered that it was not in the management plan.  I had no idea where to begin to offer a real explanation.  My newlywed wife initially smiled politely as I proudly showed her around the property.  She, knowing me quite well, needed no explanation.  Since then, with an artist’s and Master Gardener’s touch, she has taught me how to maintain a neater, more orderly appearance immediately around our house, while at the same time not diminishing the wildlife values elsewhere.  She maintains, however, that it is a work in progress.  And the sand prairie and savanna, shrub thickets, and woods along the property boundaries continue to reflect a certain natural randomness, controlled by the laws of nature, where competition is a driving force; it is this aspect, in fact, that I find most appealing.

    If I did nothing at all but watch the plants grow, given the present Illinois climate, without a doubt, forest would win the competition over prairie; because for the longest time, perhaps thousands of years, temperature and precipitation cycles in Illinois have strongly tipped the environmental “balance,” for want of a better term, in favor of forest, even on rather dry, nutrient-poor, sandy soils.  To push the balance on my land in the direction toward prairie, I have used fire as a tool.  And once prairie grasses became established, fires have burned more intensely, further pushing the community toward prairie.   The controlled fires burn off all of the prairie plants above ground, and tree saplings that are always encroaching are top killed.  Although during the following growing seasons, all will re-sprout, I am confident that repeated fires over many years will greatly discourage the trees, which have to expend much of their stored energy reserves from the previous year to completely regrow from their undamaged root systems.  The more fire-tolerant oaks and hickories, especially the larger, more established individuals, usually survive the fires little worse off for the experience.    

    This mixture of prairie and forest plants has thus taken on the characteristics of a vegetational tension zone, sometimes called a “savanna,” that is capable of wavering back and forth, albeit over a period of years, toward either of the two main plant communities.  An increase in fire and drought should result in the prairie assemblage thriving at the expense of tree cover; more reliable precipitation and cooler conditions with less fire may give trees an edge and allow them to encroach more successfully upon the prairie.  In the old Illinois landscape, before the Europeans arrived, this was the natural dynamic equilibrium, and this is what I am trying to re-create on my little plot of ground.

    On a much larger scale, topography and soils also once played more important roles on the Illinois landscape.  In areas with mature stream systems and rougher topography, fires moved less easily across the land.  The result was that, in general, flat table lands and the gently rolling lands of central Illinois, once covered by ice age glaciers thousands of years ago, supported prairie, while river valleys and complex ravine and bluff systems supported forest.  Savanna then existed between true forest and prairie in a complex shifting mosaic shaped by climatic conditions, which, over the long term, also changed and continue to change.  In 1820, the benchmark year that ecologists use to separate pre-European-settlement times from modern, just over half of Illinois was prairie, while much of the rest was wooded, although it is unclear exactly how much of this was savanna and how much was true forest.

    If it was just a matter of planting the appropriate species and setting fires frequently, restoring an Illinois savanna might be rather straightforward.  But today, we must contend with a variety of plants not native to Illinois and some not even native to the Western Hemisphere.  On my land, the most competitive non-native trees are white mulberry, black locust, and Siberian elm, which surround the partially restored savanna.  Native black walnut, sassafras, and hackberry trees, though, can be just as invasive.  With any relaxation in the controlled fire regime on my part, these trees will immediately begin taking over.  In fact, even with frequent fire, it has continually become necessary for me to cut seedlings and saplings by hand and apply a strong herbicide to the cut stumps to prevent vigorous re-sprouting.  So even with all of the cutting, herbicide, and fire, the prairie-savanna is only just about able to hold its own.

    So one may ask some legitimate questions: With all of this manipulation, is what I have created natural or are my efforts just a different kind of backyard gardening and not really anything natural at all?  Am I kidding myself by naming what I have planted, and fight to maintain, a “savanna”?  If it was natural when I left the property to its own devices, have my manipulations made it less natural?  I put the plants there, true; but I did not, of course, create the plants.  Each one survives as an individual just as individuals of each species have always done, surviving or dying according to chance circumstances; but each also exists as a member of a plant community, where survival is moderated by some of the same types of interactions with other individuals and external influences as there always have been.  Native Americans purposely set fires to manipulate the landscape, and no one called that unnatural; instead, many like to say, whether true or not, that they lived in harmony with nature.  Cannot I engage in a similar activity with the addition of a few newer tools?  What really is natural or unnatural after all?  How much of these labels are really only in our own minds as we try to categorize and understand our world?  As I saunter along the trails through this work-in-progress prairie-savanna restoration, I am at no loss for unanswered questions.

 

***

    As a child, when others were more interested in baseball or basketball, I was drawn to the far boundaries of our local city park in Chicago, a narrow strip of woods left alone by the park staff that served as a buffer between the park and railroad yard beyond.  These woods and other vegetation grew according to no one’s mandates.  And something about that notion fascinated me.  Perhaps it appealed to the natural rebelliousness of youth that I was starting to feel:  a clean-cut lawn was tame and under control; the woods were wild.  Later in life, I would seek out wilderness areas throughout the country, from Maine to Washington, Arizona, and the Midwest, for places that I imagined were little touched by human hands.  I found value in the idea that very specific types of plants and animals could somehow come together on their own, in a recognizable way, so that someone someday could define that assemblage, or community, and give it a name.  Tallgrass prairie, floodplain forest, bur oak savanna, oak-hickory forest, and marsh are examples of such natural communities in Illinois.

    Coming upon a remnant natural community is like finding gold.  About thirty-five miles northeast of my home, there is a small prairie on the Illinois River bluffs in the village of Creve Coeur.  This prairie is only about a half-acre or so and surrounded by dense upland oak-hickory forests, but studies have indicated that it is a true remnant of the original Illinois prairies.  No one planted the Creve Coeur prairie; it has been there a long time; in fact, perhaps thousands of years, reaching backward in time to when prairie was at its maximum extent in Illinois.  When I gaze upon something so old with so much history, I feel like an insignificant upstart.

    The Creve Coeur prairie will endure because others have placed a value in protecting these types of natural communities.  In fact, it is protected “in perpetuity” within the boundaries of the Crevecoeur Nature Preserve as part of the Illinois Nature Preserves System, codified by state law in the Natural Areas Preservation Act of 1963.  The System currently contains 372 dedicated Illinois Nature Preserves totaling 56,631 acres within a state of 36 million acres.  It is a repository of a small portion of Illinois’ original biological diversity, representing a time when all of the natural communities were thought to be fully functioning and when no species were threatened with extinction – if that concept even occurred to anyone in the early 1800s.  These are special places, indeed, more than just being un-manicured landscapes.  The roots of their appeal to me can be traced back to those childhood days in Chicago.  And while knowing this has helped in understanding where my current perspectives and obsessions had originated, it does little to address the old and new questions that continue to occupy my thoughts as I walk through my own prairie-savanna restoration.  In the end, though, perhaps the answers are not really very important.

 

***

    Occasionally I imagine myself as an old man in his late eighties, sometimes visiting the natural areas he helped maintain over the years and daily passing the bur oaks he once planted years before, knowing the personal history of each tree as friends on the landscape.  Daily walks are a tradition that I began with planting the prairie-savanna, when I also laid out the trail system to the four corners of my land.  Within a shaded, wooded area, I placed a bench, which has given me a final destination before heading back to the house.  It is a place where I have grown accustomed to quietly sitting and observing, a place especially for contemplating meanings and connections; it is where I sometimes imagine the multiple generations that have let the big hickory tree grow, and how many more might continue this tradition and perhaps add the bur oaks and prairie-savanna to their sphere of protection…long after I am gone.

    But I take no comfort in thinking about a time when I may no longer exist.  Such thoughts rarely have entered my sometimes self-indulgent mind.  It is only in the last several years, as I have shockingly come to realize that I have more years behind than may be ahead, that I have given much energy toward thoughts of inescapable mortality.  Indeed, I’m at an age when contemplating the span of my own life is actually possible in an understandable way.  And the years seem to be passing faster than when I was young:  an hour is still an hour; a day is still twenty-four hours; and yet, when in the context of over fifty years of memories, time seems shorter.  It’s true, as singer-songwriter John Prine once sang, that “the years flow by like a broken down dam.”

    Once while at the bench, a black-capped chick-a-dee called from a craggy mulberry tree.  I recalled that a chick-a-dee certainly has a fleeting life, a few years at most.  How many generations of chick-a-dees, I wondered, have there been during my life time?  They are a successful species, and they get along well with backyard habitats; so I think there will always be chick-a-dees near my home.  And what of the other bird species as short-lived as the chick-a-dees?  In five to ten years I may see an entirely new set of individuals flying among the prairie and woods.  Yet as long as each particular species survives, the bird community will provide continuity into the future.  The same chirps and songs that surround me today, someone else will hear as well a thousand years from now, just as they were heard a thousand years ago.  I find such thoughts are a way of reaching across time, touching the past and future simultaneously.

    On the way to the bench, there are many sapling hickories struggling each year in the hot sun and soil, sometimes having to completely regrow from the occasional fire.  But it is my desire that at least one of these will carry on after the patriarch tree eventually dies and then falls, for nothing lives forever.  As for the bur oaks that I planted, they have had enough to contend with merely surviving certain recent years with extreme drought and heat; acorn production I had not expected for many years.  And so, because I am usually focused on newly emergent spring wildflowers and migrating birds, I completely missed during a recent spring when two of the bur oaks, both around twenty feet tall, had briefly flowered. 

    Later in the same year, as I slowly made my way to the bench, I was stopped cold by a large, shaggy-capped bur oak acorn lying in my path.  Soon I found several more.  Two I quickly planted within the sand prairie far from any other trees; two I planted in pots to nurture them to the seedling stage every step of the way; the rest I left for wildlife or whatever fate chance might dictate.

 

Bur oak acorns and leaves

 

    Now I know for certain that there will eventually be more bur oaks on the land than I originally planted, and one day I may even have to limit their numbers, lest they begin shading out the prairie vegetation.  Perhaps one day folks will refer to this property as “that old farmhouse with the prairie and all those big bur oaks.”   But I guess it is just as likely that the mowed lawn will return with the next owners.  I’ll never know, of course, but it surely will be their decision.

 

Selected References

Taylor, Christopher A., John. B. Taft, and Charles Warwick (editors).  Canaries in the Catbird Seat - the Past, Present, and Future of Biological Resources in a Changing Environment.  Illinois Natural History Survey Special Publication 30.  Champaign:  Illinois Natural History Survey, 2009.

McFall, Don. and Jean Karnes (editors).  A Directory of Illinois Nature Preserves, Volume 2.  Springfield:  Illinois Department of Natural Resources, 1995.

 

 [This essay was originally published in Big Muddy:  A Journal of the Mississippi River Valley, 2015, Volume 14.2, pages 18-25.] 

 

Download a pdf file of The Acorn Year by clicking Download The Acorn Year.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bald Eagle Takes Down a Canada Goose in Flight

January 17, 2015

    At mid-winter, the surfaces of both the north and south pools of Chautauqua National Wildlife Refuge, in Mason County, Illinois, have been nearly all frozen for quite some time.  As a consequence, waterfowl numbers have been low, except for small groups of mallards, Canada geese, and greater white-fronted geese.  So on the morning of January 17, 2015, appreciating the recent above-freezing temperatures and light breezes, I patiently sat at one of the observation decks along the Chautauqua Nature Trail, near the refuge headquarters, to see what else might show up.

    Soon, two large birds, rapidly flying just a few feet above the ice, caught my attention.  My first thought was that both were Canada geese.  But after bringing up my binoculars for a closer look I saw that one bird was, indeed, a Canada goose; the other bird not far behind, however, was an adult bald eagle, and it was in pursuit of the goose.

    The eagle, though, quickly closed the gap and then passed in front of the goose.  I thought this was strange, because it looked as if both birds were actually racing toward some common destination.  And then in a flash, faster than I could detail the movements, the eagle attacked the goose with its talons and caused it to abruptly crash down hard onto the icy lake’s surface.  The goose seemed momentarily dazed, like a fighter after being hit with a clean knockout punch.  The eagle wasted no time, and quickly landed on the ice; now, with both birds standing, facing each other with outstretched wings, the eagle attacked again and again.  But the goose held fast and fought off the eagle’s advances.  At this point, the eagle must have sensed that it no longer held a significant advantage over the goose:  it took flight and hastily left the scene. 

    Now the goose stood alone on the ice.  I trained my spotting scope on the bird and saw that it stood on one leg, its other leg gingerly held above the ground.  As it attempted to walk, it limped.  So the goose was clearly wounded, perhaps from its hard fall.  When I left, about fifteen minutes later, the goose still stood on its one good leg.  The eagle did not return, but I had little doubt that it was watching not far away.

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    To read more stories about birding along the Illinois River, please see my book, Side Channels:  A Collection of Nature Writing and Memoir, available at selected locations and from Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.

 

Taking it Like a Plant

[Note:  This essay originally appeared in the Pekin Daily Times online in July 2012.]

Yesterday (July 13, 2012,) we finally had rain for the first time in a long while.  I know this because when I returned home from work, the bird bath, which had been dry, contained a small puddle of water.  It wasn’t much rain, but maybe it provided some relief for struggling plants.

Not only have plants suffered from lack of water, but this year Japanese beetles have been more numerous.  And Japanese beetles feed on flowers, fruits, and leaves.  This year, more than ever, I noticed the many brown, skeletonized leaf remnants left behind after the beetles had eaten off all the green. 

The plants have no options, though.  Unlike animals, which can flee to better circumstances, a plant must stay and take whatever abuses the environment can offer.  And that might include lack of water, lack of nutrients, flood, fire, disease, being eaten, wind damage, lightning, freezing rain, and heavy snow.  If it is ill-adapted, at the very least it will fall behind in the competition for resources with other plants that are better adapted.  In the worst case, the plant will die.

Around my home the Japanese beetles seem to prefer sassafras, linden, grape vines, and non-native Siberian elms more than other species.  So this year, while all of the plants have had a setback because of the drought, these species will be further stressed.

Early in the fall, I will set my woods and prairie on fire to help restore the native plant communities.  This will further stress the Siberian elms and sassafras, which have been encroaching upon the prairie.  The native oak and hickory trees, which are well adapted to fire and drought, have been left alone by the beetles; and so these species will be given a slight advantage.  The oaks and hickories are a natural part of the prairie and savanna communities that I am trying to restore.

I find these types of interactions endlessly fascinating, especially when unanticipated circumstances arise.  But when lightning next strikes, I’ll take it like a man…and seek shelter.    

Postscript:  While re-reading this essay, I had somewhat forgotten about last year’s extreme drought and hot summer temperatures.  For comparison, this year in central Illinois, we have had abundant spring and early summer rains, so much so that the Illinois River experienced a record high flood in April.  Japanese beetles have been scarce; temperatures have been rather cool for summer; and even though we’re now in the regular summer drought period, vegetation growth has been very healthy, almost lush.  Unfortunately for my prairie restoration, a year such as this will allow additional tree encroachment onto the prairie, which I may have to compensate for by having another fall fire.  Or I may not, just to see what happens....

The prairie at home on August 11, 2013

Swallows in an Ice Age Legacy

Traveling through a remote part of Cass County in June 2012, I was looking for an access road or pathway to an even more remote natural area, when I noticed a large expanse of bare earth seemingly carved out of the bluff side.  I knew by its yellowish-brown color and the near vertical steepness of the cut that this was pure loess.

Loess is a windblown soil that was originally deposited in ancient river valleys during the last Ice Age, over 12,000 years ago; during dry periods, extremely high winds blew the fine dust-like sediments onto the surrounding uplands.  The loess accumulated over long periods of time, perhaps only a few feet per 1,000 years.  Even so, in parts of Illinois, loess deposits can be greater than 100 feet thick.

What I saw in Cass County was an exposure from such a deposit.  Even more interesting, though, were the bank swallows that had burrowed nesting holes into the vertical loess exposure.  Loess has special properties that allow it to maintain its shape and stability, even on a vertical cut, which looks like a sheer rock cliff.  I remembered this cut and the same bank swallow colony from over 20 years ago; so multiple generations of swallows have fledged from this artificial feature in the landscape.  And even though I have not been to the site this year, I know they are there again.

Bank swallow colony in loess exposure, Cass Co., Il

I wrote about a bank swallow colony in my book Side Channels in a chapter called “Wings Over the River”:

“Even though large [bank swallow] colonies have many disadvantages to birds, and they can actually attract the attention of predators, colonies are highly effective at predator detection – and defense in some cases (mobbing the predator).  While walking along Salt Creek in Logan County one spring, I noticed a bank swallow colony just below the steep drop off of the creek bank.  When I was directly above the burrows, the swallows formed themselves into a great whirling cloud that circled directly overhead, with each bird vociferously calling…A large bank swallow colony is a chaotic affair much like a schoolyard full of highly energetic children during recess on the first warm, sunny spring day.” 

It was quite an interesting experience.

The colony in Cass County, south of Bluff Springs, is on private land, but it is easy to see from the roadside, about a half-mile north of the intersection of county roads 400N and 1300E.   Binoculars would be a good idea.

[NOTE:  An earlier version of this essay appeared in the Pekin Daily Times online in 2012.] 

Look Closely at the Mulberry Tree

The mulberry tree is one of the more common trees on our landscape.  It can be found in rural areas along shelterbelts and forests, as well as in urban environments.  It thrives in dry areas as well as moist bottomlands.

The latter part of spring and early summer are the best times to look closely at mulberry trees because this is when the berries are available.  And the berries attract birds.

Cedar waxwings are one of the many species that eat mulberry fruits.  But waxwings are rather shy, and I would guess that most people who have never noticed birds in general have never seen or even heard of waxwings.  That is a shame, because cedar waxwings are strikingly beautiful; their plumage looks almost as if it were carefully painted by a skilled artisan who knew the power of subtlety.

They tend to travel in small groups, and when the mulberry trees bear their fruit, the waxwings are so preoccupied with feeding they hardly seem to notice a nearby observer.  Seeing a cedar waxwing up close is a real treat, even for seasoned birders.

Another reason for taking a careful look at mulberries is that there are actually two closely related, similar species in Illinois:  red mulberry and white mulberry.  The white is the overwhelmingly more common, hardy, adaptable, and aggressive of the two.  And so, it may be found nearly everywhere, but especially in shrubby areas, young forests, and disturbed areas, out-competing nearly every neighboring plant for space, light, water, and nutrients.

Such characteristics are typical of alien species.  And, in fact, white mulberry is native to Asia, but not North America.  It belongs to that group of species referred to as non-native and invasive. Botanists, ecologists, and master gardeners intensely dislike the tree. 

White mulberry, though, is a favorite of birds.  And in their droppings, they help spread it across the land.  Of course, they also like the red mulberry…when they can find one.

[NOTE:  This essay originally appeared in the Pekin Daily Times online edition in 2012.]

Prickly Pear Cactus – a Link to Illinois’ Past

[Note: This post originally appeared in June 2012 at the Pekin Daily Times online.]

          While growing up in the Chicago area in the 1960s, I had thought that just about everything in the landscape around me was a product of our modern civilization.  The houses, streets, bridges, and railroad tracks were obviously built; and, of course, the lawns, flower gardens, and neighborhood trees were planted.  Nothing was wild, as far as I could see.  As a child, I even assumed that the sandy beaches of Lake Michigan had been hauled there by the truckload when the city was built.

          But I also learned—maybe as early as the 2^nd grade, on a field trip to the Little Red School House Nature Center—that much of Illinois had once been covered by a type of grassland called “prairie.”  Yet I thought that the prairie had been gone for so long that it may as well not have even existed.  The nature center had a small prairie as a demonstration, but it could not convey the idea of grasslands stretching to the horizon.  I saw the “country” a few times in my young life, and it was all farmland, and had been so for generations.

          Such thoughts were coursing through my mind recently as I drove home one day through the sand hill region of Mason County and noticed the blooming prickly pear cactus along the roadsides.

          Now, cactus is not normally what most folks would associate with Illinois.  But eastern prickly pear occurs in about half of Illinois’ counties.  Many residents of rural Mason County are very familiar with prickly pear cactus.  Few like it, though, as far as I can tell, judging by the frowns and disparaging words at the mere mention of the plant.  It doesn’t fit with a neatly mowed lawn, and its stiff spines will make a direct encounter quite painful; they can even flatten tires. 

          Prickly pear, however, does fit in with sand prairies, which were once very common in the western part of Mason County and several other places in Illinois.  And when I see it today, along the roadsides between Manito and Havana or in remnant sand prairies, which can still be found in a few places in Mason County, I think of it as a link to the original Illinois landscape that I once heard about as a child.

Sand Prairie-Scrub Oak Nature Preserve, Mason County

        I guess it really is amazing what kids will pick up and remember.

Cottonwood Trees and Floods

[NOTE:  This essay was originally published in the Pekin Daiy Times online in May 2012.]

Early last Sunday morning, I went to my cabin along the Illinois River bluffs for an early breakfast and to enjoy the cool breezes on the screened-in front porch.  The screens usually need cleaning every so often from filtering the winds of whatever light debris is aloft.  But on this day, the screens were exceptionally filthy.  And I knew why:  downy seeds from the eastern cottonwood.

May is the month when cottonwood trees release their seeds, which are distributed across the land by winds.  The seeds have the best chance for germinating when they fall on bare ground.  And the seedlings grow best under full sun, with no competing vegetation.  Because most of the land is already occupied by vegetation of one type of another, the chances of finding suitable bare ground would seem to be low.  But here is where the Illinois River plays a role.  

The Illinois River’s yearly flood cycle is more or less predictable in a general way, and cottonwoods have adapted to that cycle.  On average, its waters, over several weeks, gradually rise toward a high water level, or flood, sometime in mid-spring, according to previous records.  When the waters recede, bare ground may be left behind.  And if events are timed just right, that will be the same time that cottonwood seeds are falling.  The floodwaters can also carry waterborne seeds to other areas along the river’s floodplain.

An eastern cottonwood, in fact, is supremely adapted to having its base covered in floodwaters for extended periods.  While an upland tree such as black oak would never survive on the Illinois River’s floodplain, a cottonwood is quite at home, and forms a valuable component of the forests.

Cottonwood is a very fast-growing tree, but short lived; a cottonwood 60 feet in height might only be fifteen years old; and a specimen older than 125 years would be very unusual.  At such an age, the heartwood may likely be rotted with numerous hollows, but useful for shelter and nesting by a variety of wildlife.  In addition, the great heights attained, perhaps 100 feet, are attractive as nest trees and perches for bald eagles.  Resting eagles are a common winter sight in the tall cottonwoods at my cabin.

So with just a little thought, I am reminded there is more to having cottonwoods on my property than cleaning the porch screens.

A Lesson in the Wind

[NOTE:  This essay was written and originally published in the online Pekin Daily Times blog, A View of Nature in May 2012.]

As I stood on Quiver Lake’s shoreline, I thought that if I hadn’t already taken the morning off from work, I might not have pursued a canoe trip on such a day.  I could see there were whitecaps on the water, and winds were already blowing about 15 miles per hour out of the northwest.  Since I had wanted to float southward toward the lake’s connection with the Illinois River, I had to make a choice:  either fight the wind and current on the return trip, with possibly higher winds, or fight them now by heading north instead of south, with an easy float back later in the day.  I headed north.

As soon as I pushed off the sandy bank, the wind immediately began to turn the canoe around, trying to blow it to the south.  And so, I used all of my strength to turn it around back into the wind. 

That accomplished, the delicate balance began:  keeping the head of the canoe pointed into the wind while also paddling and using the paddle as a rudder, as long as there was enough forward momentum. As soon as I could feel the wind begin taking the canoe in the wrong direction, I would counter with a push in the opposite direction.  The situation demanded complete attention.  Any lapse in judgment, and the wind would gain the advantage, turning the canoe around, and blowing it back south.

As long as the wind is consistent in strength and direction, with attention focused on some distance object for reference, it is relatively easy to paddle against even a 15 mile per hour blow.  But if the wind gusts or changes direction, the delicate balance can be quickly lost.

For much of the length of Quiver Lake, I managed a slow forward progress.  But then the wind unpredictably shifted as I adjusted the forward tip of the canoe slightly to the left.  And it pushed the canoe further to the left than I had planned, even as I tried as hard as I could to bring it back.  Then the canoe itself began to act as a sail, and I had to finally accept the inevitable:  the wind would win no matter what I did.

A lesson was there, I was sure:  something about going against the grain, or fighting the elements, or rolling with the flow.  Or what about the song that said the wind held some kind of an answer?  I would figure it out later.

I accepted my fate of being blown into a flooded black willow and silver maple woodland, where I would find shade and sanctuary.  Above me, the winds played havoc with the tree canopies, but it was calm in the understory.  And so I ate my breakfast and relaxed, glad to have taken the northward track.

 

Birding the Flooded Forest

[Author’s Note:  The Illinois River recently experienced a record flood event (27.78 feet).  Last year about this same time, the river was also in flood, but at a much lower level, when this essay was written and originally published in the online Pekin Daily Times blog, A View of Nature.]

Last week as I drove north of Peoria to a business meeting, all of the Illinois River’s tributaries were running fast, high, and muddy.  The Illinois River had risen only slightly in recent days, but from what I was seeing, with so much water flowing in, it would soon be in flood.

When I returned from my meeting the next day, I wasted no time heading off to my cabin on Quiver Lake, a backwater connected to the Illinois River.  Soon I was sliding my canoe into the water and was on my way.  The river was either at or just below the official flood stage of 14 feet, with many of the lower lying areas under water.  I headed into the wind and slight current toward Chautauqua National Wildlife Refuge.

Bird life in the flooded forests was active and loud.  Since it was early May, I was hearing resident species as well as migrants.  The latter group included the strange yellow-billed cuckoo, which returns to nest in Illinois from as far south as Argentina.  On the lake waters were a few mallards, wood ducks, and double-crested cormorants.

At the refuge’s old washed-out levee, I beached the canoe and walked toward the river.  But I could only get to about 100 feet of its normal banks because of the flooding.  Here I saw many species or heard their songs; but especially noteworthy were the American redstart, prothonotary warbler, blackpoll warbler, magnolia warbler, Tennessee warbler, and northern waterthrush.  A Swainson’s thrush brought my gaze closer to ground level, and it was then that I saw movements of a very large fish near the water’s surface.

It was a grass carp at least two feet in length, and it was feeding on submerged vegetation, reminding me of a cow grazing in a grassy field.  Grass carp are from Asia; they were brought to North America as a way to control vegetation from taking over farm ponds and other man-made bodies of water. 

But, of course, just like the jumping silver carp from Asia, grass carp eventually escaped into the natural environment.  I was concerned about the silver carp, though, because they are well known to jump into boats and slam without warming into boaters and canoeists.  That has happened to me before, but, fortunately, not on this canoe trip.

It was smooth sailing back to the cabin, with both the wind and current on my back, and no jumping carp.  And so, my afternoon of bird and carp watching came to a close. 

The Best Waterfowl-Bald Eagle Viewing

Up until major freezing begins this fall, probably the best viewing of waterfowl and bald eagles in the Midwest is at Chautauqua National Wildlife Refuge in Mason County, Illinois.  The reason the viewing is so good is because of several factors.  First, the best viewing can be done from several easily accessible observation decks located along a short nature trail near the refuge headquarters.  These decks are far enough away from any roads so that traffic noise does not interfere with quiet listening, even of faint bird calls from far away.  This allows the observer to combine sounds with sight for a much more meaningful experience.

Secondly, the observation decks are in a remote, natural setting of forest, overlooking wetlands and open water, and they all offer a full open-sky view of the refuge; the two bluff-top decks give the best views.  This allows for excellent viewing of ducks in flight, from close-up to distant views, giving ample opportunities for comparing similar species in flight for subtle differences.  When the ducks fly past, it is not unusual to hear individual wing beats as well as contact calls.   Also, the decks face the northwest, so sun interference with viewing is usually minimal.

But it is the interaction between the various waterfowl species and bald eagles that really makes this site at this time of year special.  For an example of what one may experience at Chautauqua Refuge, in terms of eagle-waterfowl interactions, I am offering readers a free Download Of Chapter 7, “Timeless Scenes along the Illinois River,” from my book Side Channels:  A Collection of Nature Writing and Memoir.

I last visited Chautauqua Refuge on November 25, 2012, and the sightings were spectacular:   thousands upon thousands of individual waterfowl of at least 14 species and 20 to 30 bald eagles from first-year plumage to adult, all sighted within the first fifteen minutes.  Later I saw hundreds of snow geese and about 20 American white pelicans. 

My favorite sighting of the day, though, was watching a group of about 50 greater white-fronted geese slowly and methodically decreasing in altitude from a great height, gliding down a wide, spiraling flight path over the refuge’s open waters, and then gently landing alongside a large resting group of the same species.  The nearby eagles watched these intricate flight maneuvers with great interest, looking for a weakened or hurt individual no doubt.

*  *  *

Chautauqua Refuge is only 160 miles southwest of Chicago or 130 miles northeast of St.  Louis, Missouri.  In nearby Havana, there are two mom-and-pop-type motels (The Red Lion Motor Lodge, Sycamore Motor Lodge) and plenty of restaurants, including family style, fast food, fine food, and bar and grill.  Interested birders may wish to visit the refuge’s web site for more information.

Wanderlust

             For most of my adult life, I have had a steady feeling of wanting to be somewhere other than where I happened to be at the time.  As strange as it sounds, being unsettled was a comfort, knowing that around the next corner would be something new and unknown, possibly even exciting.  I can trace such feelings to my earliest memories, walking with my parents along the forest preserve trails following the Des Plaines River near Chicago.  The river led to somewhere; I wanted to follow it; and I wanted to explore the forests on the other side.  But I was only a child, and so I followed my parents instead.

            As a young man, I traveled by motorcycle, planning my trips over the colder months, hitting the highway every summer.  Around Lake Michigan, to Minnesota’s Boundary Waters, the Great Plains, the Rocky Mountains, and the Mississippi River I searched for remote areas, obscure pathways, and what I perceived as untrammeled wild areas.

            My destinations were varied, but they had one commonality:  natural surroundings, far from the sounds of traffic, steel and concrete, the bustle of cities, the smoke and debris of modern progress.  It would have been foolish, though, as some do, to denigrate the roads that brought me to my destinations, the vehicles that carried me, the society that could produce such products, or the farmlands that sustained that society.  These are all necessary and good.  But for just a short time, I longed to remove myself, if only temporarily.

            These days the wanderlust is well below the surface.  And I often wonder why.  Is it because I no longer live in a big city, but in a rural area with abundant forests, fields, rivers, and wetlands near my home?  Is it simply age?  The restlessness of youth has undoubtedly waned with age, and I have actually visited many of the sites that held a distant mystery when I was younger.  Perhaps my waning wanderlust has something to do with finally marrying in my late forties and becoming a homeowner with a few acres of land.  Most of the time, I can truly say that I am where I wish to be.

            And yet, waning does not mean dead.  I still make my plans as much as ever.  My search for natural surroundings, though, tends to be closer to home:  Chautauqua National Wildlife Refuge, Sand Prairie-Scrub Oak Nature Preserve, our cabin at Quiver Lake, and other nearby sites.  And yet, sometimes when I see a sharp-shinned hawk on its spring migration to the north woods, perhaps the northern shore of Lake Superior, I’ll want to follow.  It’s happened before.

 

[Note:  This post originally appeared in the Pekin Daily Times blog, "A View of Nature."]    

The Flood Aster

So far this year, the pattern of water levels and flow in the Illinois River—that is, the river’s hydrology—has resembled what might be expected for a typical Midwestern river like the Illinois.  This is the case insofar as the pattern, in a general way, consists of an extended spring flood followed by relatively stable, low water in the summer.

During the spring flood, fish have access to backwater areas for spawning, and plant seeds are distributed in the flood waters for later growth when the waters recede.  If the water stays low after the flood, lush wetland plant communities will develop on the low-lying floodplain, producing a nutritious seed crop in the fall for migrating waterfowl.  This is the pattern that has been established for thousands of years, a pattern to which the plants and animals that use the river’s floodplain have been especially adapted.

Quiver Lake wetlands, July 2012

One such species is a plant called the decurrent false aster.  It is a rare species; in fact, it can be found only along the Illinois River valley and a few nearby sites.  During years when the river follows its normal historical pattern, the decurrent false aster may do very well, and it may be easy to find this plant along the river’s edge and in dried out floodplain lakes and sloughs.

Decurrent false aster among other wetland plants 

The decurrent false aster produces flowers from August through September.  So yesterday (August 17), when I walked down the bluff to get a closer look at Quiver Lake, an Illinois River backwater, and what may now be called the “Quiver Lake wetlands,” I was especially looking for decurrent false aster flowers.  Last year I was disappointed and did not find any, and so I was not hopeful.

When conditions are favorable, though, as they are this year, the decurrent false aster may grow up to 6 feet tall as single individuals or in large patches.  So I carefully scanned the thick growth of sedges, smartweeds, and cockleburs looking for an aster-like plant towering above the rest.  I even looked far out into the wetlands with my binoculars.  And none did I find.  So I started thinking that perhaps it was still a bit too early in the season.  But when I turned around to walk back to my cabin on the bluff top, there it was, right in front of me:  a single decurrent false aster in full flower!

 

Originally Posted at “A View of Nature,” blog, on the Pekin Daily Times online, August 19, 2012

The Midwestern Drought of 2012

Posted in “A View of Nature,” Pekin Daily Times Online Blog, June 24, 2012

             The evidence has been clear for some time now:  a large portion of central Illinois is experiencing a severe drought, of a kind normally seen only once in ten years.  Streams are running low or dry; and from crops to natural areas, vegetation is visibly suffering.

           And nowhere is this drought more evident than in the pure sand hills of Mason County.  Sand has a poor ability to retain water or nutrients even under favorable conditions, and when a drought hits in the sandy areas of Mason County, conditions can be almost desert-like.

            During such conditions, gardens and croplands must be watered without fail.  In the odd corners of corn fields not reached by the irrigation rigs, for example, leaves are discolored and curled, an adaptation of the plant to minimize water loss and its exposure to full sunlight.  The plant does this to survive, but the ultimate result will be poorer crop yields.     

           Grabbing a deep handful of sandy soil shows that the soil has no moisture.  The infrequent, short periods of rain so far this season have had little effect.  Unless the current pattern changes, the crops will suffer even worse.

           In contrast, natural areas have fared better.  The sand prairie and savanna restoration in my backyard seem only slightly affected by the drought.  Species such as black oak, pignut hickory, hazelnut, little bluestem grass, sand lovegrass, purple prairie clover, and white wild indigo are well adapted to dry, nutrient-poor conditions.  These species, in fact, are survivors from the original prairies of Illinois that persisted for thousands of years against droughts and fires of magnitudes unimaginable in our current climate and domesticated landscape.

          Yes, this year’s drought is bad, but it merely hints at the possibilities.  Imagine a drought that could turn a forest into grassland.

 

Hiking and Birding the Spoon River Bottoms

Birding the Spoon River bottomlands is not something that can be counted upon without fail.  At one extreme, the river is quite likely to be at some level of flood, sometimes with no dry land in sight; or at the other extreme, it may be so low that the backwaters have dried out completely, leaving little habitat for waterbirds.  But so far this winter, river levels and backwaters were at their perfect levels:  water enough for migrating waterfowl with ample dry land for hiking.  And so, hike I did, following a long favorite route through the oxbow area at the Emiquon National Wildlife Refuge, where the Spoon River flows into the Illinois River.

 

Walking was easy over the extremely flat ground.  And at no time at all, I reached my first stop of the morning:  on a natural levee bordering one of the oxbow lakes, formed long ago when the oxbow was actually part of the Spoon River itself.  Several years ago, in this very spot, I sat for a long time watching great blue herons feeding on Asian carp, an experience detailed in Chapter 3 of my book Side Channels (http://www.side-channels.com/).  On this day, I saw only one heron, but the lake was filled with waterfowl, and the trees with hundreds of noisy red-winged blackbirds and grackles.  I used an old punky log as a seat cushion and a silver maple tree as a backrest, and I was comfortable and warm for the time being, surrounded by wildlife, forests, and wetlands.  Then from the direction of Havana, a trail whistle blew, reminding me that I was only a few miles, not thousands of miles, from home.  Green-winged teal called from all directions around the lake.  They flew around the refuge in small close-knit flocks, along with hundreds of mallards, and lesser numbers of northern pintails, ring-necked ducks, and northern shovelers.  Far on the other side of the lake, three buffleheads bobbed heads and flapped wings in the throes of courtship.

 

But after only a short time, the winds began increasing, and I realized that it was probably around mid-morning.  The bright sun shined through cloudless skies, but it provided little warmth on this early March day.  And my rotten log sofa was not as dry as it looked; through my pants I could feel the cold dampness.  It was time to generate some heat.  And so I walked on.

 

My path over the soft alluvial ground eventually led to the Spoon River, which I followed to its end.  Here I found a tree leaning at just the right angle, where I planted myself for a late breakfast sandwich and reading.  But this time, I used my backpack as protection against the cold, damp soil of the forest floor, and I stayed warm and comfortable.  There were whitecaps on the river and the strong winds tossed around one of the first turkey vultures of the year like an autumn leaf.

 

Though I could have stayed in that place all day, my original plans were to hike along the Illinois River to the Thompson Lake levee, which forms the northern boundary of the refuge, for a view of the Thompson-Flag Lakes bottomlands beyond the refuge boundaries.  But it was late morning, and little Charlie the dog had been in his “pen” for over four hours; he would need to be let out soon, or I would face the consequences.  So I gathered up my backpack and slowly meandered back to the parking lot, fine with my decision.  Thompson-Flag Lakes would be there for another day.

 

Bird List, Emiquon National Wildlife Refuge, March 10, 2012

 

Canada Goose                         Blue Jay

Wood Duck                              Black-capped Chickadee

Mallard                                   White-breasted Nuthatch

Northern Shoveler                   Brown Creeper

Northern Pintail                      Carolina Wren

Green-winged Teal                  American Robin

Ring-necked Duck                    American Tree Sparrow

Bufflehead                              Song Sparrow

Great Blue Heron                    Dark-eyed Junco

Turkey Vulture                        Northern Cardinal

American Coot                        Red-winged Blackbird

Ring-billed Gull                       Common Grackle

Mourning Dove                        American Goldfinch

Downy Woodpecker

Hairy Woodpecker

Red-bellied Woodpecker

 

Map of Emiquon National Wildlife Refuge, Fulton County, Illinois

(Click to enlarge)

In the Company of Bald Eagles…and a Papillon named Charlie

So far the winter of 2011-12 was unusually mild.  On January 5^th, in fact, the weather forecast called for light winds, sun, and a high of 55 degrees.  This would be, I reasoned, much too nice of a mid-winter day to remain indoors.  Harsh weather had yet to materialize this winter in central Illinois, and I knew the weather would eventually change for the worse.  So I gathered a few books and Charlie and headed for the cabin, located on the bluffs overlooking Quiver Lake, an Illinois River backwater just south of Chautauqua National Wildlife Refuge.

    It took only a few minutes to reach the cabin from home, and without any delay both Charlie and I were comfortably seated against a large cottonwood tree on the sandy beach, listening to the crying gulls over the lake, and trying to stay warm in the light breeze.  But Charlie kept wandering toward two large Labrador retrievers further down the beach, so I tied his leash to a stake near the cottonwood.

    After a few minutes, an immature bald eagle landed on the topmost branch of my cottonwood, about 75 feet directly above.  I stayed perfectly still, except for slowly moving my binoculars to my eyes.  The eagle constantly shifted its gaze in different directions toward the lake, but often looked directly at Charlie and me; its talons had a death grip on the tree branch, reminding me of needle-sharp meat hooks.  I could clearly see its eyes locked onto mine, and I wondered if the eagle thought Charlie, who is about the size of a cat, would make a nice meal.  I read that it is rare for a bald eagle to hunt for small domestic dogs or cats, but not totally unheard of.  Charlie whined about being tied to a stake.  It’s for your own good, I thought, not expecting him to understand.  Charlie fidgeted, but the eagle was not concerned about us.  Then after about ten minutes, after I had become engrossed in reading again, I heard the gentle beating of large wings, and the eagle was gone.

    Over the river bottoms and along the bluffs, there were eagles in every direction; whenever I looked up from my reading, I would see one or two soaring, flying past, or foraging for fish over the open lake waters.  Out in the Illinois River, about a mile to the west, past Quiver Lake and the forests at Quiver Lake bottoms, I could hear a towboat-barge traveling upstream.  There was a slight smell of dead fish coming from the lakeshore, a smell that reminded me of Lake Michigan in the 1960s, when alewives died in great numbers and washed up on Chicago’s beaches.  At Quiver Lake there were dead gizzard shad, smallmouth buffalo, freshwater drum, and Asian carp.  The dead fish and open waters were clearly reasons for the numerous scavenging gulls and eagles.   And then I heard a strange call overhead, and saw another immature bald eagle perching on the top of a cottonwood tree about 50 feet away. This eagle focused on the open lake, and rarely looked in my direction.  It left after only a few minutes.

Quiver Lake beach

    Then suddenly a large eagle’s shadow quickly moved across the ground, passing over us in an instant.  If I were Charlie’s size, I would have learned to freeze in place when a shadow passes overhead, especially because the eagles cruise the bluff line all day long, all winter, riding the updraft winds, looking for easy prey.  The lakeside forests also harbor great horned and barred owls.  But the domesticated Charlie was oblivious, as he focused on a pair of fox squirrels chasing each other up and down several nearby trees.  I kept Charlie close by, while he whined about being kept from running after the squirrels.

    By mid-afternoon, the winds were picking up speed, higher than expected, and I thought of two terms that I remembered hearing more often when I lived in Chicago:  wind chill factor and hypothermia.  And I realized that maybe I was underdressed, and it was time to leave.  As Charlie and I left the lake breezes behind, I listened one more time for a few moments, as eagle calls echoed from the river bottoms.  It was good to spend a winter day outside in the company of eagles, and Charlie too.

Charlie, safe at home

Marshes Again Among the Sand Hills of Central Illinois

            Our home was built probably 80 to 90 years ago on the top of a small sand hill that rises perhaps 5 to 10 feet above the surrounding fields, woods, and farms of Mason County, Illinois.  The original owners undoubtedly picked this high-ground location for their farmstead to avoid flooding.  Yet in most normal years, one would hardly ever think of flood waters; the nearest stream, the Illinois River, is about four miles away, and even its highest floods would never be able to reach the height of the river valley’s bluff tops and then spread over the uplands.  No, the floods they were concerned with came not from the river, but from the seemingly dry ground below.

            When I first moved to Mason County in 1991, I could not help but notice that the land’s outstanding characteristic was its dryness.  Its natural areas reminded me of a desert-like landscape with prickly pear cactus common in sand prairies dominated by bunch grasses such as sand love grass and little bluestem; in savannas and woodlands, blackjack oak, a gnarly tree species that seems the quintessential dryland species every bit as much as mesquite in an Arizona canyonland, is common.  On a hot summer day on the prairies, there is not a drop of water to be found, and survival for plants and animals must be a greater struggle than usual.

Sand Prairie-Scrub Oak Nature Preserve, Mason Co. 

            But in 1993 my perspective on the sand areas of Mason County was turned upside down.  For it was the year of the great flood on the Mississippi River and many of its tributaries.  Though many blamed human modifications of the river and its watershed for the flood, an idea deserving of some serious investigations, the fact is that it rained a lot over the Midwest in 1993.  It rained so much that the land was saturated with water; aquifers rose in consequence, and even some lands far above the river’s highest possible flood level saw flooding; certain lands could hold no more water.  Western Mason County was one of those areas.  While the sand hills remained dry, in some cases surrounding lower lying areas turned into shallow lakes and marshes; the water to fill these depressions came from either more precipitation or from a rising aquifer surfacing from water pressures beneath.  Eventually the wetlands grew characteristic vegetation such as cattails, rushes, arrowhead, and smartweed, among other species; and their fishless waters, not being fed by any inlet streams, were havens for a variety of frogs and toads that appeared in astronomical numbers seemingly from nowhere.  Many varieties of wetland birds were also attracted to these sandy-bottomed aquatic habitats.

County Road 1500N, south of Havana, Il, 1993  

            Sand, though, holds water very poorly.  And after precipitation returned to normal and the aquifer lowered, the sand marshes soon disappeared.  By the late 1990s, corn, soybeans, or winter wheat were once again being harvested from the dry, flat, low-lying grounds that I knew would one day again become marshes and open water.

            When it was time to purchase my first home in 1999, I remembered which areas had flooded from the rising aquifer six years earlier.  And so I knew the old farmhouse on the sand hill was safe.  And I remembered how the surrounding lands were covered in water in 1993 and county roads that were closed from water that had nowhere to go.  So in the early spring of 2011, I am able to sit high and dry, even though the last two or three years have seen exceptional precipitation, and the aquifer has been full to overflowing for over a year; the farm fields to the north and south of my home have been wet or under permanent water for about as long.  Amphibian choruses are loud and nearly constant; there must be many thousands of frogs and toads in just the flooded acreage north of my home.  I have even heard the rare Illinois chorus frog.  Wood duck pairs fly here and there looking for appropriate nest trees.

            This is all good, but the water also means loss of planting opportunities for affected farmers.  And although many flood-damaged homes were removed after 1993, some folks stayed, possibly looking upon 1993 as an anomaly.  I know of at least one very unfortunate family about an eight of a mile down the road who are now in a desperate, daily battle against the aquifer’s high waters to save their home.  And I am sure that they look upon the wetlands to the north and south of our sand hill very differently than I do.

County Road 1500N, south of Havana, Il, Jan. 2010. 

            But the spring of 2011 has only just begun.  With the usual spring rains yet to come, it would seem to be a given that Mason County’s sand marshes and small lakes may be a regular feature on the landscape for some time to come; that is, until the inevitable dry periods return, and the cycle begins anew.

Antics at a Hummingbird Feeder

Though it is still early March, the spring bird migration is well underway. And so it is time to begin thinking about warmer weather and birds from the tropics traveling to Illinois to breed. The ruby-throated hummingbird is one of many such species. Although our yard will have plenty of flowers for hummingbirds to feed upon after they return from the south, this year I plan to set up a hummingbird feeder. The feeder is filled with clear sugar water (1/4 cup of sugar to 1 cup of water), and it is colored red to attract hummingbirds. The hummingbirds can drink the sugar water through holes in the center of flower-like shapes molded into the feeder’s plastic surface. Several years ago, using wires, I hung a feeder from a hickory tree branch in front of my window. It took the birds a few days to find the feeder, but they soon made frequent stops. Ants also discovered the feeder.

One day I wasn’t seeing hummingbirds, so I watched the ants. Ants frantically ran up and down the tree branch to and from the feeder. Individuals that traveled away from the feeder, up the wire attachment, and up the tree branch, each had swollen abdomens that were transparent and filled with sugar water. Those individuals traveling to the feeder from the tree had normal-sized bodies. Apparently, sugar water was being transported all the way to a colony below ground level. What a Herculean cooperative effort these ants were engaged in, like trying to drain a large swimming pool with a thimble.

Mark Twain also watched ants. In his book A Tramp Abroad, published in 1880, he wrote that: "...the average ant is a sham. I admit his industry, of course; he is the hardest-working creature in the world—when anybody is looking—but his leatherheadedness is the point I make against him. He goes out foraging, he makes a capture, and then what does he do? Go home? No—he goes anywhere but home. He doesn’t know where home is. His home may be only three feet away—no matter, he can’t find it. He makes his capture, as I have said; it is generally something which can be of no sort of use to himself or anybody else; it is usually seven times bigger than it ought to be; he hunts out the awkwardest place to take a hold of it; he lifts it bodily up in the air by main force, and starts; not toward home, but in the opposite direction; not calmly and wisely, but with a frantic haste which is wasteful of his strength; he fetches up against a pebble, and instead of going around it, he climbs over it backward dragging his booty after him, tumbles down the other side, jumps up in a passion, kicks the dust off his clothes, moistens his hands, grabs his property viciously, yanks it this way, then that, shoves it ahead of him a moment, turns tail and tugs it after him another moment, gets madder and madder, then presently hoists it into the air and goes tearing away in an entirely new direction; comes to a weed; it never occurs to him to go around it; no, he must climb it; and he does climb it, dragging his worthless property to the top—which is as bright a thing to do as it would be for me to carry a sack of flour from Heidelberg to Paris by way of Strasburg steeple; when he gets up there he finds that that is not the place; takes a cursory glance at the scenery and either climbs down again or tumbles down, and starts off once more—as usual, in a new direction."

Twain’s careful scientific observations notwithstanding, my ants seemed to know their business. When I removed the feeder to change the water, the ant column continued, but the returning ants went away empty of sugar water. Four hours later, there were somewhat fewer ants traveling the branch trail to the wire loop that previously held the feeder. After a few more hours, there were still many ants traveling the wire-branch trail in search of sugar water, but their numbers seemed to be noticeably decreasing. Apparently, "word" was slowly getting around (most likely a chemical signal) that the rich sugar water was gone. Twenty-four hours later, only a few confused ants still searched for the illusive sugar water. I then filled and hung the feeder, expecting that very soon, the ants would be back, and with hummingbirds also. And so they were.

 

[Note: This story was originally published in slightly different form in the Summer 2000 issue of Illinois Audubon magazine.]

A Few Good Notes

We live in a busy world. And as the choices for sending and receiving communications increase (from cell phones to Internet web logs to e-mail), time available dwindles by the day, and life seems busier than ever. So a rather quaint activity such as writing a journal in a mere notebook may seem antiquated and not quite worth the trouble. One may even feel there is little worth recording on a day-to-day basis.

As a child, even Mark Twain became discouraged when attempting to keep a daily journal. Each day he would faithfully write, "Got up, washed, went to bed." After a few weeks, though, the writing ended, with Twain remarking that "Startling events appeared to be too rare in my career to render a diary necessary." But surely he must have had some unrecorded reactions to events happening in the world around him, in between washing and going to bed. He should have looked beyond himself, and years later, might have been surprised to find interest in reading those impressions. Following this article, perhaps the reader may find that the world around us offers an endless variety of events worth recording or providing commentary upon. Nature, in fact, is a good place to start.

Over the years, I have noticed that keeping records comes naturally and spontaneously to birders. Even beginning birders can be seen keeping a list of birds seen on a field trip, usually without any prodding from the trip leader. Though recording an occasional bird list may not qualify as keeping a journal, it is a start in the process of carefully witnessing one’s surroundings. And who knows where this may lead.

A bird list means little, though, if it is done haphazardly and then filed in a drawer to never be seen again. Lists should be made with the intention of eventually reviewing them to look for patterns and inconsistencies or submitting the list to the proper ornithological organization. By reviewing lists collected over a long period of time, one may be able to observe trends such as increases in populations of some species and declines in others. Or one might note that certain species are arriving from their winter or summer grounds earlier or later than usual.

For many migratory species, it is remarkable how close from year to year they follow certain behavioral patterns. For example, from reviewing my notes, I know that barn swallows tend to arrive from South America at their nest under my porch roof in central Illinois about April 15, more or less. When the birds are much later, I begin wondering whether they may have been killed in a hurricane or met some other disaster on their very dangerous route to a dangerous place. Another example is the day on which I first hear a house wren singing, which for the last three years was April 12, April 15, and April 11. These are benchmarks in time on nature’s calender. And I have noticed many other benchmarks in relation to birds, such as the first days in July when I begin seeing southward-moving shorebirds; the loose September flocks of nighthawks foraging in the skies, but seriously bound for the Amazon basin and beyond; the first late fall day when the waters of the local marsh freeze over and all the waterfowl leave; the first red-winged blackbird song in February. Journal writing and taking notice of specific events have brought me closer to nature and have enriched my life.

Today’s easy-to-use home computers and the Internet have brought record keeping to a new level. At the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology’s eBird web site (www.ebird.org), data from your birding lists may be entered into a giant database that is used by birders and scientists across North America to track bird populations over space and time. The easy flexibility of their system allows even a casual observation to be entered. There is even room for special notes related to the bird observations.

Taking careful notes on bird behavior is where a simple bird list becomes a birding journal. As a beginning birder soon discovers, certain species tend to be associated with specific habitats. So the bird observation and what specifically exists at the siting location are highly correlated. Habitat factors include the type and structure of the vegetation, topographical relief, presence or absence of water, amount of standing dead timber, available food resources, and acreage. By keeping notes on these factors and relating that to where specific birds were observed, one can learn to read the landscape and know what birds to expect.

A birding journal should also record weather conditions at the time of observation as well as notes on bird behavior as they interact with each other, other organisms, and the environment. Yet with such information, the birding journal may be more accurately called a nature journal. Topics may then appropriately include information such as the flowering date of specific plants or the date when a local river crests in its spring flood. And once one becomes accustomed to journal writing about nature, it is only too easy to include comments on whatever events happen to be worth noticing, perhaps even arcane philosophical ruminations on the human condition.

Journal writing will enhance the enjoyment of any trip, long or short. It can provide a record of events unique to the writer. When shared with another person, who is also recording the same day’s events, journal writing can provide a special, simple, and personal kind of entertainment and insight into the trip. For example, on a trip to the upper Mississippi River, each evening my wife Julie and I described the day’s events in our journals. The next morning over breakfast, we each read our journal entries aloud. Part of one afternoon in Wisconsin was recorded in this way:

From T. V. Lerczak’s journal:

"At Rush River Delta, we followed the shallow, clear Rush River along a wisp of a trail nearly to the far reaches of the delta. The trail passed from old-growth floodplain forest (mainly silver maples and a few cottonwoods) to sand bar willow communities. Following the delta from older to younger areas was like running plant succession in reverse. Birds were scarce, but we counted 12 bald eagles along the Rush River and the lake’s edge."

From Julie’s journal:

"In the afternoon, we . . . stopped to explore a wonderful bottomland forest on a delta at the base of Lake Pepin. This was the Rush River Natural Area, I believe. It was so deserted and pristine, and the Rush River–what I would describe as a creek–was crystal-clear. As we hiked and later sat for a while to read and meditate, we stirred up eagle after eagle. This apparently is a hot spot for them, and Tom thinks they like the Rush River for its seclusion and clear waters. . . . All together we saw 12 eagles and I would say two-thirds were mature. They flew quite near, and I’ve never been closer to one in the wild." 

On this two-week trip, we never watched television once, which I think says quite a lot in favor of journal writing.

Mississippi River near Quincy, Illinois

Making the transition from simple bird listing to keeping a nature or trip journal is significant. Yet even if one is seriously keeping a journal, making daily entries may probably require establishing a forced routine; that is, purposely setting aside a block of time to write. Most folks aspiring to write, indeed, say that writing every day is important. But what if truly nothing has happened worth recording? Once you are beginning to write "got up, washed, went to bed," is it time to admit defeat? Here the journal writer must mine his or her thoughts for perhaps one inspired conclusion or one past observation worth committing to paper. Even Edwin Way Teale must have had his uneventful days once in a while, for his entire June 11 journal entry in Circle of the Seasons: The Journal of a Naturalist’s Year reads as follows: "Out-of-doors, adventures are everywhere. Wonders are all around us. If the world is stale, its fascination gone, the fault, we find, is in ourselves. As G.K. Chesterton put it: ‘The world will never starve for want of wonders, but only for want of wonder.’"

NOTE:  This essay originally appeared in the Summer 2006 issue of Illinois Audubon magazine. 

 

On Becoming Our Surroundings

At the Peace of Earth Lodge, in Schuyler County, Illinois, my wife and I stood at a forested ravine’s edge, the below-freezing northwest winds at our backs. As our trail continued down a slippery, snow-covered slope to the deep ravine bottom, we briefly paused to consider how sensible it would be to attempt such a trail, and what we would do if one of us should fall and become injured. The winter scene offered much for our minds to process, and I unsuccessfully tried to take everything in at a glance. Then as we slowly moved forward, my attention was, by necessity, focused on the icy, leaf-covered trail and my handy walking stick, which provided stability and needed confidence.

Though preoccupied with the trail, it was not difficult to notice that because of the many bird feeders at the nearby lodge, forest birds were quite drawn to this stretch of ravine. Black-capped chickadees, tufted titmice, and white-breasted nuthatches were seemingly in constant motion traveling back and forth from the feeders to trees in the surrounding forest. Both downy and hairy woodpeckers were common, with an occasional red-bellied woodpecker. The feeders also attracted gray squirrels from their preferred deep-forest habitats. As we descended, I listened carefully for pileated woodpeckers, quite sure they were somewhere in the forest ahead.

After safely reaching the ravine bottom, feeling deep within the earth itself, we became enveloped within a quiet calmness, and my mind began to drift. The outside world and its many problems seemed far away in distance as well as time. I imagined the tablelands beyond the boundaries of our ravine covered in tallgrass prairies and savanna rather than harvested farm fields. It was not hard to see, in my mind’s eye, this part of Illinois as a mosaic of such natural communities, with forests occupying areas of rougher topography, such as the ravine where we stood, with prairies on the flat uplands. Steep rock outcrops along the ravine bottom provided remnants of a much more ancient landscape.

Photograph by Pat and Tim Sullivan

Soon the trail led to a stream crossing, and our walking sticks once again were very useful in helping us to skip from rock to rock and across areas where a slower current had allowed ice to form. Here at the ravine bottom, overwintering territories of several red-headed woodpeckers could be accurately located on either side of the ravine. With oak mast quite abundant this year, the ravine forest was able to support more red-heads, which feed on the mast, than in years with poor mast production. I knew that each red-head stored acorns in a cache within a tree hole, and protected its cache and a small surrounding area from other birds, especially marauding blue jays. There was quite a drama of survival in this ravine forest, and I wondered what other stories there were that I was missing completely. Each animal footprint in the snow had its own story: where each was heading and for what purpose; how its small life might end abruptly, red in tooth and claw; one moment alive and alert, the next resigned to its fate. As always at such times, I feel somewhat overwhelmed with so much to comprehend and so many questions left unanswered; and I try to think of a way to encompass in some way all that surrounds me, so that I might, in effect, carry it with me, and make it my own.

And then we saw the hammock at the stream edge across from a massive rock outcropping. How it contrasted with the natural surroundings, and yet how appropriate it seemed, especially at that moment. "Let’s lie on it," I said. And so, we carefully but awkwardly placed ourselves on the hammock, and then remained silent. I looked upward into the forest canopy swaying in the wintry prairie winds, and saw wisps of clouds moving high overhead. But in the hammock, the bright sun warmed my face in the cold, still air; and I heard every sound from up and down the ravine, as if the gurgle of flowing water, the rustle of each leaf, and the call of each bird were amplified in volume and clarity. Then I shut my eyes and forgot about myself for a time; when I finally opened them, I became confronted by the reality of my surroundings, feeling no longer as the outsider looking in. Such moments, delicate as gossamer, are rare and fleeting, and it is usually not long before the inevitable intrusion. So I made a special effort to be attentive for as long as possible, before again becoming the outsider and separating myself from my surroundings, which I knew was a requirement before we could leave on our hike back to the lodge. And we left when we were ready, but not one moment before.

 

 
Peace of Earth website: www.PeaceofEarth.net

Birding from an Illinois River Logjam

As luck would have it, the day of my voluntary furlough day from work (i.e., day off, no pay) was predicted to be sunny and warm, with light breezes and low humidity. A perfect summer day for a canoe-birding trip to the Illinois River. And so, by 7:30 a.m. I was launching my canoe into the south pool of Chautauqua National Wildlife Refuge. In the aftermath of a rainy spring, the Illinois River was about eight feet above flood stage, high enough to be completely over the refuge’s south levee system, giving free access to the Illinois River, about one and a half miles to the northwest.

Once on the water, my view of the refuge opened up to the broad Lake Chautauqua and the four-mile-wide Illinois River valley. Briefly I glanced at seven American white pelicans scattered about, a few double-crested cormorants, several ring-billed gulls, and a belted kingfisher; but otherwise, I concentrated on paddling to the river, where I planned to eat breakfast, read, and relax.

Chautauqua Refuge's south pool.

In a very short time, I sailed right over the refuge’s levee, crossed the Liverpool Island side channel, and entered the flooded forests of Liverpool Island. Floating high above the ground surface, there were few obstructions, and it was easy to paddle through the forest around the mature cottonwood and silver maple trees. A variety of bird songs and calls echoed from the tree canopy high overhead; prothonotary warblers, warbling vireos, and house wrens led the chorus in volume and repetition more than other species. But such diversions notwithstanding, I still headed straight for the river on the opposite side of the island, to find a place along the river’s edge where I planned to remain for the better part of the morning.

The problem was that even within the forest, the water was flowing, although at a lesser velocity than in the main river, and I did not have an anchor. Yet with a bit of maneuvering, I was able to wedge the canoe within a logjam of several large silver maple logs and branches on the island’s edge, which prevented the canoe from drifting downstream. Then once ensconced within the logjam, water flowed and eddied all around and under me, but the canoe was held in place against the trees by the flowing water. Finally I relaxed and could pay more attention to my surroundings, watch and literally feel the river’s flow, and enjoy the abundant bird life.

After an hour or so, I counted 26 bird species within the flooded island forest (see accompanying table); if it had been earlier in the breeding season, there would have been more. Occasional barn, tree, and northern rough-winged swallows flew over the river, briefly crossing my field of view. All was calm for a long time. But when a large v-bottomed cruiser passed, it set up a commotion of large swells that went crashing through the forest; still my logjam held fast, and I simply rode out the waves. Later a towboat-barge, with a busy crew on deck and a sign reading "Dangerous Cargo," passed, sending out another series of waves, though these were much smaller than the cruiser-generated waves. And no one, except the birds, knew of the canoe hidden within the deep shade of silver maples, wedged inside of a half-sunken pile of snags.

Eventually the sounds of leaves rustling in the upper tree canopies signaled that the wind, in the warm morning sun, was picking up speed. I took that as a sign to leave, and I expected to fight the wind on the open expanse of Lake Chautauqua as I returned to the refuge boat ramp. But before extracting the canoe from the logjam, I thought how unusual it was and how fortunate I was to have a day with such favorable conditions all converging at once, and how such a day cannot be planned for and may not occur again for quite some time. Circumstances have a way of changing. So on the return trip, I paddled slower than on the way out, savoring every moment, wind and all.

An Illinois River Hill Prairie Fire

For prairies to persist in Illinois, with a climate that has long favored wooded habitats over grassland, periodic fire is a requirement. Later in the spring, a burned-off prairie will revive from its extensive underground root system, and prairie wildflowers and grasses may gain a competitive advantage over always encroaching shrubs and trees.

Of Illinois’ few remaining original prairies, hill prairies are some of the best examples. They occur on southwestern-facing bluff tops bordering river valleys, places that are too steep or rugged for farming. This photo essay shows the burning of a small glacial drift hill prairie at Crevecoeur Nature Preserve (Fort Crevecoeur Park) in Tazewell County, Illinois, on March 30, 2010.

 

* * *

At 11:15 AM, relative humidity was 41%, air temperature 56 ^oF, and wind was blowing 8 to 10 miles per hour from the south-southeast – in Photo 1, essentially from left to right, directly across the hill prairie ridge. The Illinois River is visible through the trees on the right-hand side of the photograph.

Photo 1.

 

* * *

To avoid a wild fire, controlled burns usually begin by lighting a back fire (Photo 2), which moves slowly against the wind. Later, a head fire (i.e., with the wind) will be lit, and the two will meet and burn each other out.

Photo 2.

 

* * *

In Photo 3, the back fire is being lit just inside of the tree line, beyond and around the base of the ridge. At this point, the back fire will turn into the head fire (Photo 4). Meanwhile, the back fire has been gradually moving up the slope, creating a wider burned off area that will prevent the head fire from further advancing. Note in Photo 5 the blackened area visible in the foreground, a result of the back fire reaching this point on the ridge top.

Photo 3.

Photo 4.

Photo 5.

 

* * *

Flames, burning debris, and ash from the head fire are being whipped across the ridge by brisk winds (Photo 6). In seconds, the back and head fires will meet. The main fire is out (Photo 7 and Photo 8), and only smoke is being swiftly carried across the ridge. Blackened ground and smoldering embers of woody debris and bunch grasses are all that remain. But before too much time passes, green shoots of prairie plants will begin emerging from the black; without the previous year’s interfering thatch, the growing plants will receive greater amounts of sunlight than in years without fire.

 
Photo 6.

Photo 7.

Photo 8.

 

* * *

The Context of Burning. There are seemingly hundreds of details, large and small, to keep track of when planning a safe, controlled fire: writing a detailed burn plan, constructing fire breaks and other labor-intensive site preparations, notification of neighbors and local fire departments, checking and repairing equipment, obtaining weather forecasts, and assembling a crew (one does not burn alone), to name only a few. Still, the evening before the scheduled burn, uncertainty about the weather remains. How accurate is the forecast? Could it change at the last minute? Will it be too wet, too dry, too humid, too hot, not hot enough, too windy, wind from the wrong direction? Should the burn crew be notified to assemble the next day as planned or should the burn be called off?

The responsibilities weigh heavily upon the burn leader; anxiety levels run high. The night before a burn, dreams are filled with visions of fire, sleep is fitful, the mind races.

After the burn crew has been mobilized and de-briefed and equipment is in place, the back fire may be lit; later, the head fire. Sometimes the flames of the head fire quickly rise to a roar, like an uncaged lion, and go charging off. The cat is out of the bag. Pandora’s Box has been opened. But if the burn has been well planned, and that better be the case, there is nothing to fear: the fire will burn out of its own accord as planned.

It is only then, after the fire is out, that there is time enough to recall the context in which we are burning: unleashing a force upon the land in a similar way, though on a smaller scale, as Native Americans had done for thousands of years. Were it not for their burning, it is unlikely that prairies would have survived in Illinois, from encroachments of forests, to greet the first European explorers. But when the Europeans finally did arrive, they saw an untrammeled Illinois wilderness; though to the Native Americans, that same scene was home and a landscape highly influenced by their activities.

Such thoughts might be briefly reflected upon immediately after a burn, but there is still much more work to be done; though one may be weary from smoke and stress, control lines must be checked again to ensure that the fire is truly out and everything is secure. If that is the case, fire control equipment will then be gathered and the burn crew released.

Returning to the burn scene the following day is a good idea, to walk the fire breaks again and more closely inspect the burn results, checking whether or not the fire had lived up to expectations. Did it help set back woody encroachment? Was it a complete burn or a mosaic of burned and unburned areas? Will another burn be required next year or should it wait a few years. Lack of evaluation would be almost as bad as not burning at all. Once begun, the work never ends.

[NOTE:  This article has been published in the Fall 2010 issue of Illinois Audubon magazine, pages 17-19.  See www.illinoisaudubon.com.] 

One Muddy Walk at Spoon River Bottoms

March 14, 2010

Though the past winter had not been so bad in central Illinois, not even one crippling snow storm or day with a high temperature below zero, I still felt a bit weary from too many gray, indoor days. So even on a damp, dismal Sunday, with occasional light drizzle, I left home for a hike along the Spoon River to where it empties into the Illinois River at the Emiquon National Wildlife Refuge. Because of frequent flooding and ice cover, I had not been to this location for months. And so I did not know exactly what to expect – except, following several days of rain, extremely muddy conditions. But mud is what I always expect on the river bottoms. In fact , it’s part of the general experience.

Flooded Spoon River Bottoms, Emiquon NWR.

The small gravel parking area just east of state route 78 was covered in a thin layer of slippery silt deposited from flood waters that had only recently receded. Other vehicles that had strayed from the gravel left behind deep ruts in the mud as a warning. I briefly questioned whether my plan for the morning was a good idea, but quickly dismissed such apprehensions, grabbed my backpack, and headed toward the nearby Spoon River.

Most of the bottomlands were still flooded, but along the Spoon River’s banks there is a natural levee, or higher ground, that was still about 2 feet above the fast-moving river with its light brown, powerfully moving flood waters. Two immature bald eagles took flight as I approached the river, and then circled low overhead as I began my mile-long hike to the Illinois River. In the oxbow lakes and flooded forests I saw ring-necked ducks, mallards, and Canada geese. Paired-up wood ducks flew overhead, the females calling out in alarm. And I heard distant songs of Carolina wrens, tufted titmice, and black-capped chickadees. These were good signs, even as the spitting drizzle alternately came and went.

Most everything I touched seemed to be either slightly damp or wet and slippery; leaves that had fallen last year had the consistency of wet tissue paper. And I could not venture too far from the Spoon River without the ground becoming soft and mushy, so I stayed fairly close to its banks. At a gentle bend in the river, I could see far up- and downstream; I searched in vain for a belted kingfisher or great blue heron. And then I first truly noticed how water-saturated and unstable were the river’s banks, appearing to be nearly on the verge of collapse, perhaps just at the angle of repose. Would another 200 pounds make a difference, I wondered? Most of the riparian trees leaned over the river precariously low, and there was clear evidence of recently collapsing banks. But this is the natural process, after all, by which rivers meander, and how the refuge’s oxbow lakes were gradually formed. I walked onward, stepping lightly.

Finally at the Illinois River, I found a tree leaning at just the right angle to make for a nice backrest. I unpacked my lunch and took in my surroundings. Ring-billed gulls flew up and down the river, and nearby a pileated woodpecker called, though the bird itself remained hidden. I heard gurgling sounds from the Spoon River as its water rushed over tree branches and roots protruding from the riverbanks. The Spoon River injected its woody debris into the slower moving Illinois River, the debris then slowly passing by the town of Havana, visible across the river. I was reminded of the many times over the past winter I had sat in my vehicle at the Riverfront Park, gazing in the direction of the inaccessible Spoon River bottoms. For the moment, no one at the park that I could see looked back in my direction.

Mouth of the Spoon River.

As my binocular’s field of view followed a red-tailed hawk flying over the Illinois River, the upper branches of tall silver maple trees came into focus. Their branches displayed a subtle reddish hue from many small wind-pollinated flowers. The season was progressing, despite present conditions. But the cold, damp winds off the river were a stronger cue, one indicating that it was probably time to leave. In the direction of the Spoon River, there was a large splash that sounded like part of the bank collapsing, forcing me to recall foreboding thoughts from earlier in the morning.

Knowing that better days were ahead, I walked more deliberately back to the parking lot than on the way out, intent on not being caught in heavy rains should conditions worsen. Only once, among all of the gray and subdued browns of the bare forests, did I delay my progress: to view the bright yellow caps of two diminutive, highly energetic golden-crowned kinglets which stood out in contrast against the background of color and mood of the day more than anything I had seen so far. Their feathers were so clean, crisp, and bright compared to the sky, forests, and myself with mud on every piece of clothing. Clean: good; dirt: bad. I made a strong mental note regarding my mud-encased shoes: remove them before entering the house – a clear indication of a husband whose domestic education is quite complete.

A Coyote Encounter at Icy Chautauqua National Wildlife Refuge

February 27, 2010

The day’s weather was expected to be mostly cloudy, quite windy, and cold. But snow geese were beginning to show up in ever larger numbers in the skies over Havana. So it was time to make a short visit to Chautauqua Refuge; even though I knew beforehand, because of a long stretch of below-freezing weather, that its surface would mostly be frozen, and wildlife would likely be scarce.

At the head of the nature trail, the winds seemed almost calm, and I optimistically thought of having a chance to sit at one of the observation decks for a couple of hours without enduring much cold. But as I followed the trail through the forest, I could hear the winds become progressively louder through the treetops as the trail approached the bluff edge. At the furthest deck, northwest winds screamed without obstruction off the frozen lake surface directly into my face, and I knew my time for observations would be limited. And so I wrapped my head in a thick scarf, cleaned ice and snow off the bench, and poured a cup of hot coffee from my thermos.

Chautuaqua Nature Trail

A few Canada geese and several hundred greater white-fronted geese followed the Illinois River valley northward, and an adult eagle soared over the river near what I assumed was its nest. The Arctic scene before me inspired thoughts of admiration for any wildlife that could scratch food and shelter from such circumstances; it must not be an easy life. But this was good. The coffee kept me warm, and I was comfortable in my heavy clothing.

Every once in a while the ice cracked loudly and made other strange sounds, which suggested that while the ice may have been thick and solid, as a mass it moves and heaves with the waters below as pressures change and build. In fact, after a closer look, I noticed that all of the willow thickets, with their bases in water below the ice sheet, were leaning at about a 20 degree angle. Was this due to one massive movement of ice or had it been imperceptibly gradual over several weeks or days? [Recently, there has been an effect of the same process at Thompson Lake (Emiquon) across the Illinois River, where utility poles, with their bases locked within lake ice, have been pushed and snapped by the moving ice sheet.]

Thompson Lake "Emiquon" at Route 78

Then as I took another sip of coffee and re-adjusted my scarf to seal in the warmth, I noticed a coyote on the frozen lake surface, trotting along probably a quarter mile away. I set my coffee down, and through binoculars could see that it was a healthy-looking animal, solidly built and with a good coat. The coyote loped at a brisk no-nonsense pace, alert eyes and ears facing forward, moving almost in a straight line. At a certain point, though, one of the coyote’s senses must have detected something, because the animal quickly stopped to investigate the ice more closely: perhaps a dead fish frozen in the ice or a scent mark by another coyote. But after a few seconds, with wind chill in the low teens and its energy being drained away in the cold, the coyote plodded onward.

When I took another sip of coffee, its heat too had been dissipated by the cold and was gone forever; it’s the Second Law of Thermodynamics after all. And on that note, I packed up my belongings and followed the snow-covered trail back to the parking lot. It was time for lunch, which at least I would have no trouble finding.

The Missing Red-headed Woodpeckers of Sand Prairie-Scrub Oak Nature Preserve

Sand Prairie-Scrub Oak Nature Preserve is a 1,460-acre site located in Mason County a few miles east of the Illinois River. The site is mostly oak-hickory woodland and savanna, but sand prairie also occupies a large percentage of the area. I have been a regular visitor to this preserve since 1991. It was during one of my early visitations that I first noticed an unusual number of overwintering red-headed woodpeckers in the preserve’s mature black oak woodlands; with leaves gone from the vegetation, the woodlands are much more open, and it is possible to see quite a distance through the trees and learn the contours of the land. So even at a distance, the red-headed woodpeckers stood out against the dominant dull grays and browns of the trees. And if I missed the actual appearance of a woodpecker, it would not be too long before I would hear their distinctive calls, sometimes from several directions at once. Their bright colors and energetic defenses of small winter territories, with caches of acorns, were a welcome contrast to the silent woods and cold, forbidding winds.

Sand Prairie-Scrub Oak Nature Preserve

        Each year thereafter I looked forward to seeing the overwintering red-headed woodpeckers of Sand Prairie-Scrub Oak Nature Preserve. And I often thought of taking counts of their numbers, but was usually too preoccupied with simply enjoying the wild landscape and finding my way; the preserve has no trails, and so on my first forays I relied heavily upon the sun, or compass on cloudy days, to find my way. I also was not sure what I would do with the data if I did make counts. So I did not have a great motivation for counting.

        But then in 2003 I bought a computer and discovered eBird, an Internet database managed by Cornell University’s Laboratory of Ornithology. The eBird database is used not only to store bird count data of all types and from all types of individuals, but it is used as a source of data for scientists to analyze and discover patterns and long-term trends in bird populations. For me, eBird gave a purpose to counting birds. After becoming aware of eBird, I found it difficult to visit Sand Prairie-Scrub Oak Nature Preserve and not count birds. And rather than hiking with no particular destination in mind, I began to follow a standard route over a similar time span so that my counts would not be overly biased by the amount of effort I expended. And so beginning in the fall of 2003, I made a point of systematically counting birds whenever I visited Sand Prairie-Scrub Oak Nature Preserve during the overwintering months. And I dutifully entered all of my counts into the eBird database (http://ebird.org/content/ebird/).

        For the first few years, my counts of red-headed woodpeckers were fairly consistent (see accompanying figure), even given an inherent and unknown degree of variability. Then on January 7, 2007, I counted an all-time high number of red-headed woodpeckers, about twice the number (40) that I usually counted (an average of 21 per count up to October 14, 2006). But by the fall of 2007, the counts dramatically declined to a new low (13). I missed counting in 2008. And when I returned in the spring of 2009, I had trouble finding even the one red-headed woodpecker that I did record; on the February 1, 2010 count, I found none.

 

        Of course, it has long been known that populations of overwintering red-headed woodpeckers vary with oak mast (acorns) production. They gather acorns, store them in tree holes, much of the time in standing dead trees, and then live off their acorn caches over the winter months. Years when mast is abundant tend to have higher numbers of overwintering red-headed woodpeckers in a given area than years with poor mast production, when the migrating woodpeckers fly to areas with more abundant mast. Although I made no attempt over the years to assess the availability of oak and hickory mast at Sand Prairie-Scrub Oak Nature Preserve, I would be surprised if mast production since I began counting birds at the preserve did not follow along with red-headed woodpecker numbers.

        Blue jays also have a strong affinity for acorns. The figure of data shows that although blue jay counts do not perfectly mirror red-headed woodpecker counts – and I would not really expect this, given the unknown complexities usually associated with counting anything in the wild – the high count of blue jays occurred on the same date as the high count of red-headed woodpeckers (January 7, 2007), and then both declined. And this is exactly what I would expect if both species were responding to mast production.

        Of course, assigning a definitive cause for a given observation is a difficult task, even when it appears to be obvious, as in this case. If I had quantitative information on mast production from 2003 to 2010, I would be in a better position to examine the possible causes behind the changes in red-headed woodpecker and blue jay counts. And there might be other factors. What, for example, about the effects of weather? Or white-tailed deer populations, a species also known to consume mast? How would these or other factors affect red-headed woodpecker populations?

        What I do know for sure, and this is even borne out in my red-headed woodpecker and blue jay counts, is that the natural world is dynamic, and change is always occurring, sometimes quickly so that we notice (a crash in red-headed woodpecker populations) and sometimes so slowly that a long-term perspective is necessary and only sensitive scientific instruments may be capable of detecting the change (continental drift). This latter type of change (slow over a long time) has helped give rise to the idea that an undisturbed natural world is in a stable and balanced condition, an idea that has been profoundly discredited (for an excellent account of this charge, see the book Discordant Harmonies: A New Ecology for the Twenty-First Century, by Daniel B. Botkin, published by Oxford University Press in 1990). In fact, expectations of stability, even or especially on a global scale, are sure to be disappointed when change is finally noticed. This is especially the case when we begin counting and measuring events or organisms, where it is inevitable that change over time is what we find. And as the scale of what is being examined increases, determining the cause for change becomes orders of magnitude more difficult and less certain.

        I have no idea if the year 2010 will or will not be a mast year at Sand Prairie-Scrub Oak Nature Preserve. But I will be there next fall, looking for the missing red-headed woodpeckers to return. I am quite confident that they will eventually return, but during which year, I cannot say; anymore than seven years ago I could have predicted that they would fall to low numbers during the winter of 2009-2010.

[This article has appeared in the Summer 2010 issue of Illinois Audubon magazine (pages 11 and 12), which is published by the Illinois Audubon Society (www.illinoisaudubon.org).]

 

NOTE:  Here is a link to a recent post (February 2021) about Sand Prairie-Scrub Oak Nature Preserve:  A 30-Year Perspective on Meanings and Change. 

The Color of Hope

Here in central Illinois, we are in the midst of a weak January thaw. There is still quite a bit of ice and snow cover, and with the damp air, our days have been engulfed in fog, including ice fog at times. The view outside our window is cheerful as the Gulag: melting ice and dirty snow; soggy, rotting leaves from last fall; fog-obscured distances, giving a closed-in feeling; and winter’s grayness in the extreme.

Northern Cardinal (Image by J.A. Lerczak)

But there is an obvious fight against despondency in the air too; every bit of fog-dampened color is a defiant contrast: the green pine trees that I planted several years ago; plump, brown fox squirrels at the bird feeder; red northern cardinals and house finches; and, inside our home, the colorful salad that my wife Julie has made for our lunch. With the kitchen window and the bleakness outside as a backdrop, the salad, with its bright green Romaine lettuce, red cherry tomatoes, orange carrots, and yellow cheese curds, presented another kind of contrast in color and mood to winter’s grip. I thought, with hope and joy, of the food our vegetable garden will produce later this year, of blue skies with billowing clouds, singing birds, and of a warming spring sun – still months away – giving life to the garden and health to the soul.

Bleakness ends with the color of hope.

A Tale of Two Floodplain Lakes

– November 27, 2009 –

A panoramic view of Chautauqua National Wildlife Refuge opened before me as I stood on the observation platform at the bluff edge. Looking directly west, expanses of open water, floodplain forests, and blue skies dominated my view; the Illinois River was obscured by the intervening forests, and beyond the river was another large floodplain lake called "Thompson Lake." Since it has been my experience from previous years that the waters of Lake Chautauqua in late autumn would be teeming with waterfowl, with my binoculars I took a quick sweep of the wide view. But surprisingly, except for a small group of mallards, I saw few waterfowl. This I found to be strange indeed, especially in late November; and so, I decided to sit on a nearby bench for a while, and hope that other birds might show up.

Eagle Bluff Access in summer, Chautauqua Refuge.

After five or ten minutes, a small group of greater white-fronted geese flew over the refuge and continued onward to the northeast. Soon a few Bonapart’s gulls passed, alternately flying and diving into the water. But during my observation period, other than one fast-moving group of five common goldeneyes, a single bufflehead, two American black ducks, and twenty Canada geese, this large waterfowl refuge continued to seem rather empty of waterfowl. But it made me wonder what might be happening at Thompson Lake. Was the waterfowl migration simply in a regional slump, with few ducks anywhere, or was there a difference between bird use of these two floodplain lakes. Of course, the only way to find the answers would be to immediately travel to Thompson Lake.

Though Thompson Lake was about three miles away from Chautauqua Refuge’s headquarters by line of sight, to reach it I first had to drive six miles south to Havana, cross the Illinois River, and then drive another two or three miles northward on state route 78, before finding a place to pull off of the two-lane levee road, just beyond reach of the rather constant highway traffic. I did not say "safe place to pull off" because there really is no such thing on SR 78. The busy highway traffic on the levee road seems to be mostly composed of folks engaged in serious travel, not slow-moving wildlife watchers looking for rare birds. So just before reaching one of several steep exit lanes that abruptly lead, at right angles, off of the highway levee, I quickly checked my rearview mirror, to make sure I was not being tailgated by a massive semi truck, and turned off the road. The exit ramp was muddy, soft, and steep; and even with a four-wheel drive vehicle, I was not confident that I could make the climb back up the levee. So I stayed parked near the top, just beyond the highway pavement. (It should be noted that wildlife viewing on Thompson Lake can also be accomplished at the boat launching area a bit further north on SR 78.)

But what I saw next almost allowed me to forget all about automobiles, loud pickup trucks, loud motorcycles, and semi trucks. Thompson Lake, nearly two miles wide and three or four miles long, seemed to be literally bank to bank full of waterfowl! There were thousands of waterbirds in view in every direction, as far as I could see. American coots were overwhelmingly the most abundant species. Ruddy ducks and ring-necked ducks were also quite numerous, though much less so than the coots. Northern shoveler, gadwall, canvasback, lesser scaup, pied-billed grebe, and horned grebe were also present. The contrast with Lake Chautauqua could not have been greater.

Later, as I waited for a break in the fast-moving vehicles so that I could safely enter the stream of highway traffic, I began to think more in depth about what I had just witnessed. Why was Chautauqua Refuge so little used compared with Thompson Lake? I felt certain the answer involved factors such as habitat quality, habitat structure, and food availability, or a certain combination of these and perhaps other factors. Of course, one major factor, the "elephant in the room," is the Illinois River itself. Thompson Lake is protected from the river’s degrading influences¹ by a massive levee, while Chautauqua Refuge is frequently connected to the river through a system of spillways and gates. At any rate, because these two floodplain lakes are part of my regular route for making natural history observations, I hoped to  answer my own questions one day soon.

Illinois River (left), levee, Thompson Lake (right), in 2009.

Chautauqua Refuge spillway with flooding river, in 2007.

¹ For more information on the Illinois River, see the "River Reading List" in the "Categories" section on The River Landing’s home page (left panel).

An Illinois River Bluff Hike and Turning 52

I rolled out of bed the morning of my 52^nd birthday feeling the usual familiar pains in my left foot and lower backside. But I truly felt no older than I had felt the year before, and actually felt quite younger than those first shocking moments of turning 50 – which really was not so bad after all. Folks decades older, I am sure, would think of such thoughts as ridiculous folly. For my birthday gift, I chose a hike with my wife Julie on the Illinois River bluffs at Forest Park South Nature Preserve.

As I dressed, in my mind’s eye I contrasted the view from the back door of our Mason County home, a rather flat to gently rolling countryside, with the rugged bluffs at Peoria that abruptly rise some 200 feet above the river; the bluffs more resemble foothills of the Missouri Ozarks than central Illinois’ agricultural landscape. From Havana, we followed the river bluffs in a northeasterly direction just beyond Peoria to the Forest Park Nature Center. Then without delay, we began our hike to the bluff tops; it was a steep hike at times, and I had to favor my right knee, for a moment feeling older than my years, lest I cause aggravation of an old injury. Just as we entered the woods, I heard a white-breasted nuthatch, tufted titmouse, and black-capped chick-a-dee, and I knew that we were in the midst of a mixed-species flock of birds foraging their way through the forest, looking for insects in crevices of tree bark or snapping up an occasional seed or berry. In a moment, there was a brown creeper and downy woodpecker, all part of the diffuse flock.

Part way to the top of the bluff we sat and rested upon a large boulder, listening and watching the birds moving onward. The boulder was certainly a hard seat, but it reminded me that the river bluffs were actually formed thousands of years ago at the edge of a great glacier that grinded across the land from the top of the world, that reached all the way around the earth’s northern hemisphere to Siberia. The glacier ended at Peoria where it melted at the same rate as it moved forward for thousands of years, dropping rocks, boulders, gravel, and sand onto a terminal moraine like a giant conveyor belt. The boulder we rested on, in fact, was once probably in Canada.

After a few minutes, we continued our hike to the bluff top. Once reaching the ridge, the trail was more level and the hike was easier. I recalled from a previous hike on this trail encountering an elderly gentleman walking with a cane, and I thought that if I could do the same in a few decades, I would feel satisfied, to say nothing of feeling extremely fortunate.

We enjoyed walking through the mature oak-hickory forest, noticing signs of its struggle against being overtaken by sugar maple and ironwood trees. Some of the oldest oak trees have experienced heart rot, a typical condition for old trees, and have fallen or lost large branches in recent wind and ice storms. The fallen trees were old before I was born, but as long as their seedlings survive to reach the canopy, future forests will be maintained with the same species assemblage and resemble today’s forest, though the actual canopy trees will likely be different individuals.

Prairie opening at Forest Park South Nature Preserve.

Eventually the trail entered an open area, part woodland and part prairie, that may be termed a savanna or barrens. The prairie opening follows the ridge line, especially on the south- and southwestern-facing slopes. Here I expected to see red-headed woodpeckers, who thrive in such habitats, but the woodpeckers were elusive or absent. From out vantage point at the prairie, we had an unobstructed view of a portion of upper Peoria Lake, which fills the river valley. Even with the beautiful view, I found it impossible to look upon the lake and not recall its many intractable environmental problems, not the least of which is the lake’s loss of depth due to siltation from watershed erosion. With recent heavy and frequent rains, the tributaries were all running high and muddy, and Peoria Lake has less volume with every passing day. How long this may continue, I do not know, but I hope that the day may not come within my lifetime for the lake to be shallow enough for black willow trees to survive, vanguards of a floodplain forest, where now there is only open water.

Barrens at Forest Park South Nature Preserve.

At the edge of the prairie opening, Julie and I sat on our favorite bench for a few minutes and watched a soaring red-tailed hawk. Several homes along Grandview Drive were visible from the bench, and I thought that any of those houses may not be a bad place to live; I wondered if we were being watched.

Before too long, we took the distant approach of two hikers as a signal to leave, and began our return hike. At our last view of the barrens opening, I stopped to look backward, to fix the view upon my mind, thinking about when I might return – hopefully many times over many healthful years. And I turned to Julie who said, "The hike felt good." Indeed, it did.

Looking for Signs at Sand Hill Savanna

Today I thought to look for signs of the deepening fall season, remnants of summer, and the impending winter. The Illinois River is always my first thought for such activities, but I am lazy on this cool, early October Saturday morning, not up for a drive of even the few miles it would take to get to the river. With breakfast under my belt, I opt for a simple walk around our rural homestead – perhaps to see some migrating birds such as sharp-shinned hawks and boreal forest warblers, the kinds of species that generate nostalgic thoughts of the north woods of upper Michigan, scenes of so many favorite times.

On the edge of our woods, I can see for a mile across the light tans of still unharvested corn crops and the yellowish-greens of soybean fields. Harvests are already underway elsewhere around Mason County, and the bounties of summer will soon be trucked away and stored in vast grain bins along the river, then transported downstream on fleets of towboat-barges to points unknown, perhaps even exotic destinations on strange foreign shores.

Sand Hill Savanna with bur oaks, hazelnut, and prairie grasses.

At the portion of our property that we have named "Sand Hill Savanna," hazelnut leaves show signs of orange; heath aster still blooms; only a few purple asters still are with flowers; the showy goldenrod is nearly finished; and the prairie grasses are in their final stages. Bees are concentrated on the few goldenrods still with bright yellow flowers, lethargically gathering as much pollen as they are able, before it is all gone; they move slowly and unenthusiastically, their actions appropriately in tune with the gray skies and with me as I drag myself back to the house for another cup of coffee.

Later as I tilt my head backward to sip the dark, warm liquid, I hear a slight, thin sound of a bird calling from our withered mulberry tree, and catch a fleeting glimpse of a ruby-crowned kinglet – just passing through, perhaps from Isle Royale in Lake Superior on its way to the Texas coast. In a few seconds, the bird is gone, and I soon notice a close-knit group of six northern flickers poking around in the mowed grass near the vegetable garden, which still shows a bit of red from ripe tomatoes yet to be picked.

Showy goldenrod with bees, Sand Hill Savanna, 2009.

It may be surprising that I am looking forward to the coming winter. But I find the diversity of seasons here in central Illinois interesting, though I am sure that such thoughts are a luxury not shared by the birds that I watch.

Canoeing the Willow Thickets of Chautauqua National Wildlife Refuge

September 19, 2009

I launched my canoe at the old boat ramp at Chautauqua Refuge’s south pool. At this time of the year, the water would normally be quite low, sometimes even too shallow for a canoe. But refuge managers have kept the water levels deep for the last couple of years in an attempt to set back the black willow thicket that is threatening to take over the south pool. Extensive rains and a frequently flooding Illinois River this year have encouraged this effort.

From a distance, the flooded willow thickets look impenetrable. But a closer approach would show that the trees are spaced far enough apart for canoe travel. The thickets, which began growing in earnest about 15 years ago, have been self-thinning and growing taller ever since; beavers have also been thinning the willows a bit as attested by their numerous cuttings and occasional lodges. But the flooding keeps succession from proceeding as it normally would toward a silver maple-green ash forest. This thicket that is becoming a forest is solid black willow, with the largest individuals about 10 inches in diameter and 25 to 30 feet tall.

Out in the open water, migrating tree swallows kept me company, darting close to the canoe as they gulped insects to fuel their southward migrations. At the willow thicket, which seemed to cover a not insignificant proportion of the south pool, a great blue heron took flight from a willow perch. And great egrets stood on branches that barely protruded from the water. A belted kingfisher perched on a higher snag, and let out its usual rattle call as I floated past. Though I was still on the open water, from within the flooded willow forest I heard wood duck calls echoing from the trees. At one point, ten wood ducks flew from the shelter of the willows; and I speculated that a true survey of the entire thicket-forest would undoubtedly yield many more. The willows are clearly providing birds with needed habitat, though obviously not the open-water diving ducks or ducks of open marshes.

For a few moments, I enjoyed the warm morning sun on my back; but I paddled onward, bound for the cool shelter of the willows, where I planned to have an early lunch and read. Then a loud, high-pitched calling from the willow edge commanded my attention. My first thought was "shorebird," but then I estimated the shallowest water in the willows was about four feet deep; so, I reasoned, a shorebird could not have made that sound. And then I saw the osprey, flying directly toward me. It probably used the willows as a night roost and early morning foraging perch, and was awaiting mid-morning thermal activity before continuing southward on its journey. The bird circled around and then rapidly gained altitude, before soaring away toward the southwest. I struggled to keep the bird in my binoculars as the breeze continually turned my canoe in the wrong direction for viewing. But within a few minutes, the osprey was nearly beyond sight, and so I continued with my paddling business, to the willows and shade.

Hiding in the black willows at Chautauqua NWR.

American White Pelicans Coming Home to Roost

August 25, 2009

We came out to the Chautauqua National Wildlife Refuge, my wife and I, in the early evening for a fruit and cheese supper at the Eagle Bluff Access area, to relax on our fold-up chairs for a quiet time observing life on the refuge, perhaps a bit of reading, and to watch the sun fall below the bluffs across the Illinois River valley. But except for a few swallows of various kinds, great blue herons, and double-crested cormorants, there was not much wildlife activity on the refuge; not even a need for setting up the spotting scope.

After our supper, and just before sundown, we left the observation deck for a walk across the refuge, toward the Illinois River, on the levee that separates the refuge’s north and south pools of Lake Chautauqua. And that was also when many birds became increasingly active. There were more foraging swallows, which passed over the cross levee on their way between the two refuge pools; several loudly calling Caspian terns; a great horned owl hooting from obscurity within the black willow thickets; and a lone pectoral sandpiper that drew our attention on the barren sand along the water’s edge. Then at once, we saw a line of American white pelicans flying in an long, undulating, repeating pattern across the sky, then another group, and then still another, which abruptly changed direction as the group flew low directly above us, apparently nervous about flying so close to two human beings. Before too long, more pelicans flew over, and we estimated a couple thousand that joined together into one large grouping in the far corner of the refuge’s north pool, gathering together in a large night roost on the water.

As the sun sank below the horizon, we heard loudly calling cicadas, another sure sign of summer’s imminent end.

 

Nighthawks on the Move

Sitting outside in our yard, reading and looking up into the sky.  How so unlike this it was in May and June, being persecuted by the buffalo gnats!  Now I can sit and stare, and nothing bothers me.  I looked up when I heard a bank swallow calling far overhead, and then four nighthawks glided over my home.  Staging in the skies, preparing for the fall migration, or probably in the midst of it.  What if they were from the north country, where I have just returned from?  Door County, Wisconsin, nighthawks?