July 9, 2009 at 6:27 am (dragonflies and damselflies, methods)
Tags: American rubyspot, Argia apicalis, Argia moesta, Arigomphus submedianus, blue-fronted dancer, cyrano darner, Des Plaines River, Des Plaines Riverway, dragonfly monitoring, Enallagma civile, Enallagma traviatum, familiar bluet, great blue heron, Hetaerina americana, Illinois rose, jade clubtail, kayak, Nasiaeschna pentacantha, nest, powdered dancer, Rosa setigera, slender bluet, Songbird Slough, Waterfall Glen, Willowbrook
by Carl Strang
I have been part of the regional dragonfly monitoring program since it began in 2003. I started counting dragonflies and damselflies at Willowbrook, Songbird Slough and Waterfall Glen Forest Preserves, in recent years focusing on the last two. Though I continued to find new species from time to time, the past couple of years I have felt the need to try something new. The major gap in my knowledge was in river species, so this year I decided to combine my loves of kayaking and dragonfly monitoring by trying out a river route. Water levels have been high, and cool weather has been suboptimal for monitoring, so I didn’t make my first excursion until last weekend. I launched my sea kayak from the forest preserve boat ramp at Des Plaines Riverway, and headed downstream into Waterfall Glen Forest Preserve.
Experienced kayakers know to tie everything to the boat. I didn’t want to risk wetting my digital voice recorder, so I tied a waterproof notebook to a deck line, tied two pencils to the notebook, wore my waterproof small camera and binoculars, and tucked everything else into my yellow deck bag.
I used the strongest current in the center of the river to go downstream, taking moments along the way to enjoy sights such as scattered great blue heron nests.
The only American rubyspot of the day made it easy by landing on my bow.
Dragonflies were tougher, however. The low, seated vantage point made flying dragonflies look different, and it took a while to recognize even familiar species. They were flying fast over the center of the river, making photography impossible, and even tracking them with binoculars was very difficult. My frustration was limited by the low number of insects active in the center of the river that day. I reached a convenient turn around point after an hour, and started back following the sunlit north shore. (Current is slower near the bank, making the upstream paddling easier.) Odonata were much more abundant along the edge. Some damselflies continued to land on the boat. Here a powdered dancer and a blue-fronted dancer chose to land on the deck bag, providing a comparison shot.
Other damselflies kept their distance, landing on sticks or debris. The small camera’s telephoto was adequate to get shots of the abundant blue type bluets, which proved to be familiar bluets.
There also were many black type bluets, which I identified as slender bluets.
The most abundant dragonflies were jade clubtails, some of which liked my deck.
I was pleased to see a Cyrano darner along the way, though I was unable to get a photo. Toward the end I got a nice view of some Illinois roses.
All in all there was a nice variety of species, most of them familiar but some I missed. I look forward to a continuing learning experience as I return to this route on future weekends.
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July 8, 2009 at 6:14 am (botany, gardening)
Tags: Asclepias tuberosa, Baptisia leucantha, beans, butterfly weed, carrots, chard, day lily, garden, gardening, garlic, Hemerocallis, kale, lettuce, spiderwort, Tradescantia virginiana, white wild indigo
by Carl Strang
Yesterday I shared my woodland gardens. Today I want to show the back yard. We’re not talking big. For instance, here is my wetland.
My prairie is in two parts, both of the postage stamp scale. One part along the back fence will peak in blooming later. For now, some non-native day lilies are providing color.
The other prairie plot has flowers through more of the season.
At the moment, the main eye-catchers are butterfly milkweed, white wild indigo, and spiderwort. Others will come along later.
On the same scale I also tuck in a vegetable garden.
As I mentioned yesterday, gardening involves inquiry. Though the back yard is the sunniest area I have, the sun doesn’t really reach it until late morning, limiting what I can do there. I have had poor results with carrots and with garlic, for example, and no longer grow them. Beans have given such inconsistent results that I have abandoned them, too. This year I am focusing more on greens, adding Tuscan kale and Swiss chard to the old standby, lettuce.
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July 7, 2009 at 6:11 am (botany, gardening)
Tags: Acer saccarinum, Alocasia, Amelanchier, amsonia, Asimina triloba, Cornus alternifolia, garden, Geranium maculatum, Hamamelis virginiana, hosta, Jacob's ladder, Juneberry, New Guinea impatiens, pagoda dogwood, pawpaw, Polemonium reptans, Polygonatum biflorum, silver maple, smooth arrow-wood, Solomon's seal, tuberous begonia, Viburnum recognitum, wild geranium, witch hazel
by Carl Strang
In an earlier post I outlined my general, less-than-purist approach to gardening. I emphasize native species, but add others to make connections to my neighbors’ landscapes and to keep some color going through the season. Any gardener knows that there is an element of inquiry in the art. For instance, I have not had success with Jacob’s ladder in the main woodland garden in my side yard, but it does fine in the front.
This year I am experimenting with a variegated form of Solomon’s seal in the front and side yards.
My small side yard is dominated by 3 silver maples. Beneath them I have an understory with witch hazels, smooth arrow-wood, Juneberry, and pagoda dogwood. A mix of native woodland plants has something blooming for a good part of the season. Earlier the wild geraniums flowered.
These are supplemented by some non-native amsonias in the background.
If you look closely you may see the small pawpaws that ultimately will overtop the amsonias. These are growing from seeds I brought back from a vacation trip to southern Ohio, though pawpaw is native to northeast Illinois, too. Mid-summer brings a gap in blooming woodland wildflowers.
Though personally I like the variation in textures and shades of green, I like to bring in some color with tuberous begonias and hostas along the edge.
This year I also added an urn with some New Guinea impatiens and a tropical Alocasia ‘Sarian’.
I’m interested in seeing if these will keep going if I bring the urn indoors for winter.
P.S. this is the 200th post of this blog.
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July 6, 2009 at 6:10 am (Uncategorized)
Tags: free play, Roger Raccoon Club
by Carl Strang
One of the children’s programs I help conduct each year is a camp for 9-12-year-olds called the Roger Raccoon Club. This is one of the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County’s efforts to give suburban kids the opportunity to experience nature through free-form play and exploration. We provide instruction in basic safety, and offer ideas, but then maximize the free time and turn the kids loose. Though inquiry is not part of the curriculum, naturally it comes up. For instance, we teach the safe capture, handling and release of small animals.
The children spend an impressive amount of their own time, then, on the hunt.
Their explorations may give them experiences of looking into water,
immersing themselves in water,
and climbing trees.
Creative manipulation of plants may produce a necklace
or a magic wand.
Following a dry streambed to see where it goes can lead to the discovery of a Silurian cephalopod.
Fascination with fire led one boy to see what would happen if he scorched leaves.
He reported that some smelled, surprisingly, like apple cider, while others didn’t. My only participation in the process was to suggest that odors are chemicals and heat can produce chemical changes. Where any of these experiences will lead is impossible to say, but I believe it is important that all children have them.
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July 5, 2009 at 6:16 am (Uncategorized)
Tags: Class of '69, Culver
by Carl Strang
Class reunions are revealing. I graduated in 1969 from Culver Community High School. That school district is so rural that my graduating class had just a few more than 100 people in it, and that was after consolidating 4 entire townships (from 4 counties!). Recently we celebrated our second big reunion. The first, our 20th, I enjoyed, but I remember noting how we fell quickly into old roles, how there was a fair amount of posturing, how emotional wounds still needed healing in many of us. The 40th was different.
Clearly we had grown beyond those old influences. We each had survived our own battles, had become comfortable with our selves.
Though naturally we conversed mainly with our closest childhood friends, there was an interest in what everyone had done, and I felt a collective sense of pride at how much we as a group had accomplished.
What does this have to do with inquiry? So much of who we are is established in our school-age years. We find our first interests, and test them out. Someone remembered me giving a talk on coots, how they are different from ducks and so forth. It turned out that several people remembered my coot talk. I was not one of them.
Probably that talk grew out of a period of a few years when I reported to the state conservation department on the numbers of various waterfowl species stopping by Lake Maxinkuckee during migration. I filled out a postcard form each week and sent it in. That experience taught me a little about making careful observations and recording data, and was so enjoyable that it reinforced my established interest in nature study.
The tone of the reunion was of mutual support and congratulations. Again I thank the organizers, and all of you who helped frame my development in those important formative years.
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July 4, 2009 at 6:29 am (insects (other))
Tags: Bacillus thuringiensis, gypsy moth, Lymantria dispar, Mayslake, York Woods
by Carl Strang
Earlier I described gypsy moth egg masses . These hatched in May, and the caterpillars have been busy. The larval gypsy moth is distinctive.
This caterpillar, about an inch long, I photographed at Mayslake on June 4. It is hairy, has rows of blue and red spots on its back, and (not so visible in the photo) a mottled yellow and black head. The entire package reminds me of a Chinese parade dragon. There would be no problem if there were just this one, or a few. Unfortunately their populations build to the thousands, enough to strip some trees of their leaves. On June 13 I visited York Woods, where several oaks were defoliated last year. Though some leaves looked well chewed,
I saw no trees that appeared in danger of being defoliated this year.
Earlier in the season, helicopters sprayed a bacterial disease at York Woods and other spots where there was danger that gypsy moths would defoliate trees. I saw one dead gypsy moth caterpillar that appeared to have been killed by this disease.
The bacillus attacks all moth and butterfly caterpillars, and so the decision to spray is not made casually. As I understand it, the spray is used to protect hot spots as long as these are few and local. Once the gypsy moth population builds to the point where they are abundant and universal, that spray will be discontinued (except, perhaps, in certain high use and high quality areas) and hope will shift to a fungal disease, predators and insect parasites to limit the harm done by the caterpillars. The usual pattern is a few years of unpleasantness and the loss of a percentage of trees (mainly ones weakened by other conditions), after which there is a permanent presence of diseases and parasites that keep gypsy moths within limits.
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July 2, 2009 at 8:58 pm (mammals, methods)
Tags: fawn, fawn spotting, Fullersburg, white-tailed deer
by Carl Strang
One of the first postings in this blog was about identifying the gender of older fawns . Now that we have a new crop of them, I want to bring up the possibility of recognizing individuals by their distinctive spotting patterns. Here is a tiny fawn that enchanted us at Fullersburg Woods a couple years ago when it curled up beside the office building one day.
Compare its spotting pattern to that of the fawn below, encountered 42 days later not far from the office building.
It’s the same animal. I draw your attention to the smiley face pattern on the upper right shoulder, the trio of spots to the right of it, and the large area empty of spotting above it. Here’s another example.
The above photo I took July 17. Compare it to the next, taken August 27.
Again I feel confident in declaring these photos to be of the same individual. Spotting patterns on fawns appear to be distinctive, and as long as they last you can use them to keep track of animals in areas you visit regularly.
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June 30, 2009 at 8:43 pm (singing insects)
Tags: common meadow katydid, Culver, Gryllus veletis, Metrioptera roeselii, Orchelimum vulgare, range extension, Roesel's katydid, spring field cricket
by Carl Strang
Earlier I featured northeast Illinois’ common native predaceous katydid, the protean shieldback . We have another predaceous katydid, an import from Europe, Roesel’s katydid. Here is a female. Note the general brown color, and the yellow-edged half-moon of black behind the head.
This is a species of open prairies, meadows and roadsides, preferring a mix of tall grasses and forbs. Here is a male in singing posture.
There are two things to note in comparing the two photos. First, the female is recognized by the curved, bladelike ovipositor protruding from the back of her abdomen. A structure of this sort is present in all female crickets and katydids. Second, note the long wings of the male and the short wings of the female. This is not a gender difference, as either gender can have either wing length. The male’s singing structures are in the basal part of the wings, and are complete in short-winged individuals.
Range maps for Roesel’s typically show it in a fairly large area of the northeastern U.S. plus a separate, smaller area in northern Illinois. I expected to find it in DuPage County. It is indeed abundant here, and I have found it in Kane and Kendall Counties as well. Imagine my surprise two years ago when, riding my bicycle around Culver, in north central Indiana, I started hearing the distinctive flat buzzing songs of Roesel’s katydids. I interrupted my workout to find one, and confirmed its identity visually. I intended to begin exploring the extent of their range extension last year, but a bike fall in mid-June gave me a broken collarbone and rib, forcing a postponement.
Last week I took a couple vacation days and searched for Roesel’s in two additional Indiana areas. First I drove to North Manchester in Wabash County, home of Manchester College.
I covered 25 miles of country roads on my bike, and found scattered Roesel’s both west and east of North Manchester. I collected a voucher specimen.
I’m not fond of killing insects, but in this case felt the need for a voucher to support my claim. For what it’s worth, the greatest concentration of them was at the intersection of county roads 1400N and 300W.
I found a larger than usual area of unmowed mixed grasses and forbs there.
That was the source of the voucher specimen. The next day I drove down to Logansport for another prospecting bike ride. In a 22-mile tour of Cass County roads from the Wabash River north, again I encountered Roesel’s katydids regularly along the way. As on the previous day there were plenty of spring field crickets, too, plus a number of common meadow katydids, the first I’ve heard this year.
Roesel’s song is a mechanical sounding buzz, lengthy but with occasional interruptions. Nothing else produces a sound like it so early in the season. The males usually begin singing around mid-morning (though on a hot day I have heard them as early as 7:15 a.m.), and continue through the heat of the afternoon. In northeast Illinois the earliest appearance I have noted was June 10 (in 2007), latest June 22 (last year). They continue into the second half of July (the latest I have heard one was July 28 in 2006). For recordings of the song, go here or here . You also can see the conventional range map, which clearly needs updating.
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June 29, 2009 at 9:38 pm (botany)
Tags: Allium canadense, Apocynum cannabinum, Baptisia leucantha, dogbane, Echinacea pallida, Geum aleppicum strictum, Geum canadense, Geum laciniatum, Mayslake, Parthenium integrifolium, Polygonum amphibium, purple coneflower, rough avens, Thalictrum revolutum, water knotweed, waxy meadow rue, white avens, white wild indigo, wild onion, wild quinine, yellow avens
by Carl Strang
We have entered a part of the season when most newly appearing native wildflowers are those of prairies and other open areas. Woodlands are so shaded by now that most of their flowers have finished blooming. One common exception is the white avens.
This member of the rose family is one of our most common woodland plants. Its seeds have little hooks for catching the fur (or clothing) of passing mammals, which then convey them. Earlier in the season I mentioned another avens, the yellow avens, which since has proven to be ubiquitous at Mayslake to the point where I don’t remember seeing it nearly as abundant anywhere else. A third avens species is the rough avens.
This one is much less common at Mayslake, growing mainly in somewhat open places close to the stream or other bodies of water. Water also is the home for the beautiful flowers of the water knotweed.
This one is abundant in parts of the marsh between the stream and the chapel. The rest of the flowers featured today are prairie forbs. A forb is an herbaceous species that is not a grass, sedge or similar plant. The criterion is not, however, wind pollination vs. animal pollination. The waxy meadow rue is a wind-pollinated forb.
Dogbane is the native plant which produces the best fibers for rope making.
Other prairie plants have names suggesting uses we may have found for them: food (wild onion),
dye (white wild indigo),
and medicine (wild quinine,
and purple coneflower).
The last has become a popular herbal remedy under its genus name, Echinacea. Medical researchers are skeptical of its efficacy, but I find that laboratory studies do not carefully replicate traditional preparation methods and so themselves have to be regarded as inconclusive.
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