Midewin - 8.15.10, Post 1

This was so very clearly not the world's most thought out trip ever.
The Chicago weather had, theoretically, broken.  We were out of the 90's and into the lower 80's... or so the weatherman said.  So I wanted to get out and shoot.  And I wanted to get out of the city.

I did a little Google roulette and decided to try the Midewin National Tallgrass Preserve.  It's in Willmington, IL, just south of Joliet, an area I was familiar with since I used to live down there about 10 years ago.

Long story short, during World War II, Korea and Vietnam the military had a munitions manufacturing plant in this area.  They made TNT, bombs, shells, the whole nine yards.  In 1970 they shut down the plant.  It took them 25 years to clean the land of the contaminants and in 1995 the land became the property of the National Forest Preserve and it was turned back into a proper Illinois prairie.

It's a very, very large prairie with several different distinct ecosystems - savannah, woodlands, wetlands, etc...  And you need to drive from one to get to another.  It's very, very big.

Anyway...

Problem The First:  My cursory glance of the website did not reveal that the welcome center is not open at all on Sundays.  Guess when I went.  Of course.  But there was this nice little literature holder with a map of the park and some phone numbers.  I see one that says "After Hours" and call it to see if I can still hike even if the welcome center is closed and to see if there's a place to park, since the gate to the main parking lot was locked.  I called and got a machine.  I hung up, figuring that there was no one there.

So as I continue looking over the info I notice that it actually says, "Emergency and After Hours".  Oops.  I've hung up on an emergency number.  I really do know better than that.  So someone called back to make sure everything was okay and I apologized for being stupid and he told me that I could still hike and where I could park.  He was very nice in the face my huge Oops.

Problem The Second: The weatherman lied.  Hugely.  When I got back to my car after my hike it said it was 92 degrees.  I'd gone through all the water and Gatoraid in my bag and eaten all my pickles (I like to pack pickles with my lunch - they add water and salt :) by the time I got back.  Good thing I keep a gallon of drinking water in my car in the summer!  This is not the kind of place where you can just nip over to the nearest 7-11 and grab something.  There's a porta-potty in the parking lot.  That's the only 'convenience' outside of the (closed) welcome center.  In fact, you're so far out that each trailhead has sign in book so people will know you're out there.  In my 8 hours out there, I saw one couple on horseback and one guy on a bike.  That was it for the day.  (On the flip side, I did have a cell phone signal the whole time (except for IN the bunker) so I wasn't too freaked out about being in the great unknowns on my own.

Problem The Third: After having survived almost 38 years without ever getting a tick in my life, I saw the "Tick Area" signs and went, "Okay, note to self, brush off bugs."  And then continued to hike around in my shorts and t-shirt.  Yeah, I was all the way home when I realized I had a tick in the middle of my right calf.  I didn't feel a thing, so it's a very good thing that this little monster was somewhere where it was easily seen.  Anyway, this thing caused huge amounts of drama.  I called the E.R. and said, "I have a tick, I can't get it out."  They had me call my doctor, who of course, wasn't in on 6:30 at night on a Sunday.  So her service called her, she called me and the long and the short of it was I had to go to the E.R. to have it removed.

I hate anything that goes through my skin.  Needles, pins, BUGS!  So this thing had me pretty freaked out.  The nurse was great though and got it out completely painlessly.

But here's the part that sucks.  I'm on antibiotics for two weeks to make sure I don't get Lyme Disease.  I've read enough on Lyme Disease to know that I never, ever want to get it.  But wow, these drugs are no picnic either.  Both the E.R. doc and my doc insist that this one is the best one for the job, but my body really hates it.

So, you know... if you see Tick Area signs, take them very, very seriously.  Wear long sleeves and long pants, tuck your pants into your socks, the whole nine yards.

I have never been so grateful that I wear a bandana over my head almost every time I shoot.  I really don't want to think about one of those little blood-suckers being lost in my hair where I wouldn't be able to see it.

Problem the Fourth: If I did want to go back, it would be further into the fall, when it's cooler and the flora will have changed. Unfortunately, Midewin is also a hunting ground.  In the fall it's apparently deer season (Spring is turkey season - that said I didn't see one turkey or deer all day).  A.) I don't want to see people hunting deer.  I certainly don't want to see them succeed.  B.) I'm sure the park has it sorted, but I'm not entirely sure that I want to be hiking in the general vicinity of people shooting guns.

So!  Anyway, I spent the day out there doing a five mile trip around the Bunker Group 63 Loop.

While the munitions plant is gone, and obviously, so is anything that might blow up, the storage bunkers are still there.  Row after row after row of these things.

Throughout the grounds there are a few open ones.  They have signs on them that they can be used as inclement weather shelters.  I used one as a place to stop and eat lunch. :)  They aren't ridiculously huge, but they are smooth concrete.  The echoes in these things was amazing.  Just unzipping my bag made enough noise to echo for five or six seconds.

 Unless you're a huge insect fan, this place - at least the section I explored - was kind of a wash.  Lots and lots and lots of bugs (I got attacked by a swarm of - wait for it - butterflies!)  But other than the cows used to maintain the prairie (and kept behind barbed-wire away from the hiking paths), I didn't see a mammal all day.  But like I said, there was an insane number of insects.  Here's a little red ant on a Queen Anne's Lace.

[Ant's Anne Lace]

 Here's a bee on a milkweed plant.  I like how you can see, so clearly, the stripes on his abdomen.

[Milkweed Bee]

 The place is butterfly central.  If you want a place to catch 'flutterbies' in their natural environment, this totally is your place.  I this case a female black swallowtail feeds from a bull thistle.

[Floating Female Swallowtail]

 The prairie was pretty dry, so where there were ruts in the road, water tended to collect.  Around these little watering holes would be hundreds of butterflies.  These are Clouded Yellows.  With their wings open, they were maybe two inches tip to tip.  Very tiny.  And there were huge flocks of them all over the prairie.
[Clouded Yellow Butterflys Get Together for a Drink]

 I'm fairly sure this is an Eastern Tailed Blue Butterfly (though I found that name on a Wisconsin butterflies site - but I don't think Butterflies get caught up in the cheddar curtain or anything, so...).

Anyway, what I love about this shot is that not only is the little 1 inch butterfly a beautiful purple, so is his shadow!

[Me and My Purple Shadow]

 The Buckeye Butterflies were very calm and tended to land in the middle of the paths.


[Basking Buckeye]






Okay, that's post one.  More from this hike tomorrow. :)

The Magic Hedge - 7.20.10 (2/2)

Okay, here's the rest of the shots from my last walk in the Hedge...

I actually got in front a very large bee.  Check out the weird bee eyes!  I believe this is a Bull Thistle flower.

[Bee Eyes over Thistle]

Another chicory flower.  I love the way the tips of the stamens are such a bright white while the stalks are dark gray.

[Chicory Reaches Out]

A path near the hedge.

[Road Less Traveled]

A

A buckeye butterfly lands on some prairie grass.

[Buckeye Butterfly Takes a Breather]

This is a milkweed plant.

[Milkweed Stands Tall]

These are milkweed beetles.  Go figure.

[Milkweed Beetles on Namesake Flower]

A red admiral butterfly on a milkweed plant.

[Red Admiral on Milkweed]

I was worried about this bee for a while.  He was so still while I was shooting, I was afraid he was dead.  But not so much.  He crawled around after a few minutes, but his wings did seem pretty badly damaged.  I wonder if this is an 'old' bee?

[Old Bee on Anne's Lace]

The Magic Hedge - 7.20.10 (1/2)

I always love it when I go somewhere I've been before, especially if I've been there multiple times, and I find something new. When I hiked the Hedge last I found several species there that I'd never seen before.

I absolutely cannot Google a species on this bee.  I thought at first it might have been a queen, but that didn't seem to be it.  I can't tell how much of the yellow on the sides is pollen and how much might be actual bee fuzz.  If it's all pollen then it's probably a honking-huge carpenter bee with a TON of pollen on him, but if that's actual bee-fuzz... And these flowers don't have yellow pollen, so...  I'm stymied.  Anyone?
[Wide Angled Bee]

 A new species for me!  American Goldfinch.  I thought these things existed only in pet stores, seriously.  Or possibly somewhere far more tropical, like Brazil.  Chicago is not known for it's exotic and bright birdlife.  Mostly we have dirt-gray pigeons, you know?  Next I work on getting really *good* pictures of these guys.  But I was stoked to find him.  Actually I saw several before I left.

[The Goldfinch's Back]

Bug damage.  The plant this leaf-skeleton was attached to was seemingly healthy, but this leaf was *done in* by some kind of insect.  The resulting structure of veins is pretty interesting.

[Leaf Skeleton]

 Yet another new species!  This is a male downy woodpecker.  I'm a little fascinated by the way he can just stand on the tree and have his body be almost parallel to the ground.

[90 Degree Woodpecker]

 This is a root chicory flower.  They're everywhere in the Hedge now.  Yes, this is the stuff that gets ground up and used as fake-coffee-substitute in hotels and stuff.  Well, probably not the flower part, but this plant.  If you blow this up and look at the center, the pistol and stamen construction is pretty awesome.

[Chicory Blossom]

 Pine cones.  Lots and lots of pine cones.  I keep thinking this is the kind of shot that should be the background for something else or a computer wallpaper or something.

[Pine Cone Canopy]

 A tangle of native wildflowers.  Coneflowers, Queen Anne's Lace and Clover (I think the purple is clover, but if it is, it's really tall clover.)  That's Lake Michigan in the background.

[Prairie Flower Tangle]

 I've loved Queen Ann's Lace since I was a kid and they grew near the retention pond across the street from my house.  First of all, they're tough as nails.  Ever try to pick one?  Second of all, I love the flower-in-a-flower.  The little purple flower inside the big white one.  [Queen Anne's Lace]

 Queen Anne's Lace and Chickory growing together.  Things you learn from Google:  The root of the QAL is a wild carrot.  Who knew?

[Prairie Partners]

These are milkweed flowers.  There will be more about them in the second post from this walk.  But I love the monarch hanging off this one.

[Milkweed Monarch]








Ten pictures makes a post.  I'll post the rest of the shots from this walk next. :)