Wishing on Cranes

There’s a Japanese legend that says if you make one thousand origami cranes, you’ll be granted your wish for peace, luck, or good health.

My lack of fine motor skills wouldn’t serve me well in an attempt to make a thousand origami cranes—not even a single origami crane, for that matter. So instead of paper birds, I enjoy the real thing this week: thousands of sandhill cranes flying over the prairie.

For a woman who had never seen tallgrass before, discovering a prairie for the first time almost two decades ago was an epiphany. Big, blue skies. Solitude. Riots of wildflowers in the summer.

And then, the cranes.

So loud! New to Illinois, I assumed they were a species of geese until a neighbor clued me in. Now, their migrations south in late autumn and north each spring are an irreplaceable part of the soundtrack of my suburban life. Their dependable rhythm bookends the transition between the hot and cold seasons.

My friend Karen, who recently migrated to Florida, shared the above photo of two cranes and their chick with me this spring. Florida has resident sandhill cranes all year round. But the large flocks of cranes they host in the winter months are from the Midwest and Canada. These are the ones I see now, flying north.

As the cranes scribble their ballet moves across the sky, writing their flight in cursive script, I think of the headlines that have dominated the world this week. Tragedies. Hatred. Dirty politics, discrimination, and mud-slinging. Words and actions that polarize us and accentuate our differences, instead of helping us find common ground.

Then I watch the cranes flying so high; clean, bright and beautiful.

And I make a wish.

(All photos except sandhill crane family, by Cindy Crosby: Top to bottom: Sandhill Cranes, Springbrook Prairie, Naperville, IL; pale purple coneflower and bee fly, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL: sandhill crane parents and chick, courtesy Karen Bilbrey, Brandon, FL; after the burn at Springbrook Prairie; Indian Hemp, Springbrook Prairie.)

A Wing and a Prayer

Do you know that Illinois has a state insect? No, not the mosquito. The monarch butterfly.

Monarchs are familiar to those of us who spend time on tallgrass prairies, and probably the most familiar butterfly to people in general. Yet, at a recent class I taught, only about half of a group of 40 adults could name the monarch butterfly when I showed them a photo.

Hmmm.

I was surprised. As a kid with a butterfly net, these frequent fliers were the first butterfly name I learned. They were fairly unmistakable, although the viceroy butterfly is very similar.

But the size (monarchs are bigger) and wing pattern (viceroy’s have black lines toward the bottom of the wing that are different) help distinguish them both. Look at the two photos. See the difference in the wing markings?

Monarchs, unlike viceroys, are known for their wanderlust. Every fall, they leave the snow and frigid temps of Chicago and head to Mexico, where they overwinter. Their offspring wing their way back to Illinois in the spring. How do they find their way home? No one knows. It’s a mystery of the best sort, a reminder that we haven’t figured out everything.

It’s no secret to prairie lovers that the monarch butterfly is losing numbers. Big numbers. So much, in fact, that butterfly aficionados recently requested that it be given endangered species protection. It appears that the monarch hasn’t got a prayer when up against pesticides, used in agriculture. Why?

Monarchs lay eggs. And not just anywhere. They look for plants in the milkweed family. When the caterpillar, or larvae emerges, it munches on milkweed leaves until it’s time for it to form a chrysalis. It eventually appears as a black and orange butterfly. But the milkweeds —which are treated by us as, well, weeds — are vanishing. And with the milkweeds go the monarchs. Imagine how we’d feel if our grocery stores vanished overnight! Monarchs are in trouble.

With this in mind, the big news in Illinois is that state authorities will plant milkweed along tollways. This should establish more habitat for the monarch butterflies. Although I wonder about the juxtaposition of butterflies with semis racing along at 80 mph, I like the good intention. Hundreds of miles of asphalt tollway could be flanked by milkweed blooms.

The plight of the monarch is a reminder of the importance of tallgrass prairies, which in Illinois, may contain up to 19 species of native milkweed. Prairies and monarchs are like peanut butter and jelly. They belong together. This spring, I’ll plant more milkweed in my garden. It adds beauty and interest, and I’ll lend a helping hand to a species in trouble at the same time. I’ll also volunteer more restoration hours on my local prairies; maintaining small life rafts of milkweed for the monarchs.

I had to update my I-Pass at the Tollway Authority offices this month. I confess, as I waited in line to straighten out my account, I grumbled a bit less. I felt a little warmer toward this state governmental agency, thinking about the monarch butterflies.

( All photos by Cindy Crosby. From top to bottom: monarch, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; viceroy on mountain mint, Big Woods Forest Preserve, Batavia, IL; butterfly milkweed, SP/MA; milkweed pod, author’s backyard, Glen Ellyn,IL: monarch on aster, Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL; West Chicago Prairie in March, West Chicago, IL)

A Taste of Prairie

Give me some sugar.

That’s my line this month to the squirrels racing around the prairie savanna. Why? They have the keys to the tallgrass candy shop.

Not all my favorite prairie flavors are sweet like candy. Common mountain mint leaves in the late spring are an instant breathe refresher. I can’t pass a patch of these without pulling a leaf, and popping into my mouth. In July, compass plant sap crystalizes in soft beads along the stem; hot and sticky. Native American children chewed it like gum. When I try it, the sap sticks to my teeth like glue. Still, I can’t resist it.  Eat your heart out, Wrigley’s Spearmint.

In the late summer and early fall, I chew wild bergamot — bee balm leaves — whenever I’m out on a tallgrass hike. The menthol is numbing in large quantities, so I tear off a small portion of the leaf instead of the whole thing. I have to share the plants with the bees, who buzz around the flower heads for nectar. Easy to see where this prairie plant gets its common name.

But in mid-March, the candy shop is open. Tree sap is running. In the prairie savanna, by the Prairie Visitor Station welcome area, sugar maples drip maple sapsicles, a sweet treat that’s hard to beat. On warm afternoons, squirrels gnaw the tender branches. Slowly, the delicious sap seeps out of the chewed off bark. The cold March nights do the rest.

Each spring, if the weather is just right, I can break off maple sapsicles  and suck them like candy.  I’ve unintentionally fed enough squirrels in my backyard to find this reciprocation of treats very satisfying. For once, they provide the snack.

I utter two words I never thought I’d say:

Thanks, squirrels.

(All photos by Cindy Crosby.  Top to bottom: Schulenberg Prairie entrance banners, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; compass plants leaves, SP; wild bergamot/bee balm, SP; maple sapsicle, SP; squirrel at author’s backyard bird feeder, Glen Ellyn, IL.)

Fire and Ice

 

Some say the world will end in fire, 

Some say in ice.

From what I’ve tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

–Robert Frost

Frost wrote these lines in a poem noted for its ambiguity. But I find these lines resonate with me as I hike the prairie in early March. Fire and ice – or perhaps, the order should be reversed for the tallgrass: ice and then, fire. But unlike Frost’s poem, without the tempering of fire and ice, the prairie would cease to exist.

It’s all ice now; beginning to melt into slush as the temperatures start their teasing climb into the 30s and 40s. A little flirting with the low 50s. Where the sun shines brightest, the snowmelt pocks the prairie with mudholes.  Old coyote tracks fill with water. They freeze, thaw again, freeze.

The life of the prairie is on hold. It depends on ice  — or at least a cold winter — for certain seeds to grow and for other plants to have a dormancy period. But, as the Beatles sang, “It’s been a long, cold lonely winter.”

Send us the fire.

The prescribed burn just around the corner will wipe the prairie slate clean, ready for the sums of a new year to be chalked upon it. The tallgrass needs fire to keep the trees and brush from infilterating —- then dominating —- the landscape. But lightning strikes are suppressed, and Native Americans no longer set intentional fires for hunting. It’s up to restorationists to keep the prairie as an open grassland. We burn it ourselves, mimicking the past.

The ying and the yang of fire and ice remind me that the prairie has evolved to survive the extremes of Midwestern weather. Sometimes, when I’m going through a rough patch,  this cycle reminds me that the difficulties I’m wrestling with are part of a season that will eventually pass.  Rather than destructive, the seasons of fire and ice are lifegiving.  They set the stage for something new.

We’ve got the ice. Enough already.

Now, bring on the fire.

(All photos by Cindy Crosby. Top: Tenting at sunset at Nachusa Grasslands, Franklin Grove, IL; ice, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; prescribed burn, SP, 2013; fire on the SP, 2013; ice designs with grass, SP)

Tallgrass Transitions

We like to plan and schedule. March, however, didn’t get that memo.

It’s unpredictable. In the Chicago suburbs, we’ve just come off one of the coldest Februarys ever recorded here. Yet the meteorological calendar says it’s now spring. Really. Out on the Schulenberg Prairie, Willoway Brook is solid ice and shows few signs of thaw, even after a sunny warm-up day in the 30s this week. It rests under a white snow comforter, quilted into the landscape. Almost invisible.

The recent dusting of snow makes critter tracks a little more clear. I follow them around, using them as a visual GPS to find their tunnels, snow-caves, and escape holes.

Under that same snowfall, garlic mustard, that scourge of the prairie savanna, is waiting. Before long, my crew of restoration volunteers will be out on their search and destroy mission. When can we get going? They are restless, ready. But it’s not a date I can put on any calendar. Soon, I tell them. Soon.

I have to wait. Be flexible. Pay attention to the shift from winter to spring. Look for clues. Watch for the signals that it’s time to start something new.

At Nachusa Grasslands and at The Morton Arboretum, the natural resources folks plan their prescribed burn strategies after snowmelt. Fire equipment is cleaned and readied. Maps are unfolded and studied. Training commences. Prescribed burn season is about to begin…. but when? Just as soon as that snow disappears.

People and the prairie hold their breath; poised for the new season.

The prairie reminds us that waiting is part of transitioning from one season to the next. We can only look for hints of what’s around the corner. And be ready.  Meanwhile, we walk the snowy tallgrass and believe that change is possible.

A new season. It’s coming.

Soon. Very soon.

(All photos by Cindy Crosby. Top: Schulenberg Prairie edges, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL;  Willoway Brook, SP; snow hole, tunnels and tracks, SP; Thelma Carpenter Unit, Nachusa Grasslands, Franklin Grove, IL; squirrel, SP; upper prairie, SP)