A Prairie Postcard

“But if we don’t understand and care for the smaller manifestations of wildness close at hand, how can we ever care for the great wildernesses?” —Conor Gearin

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Temperatures hover around zero in the Chicago region. The “Winter Storm to End All Storms” seems to have fizzled out in a matter of less than half a dozen inches. And here I sit, in 70-degree weather. In Florida. There’s a part of me that’s sad to miss the first real snow of the season. A small part of me. (A very teeny, tiny part.)

Belmont Prairie Nature Preserve, Downers Grove, IL January 2017.

But there’s solace knowing that this week, I’m absorbed in learning the names of birds, blooms, dragonflies, shells, and other flora and fauna of southwestern Florida. This region, which I’ve visited for almost 45 years, doesn’t hold the same place in my heart as the Illinois tallgrass prairie, my landscape of home. But hiking here reminds me of the breadth and depth of diversity of the natural world, and the joy of discovery. Here’s a postcard to you:

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Dear friends,

Hello from Florida! Visiting this tropical region in December and January jolts me out of my sense of normalcy about what “winter” looks like. It reminds me that the way I experience life in this season in the Chicago region is completely different than how my neighbors to the south experience it. What a change from the Midwestern prairie! Displacement—a complete change—is a good reset for me to begin a new year.

Here are a few of the wonders I see on my hikes:

My first Mangrove Skipper.

Mangrove skipper (Phocides pygmalion) on romerillo (Bidens alba), J.N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge, Sanibel Island, FL.

The Great Pondhawk. A new dragonfly species for me!

Great pondhawk (Erythemis vesiculosa), J.N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge, Sanibel Island, FL.

Another “lifer” is the Mottled Duck, paddling through the mangroves. (Don’t know what a “lifer” is? Take this quiz.)

Mottled duck (Anas fulvigula), J.N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge, Sanibel Island, FL.

Ducks are easy to overlook, when there are these birds around. Roseate Spoonbills!

Roseate spoonbill (Platalea ajaja), J.N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge, Sanibel Island, FL.

Wow. Such shocking pink. They look like they were run through the wash in the whites load with one red sock, don’t they?

Roseate Spoonbill (XX), Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge, Sanibel Island, FL.

Only the hibiscus rivals it here for color.

Hibiscus (Hibiscus sp.), Captiva Island, FL.

And—of course—there are pelicans.

Brown Pelican (Pelecanus occidentalis), Captiva Island Florida.

So many pelicans. A flock of pelicans is called a “pouch of pelicans” or sometimes, a “squadron of pelicans. Fun!

Brown Pelican (Pelecanus occidentalis), Captiva Island, FL.

This poem runs through my mind:

“A wonderful bird is the pelican, His beak can hold more than his belican.”

Swimming near the pelicans is a mama manatee and her baby.

Captiva Island, FL.

Four—or are there five?—are at the marina. I learn manatees are large, gray-ish aquatic mammals that feed on sea grasses. They can weigh up to 1,200 pounds, similar to a bison! Baby manatees stay with their moms for up to two years. Boat collisions pose a threat to this species, so hanging out by the boat docks, as these manatees are doing, isn’t a great idea. (Read more about manatees here.)

Florida Manatee (Trichechus manatus latirostris), Captiva Island, FL.

As I watch them surface every few minutes for air, I find myself wondering about the future for this unusual mammal. I think of the Illinois bison at Nachusa Grasslands, Midewin National Tallgrass Preserve, and Fermilab back home, and how bison have been preserved in good numbers at these places after near extinction. Maybe there is hope for the manatees, too.

Bison are the biggest hazard on my prairie hikes back home. But here, it’s a large reptile.

American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis), J.N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge, Sanibel Island, FL.

Yikes. They may weigh more than 750 pounds! See you later, alligator.

Probably the Florida Thatch Palm (Thrinax radiata), J. N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge, Sanibel Island, FL.

As the sun sets over the Gulf Coast, I pack my bags and prepare to head home.

Sunset, Captiva Island, FL.

I’ll miss the delights of the island’s natural wonders, but my heart is in the tallgrass. I can’t wait to see the prairie with a little snow on it. At last. Even if the temperature is 70 degrees colder than it is here.

Sending you love from the Sunshine State!

Happy 2022!

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The opening quote is from Conor Gearin’s essay “Little Golden-Flower Room: On Wild Places and Intimacy” from the digital magazine The Millions. His essay is included in The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2019 (edited by Sy Montgomery), a book I purchased at Gene’s Books on Sanibel Island, one of my favorite independent bookstores. Gearin’s essay beautifully explores one small Iowa prairie remnant.

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Need a New Year’s Resolution? Help save Bell Bowl Prairie, an unusual hill remnant prairie that is slated for destruction by Chicago-Rockford International Airport. Your action can make a difference! See how at www.savebellbowlprairie.org

Where the Wild Things Are

“In wildness is the preservation of the world” —Henry David Thoreau

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This past week, I enjoyed mingling with more than 2,000 other like-minded folks at the Wild Things Conference here in the Chicago region. The synergy created was a radiant spot in a cold, gloomy February. So many people invested in the natural world! So many who gave up their Saturday to learn and share more about wild things. It gives me hope for a brighter future.

This February, I find myself needing reasons to hope. I enjoy winter. But I’m ready for spring. The signs are beginning to pop up. Lately, as we sleep with our window cracked open to the frigid air, I wake to cardinals singing their spring songs. They drop in for breakfast at our backyard feeders.

The first sandhill cranes are winging their way high over the region, heading north.  It’s a sure sign that despite the brutal temps and snow, change—spring— is coming.

The birds always know, don’t they?

After the Wild Things conference, Jeff and I did a reverse migration and headed south to spend a few days on the Florida beaches. We left 50-mph winds and zero temps, shaking snow off our boots, and stepped into another world of sandals and sunshine. It was appropriate that a “mackerel sky” was starting to form on our arrival.

Are you familiar with this old rhyme?

Mackerel sky, mackerel sky, sometimes wet and sometimes dry.

Or a slightly different version:

Mackerel scales and mare’s tales, make tall ships carry low sails.

Supposedly, seasoned sailors know when a “mackerel sky” forms—-cirrocumulus or altocumulus clouds (the puffy ones) in rows, sometimes with mare’s tales (the wispy cirrus clouds) showing high winds aloft, a weather change was on the way.

So, we weren’t surprised when storm clouds moved in a few hours later.  The birds knew! There was a frenzy of activity beforehand, including a beach-combing blue heron, looking for lunch.

The skies over the Florida sands  are full of wings. Some birds, like the osprey, we have back home. In the warmer months. I occasionally see them high over the prairies and hear their unmistakable cries.

Gulls, like this one below, are familiar Chicago residents as well.  Only the backdrop is different.

I always struggle with gull ID. I brought my old battered National Geographic Field Guide to Birds of North America  with me, but there are pages and pages of gulls. I squint at the gull on the beach in the bright sun, then thoughtfully turn the pages of the guide. Ring-billed gull, perhaps? What do you think?

Other birds here, like the white ibis, remind me that no matter how many birds I recognize from the prairies back home, this is a different world. At least the ibis is an easy ID. The beak is a give-away. And look at those baby blues!

When I think of the wildflowers of the prairie in February….

… and contrast them with Florida’s February blooms…

…it might seem like hands down, Florida would have my heart. Here the February air smells like sweet flowers. We’ve been sniffing all the blooms, but have yet to find the particular flower source. Hibiscus? Nope. Bougainvillea? Nope. A mystery.

At home on the Illinois prairies, the winds smell of snow. Color is a distant memory.

But as much as I enjoy the heat and the sun, I miss the wild things of home. “We can never have enough of nature,” wrote Henry David Thoreau. True whether we’re in a convention center with 2,000 people talking about mosses and birds at Wild Things, hiking alone on a prairie in winter, or puzzling over a gull ID on a beach in Florida.

I’m grateful for the wild things —wherever I find myself. You too?

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Henry David Thoreau (1817-62) is best known for his classic, Walden. His words, “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately…” are some of the most famous lines in nature literature.

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All photos copyright Cindy Crosby (top to bottom): thimbleweed (Anemone cylindrica), Belmont Prairie Nature Preserve, Downer’s Grove, IL; male and female northern cardinals (Cardinalis cardinalis), author’s backyard, Glen Ellyn, IL; sandhill cranes (Antigone canadensis), Jasper Pulaski Fish & Wildlife Area, Medaryville, IN; sky, clouds, and sand, Captiva Island, FL; great blue heron (Ardea herodias), Captiva Island, FL; osprey (Pandion haliaetus), Captiva Island, FL; possibly ring-billed gull (Larus delawarensis), Captiva Island, FL; white ibis (Eudocimus albus), Captiva Island, FL, round-headed bush clover (Lespedeza capitata), Belmont Prairie Nature Preserve, Downer’s Grove, IL; hibiscus (Hibiscus, species unknown), Captiva Island, FL; the invasive Queen Anne’s lace (Daucus carota), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL.

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Join one of Cindy’s Classes This Week!

Nature Writing–online and in-person, The Morton Arboretum. Begins Tuesday, Feb.26 online! Register here.

History of Wilderness in America –Feb. 28, The Morton Arboretum, part two of two classes. (Closed)

Dragonfly Workshop, March 2, 9-11:30 a.m., Nachusa Grasslands, Franklin Grove, IL. Free and open to the public, as well as for new and seasoned monitors. Pre-registration required: Email phrelanzer@aol.com.

Flights of (Prairie) Imagination

“…words are all we have of wings.” — Mark O’Connor

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There’s nothing like an air travel delay to offer hours of unplanned time to ponder the miracles of flight. This week, I traded Illinois’ tallgrass prairies for Gulf Coast beaches, with about a break-even in temperature (it’s 98 down south; 96 on the prairie as I type this).  It might be easy to get snarly about a three hour delay on the flight home and easily undo all the tranquility of a week’s vacation. Tranquility can be only surface deep sometimes; with tension lurking just under the surface.

But instead,  I decide to think over the past week. One of the great aspects of displacement is exposure to unfamiliar flora and fauna.  It offers you a chance to see the world with new eyes. It reminds you what a diverse and delightful place the world can be.

I miss the tallgrass prairie wildflowers, which I know are spectacular this week.

I remind myself of this as I admire the neon hues of Florida hibiscus.

In Florida, the familiar jostles against the unfamiliar. Across the beaches; over the ponds and mangrove pools, dragonflies and damselflies tirelessly patrol for mosquitoes.  A new place means new species of tropical dragonflies. This gives me an excuse to peruse Odonata websites, in search of names.  Such glorious colors! Like this scarlet skimmer.

And funky patterns….

… like the ones on this four-spotted pennant. (Could have guessed the name of this one, right?) . I feel a bit nostalgic for the dragonflies and damselflies that are patrolling the prairies back home—just a two-and-a-half hour jet flight away.

But it’s the birds that demand my full attention. Shorebirds. Herons of every possible description and hue.

Yellow-crowned night herons in full breeding plumage.

Some are familiar visitors to the prairie during migration or in the summer. These white pelicans, for example. You’d think this photo was taken in Florida…

… but in fact, these white pelicans were ones I saw at Nachusa Grasslands at the end of last month. Down south now, I wonder about their migration patterns.  What do they think of the change from beach to prairie and back again? Is it as jolting for them as it is for me?

Beach birds like the pelicans will find the company they keep in Illinois a little different.  Although the tallgrass prairie birds have some startling color combinations…

…Florida’s roseate spoonbill’s bright pink screams for your attention.

Hard for our little prairie Henslow’s sparrow to compete, isn’t it?

Despite all the color and sizzle and “gee-whiz-look-at-me” that the Gulf Coast beaches and their birds and dragonflies have to offer…

…there is truly (as Dorothy said in the Wizard of Oz) “no place like home.”

I can’t wait to be back on the prairie.

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Opening quote is from the poem, “The Mutton Birds,” by Australian Mark O’Connor (1945-), in “The Olive Tree: Collected Poems.”

All photos copyright Cindy Crosby (top to bottom): alligator (Aligator mississippiensis) in lily pond, Sanibel Island, FL; yellow crowned night heron in breeding plumage (Nyctanassa violacea),  J. N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge, Sanibel Island, FL; pale purple coneflower (Echinacea pallida), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; hibiscus (Hibiscus, unknown species), Sanibel Island, Florida; scarlet skimmer dragonfly (Crocothemis servilia), Captiva Island, Florida; four-spotted pennant dragonfly (Brachymesia gravida), Captiva Island, Florida; juvenile tri-colored heron (Egretta tricolor), J. N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge, Sanibel Island, FL; yellow crowned night heron (Nyctanassa violacea) in breeding plumage, J. N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge, Sanibel Island, FL; American white pelicans (Pelecanus erythrorhynchos), Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL; bob-o-link (Dolichonyx oryzivorus), Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL; roseate spoonbill (Platalea ajaja), J. N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge, Sanibel Island, Florida; Henslow’s sparrow (Ammodramus henslowii), Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL; sunset on Captiva Island, Florida; sunset on Gensburg-Markham Prairie, Markham, IL.