MOROCCO, Ind. — Standing in intermittent light rain waiting to begin a hike, I realized that meandering and poking around with the right people is my favorite part of the outdoors.
The hike, part of the 75th anniversary celebration of Willow Slough Fish and Wildlife Area on June 1, brought that home.
Gus Nyberg led a small group — a family with three young children, Nyberg’s dad Dennis and myself — around the northwest corner of Willow Slough, an hour south of Chicago at the Indiana line.
It just surpassed 10,000 acres, putting it in that Chicago area pantheon of wild areas with the 20,000-plus acres of Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie and the 15,000 acres of Forest Preserves of Cook County’s Palos Forest Preserves.
Wandering around with young kids is like two roads diverged. It can be a real pain in the ass or an utter delight.
Well, the kids were intensely interested. The daughter found a milkweed caterpillar minutes into our hike. It remains the only one I’ve seen this year. Farther in, they found ripe blueberries, then Gus pointed out dewberries (related to blackberries) and huckleberries that would be ripening next.
Gus showed us the holes of pocket gophers and said only once has he seen one. That came when he was explaining on a hike that he never sees them and one showed. In Indiana, pocket gophers are a species of concern.
The family left us at for the one-mile trail, meandering back on their own. The Nybergs and I continued on for several miles. The information they dropped was overwhelming.
When we discussed fire, one of them cited Robert Frost and his long poem “Blueberries.” As an old English major, I should’ve known the poem, but had to look it up. It’s an ode to restorative power of fire as much as the joy of blueberries.
. . . you may burn
The pasture all over until not a fern
Or grass-blade is left, not to mention a stick,
And presto, they’re up all around you as thick
And hard to explain as a conjuror’s trick.
If we slow down and look, the conjuror’s tricks of the natural world hook us.
Gus pointed out blue toadflax, a first for me. Liking sandy soils, the native made sense at Willow Slough. The sandy soils also explained the lack of cicadas.
Dennis Nyberg, a professor emeritus of biological sciences at the University of Illinois Chicago who continues as the director of the James Woodworth Prairie in Glenview, pointed out native dwarf dandelion and pricklyash. He’s a biologist by training, but botany seems his love.
Numerous times the Nybergs dropped down to examine plants. I had a lesson in ferns: interrupted fern, regal (royal) fern and cinnamon fern. They pointed out primrose-leaved violets, sand coreopsis, goat’s rue (a medicinal plant) and sand milkweed (another first for me). Many prefer sandy soils.
As we finished, Gus mentioned that their fall quail survey had 50 coveys, which I found astonishing.
On Sunday, my wife wondered where I would like to go on the Fourth of July. I started to say Midewin, then thought I should try a new prairie or natural area.
Wild things
My first sightings of fireflies came early this year; now I am noticing dramatically fewer than usual, continuing the downward trend of recent years.
Stray cast
Watching Pete Crow-Armstrong run and field is like watching an otter chase fish.
