Alex Palmer's Natural History Notes and Thoughts

This blog post consists of my notes from the Chicago Wilderness Congress gathering at the University of Illinois Chicago Forum, held on November 2, 2016 in Chicago, Illinois.   Lecture 1: Restoring the Wetlands of Calumet Nat Miller, Chip O'Leary, and Gary Sullivan. The former area of glacial "Lake Chicago" are now lowlands that make up the Calumet Region .  This flat and sandy area of land is dotted with various lakes and marshes and has numerous creeks and rivers passing through it.  In some areas, dune and swale topography is present.  Historically, the Calumet Region was very open with scatterings of oak trees along with scattered pockets of marsh.  There were 16 species of reptiles and amphibians, and large marshes provided habitat for marsh birds and wetland passerines. The Calumet Region has undergone many changes within the last 200 years.  There is been a lot of habitat fragmentation, although most of the original plant communities are "hanging in t

It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question.                             -Eugene Lonesco As a professional naturalist I am filled with heartwarming stories I can tell of seeing a child's eyes light up when he learns something new, or the amazement of a young girl's eyes when she find a butterfly, or the comical screams of startled visitors when they pop the spring-loaded seeds of jewelweed ( Impatiens capensis ).  Our role as an interpreters is not just to recite the names of different plant or animal species, but to connect those "resources" to the people and places who are impact by those resources.  Our hope is that people will not only learn about nature, but will reap the personal and emotional benefits of the "awe"someness that Paula Spencer Scott elaborated on in her recent Parade Magazine article (2016), which highlighted some of the key positive psychological effects findings of people being in "awe" of things such as scenic

This blog post consists of my notes from a presentation on oak ecosystems of the Greater Chicago Area.  The presenter was Kim Blaszcak, Resource Management Project Manager with the Forest Preserves of Cook County.  The presentation was delivered on October 6, 2016 at Sand Ridge Nature Center in South Holland, Illinois.   Oaks as a keystone species Oaks ( Quercus spp .) are a keystone species in the Chicago Region.  They support many organisms and ecosystem functions.  Oaks are important to wildlife through acorn production and habitat.  Oaks exhibit a periodic massive yield of acorns known as a mast year  that compensated for periods of scarcity.  Oak germination and timing of acorn production are important factors.  Red oak acorns are produced in the fall and germinate the following spring.  white oak acorns produce acorns which germinate in a single season (in the spring). Oaks are a critical food source for wildlife in North America: 96 % of wildlife species nationwide eat o

This blog post consists of my notes from a lecture on urban street tree defects, presented by Nick Kuhn, Resource Management Technician with the Forest Preserves of Cook County.  The presentation was delivered on September 21, 2016 at Sand Ridge Nature Center in South Holland, Illinois.   Introduction All trees experience structural failures in part or whole, including healthy trees.  It is impossible to eliminate all risks associated with tree failure.  However, recognizing signs or symptoms of compromised tree health can help mitigate or prevent problems. It is important to distinguish signs versus symptoms regarding tree health problems. Signs are physical pieces of evidence of tree health problems.  For example, D-shaped holes created by Emerald Ash Borer on a dying Ash tree are signs of an infestation.   Symptoms, on the other hand, are physical evidence that indicates a problem.  For example, excess epicormic branches emanating from the base of an ash tree could be an indic

The following blog post consists of my notes from a lecture titled "Odanata and Forest Ecology" held at Crabtree Nature Center in Barrington, Illinois in August 2016.  The lecture was delivered by Laura Brown and Nigeen Almassi, naturalists with the Forest Preserves of Cook County.   Introduction Dragonflies and Damselflies are a showy group of insects in the taxonomic order Odanata .    The primary differences between Dragonflies (class Anisoptera) and Damselflies (class Zygoptera) are their overall size (dragonflies are usually larger), the position of their wings at rest (dragonflies hold them out while damselflies usually hold them over their abdomen), the thickness of their abdomens (dragonfly abdomens are usually thicker), and their hunting habits (dragonflies are strong fliers and damselflies gently glean prey from vegetation or the water's surface).  Most damselfly wings are clear while some species, such as the Ebony Jewelwing, have colored wings.  Table 1 ou

I recently watched the sequel to the Jurassic Park series of movies, Jurassic World.  I was impressed by the fact that it stayed true to the spirit and adventure of the original Jurassic Park movies but with enhanced and modernized special effects.  And of course it featured the small but fearsome "raptors", that were now fully computer animated. The other night I was leading an evening nature walk at the nature center where I work in the south suburbs of Chicago, and we were looking at our resident hawks and owl.  I mentioned that hawks and owls were members of a group of birds known as raptors, or birds of prey.  One gentlemen jumped up and exclaimed, "Raptors?  You mean like dinosaurs?"  I chuckled a bit and explained that the term raptors refers to birds of prey, not the semi-mythical dinosaurs that reach down and grab unobservant bystanders with their giant claws and gnarly teeth. The term raptor is derived from the Latin word "rapere" which loose

Introduction Since September of 2014, I have been serving the Forest Preserves of Cook County as a naturalist at a Chicago-area suburban nature education center situated in a 300 acre urban nature preserve.   Sand Ridge Nature Center  (SRNC), which geographically straddles the border of South Holland and Calumet City in Illinois, is named for the ancient high Toleston Beach Ridge that formed as the water levels of Lake Michigan began receding after the end of the last major ice age (figure 1) (Forest Preserves of Cook County, 2016) .  The former 6,000 year-old beach ridge is still partially intact in several forest preserves, with one the longest remaining stretches on the northern end of the nature center property along Michigan City Road (figure 2).  The present extent of Sand Ridge Nature Center includes all of the land north of U.S. Highway 6 to Michigan City Road, then from Paxton Avenue east to Illinois Highway 83 (Torrence Avenue) along the municipal boundaries of South Holland