Alex Palmer's Natural History Notes and Thoughts

This blog post consists of my notes from a lecture on the natural history of turtles in Cook County, Illinois, delivered by Chris Anchor, wildlife biologist with the Forest Preserves of Cook County.  The lecture and following staff training was conducted at Thatcher Woods in River Forest, IL during the morning of August 29, 2018 to an audience of mostly Forest Preserves staff.   Native Cook County Turtle Species: Common Snapping Turtle ( Chelydra serpentina ) Painted Turtle ( Chrysemys picta ) Spiny Softshell ( Apalone spinifera ) Stinkpot or Musk ( Sternotherus odoratus ) Box Turtle ( Terrapene carolina ) Map Turtle ( Graptemys geographica ) False Map Turtle ( G. pseudogeographica ) Red-eared Slider ( Trachemys scripta ) Spotted Turtle ( Clemmys guttata ) Snapping Turtle Figure 1:  Common Snapping Turtle displaying its jaws Snapping Turtles have jaws that crush prey rather than cut them (figure 1).  Males frequently wander to look for females to mate with.  They e

"BzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzz!!!!!"  As if late summer in Chicago isn't already noisy enough, with late night street festivals, the screech of school buses stopping to pick up children for their first day of school, the thumping sounds of college students moving back in, and all of the other late-season cacophony, you can now add in the nearly constant buzzing call of the Scissor-Grinder Cicada ( Neotibicen pruinosis pruinosis ) (see figures 1 and 2) to the summer's concluding jam. Figure 1:  Front view of a cicada Figure 2:  Dorsal (top) view of a cicada You rarely see these noisy creatures, as most of them are high up in the trees.  But when one pops down onto the ground, like the one shown in figures 1 and 2, their formidable appearance can be quite a surprise!   Do not be alarmed, however, as cicadas are harmless to people. Figure 3:  Location of tymbals on a cicada.   Cicadas actually spend most of their life underground as larvae, feeding o

The next time you are down on the ground pulling weeds out of our garden plot, look up!  On a hazy late afternoon you might see dozens of sooty-colored birds twirling around and around in the open sky.  And you'll hear a lot of "chatter chatter" calls as these graceful urban birds catch and gobble down insects.  These birds that you are seeing and hearing are most likely one of the few native city birds we have in Chicago, known as the Chimney Swift ( Chaetura pelagica) .  You can view a short video clip of Chimney Swifts flying over the Chicago Lakefront: Chimney swifts live up to their name, as their primary choice of nesting locations are in old, brick chimneys commonly found in older neighborhoods like the University Village neighborhood in Chicago.  Historically these birds likely nested in large tree snags, but as cities in the United States grew, the population of Chimney Swifts increased in correspondence with the construction of open brick chimneys.  Chim

Birds chirping.  The sounds of children laughing and playing.  A monarch butterfly drifting by a small garden patch of flowers.... ...Honking, shouting, a bus slamming into a pothole, and the roar of a generator from a large concrete building with two giant smoke stacks. The sights and sounds when I cross Ashland Avenue from my quite residential neighborhood of University Village in Chicago to the industrious Illinois Medical District are quite contrasting. This is a common scenario across the city of Chicago.  One corner will be a serene and tree-lined residential neighborhood, the next block a noisy and aggressive 4-lane highway with faded brick buildings and the musky smell of diesel exhaust.  These disorienting "hard edges" between neighborhoods are easily visible in aerial imagery, such as the Google satellite view of the western edge of my neighborhood (figure 1). Figure 1:  The land cover of the western edge of University Village (right) contrasts sharply wi