Category Archives: Wildlife

Dinosaurs of New York

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Back in the days of paper letters and postcards, not every correspondence I started ended up in the mail. I have an entire file of letters and a few postcards that I didn’t finish and didn’t mail.

Usually that was for ordinary reasons, such as forgetting to complete it for months, by which time the news was stale. Only on rare occasions did I write a letter and think better of sending it because of its content, though I have a few insolent work memos of that kind.

I wrote a large postcard to a friend of mine in Illinois on August 27, 1983, while I was still in New York City. I think it got lost among the papers I had with me a few days later when I went to Nashville, and all these years later, I still have it.

Note the missing piece. I got as far as stamping the thing, but later removed it for re-use.

The printed text of the card says:

ALLOSAURUS (foreground) was a large, meateating dinosaur that lived during the Jurassic period of earth history, about 140 million years ago. This aggressive reptile, which preyed upon other dinosaurs, was about 30 feet long and probably weighed several tons when it was alive. Several individuals of CAMPTOSAURUS, a small, inoffensive, plant-eating dinosaur, are shown in the background.

Painting on Display
THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY
NEW YORK, U.S.A.

I wrote, in part:

Dear R—

I have come to New York to learn such oddities as “August is Bondage Month,” which a simple advertisement in the window of the Pink Pussycat Boutique told me. [Remarkably, the shop is still there; give the people what they want, I guess.]

Since the long line to pass through customs at JFK [returning from Europe], I’ve shuffled first to the P’s house in New Rochelle, then S’s house in Stamford, Conn. Since last Friday (the 19th), I have been at D’s apartment while she is on the Jersey shore with her parents. This is a good arrangement. I’ve become acquainted with the Village and various other parts of the city.

This card, for instance, is an accurate portrait of Brooklyn, by the East River.

Handy Map of London

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I have in my possession a Handy Map of London. This is supposedly a German version of similar vintage; mine is in English, but it looks just the same. Mine is dated 1986, so I’m certain I picked it up in 1988.

It isn’t my favorite map of London — that would be that marvel of aesthetic mapmaking, the Bensons MapGuide.

Still, the multi-page, folding Handy Map, published by John Bartholomew & Son Ltd. of Edinburgh, was indeed handy. That company, long since a unit of Harper Collins, is one of the storied Scottish mapmakers, as detailed here.

Interesting material in the Wiki description, though without citation: “John Bartholomew Junior was credited with having pioneered the use of hypsometric tints or layer colouring on maps in which low ground is shown in shades of green and higher ground in shades of brown, then eventually purple and finally white.

“It is his son John George who is attributed with being the first to bring the name ‘Antarctica’ into popular use as the name for the Southern Continent, and for the adoption of red or pink as the colour for the British Empire.”

By gar, someone invented those conventions. But they’re such strong conventions that you hardly think of a time when maps didn’t feature them.

The Handy Map folds out to reveal ten separate maps, nine of which are parts of Greater London, and all of which are color- and number-coded. Want to look for a particular place? The map makes that pretty easy. Even more so than Benson, I have to say.

The tenth map is a view of all of Greater London. As you’d imagine, it can’t be overly detailed, but it is good for orientation. I was looking at it the other day (for now the Handy Map is in the downstairs bathroom) and noticed an oddity on the Greater London map.

Toward the eastern edge of the map, just north of the Thames near a place called Purfleet, is a pink, long oval shape (like a race track) simply marked DANGER AREA.

What? It took me a few days to remember to check it out on Google Maps. In 1986, a danger area. In 2020, it’s the RSPB Rainham Marshes, also known as the Rainham Marshes Nature Reserve.
That would be, according to Google: “Bird-rich former marshland firing range with accessible boardwalks and a modern visitor centre.”

RSPB? The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. The organization bought the land from the UK Ministry of Defence in 2000, opening it to the public in 2006. So danger area no more, unless you’re attacked by cetti’s warblers, little egrets or peregrine falcons. More about the marshes is here.

More about the organization is here.

“The RSPB was formed to counter the barbarous trade in plumes for women’s hats, a fashion responsible for the destruction of many thousands of egrets, birds of paradise and other species whose plumes had become fashionable in the late Victorian era,” its web site says.

“The organisation started life as the Society for the Protection of Birds (SPB), founded by Emily Williamson at her home in Manchester in 1889. The group quickly gained popularity and in 1891 it merged with the Fur, Fin and Feather Folk, to form a larger and stronger SPB, based in London.

“In its earliest days, the society consisted entirely of women and membership cost twopence. The rules of the society were:

“That members shall discourage the wanton destruction of birds and interest themselves generally in their protection

“That lady-members shall refrain from wearing the feathers of any bird not killed for purposes of food, the ostrich only excepted.”

Interesting that ostrich feathers were OK. If I felt like it, I could investigate why that was, but I have a hunch that ostrich farming was entirely too valuable before WWI to discourage, especially in South Africa. These days, leather is the main thing, with feathers just a sideline.

Thursday Bits & Bobs

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Some unusually cool days this week. I’m not sure whether that had anything to do with what happened at about 7:45 pm on Wednesday out on our deck. I was sitting out there, decompressing from a day of work and other tasks, when I saw a dark blob hit one of our deck loungers. Twack!
Two cicadas. Noiseless, though the cicadas have been doing their twilight bleating for a few weeks now. Crickets are also singing after dark, though maybe not as strongly as they will closer to their seasonal demise. By Thursday morning, when I next checked, the cicadas were gone.

Happy to report there’s a thin mosquito population this year, at least around here. Flies have taken up the slack. Seems like one gets in the house every day through the back door, including some of the metallic-colored ones that used to fascinate me as a kid.

Also in the back yard: blooming hibiscus. Could be Hibiscus syriacus. I can also call it rose of Sharon, though I understand that’s applied to other flowers as well.
At Starved Rock State Park recently, I spotted his plaque near the lodge. Looking its century-plus age, including countless touches of Lincoln’s nose.
GAR Ladies plaque Starved Rock State Park“Commemorating the deeds of the Union veterans of the Civil War,” it says. The Ladies of the Grand Army of the Republic erected it in 1914. Looks like the Ladies, who are still around, were trying to keep up with the Daughters.

Chronicling a lot of violence, but also a thing of great beauty.

Our most recent episode of Star Trek: “A Piece of the Action.” I suggested it as one of three options — an action/adventure story, or one of the show’s tendentious eps, or comedy. Ann picked comedy. I’d forgotten how much of a hoot “Action” is, with the high jinks gearing up especially after Kirk and Spock got into pseudo-gangster duds and Shatner hammed it up.

Oh, my, listen to that. My my my.

Beavers Attack! Olde Schaumburg Centre Park

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Tucked off a busy northwest suburban street is Olde Schaumburg Centre Park. We were there not long ago just before sunset. Here in July, days are noticeably shorter, though not that much shorter yet.
Beavers Attack! Olde Schaumburg Centre ParkThough modest in scope, Olde Schaumburg Centre Park is a pleasant green space in the summer, and a lush wetland and wildlife preserve besides. The focus is a pond. That’s the wetland part of the equation.
Olde Schaumburg Centre ParkThere are trails and a gazebo. Schaumburg wouldn’t be a proper suburb without a public gazebo.
Olde Schaumburg Centre ParkPlus flourishes of flowers.
Olde Schaumburg Centre ParkAs for being a wildlife preserve, we saw clear evidence of beavers in the area.
Olde Schaumburg Centre ParkDoing what beavers do. Gnaw marks appeared on other trees, though no others were toppled. Does the village consider beavers a nuisance? They do seem to be attacking park trees, which take a long time to grow, but then again they might be a protected species in these parts.

The animals are a village concern, because the park is village property, not part of the Schaumburg Park District — something I didn’t realize until recently, despite all the years I’ve driven past the park.

The park is also part of a formally designated area called Olde Schaumburg Centre, which is an historic district: the OSC Overlay District, established in 1978. Much information about that and early Schaumburg has been published by the village community development department.

In the mid-19th century, the small farm village that would become a major Chicago suburb was known as Sarah’s Grove. Later, German farmers came in numbers, and Schaumburg schall et heiten!

The name Sarah’s Grove lingers. The subdivision across the street from in Olde Schaumburg Centre Park is called Sarah’s Grove, and so is a park district park near the subdivision.
Sarah's Grove ParkIt too focuses on a water feature, but without many trees or thickets.
Sarah's Grove ParkThough no one was there at that moment, I see people fishing at the pond pretty often.

Canada Day 2020 &c

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Back on July 6. Canada Day is here, after all, and Independence Day isn’t long from now (and also the 40th anniversary of the wide release of Airplane!). In honor of both holidays, I created a temporary display on my deck.

That calls for a U.S.-Canada holiday week: North America Independence Week. Better yet, we kick off the celebration with Juneteenth and end it with Nunavut Day (July 9) — a mid-summer mashup of independence and freedom celebrations.

Not much work gets done from ca. December 21 to January 3. No reason we can’t do the same at the polar opposite point in the calendar.

Early in the evening on the last day of June, we took a walk around Spring Creek Reservoir Forest Preserve in Bloomingdale, a small part (90 acres) of the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County. Access is from E. Lake St., which is a stretch of U.S. 20, which goes all the way from Massachusetts to Oregon or vice versa.

It’s a simple circle around the reservoir. The FP District says: “In presettlement times, the forest preserve was almost entirely woodland with a small slough. It was a gravel pit from the 1950s to the mid-1970s, when it became a reservoir. The Forest Preserve District acquired the reservoir in 1987 and additional parcels in 1999 and 2000.”

Not just a reservoir, but a place for runoff from Spring Creek — flood control for Bloomingdale, as evidenced by a small dam with a spillway at the north end of the reservoir. Further downstream, Spring Creek is called Spring Brook (according to Google Maps, anyway), which eventually merges with Salt Creek, a tributary of the Des Plaines River.Spring Creek Reservoir Forest Preserve

Spring Creek Reservoir Forest Preserve
Lush summer vegetation all along the way.
Spring Creek Reservoir Forest Preserve
Spotted a monarch in the weeds.
Spring Creek Reservoir Forest Preserve
According to the info board, the path measures a shade more than a mile around. My gizmo, which measures steps, agrees.

A Summer Thursday

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Tomorrow is Juneteenth, which I’ve thought should be a holiday for years. I still do. Odds are it might be in some soon year.

Summer pic: a trumpeter swan family, who can be found at a pond near where I live.

Dame Vera Lynn has died at 103. I didn’t know she was still alive. I might not have known about her before I first saw this, many years ago, but I certainly did afterward.

Deer Grove Forest Preserve

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Another weekend, another forest preserve path where the problems of a wounded nation seem remote. The last day of May was clear and a little cool this year, good for a walk in the woods. Unlike last week, the path we took through Deer Grove Forest Preserve in Palatine, Ill., headed into a forest.Deer Grove Forest PreserveDeer Grove Forest PreserveDeer Grove Forest PreserveDeer Grove includes about 2,000 acres just south of the border between Cook and Lake counties — note Lake-Cook Road running along its northeastern edge.
Deer Grove Forest PreserveWe parked near the Camp Alphonse entrance, which I’ve marked with a small red dot. We walked roughly to the blue dot and came back the same way — a mile and a half, more or less.

The origin of the name Camp Alphonse isn’t readily available, but there’s also a nearby entrance called Camp Reinberg. This site at least lists Camp Reinberg as a temporary WWI camp, of which there many nationwide that left little trace. My guess would be that Camp Alphonse was one as well.

The woods were alive with spring greenery and lots of wildflowers.
Deer Grove Forest PreserveAn elegant spider web.
Deer Grove Forest PreserveA few dead trees still lording over the living ones.
Deer Grove Forest PreserveThe dog had a good time too.
Deer Grove Forest PreserveSnacking on leafy greens the entire way.

Along Poplar Creek

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Another Easter activity of ours: a long walk. Lots of people can say that. The pandemic has done more for getting people out on the sidewalks than anything I can think of, at least here in a suburb that has sidewalks.

Easter Sunday happened to be warmish this year, especially when compared to Easter Monday. By late in the evening on Monday, it was already down around freezing, headed for a morning low today of 28 F. Bah.

At about noon today, there was snow. At least it didn’t last long and it didn’t stick.

Back to Sunday. In the afternoon, we went to the Arthur L. Janura Forest Preserve, also known as the Poplar Creek Forest Preserve. All of us, including the dog.

That’s only one section of a much larger property, which is part of the Cook County Forest Preserve District. Fortunately the state hasn’t ordered such places closed, though various events in the district have been cancelled. Such an order would be nonsensical, considering how much social distancing you can do in such a large expanse, but some jurisdictions don’t seem to have much sense.

A modified version of the map.

We walked from the parking lot (circled in red) along the paved path (in white) until we got roughly to where I’ve put a red octagon. From there, we headed overland to the banks of Poplar Creek (the next octagon) and then followed the creek along its curve, reaching roughly the position of the third octagon. We returned more or less the same way. Looks long, but I don’t think the walk was more than a mile and a half round trip.

There on Poplar Creek, it’s hard to believe you’re in a metro area of 9 million or so — except for the traffic on Golf Road. Not visible, but audible, even if the sound is a little diminished in these pandemic days. The creek, fairly full from spring rain, gurgled along.

Poplar Creek is a tributary, ultimately, of the Fox River, which feeds the Illinois River. That in turn flows to the Mississippi. So the water we saw was destined, mostly, for that mighty river and the far-away Gulf.

The route was muddy and sometimes strewn with fallen branches and rocks. The grass and weeds and other foot-level plants are greening nicely, while the trees and bushes are getting their start, but haven’t caught up yet.

I think dog thoroughly enjoyed her walk, tramping through the mud, sniffing everything she could, and chewing on blades of grass when we paused. We didn’t have such a bad time either, momentarily away from shelter in place.

Quieter Spring, But Not Silent

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For the first time this year, since sometime in October probably, I sat out on the deck and ate lunch. Conditions weren’t perfect for it, but good enough at about 12:30 this afternoon under partly cloud skies. When the sun came out from behind occasional clouds and there was no wind, the deck was a pleasant place to be for a few minutes, lunch or not.

Out in the yard, the dog lolled in the greening grass a time or two. Rabbits have been spotted, though not by the dog today. Early hatching insects can be seen here and there, and early flowers are well established. Birds are noisy in their quest for food and to make baby birds. The only thing missing from the usual early spring sounds are those from the playground behind the house.

Volkening Lake

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I’m starting to see Halloween decorations on suburban front lawns. Too early. Maybe people want to decorate while it’s still warm, but it won’t be that cold in October.

Been cool in the evenings and warm during the days. The other day I took a noontime walk around Volkening Lake here in the northwest suburbs, since I was running errands nearby.

Really a large pond, but pleasant to walk around. A 0.7-mile trail goes all the way around.
Birds like it too.
Goldenrod is in full bloom now, taking the blame for ragweed pollen, which has been pretty bad this year.
Apparently the site of the pond has long been low-lying and damp, even when it was farm land. Volkening Lake seems to have been created about the same time as the surrounding suburbs, in the 1960s, which is really no surprise, though put in its present form in the ’80s. The Volkenings were the farmers who owned the property before it was suburban.