Some observations for the end of a very cool August: Last weekend, as a suitable finale to our chilly summer, the Rare Bird Alert reported a possible sighting of a black-backed woodpecker in Lake Forest. The black-backed is a bird of the boreal forest rarely seen even as far south as Green Bay. There have been only nine records in the Chicago area since 1955, and all the previous sightings were winter birds or late-winter birds that lingered into spring. If this Lake Forest sighting is confirmed, we could consider it a Mount Pinatubo special.
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The passage of these shorebirds marks the beginning of the fall migration. Many of these birds nest in the high arctic, and their stay on their nesting grounds is very short. They arrive in June or early July and nest immediately. The young are precocial, which means they come out of the egg able to move about and feed themselves. Their parents provide some guidance and protection until the chicks learn to fly, and then the adults head south. The young of this year will follow as soon as they are able.
These birds make some of the longest migration flights known. A white-rumped sandpiper or golden plover that nested on the tundra on Baffin Island, say, at 65 degrees north latitude might spend the winter on Tierra del Fuego, at 55 degrees south latitude.
The cool weather of our Pinatubo summer has made our prairies even more beautiful than usual. In late August the predominant color of the prairies is yellow, as sunflowers, cup plants, prairie dock, goldenrods, and compass plants, among others, come into bloom. This year two species of blazing star that normally bloom at different times during the summer are in full and glorious flower right now, adding a rich infusion of pale purple to the color scheme.
The success of the North Branch Prairie Project has inspired imitations. We now have three similar groups working elsewhere in the Cook County Forest Preserves: one in the Palos preserves, one at Poplar Creek, and the third around the Sand Ridge Nature Center in the southeastern corner of the county. There are more than 20 volunteer groups inspired by the NBPP elsewhere in Illinois, and others in Florida, California, and Massachusetts. People have come from England, Czechoslovakia, Australia, and Brazil to study the NBPP in order to apply its methods in their own countries.
