Last week 200 great egrets were counted at McGinnis Slough, along with 100 double-crested cormorants. This is the sort of sight people travel to the Everglades to see, but if you are not an active birder you may be surprised that such a concentration of these spectacular waders could show up in Cook County.
McGinnis Slough is a vast shallow lake in the town of Orland Park in the southwest corner of the county. It is owned by the Cook County Forest Preserve District. There is a parking area just off U.S. 45 between 131st Street and 143rd Street that provides access to the eastern side of the slough.
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McGinnis Slough was once a cattail marsh, but back in the 30s a box culvert was installed at the marsh’s outlet to control water levels. This structure was improved in the 50s.
The common moorhen is a lovely bird with a stupid name. It is a rather chickenlike creature with a bright red bill topped with an equally bright red facial shield. The shield is a sort of extension of the bill that forms a flat plate that covers the bird’s face up to the forehead. Moorhens are excellent swimmers whose large feet are lobed rather than webbed. The toes are separate, but each has paddlelike lobes along both edges that help push the bird through the water.
You will also get your feet wet, especially with the weather we have been having. But once you get near the slough itself, you can sit in a lovely old oak grove and look out over the water. This place was better in 1974 when my wife and I first visited it as part of our honeymoon trip to romantic southern Cook County. In those days the ground under the oaks was open and grassy, and you could lie back and take your ease while watching the birds on the slough. Now buckthorn, that vile alien shrub, has invaded, and it is much harder to see anything and much harder to find a space big enough to lie on that is not covered with buckthorn stems.
Lake Renwick was in private hands until recently. But now, thanks to a combination of county, state, federal, and private–through the Nature Conservancy–money, it is part of the Will County Forest Preserve District, so its rookeries will be protected.
