Middlefork BioBlitz Revealed

Twenty-four hours. One preserve. Over one thousand species. Take an inside look at Lake County's first-ever biodiversity blitz.

The weather forecast was dismal for the days of the Middlefork Savanna BioBlitz in Lake County--thunderstorms, wind, possibly hail. But nature can be unpredictable. The storm miraculously skirted the preserve, and on June 27 and 28, 2008, more than 100 scientists spread out over 713 acres of natural land to inventory as many living creatures as they could find in 24 hours. Appearing at the Tally Tent all night and the next day, they dropped off specimens or photographs for documentation, then ventured out again.

After three weeks of tabulating, the event's sponsors, the Lake County Forest Preserves, Lake Forest Open Lands Association, and Lake Forest Parks and Recreation District, released the results. The list of 1,098 living organisms (and counting) included four state-listed species (two birds and two plants) and other notables such as the brook stickleback fish (a site first), an eastern milk snake, 38 dragonfly and damselfly species, and important birds such as the red-headed woodpecker, Wilson's phalarope, king rail, and bald eagle.

A sense of great purpose permeated the event. In the words of one participant, "That's what's so great about BioBlitzes. You get this sense of everything being connected: the sedges that that biologist is identifying; the four kinds of crayfish, the snapping turtle being examined by herpetologists; and the hundreds of leafhoppers, mayflies, stoneflies, and caddisflies waiting to be identified by two scientists from the Illinois Natural History Survey." Most participants leave with one distinct impression: this preserve is home to a lot of life.

Stories from the Field

Bird Spotting

Sheryl DeVore, editor
Meadowlark

At 5:30 a.m., the sky was clear, the wind calm. State ornithologist Steve Bailey, Illinois Ornithological Society president Michael Hogg, and I were ready to count birds. It's difficult to rise this early, but once you're onsite, you experience an exhilaration, when the sky is the bluest it will be all day and each new bird becomes a checkmark on a growing list.

Walking beside the dewy grassland, we heard the bright, bubbly songs of male bobolinks, wearing their inside-out tuxedos. We counted at least 18 individuals of this declining species. I mused about the folks who have never had the chance to see or hear this gorgeous bird, or taken the time to enjoy the fritillary butterflies dancing atop milkweeds. (I can easily get distracted out in nature.) Steve got me back on track by suggesting we observe a wetland while he waded along the edges. A medium-sized bird with dark, green wings and creamy wing patches flew over the cattails.

"Least bittern!" I shouted. The state-threatened bird was out of view in seconds. Then Michael spotted another state-threatened species, an adult sandhill crane, followed by a young colt, and later the other parent.

We phoned in our discoveries to event coordinator Mark Hurley, to see how the other birding teams were doing. Did anyone get brown thrasher, scarlet tanager, red-eyed vireo, gray catbird, chickadee? With renewed energy, we searched for and recorded the vireo, catbird, chickadee, even a wood thrush. Another team got the tanager and thrasher. Together, the BioBlitz birders counted 83 species, including the rare Wilson's phalarope and king rail. After six hours in the field and another hour spent entering data, an afternoon nap was in order. Dreams are always sweeter after birding.

Finding Fungi

Greg Mueller
The Field Museum

June is a little early for mushrooms in the Chicago Wilderness region. So even with all of the rain this spring, the mycology team--museum staff, students, and amateur mycologists--only recorded 37 species of macrofungi (mushrooms and bracket fungi). Several mushrooms we encountered are widespread but uncommon, such as Panus conchatus, for which we have fewer than ten Chicago records. Most of the others, such as the small, symbiotic species Russula pectinatoides, are common here. The oddest fungus we found looks like small, pink, fuzzy tufts along a dead branch. This is an obscure species of Isaria, a parasitic fungus that infests unsuspecting insect larvae.

The team would easily have recorded more than 100 species over the 24 hours if the BioBlitz had been held during a rainy August. The regional species list of macrofungi now stands at nearly 900 fully identified species. While there are several useful field guides for Illinois fungi, there are no regional references comparable to Swink and Wilhelm's Plants of the Chicago Region. Thus, the mycological work at Middlefork and other local sites is pioneering. We know from past work that the fungi in oak woods differ from those in savannas and grasslands. But our data on savanna systems all come from savannas growing in sandy soil. Thus, data from Middlefork, a black soil savanna, will be particularly interesting. The BioBlitz is the first sampling in a multi-year project to document the fungi at Middlefork.

Herp Search

Tom Anton
The Chicago Academy of Sciences Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum

There we were, in full blitz mode. Trained herpetologists from around the region were geared up to conduct a lightning-fast inventory using all the tactics and tools we could bring to bear--cover boards, dip-nets, drift fences, minnow traps, turtle traps, binoculars, and spotting scopes--to document the amphibians and reptiles in this high-quality preserve. In planning strategy, we looked at museum records and habitat types, and came up with what was most likely to occur in the preserve. We arrived at a list of 14 species.

There are few events more fun and adrenaline-filled for me than removing an angry snapping turtle from a trap. Our stumbling, sometimes cursing team members struggled to untangle tails and claws from the nylon mesh, all the while avoiding the fast-lunging, bladelike jaws of the business end of the turtle. Once free on land, these living, antediluvian Panzer tanks would occasionally advance at a team member who had turned away to wipe off sweat, mud, and leeches.

But the highlight for me was the discovery of an eastern milk snake, Lampropeltis triangulum, by a member of the insect team at night on a path. The last time I observed this snake at Middlefork was in 1997, 11 years ago.

By the end, we had found all of the species on our list. Confirming the list spoke well of the management of urban preserves, particularly those with sensitive animals that can't easily move to another site.

Related Articles:

Calumet BioBlitz, CW Fall 2002

McHenry BioBlitz Surprises Biologists, CW Winter 2007