Summer 2000

Here's what's debuting this season on nature's stage in Chicago Wilderness

by Jack MacRae

JULY/AUGUST

Red-Eye Concert

Through the hottest days of summer, the red-eyed vireo will continue to sing its short, simple song. Raising their offspring in our parks, the red-eyed vireo may be the most prolific singer of all North American birds.Researchers found one individual repeating the same song 22,197 times in a 10-hour period! Sort of like a Grateful Dead concert for the avian world.

Goat Suckers

My mother used to call them onomatopoeia birds. That is, birds named for their calls. Whip- poor-wills are well known examples. Along with the more common nighthawk, whip-poor-wills belong to the bird family known as goat suckers from the charming, albeit silly, notion that these birds used their wide mouths to suck the milk out of lactating nanny goats. Actually, they use their wide mouths for scooping cecropia moths and June bugs out of the late evening sky. These birds spend their days flat on their belly, lying on the ground or on wide, horizontal branches. At nightfall listen for them to call their name in large tracts of lands with a mosaic of wooded and open areas.

Turtleheads and Butterflies

The rare and beautiful Baltimore checkerspot butterflies have been spotted flitting over the bogs and fens of Lake and McHenry Counties. The females are in search of the creamy white, pink-fringed flowers of the white turtlehead, an uncommon member of the snapdragon family and the only plant she will lay her eggs on. White turtlehead grows in wet soils and has rebounded nicely in some preserves since the reintroduction of fire into the natural systems.

Hootchie Cootchie Man

Willie Dixon was one of the great bluesmen of the Chicago Wilderness. He wrote in his classic love song, "Hootchie Cootchie Man," that he was in possession of a John de Conqueroo, which he intended to use in casting a spell on his girlfriend. He was actually singing about the root of the St. John’s Wort, a plant with several species growing in the region. Folklore contended the root of St. John’s Wort was an important source of mystic power. One of the endangered wetland varieties, marsh St. John’s wort, is found only in a few wet areas of the Chicago Wilderness.

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER

Morainal Retentive

For my money, the baby northern red belly snakes currently being born are the cutest little reptiles you’ve ever seen. They’re scarcely three inches long at birth, and have the same attractive red belly and dark back as their secretive parents. Red bellies are the smallest snakes in the Chicago Wilderness, with adults usually measuring less than 10 inches. They live only in the forested, morainal areas, occasionally in wet meadows, but never far from trees.

Joe Who?

Joe Pye weed is a seven-foot tall plant that grows in our sun-dappled savannas. The large, lavender blossoms blooming in late summer seem to be a favorite of an assortment of swallowtail butterflies. There are a number of stories about the origin of this plant’s unusual name, but most refer to medicinal properties attributed to the plant against disease, specifically typhoid fever. One story has jopi as the native word for typhoid fever.

Another widely spread story contends that there was a native doctor in colonial America named Joe Pye, who used this plant for curing typhoid. Also, Chippewa Indian mothers bathed fretful children in a tea made from this plant to bring restful sleep. If anyone knows the real stories, please let me know.

Road Vipers

August appears to be a month of increased activity for our local pit vipers. Not too long ago, on late August afternoons, massasauga rattlesnakes could be seen crossing roads near the Lake-Cook County border. Last August, a road-killed adult massasauga was found near Crete, Illinois. While small, isolated populations of these state endangered rattlesnakes are struggling to survive, local researchers using radio transmitters have been learning more about their little-known lives in the Chicago Wilderness. It seems slow draining, wet prairies, with a good population of prairie crayfish adjacent to dry areas with shrubs all seem to be part of the massasauga habitat. Let’s hope they stay off the road.

On the Wing

During these cool early fall evenings, in the skies over our heads, our local red bats are mating on the wing. The females have said goodbye to their last brood and are ready to start the cycle again. Shortly after copulation, red bats will take off for warmer weather down south. The female will store her mate’s sperm through the fall and winter, postponing ovulation and fertilization until she returns to our area next spring. Sentimental, don’t you think?