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Nachusa Grasslands

Nachusa 2020 — A Year in Photos

12/27/2020

9 Comments

 
By Dee Hudson and Charles Larry

Spring

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Two Calves
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Eastern Towhee
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Wild Geraniums in the Spring Woodlands
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Birds foot Violet

Summer

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Bison on the Flowered Prairie
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Sandhill Cranes at Sunrise
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Summer Sunrise on the Prairie
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Blanding's Turtle Hatchling Release

Autumn

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Autumn Sky over the Visitor Center
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Dogbane Seeds
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Autumn Oaks
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Frosted Color

Winter

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Winter Prairie
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Sandstone Outcrop
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Winter Oak
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Shagbark Hickories in Winter
9 Comments

Nachusa Grasslands 2019: The Year in Photos

12/26/2019

3 Comments

 
By Dee Hudson and Charles Larry
Spring
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Lark Sparrow and Moon
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Spring plants emerge among last year's growth
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Lupines and St. Peter Sandstone
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Sunset on the 2017 wetland restoration
Summer
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Great Spangled Fritillary
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Wetland and Clouds
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A young ornate box turtle
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Sandstone outcrop along the Stone Barn Savanna Trail
Autumn
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Grass-leaved goldenrod and oaks
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Autumn, Stone Barn Savanna
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Showy goldenrod and little bluestem grass
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A Stream Runs Through It
Winter
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Red-headed woodpecker
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Snow, Stone Barn Savanna
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Opossum
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Snowy Day
3 Comments

To Everything There Is A Season

10/31/2019

4 Comments

 
By Charles Larry, with a thank you to Bill Kleiman for his help.
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Fire! The very word can conjure up images of terror or comfort. Forest fire, wildfire, or house fire evoke terror, while campfire, hearth fire, and cooking fire suggest comfort. Fire for a prairie or savanna means renewal. Fire is a necessary element in the way these ecosystems evolved. The native peoples of the prairies were using frequent low intensity landscape fires to encourage habitats that fit their needs for hunting, food, and medicine. The natural areas we now manage are dependent on those fires continuing. Fire kills the above ground portions of small trees and shrubs, sparing the oaks and hickories, which have adapted to fire with thick bark and the ability to re-sprout as needed.
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After a prescribed burn, the landscape looks bleak, seemingly devoid of life. But this is an illusion. Fire sets back woody plants, encourages wildflowers and grasses, and cycles nutrients.
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In just a few weeks vegetation begins to sprout anew. Plants such as wild lupine, foxglove, and ferns flourish after a prescribed burn.
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By summer, everything is in full bloom. Wildlife, such as deer, coyotes, foxes, rabbits, squirrels, opossums, raccoons, and birds, such as wild turkeys, red-headed woodpeckers, chickadees, goldfinches, indigo buntings, not to mention the myriad insects, all benefit from the lush environment. In this photo we see some old standing oaks that died from oak wilt or some other oak disease.
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Autumn is seed time and root time, returning again to underground. Dragonflies mass, preparing for migration. Migratory birds, such as northern flicker, indigo bunting, and summer and scarlet tanagers also gather in flocks to begin their migrations south. Tree frogs cease singing and bury themselves under logs, rocks, or leaf litter to hibernate the winter. The air becomes cooler. Frost happens with more frequency, foretelling the coming of winter.
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Winter is quiet and still but by no means vacant of life and activity. Deer roam about, eating dry grasses or other plants coming up through the snow, as well as twigs and the bark of trees. They also eat acorns or hickory nuts that have not been stored away by the squirrels. Coyotes and foxes prowl for voles or mice under the snow. Because the land is blanketed with snow, it protects the seeds that have been dispersed. When the snow melts in spring, it will help to plant and nourish those seeds. Thus the cycle begins again.

This week's blog was written by Charles Larry, a volunteer and photographer at Nachusa. To see more of his images, visit his photography website.
4 Comments

"Oaktober"

10/23/2017

8 Comments

 
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Autumn has always been my favorite season. Oaks are my favorite trees. So, it seems fitting in "Oaktober" to write about oaks and oak woodlands
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At Nachusa Grasslands and other places in the Midwest, we are trying to restore the health of our oak woodlands. And really, our region is defined by the oaks. The Nature Conservancy calls our eco-region “The Prairie-Forest Border” between the grand prairie to the south and the mixed woodlands in neighboring states to the north. The area was historically maintained as prairie intermixed with oak savanna and woodlands by Native American nations.
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Natural plant and animal communities of the region were a direct result of Native Peoples’ use of fire on the land. Without fire, in “The Prairie-Forest Border,” the amount of rain we receive would have yielded dense forests.

Many botanists have defined the various intergrades between savanna, open woodland, and closed woodland by the level of sunlight and density and species of trees. (See https://oaksavannas.org/)
Today, much of our Illinois woodlands have become too shady to allow sun-loving oaks to grow. Shade is the enemy of oaks. Acorns in shade will not thrive after germination and the limbs of oaks will also die if shaded.
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How can we tell if the “woods” we are looking at was historically savanna or naturally shady? The presence of large, old oaks with limbs that stick straight out (or used to, but are dead now) indicate the area was likely savanna. An oak growing in full sun without other trees close by will grow limbs horizontally. Oaks that grow close together grow their limbs vertically to reach the sun.

To give the oaks a fighting chance modern prairie restorers make use of controlled burns, as well as actual removal of invasive trees growing under and up into the limbs of the old sentinel oaks. We also remove the non-native bush honeysuckle (and other non-native shrubs) from the understory.
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When non-natives are not present there is a diverse understory.
Our region’s historic mixture of prairie interspersed with woodland types — from dry to wet, from open to somewhat shady — had an enormous species diversity of understory flowers, grasses, and native shrubs.
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Honeysuckles crowd the forest floor.
If action is not taken by restorers, the result is a mud forest floor, impenetrable understory with honeysuckle bushes, and an overstory of dead oaks. Elms, maples, and other shade-loving fire intolerant trees move in to take the place of oaks and hickories.

This combination of a solid thicket of invasive honeysuckle and loss of oaks gives hardly any habitat for animals. For example, deer and turkey dislike maple and elm, but they love acorns!
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"Red-headed Woodpecker" by Andy Reago & Chrissy McClarren, Flickr, cc by 2.0.
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Starry Campion
Native oak-hickory savannas and woodlands in the region are disappearing along with bird species that depend on the open structure: red-headed woodpeckers, great crested flycatchers, and eastern bluebirds. Native wildflowers such as kitten tails, wild hyacinth, prairie lily, and starry campion along with grasses such as bottle brush rye, woodland brome, and long-awned wood grass will not grow in heavy shade. And there are the native shrubs: hazelnut, American plum, hawthorn, and Iowa crabapple! None of these tolerate shade either.

I encourage you to read up on oak woodlands, then take a hike. Explore the Stone Barn Savanna  and see how we are doing. It’s a work in progress and sometimes messy, but we see the native oak savanna dependent plants and animals are thriving.
​
Here are some great websites that discuss oak savannas:
Pleasant Valley Conservancy—Oak Savannas
​Last of the Oak Savannas Survive in Minnesota
​What is an Oak Savanna?


Written by Susan Kleiman, a Nachusa volunteer.
​
8 Comments

OAKS

7/24/2016

0 Comments

 

In 1837 H.L. Ellsworth wrote of Illinois
"Among the oak openings you find some of the most lovely landscapes of the west, and travel for miles and miles through varied park scenery of natural growth, with all the diversity of gently swelling hill and dale; here the trees are grouped or standing single, and there arranged in long avenues, as though by human hands, with strips of open meadow between."
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Quercus!
The word is fun to say and somewhat poetic.
Quercus alba! 
Quercus velutina! 
Quercus macrocarpa!  
Quercus rubra!


White Oak! 
Black Oak! 
Burr Oak! 
Red Oak!

Nachusa Grasslands is known for its acres of remnant and restored prairie.  These prairies reflect the landscape of “The Prairie State” as it was two hundred years ago.  While 60% of Illinois was covered in ecosystems dominated by grass, significant portions of the state were also forested.  In northern Illinois oak trees were found in forest and savannas.  Today oak savannas are among the rarest ecosystems on the planet. 
A savanna could be considered a sparsely wooded grassland where abundant light is able to penetrate the leaf canopy to become available to the plants on the forest floor.  Like the prairies, savannas endured because of prevailing climatic conditions and fire.  The oak trees and the oak savannas have dwindled because of the demand for wood products, the need for agricultural lands, the suppression of fire, and for other reasons.
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In addition to the prairies, Nachusa Grasslands is home to tracts of woodlands, many of which were once savannas.  Big Woods, Bennett Woods, Brandt Woods, Tellabs and other units are dominated by trees, including some large and magnificent oaks.  In the absence of fire and as a result of years of grazing the nature of the woodlands has changed.  All over Illinois other types of trees have filled in the once open area beneath the oaks and interfered with the dominance of the oak trees.  These oaks were the dominant trees in the state at one time.  Now, but five percent of the trees in Illinois are oak.  Maples, honeysuckles, Box Elders, Buckthorn and other shade tolerant species are now found where once the oaks dominated.
         There are stewards and volunteers at Nachusa Grasslands who are working to restore the savannas and woodlands.  The very first task I undertook upon becoming the steward of East Tellabs was to “free” a white oak.  Hours were spent cutting and treating the honeysuckle that had formed an impenetrable fortress around the tree.  In the wooded units at Nachusa, stewards and volunteers are working to eliminate the invasive species, cut and clear excessive dead fall, and spread the seeds of desired species.  There have been successes, sunlight is reaching the ground, young oaks are emerging and there is still a lot to do. The goal is to return part of Nachusa to the diversity of species and color described by Joseph Mudd in 1888.
 "When the county was first settled there was no underbrush or small timber such as now exists. The timbered lands were open, the trees standing so far apart that hunters could see the deer at distances from one to fire hundred yards. The entire surface of the country was then covered with a rank growth of vegetation, consisting of native grasses and wild flowers, which gave the landscape, especially the timbered lands, a much more beautiful appearance than it has now.”
        In 1907 school children in Illinois voted the Oak Tree the state tree of Illinois.  More specifically, in 1973 the White Oak was selected as the state tree.  Native Americans used the acorns of the white oak as a food source.  The wood of the white oak is used in making furniture and caskets.  Barrels made of white oak aged whiskey and wine.  The oak leaves and branches provide homes and food for many varieties of insects and birds.  The acorns are eaten by deer, squirrels, and other animals. And anyone who hikes the wooded areas of Nachusa will pass beneath the spreading branches of the oaks and enjoy the shade, the movement of the leaves, and the texture of the bark.   Come to Nachusa Grasslands and enjoy the grasses, the flowers, the bison and the Quercus.
 
 
Thanks to the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation for the quotes.
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St. Peter's Sandstone in Tellabs
Text and Photography by Mark Jordan

0 Comments

    Blog Coordinator

    Dee Hudson
    I am a nature photographer, a freelance graphic designer, and steward at Nachusa's Thelma Carpenter Prairie. I have taken photos for Nachusa since 2012.

    Editor

    James Higby
    I have been a high school French teacher, registered piano technician, and librarian. In retirement I am a volunteer historian at Lee County Historical and Genealogical Society. 

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