Last updated October 6th, 2021 NOTE Things are developing quickly – more quickly than I can keep pace with. So please check savebellbowlprairie.org and Save Bell Bowl Prairie on Facebook for recent updates and recommended actions. —cassi What is happening? Bell Bowl Prairie is slated for almost complete destruction as part of the expansion of …
Remnant prairie under threat – Bell Bowl Prairie Read More »
Photos by Nadir Hashmi (left) and Bob Peterson (right) The following is a snapshot of the Wikipedia page I created for Dr. Floyd A. Swink (Floyd Swink) as of July 30th, 2018, with helpful additions from Mark Kluge. Please view the latest version of the Wikipedia page for references and the most up-to-date version: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floyd_Swink …
NOTE: The statistics on page will be occasionally updated as we add more observations and make further species identifications. Bunker Hill Forest Preserve Bioblitz Participants Hard at Work (Play) Inspired by the San Francisco McLaren Park Bioblitz organized by Nerds for Nature, Save McLaren Park, iNaturalist, and Bay Nature Institute, we (Habitat 2030) decided to …
Bunker Hill Forest Preserve Bioblitz (9/14/2013) Read More »
These photos were taken on May 23rd, 2013 at the Morton Arboretum’s Schulenberg Prairie, a hand-planted prairie restoration dating back to the 1960s, marking it as one of the earliest attempts at recreating a native plant community assemblage from scratch. Baptisia alba, white wild indigo nearly blooming. Maianthemum (Smilacina) stellatum, starry false Solomon’s seal, is …
A 4:23PM sunset really sneaks up on you. You’re enjoying the golden brown prairie hues and suddenly it’s nearly pitch black. The middle photo above is a naturalized stormwater detention basin burned this fall. The following prairie plant silhouettes are from Blackberry Trail Forest Preserve in Kendall County, IL. Silphium perfoliatum (cup plant) Sorghastrum nutans …
One of the brightest prairie flowers blooming right now is New England aster (Symphyotrichum novae-angliae), here with the ellipsoid (egg-shaped) seed heads of grey-headed coneflower (Ratibida pinnata), whose seeds, by the way, smell pleasant enough to rid your hands of snake musk if you ever happen to be looking to remove that particular odor from …
While working on a grant for restoration activity at Wolf Road Prairie earlier this year [Eliminate Phragmites Campaign!], I noticed a burn from this past spring was visible on Google Earth! Here is what the prairie normally looks like from above: and here is the photo from March 12th of this year. The sidewalks built …
The following is a quote by botanist Gerould Wilhelm, in the book A Natural History of the Chicago Region by Joel Greenberg. He is recounting an early experience from his time with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, assessing whether different areas were suitable (low-quality enough) to dump dredge materials. We visited thirteen sites that …
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