Spring 2004

By Jack MacRae

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

EARLY SPRING

Dove Songs
I love the morning song of the mourning dove. That's the male, trying to get a girl to notice him. He's a real showoff, strutting, clapping his wings, and flying in spirals. He'll soon fly to a branch and coo softly, hoping to impress her with his real-estate holdings and plans for the future.

He makes a compelling offer: he will select the nest site and haul all the sticks; she can put them wherever she likes. He will bring her food and sit on the eggs half the time. He will help feed the young. Sounds perfect, except that he often will pick a bad location and she often will construct a flimsy nest; dove nests frequently blow to the ground during high winds.

Swamp Babies
Nearly naked and blind, newborn muskrats mature quickly. By their third week of life, they're practicing their swimming and diving skills. They'll be weaned from mother's nutritious milk by the fourth week and will be living independently by the seventh. Perhaps junior muskrat's first meal will be blue flag iris. I see young muskrats dragging plenty of blue-flag bouquets across the creek outside my office.

MIDDLE SPRING

Lowland Lady
White lady's slippers are short orchids that bloom early, during late April and May. A fragrant flower, they're pollinated by a troupe of handsome, short-tongued bees. The bees enter through the protruding lip of the labellum, and due to the inrolled curvature of the petals, there is only one way out. Escape through a narrow passage requires the bee to come in contact with the always-important stigmas and anthers.

	One-flowered cancer root. Photo by Casey Galvin.

Energy Thief
Last May, an observant lady with a friendly yellow dog noticed a small, weird, pale flower she didn't recognize. It was growing near the parking lot of her local forest preserve. She used a field guide to correctly identify the plant as one-flowered cancer root, a member of the broom rape family of plants. These native plants are root parasites, stealing nourishment from the below-ground tissue of other plants; they do not obtain energy through photosynthesis. One-flowered cancer root (also called one-flowered broom rape) grows among the leaf litter of oak woods. Small colonies of these fascinating plants have suddenly appeared in areas that have been managed and monitored for years, probably benefiting from periodic fire.

Clockwork Yellow
Right on schedule, yellow-billed cuckoos arrive in early May following a long trip from South America. Their arrival coincides with the first batch of hairy caterpillars of the year. One ornithologist from the mid-20th century found 325 tent caterpillars in the stomach of one gluttonous cuckoo. Mmmmmm, fuzzy insects.

LATE SPRING

Happy Together
Spring is a time for stinkpot romance. Stinkpots are smelly little turtles that have spent the winter at the bottom of our ponds. As the weather warms, stinkpots will rise to the surface, where they'll often bask in the warmer, shallow waters close to shore. Once sufficiently heated, they'll eagerly start looking for a cute companion. Copulation—an exceptionally inelegant affair with turtles—is aquatic. The claws and shells of the male stinkpot work well for clutching the female.

Around Mother's Day, ironically, the males will set off to live by themselves, leaving the females to wait alone for the summer laying season.

Baby Snakes
At first, the baby northern water snakes I kept in a tank in my living room refused to eat their goldfish. They weren't being finicky, they had just emerged from their hibernation in late April, and it was still too cool. It seems this species might not eat until the air temperature reaches 76 degrees.

Northern water snakes are long, dark, and handsome animals. The juveniles have distinct bands of reddish brown while many adults are the color of coffee. They never venture far from water and are fairly common in some parts of Chicago Wilderness. Most water snakes are not serpents of peace and love; they are quick tempered and deliver a solid bite when handled.

Steel Head Blues

Photo by Gary Mechanic.

Two years ago, the kestrel couple moved into the head of 17th-century explorer Father Jacques Marquette. The metal head of the statue at the Chicago Portage Site, in Lyons, Illinois, that is. These kestrels, also called sparrow hawks, would zip into the statue between Marquette's hair and left cheek. Kestrels don't gather nesting materials or build a nest, so the female laid her eggs on a flat metal surface inside the statue. In May, the chicks begged loudly for food, and the parents obliged. By the start of summer, the parents were empty nesters. Eventually, some low-rent house sparrows moved in and soiled the good father's black robe with their droppings.