Natural Events

By Jack MacRae

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

Early Winter

Wahoo

Who can resist a wahoo in the winter? The eastern wahoo is a small tree of woods and forest edges, related to the commonly planted Asian burning bush. Wahoos usually hang on to a few of their dangling, crimson, four-lobed seed clusters into the first weeks of winter. The seeds are toxic; an extract was used to kill head lice in earlier times.

Red Dog

Red osier dogwood is a small shrub of streambanks, where a well-watered clump can grow over eight feet tall, with an eight-foot spread. During the winter, the slender stems are a glossy cardinal red. Red osier dogwood is an extremely cold-hardy plant. The water in its stems is replaced with a freeze-tolerant protein during the coldest days of winter. It must taste good — rabbits and deer eat it all winter long.

I once lived on an island that had many healthy, mature stands of red osier dogwood. Every so often, a local craftsman would stop by and harvest a dozen or so of the long, straight stems. He made traditional native woodland arrows with time-honored materials: deer sinew, turkey feathers, chert, and dogwood. Much to his chagrin, his arrows were typically treated like works of art and hung on a living room wall.

Middle Winter

Red Friends

On any given Sunday in January, it’s not unusual to see four or five male cardinals bonding over a big tray of black oiler sunflower seeds at the local public house. The camaraderie is temporary. Male cardinals have tolerance for each other only in the winter, when hormones are suppressed. Turf wars will start shortly after the big game (the Super Bowl, that is), and males will lay claim to their territory through their familiar clear song.

The Eagles

Like me, bald eagles like to pay an occasional visit to the cute towns along the Fox River. While I shop for hot sauce, they’re in the market for cold fish. Bald eagles cruise the rivers on a regular basis during winter and make appearances at various points. Two of my favorite spots to look for our national bird are from those cool observation decks at Red Oak Nature Center on the Fox and the northern point of Isle à la Cache in Romeoville along the Des Plaines. Even the Main Street Bridge in Dundee has proven to be an occasional eagle perch in recent years.

Late Winter

Red Rodent

Here’s a suggestion for a cheap, but undoubtedly memorable, winter date. Dress warmly, pack some warm drinks in a thermos, and go searching for some of the cute little red squirrels of Chicago Wilderness. Quick and active throughout the winter, red squirrels are smaller than gray or fox squirrels. While they’re easy to locate — they chatter incessantly at all two-legged intruders to their forest home — red squirrels are not widespread in our region. Some live in the dunes along southern Lake Michigan, and there are reports of them living at Thorn Creek Woods near Park Forest. A well-established group lives along the Kankakee River near the Indiana and Illinois border, and they have been reported in Racine County as well. According to John Whitaker, an Indiana mammal authority, perhaps the easiest place to see red squirrels is near the boat docks at Willow Slough Fish and Wildlife Area near Morocco, Indiana.

Dr. Thomas Nelson of Eastern Illinois University, who’s also interested in raccoons and beavers, is currently researching the ecology and genetics of the northeastern Illinois groups. Send him your reports of local red squirrels at tanelson@eiu.edu.

Dining in the Dark

Lesser scaup are fine looking ducks. To some of them, the cold waters of southern Lake Michigan are a great place to spend the winter. A male lesser scaup is an attractive black, gray, and white diving duck with a flat, broad, turquoise-blue bill. Scaup spend winter days seemingly doing little more than floating lazily on the surface. When hungry, they swim gracefully under the water to gobble up mollusks and other bottom-dwelling macroinvertebrates from the lake floor. Pair bonds are formed during their winter visit; mates will be ready to nest once they return to breeding grounds in Canada. Recently, researchers closely observed 200 lesser scaup as they paddled about the Indiana Harbor Canal. The scientists were hoping to learn more about their winter feeding habits. Interestingly, they learned that the scaup spent more time eating in the dark than eating during the day.