The Prairie in Full Swing

Another fresh morning. August starts out cool just like July went out. But the heat is coming. Which is why it was important to get out to the prairie side of Dick Young Forest Preserve before the real heat kicks in.

Things change quickly in August on the prairie. Purple coneflowers that hung on through July get blasted by

hot sun and thick wind. Then their petals drop and you see the first hints of fall in their dark, sullen heads. Yellow coneflowers of a wide variety start shedding their petals and new ones bloom. By end of month goldenrod will be announcing its presence. Right now the purple bergamot, Queen Anne's lace and other mid-summer flowers dance innocently in the morning breeze. But I saw the weather forecast calls for 90s next week. At last.

There are families of sparrows and other species wrapping up their summer nesting duties. Haggard yellowthroats are still gathering bits of food for perhaps the summer's second brood? There were Henslow's sparrows singing low in the scrub, and grasshopper sparrows too. A clan of Savannah sparrows mov

ed around the hill as the sun rose.

Joggers and a cyclist moved past as I set up to photograph the birds. My pants and shoes were soaked. Shirt untucked. Hat probably askew. We birders must make a sight sometimes.

But I enjoy these contrasts. Just yesterday I was all suited up for a bicycle race in Elk Grove, and bike racing is an entirely inorganic experience. Four dozen cyclists on $3000 machines whirring around a tarmac surface on rubber tires. But the colorful outfits and spandex have their organic roots. Like preening, colorful birds on parade. And normally I ride 30-50 miles on a Sunday morning. But today I was content to trod around the crushed limestone path in my soggy Merrells. Looking for an oddity, I guess. Maybe it was me.

At any rate, the prairie is a sea of space ready for exploration. If you were to "dial in" you could probably spend a lifetime studying just 20 square feet of this habitat. Go ahead; pick out a patch and begin cataloguing the insects alone that pass through or use the prairie.

They add up quickly. And the ground below. That would be another entire study. I take photographs and find things that the eye does not instantly notice. The curl of a sparrow's claws. Spider webs linking the ivory heads of Queen Anne's lace. The multifaceted seeds of a coneflower head. It goes on and on, into infinity, the things you can discover.

As it was, the breeze kept things hopping. Birds perched on tall flowers swayed and re-clutched their perches to stay level. It was great sport trying to get good shots. The Savannah sparrow at the top of this blog turned out to be my favorite photo this morning. Just look at those claws. If that bird weren't so small, you might think them dangerous. But they do hint at dinosaur descendancy, do they not?

Go early, when the dew still lights the edges of the bluestem and coneflowers. When the sun angles through the grasses. When the birds are calling and when swallows peel and turn over the wetlands. That is where you need to be in August.