A blog about the nature found in neighborhoods and parks in Oak Park and on Chicago's west side
As I monitored birds this morning in Columbus Park, I did an experiment. I took photos with my iPhone and uploaded them live to Facebook. It was kind of like a virtual nature walk!
Here the link to the public Facebook album with this morning’s photos: A January Walk through Columbus Park.
Please let me know what you think!
For the past three days a Red-tailed Hawk has been hunting from lamp posts at the end of our block:
I first noticed the hawk on Monday while I was walking to Maze Library across the Ridgeland bridge. I saw the hawk flying from post to post, approaching me from the east. Once it got close enough, I recognized it as the pale-bellied Red-tail that I’ve seen in Columbus Park, about a mile east on the expressway:
A few weeks ago I watched this hawk hunting Mourning Doves behind the Refectory at Columbus Park — it failed rather miserably. On Monday the Red-tail made a pass at Pigeons roosting on the apartment building at the end of our block — another fail. Then it flew directly at the large Red Cedar in our alley where House Finches and Goldfinches roost — the small birds scattered, and the hawk was not even close to scoring a meal.
Since then, every time I see the hawk it’s sitting on a lamp post:
It’s always look down, at least when it’s not looking at me. It’s probably hoping for a glimpse at a potential meal — a mouse, perhaps a rat, maybe a rabbit brave enough to cross three lanes of traffic.
I hope the hawk is more successful with mammals than it is with birds. And I hope it understands the dangers of speeding cars and trucks.
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Red-tailed Hawks often hunt along highway right-of-ways. Here are some links that discuss this aspect of Red-tail natural history:
The boys and I spent the entire day conducting our part of the Chicago Urban Christmas Bird Count. Nationally, Christmas counts are organized by the National Audubon Society. The Chicago Urban count circle is sponsored by Evanston North Shore Bird Club and Chicago Audubon Society, with Jeff Sanders as the compiler.
Our part of the count covers the following areas in Chicago and Oak Park: Birding on foot in Columbus Park, Douglas Park, and south Oak Park residential areas; feeder watching at our home on South Elmwood in Oak Park; and driving through industrial and residential areas in between these sites.
This year, birding from sunrise to sunset, we found a total of 26 species. The highlights of our day included:
We were also pleased that WHITE-BREASTED NUTHATCHES put in 2 appearances, since we’ve been seeing them much more frequently this year. We also were happy to see a BLUE JAY, because they were common this summer, then mostly disappeared within the last few weeks. We were disappointed that overall sparrow numbers were down at Douglas Park, where the golf-course sanctuary often holds 50 or 60 sparrows this late in the year. And we were very sad that we did NOT see the Great Horned Owl that had been roosting near Austin in late November and early December. (We still hope it returns in time to be registered as a count-week species!)
Here’s our entire list for today, with count numbers:
Canada Goose 280
Cooper’s Hawk 2
Red-tailed Hawk 2
American Kestrel 2
Merlin 1
Herring Gull 1
Ring-billed Gull 5
Rock Pigeon 115
Mourning Dove 45
Downy Woodpecker 4
Hairy Woodpecker 3
Blue Jay 1
American Crow 9
Black-capped Chickadee 9
White-breasted Nuthatch 2
Winter Wren 1
American Robin 55
European Starling 350
American Pipit 1
American Tree Sparrow 20
Swamp Sparrow 1
Dark-eyed Junco 25
Northern Cardinal 21
House Finch 14
American Goldfinch 30
House Sparrow 180
We also have two count-week species so far for our areas:
1 Red-bellied Woodpecker (seen in Douglas Park 12/17/09)
2 African Collared-Dove and/or African X Eurasian Collared-Dove (seen in south Oak Park 12/18/09). We are soliciting input on these photos, taken on Dec. 18th — what do you think they are?
Here are some of Aaron’s photos from today:
We’ll post links to Ethan’s photos once he gets them online.
The neighborhood crows and I were both disappointed that we didn’t find the Great Horned Owl in its usual roosting tree in Columbus Park. Here’s what the owl looked like yesterday afternoon — the third day in a row we had seen it in exactly the same spot in a White Oak tree:
This morning I looked at the same tree from every angle — and every tree around it — for 10 minutes and couldn’t find the owl. Then five minutes after I gave up a flock of Common Crows flew into the roosting tree and landed in its upper branches. These were tough crows! I had earlier seen them harassing first an American Kestrel and then a Red-tailed Hawk. I figured they knew something I didn’t — after all, crows first found this owl for me on November 24th. So, once the crows flew off, I went back to the roost tree and looked again.
Still, no owl.
I should have been disappointed, but I looked at the bright side. If the owl was in its roost, I would have backed off and left it alone. Since there was no owl to scare off, I could go look for owl pellets under its roost. (Owl pellets are the remains of animals that the owl ate — whole or in really big chunks. The pellet is the regurgitated remains of the owl’s meal, after the flesh and guts have been digested.)
Here’s what I found:
The more I looked, the more I found:
The last pellet I found was the biggest and the boniest:
I saw one rodent or rabbit front tooth in a pellet, but the rest of the visible bones were from legs, feet, hips, shoulders, or backs. I’m not good at identifying animals from their limb bones — I need to see teeth.
I guess we’ll go back at some point and dissect some of the pellets. If we find some jaws or skulls, we’ll know better what our urban owl was eating in Columbus Park.
Then we’ll wash our hands really well. After all, we’ll be handling owl vomit!
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We found more owl pellets on January 31st, including one containing a rabbit jaw. You can see them here.
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Here are links to information and activities about owl pellets:
Back on November 29th we started an experiment on our front porch, with four plastic jars filled with water. At the start of the experiment, the jars looked like this:
Now, here’s what the experiment looked like on Friday, December 4th, after the air temperature went below freezing, hitting 24 degrees Fahrenheit overnight:
Three of the jars had frozen water in them, including the jar with SALTY water. No one predicted that! The two jars that did not freeze were both sealed tight — there were no holes in their lids.
Here’s a closer look at Jar A, which started out as cold, fresh tap water, and was covered by a plastic lid with holes drilled in it:
Jar B showed a similar pattern, although the sheets of ice were more horizontal than vertical:
Jar D was most surprising. I was expecting the salty water wouldn’t freeze, but the top part of the jar was frozen fairly solid. However, the bottom of the jar was not frozen, but had a bunch of bubbles sticking to the side of the jar:
So, that leaves us with two mysteries to solve:
I have some ideas, but I won’t tell you about them yet. However, I will give you one hint about the second mystery. Here’s what the lower part of salty Jar D looked like on December 2, 2009 — three days after the experiment started, but before the temperature dropped below freezing:
Feel free to tell us your ideas in the comments section (below) or on Facebook.
The weather forecast says we’re headed into an extended spell of cold weather, with freezing temperatures predicted for the end of the week. So, it’s time to put some water jars on the front porch to see what happens. This year we’re going to be a bit more organized than usual and set up the jars as an experiment. There are reasons we’re setting it up this way, but we’ll let you try to figure out what those reasons are (with a few hints at the end of this post).
First, here’s our experimental setup: Four PLASTIC jars of water set on our front porch rail this afternoon, here in Oak Park, Illinois:
Jar A, on the far left, was filled with cold, fresh tap water. It’s lid has holes in it, so air can get in.
Jar B, just left of center, was filled with warm, fresh tap water. It’s lid also has holes in it, so air can get in.
Jar C, just right of center, also was filled with warm, fresh tap water. It’s lid has NO holes in it, so NO air can get in.
Jar D, on the far right, was filled with cold tap water, then a couple of handfuls of rock salt were added — the same kind of salt you may put on your steps or sidewalk when it snows. It’s lid has holes in it, so air can get in.
So, we are experimenting with the following variables:
Why do we want to experiment with those variables? Maybe you can guess if you check out these blog posts from last winter:
And now, here’s the big challenge:
What do you think will happen to each jar once the weather gets really, really cold?
You will need a separate guess — or “hypothesis” — for each jar, A through D. You can list your hypotheses in the comments section, below, or send them to me by e-mail (eric@saltthesandbox.org) or Facebook.
Think hard, and good luck! (Or should I say, “good skill”?)
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Note: I revised this post later the same day to make it clear that the jars are made of plastic. (Although it might be fun to try it with glass some day. Fun in a Mythbusters kind of way….)
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To find out what happened on December 4th, when the air temperature dropped below freezing, please go here: https://neighborhoodnature.wordpress.com/2009/12/07/first-hard-freeze-for-our-jars-of-water/
Late this morning I saw at least 14 American Crows in Columbus Park. To me that’s really great — I love crows, but their local population was decreased a few years ago by West Nile Virus. Now that they’re coming back, there’s reason for excitement — you never know quite what’s going to happen when crows are around.
The first crows I saw — a group of nine — were foraging in the woods by the lagoon. Two of them were tearing up a hornet nest. (I’ll post about that later.) They took off when they saw me, heading east and out of the Park.
The next group of crows was only five in number, but they were making lots of noise when I encountered them in the woods along Austin. At first I figured they might be looking for hornet nests — they were in the same trees where I found the nests in this blog post. But they just landed in the trees, took off again, circled over the golf course, then returned to the same trees — calling constantly. The second time they landed it was obvious that they weren’t just calling — they were calling at something. It seemed that they might be “mobbing” a hawk, so I scanned the trees with my binoculars. I thought I might find a Red-tailed or Cooper’s Hawk, which are common in the Park. Instead, this is what I saw:
The Great Horned Owl was the very first owl I had ever seen in Columbus Park! A few minutes earlier I had walked right under that tree, scanning the surrounding tree tops as I went, but I had completely missed the owl. Good thing the crows helped me out — the owl was sleeping away the day in a White Oak tree. Oaks hold their leaves longer than the other trees in Columbus Park, and the leaves helped hide the owl from view.
I walked a little closer, taking photos as I went. I got within about 75 feet and took this shot:
After a few more photos, I backed away. The crows had left, and I decided to do the same. Time to let the owl get back to sleep.
I hope the crows stick around all winter and beyond. Who knows what they’ll find next time! And I hope the owl finds lots to eat tonight in Columbus Park.
We’ve been following a neighborhood Tulip Tree as it cycles through the seasons. The last time we posted photos was way back on June 18, when the seeds were green, but ripening. The seeds remained that way through most the summer, then gradually started turning brown. Once the leaves had turned bright yellow in late October, the seeds looked like this:
Soon the leaves were swept off the tree by a wind-drive rain, and something — probably squirrels — found the ripened seeds to their liking. Here is one of the last remaining seed clusters, photographed in early November:
Once the seeds have all been eaten or fallen to the ground, the tree will be back to where it started last spring.
You can see our first photos of Tulip Tree buds at the bottom of this post from April 8, 2009.
Go here for our most complete post about Tulip Trees, which starts with the flowers and then goes back in time to how the tree looked as the buds were opening.
Earlier this year Neighborhood Nature showed the earliest examples of spring flowers we could find. Now that November’s two-thirds gone, I guess it’s time to show the last wildflowers still blooming in Columbus Park. (I’ll do my best to give their names, but bear with me — I’m not a botanist!)
It was sunny and almost warm during this morning’s bird monitoring in Columbus Park. However, some parts of the Park were devoid of birds, so I had time to look down as I listened hard for any birdlike sounds. These nickle-sized flowers caught my eye — I’m pretty sure they’re Daisy Fleabane. (You can see a photo of the entire plant here.)
The small patch of prairie habitat beside the lagoon held two plants in flower. The first one looked like a very small example of Queen Anne’s Lace (aslo called Wild Carrot) — the flower head was less than two inches across. (You can see a photo that shows the leaves here. Please use the comments, below, to correct me if I’m wrong.)
I’m also uncertain what this plant is called. I’m guessing this might be False Dragonhead, a kind of mint. Another name for this species is Obedient Plant, since if you push the flowers to one side, they stay there until you push them back. However, I forgot the try that test today, so my identification has not been physically confirmed. Also, this flower looked more pinkish in the field — I’m not sure why the photos don’t do justice to the color. (You can see a photo of the entire plant here.)
My final flowers were just hanging on — most of the others on this plant had gone to seed. It was a kind of thistle, found in Austin woods — but don’t ask me what kind of thistle, I wouldn’t have a clue. (Again, these looked more pinkish in the field. You can see a photo that shows some leaves here.):
“Gone to seed” is where all these flowers are bound. Food for birds, and sometimes a feast for the eyes despite the lack of color. Check out these goldenrod seeds, which may be Showy Goldenrod, one of the most beautiful of its kind. (You can see a photo that shows more of the plant here.)
So, are these the last wildflowers I’ll see this year in Columbus Park? I’ll keep looking for more on future visits. (And I’ll also try to tame that possible Obedient Plant.)
Now that most trees have lost their leaves, we find out what was hiding in their branches all summer long. Bird and squirrel nests are suddenly visible, and hornet nests turn out to be much more common than we ever imagined. I almost never see a Bald-faced Hornet in summer, but now I’m finding their nests in many trees in Columbus Park and throughout our Oak Park neighborhood. They look like big gray basketballs silhouetted against the sky:
But when you get closer, you can see the arcs of hornet-made paper, glued by hornet “spit” to build the outer layers of the nest:
Some brave creature tore off the bottom of this nest:
The outer layers of protective paper were torn away, exposing the inner cells — hexagonal tubes that look a bit like honeycomb:
Now, I’m not going to get all didactic and lecture you about the differences between honeybees and hornets. Let’s just say they both sting if you get too close, you’re not going to get much honey from a hornet, and honeybees won’t help control the fly population around your home. If you want to learn more, check out these online references:
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One of my Facebook friends had some advice for anyone who might consider bring a hornet nest inside for the winter. Patrick wrote, “I remember, as a kid, bringing one inside before the cold had done its deed to the hornets.” In other words, wait until there have been a couple of good hard freezes to kill off any remaining hornets (or other insects) inside the nest.
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P.S. Thanks to the Columbus Park walker who told me where to find the broken-open nest!
Helping families make their own home nature museums.
One-page field guides to the nature in Columbus Park and in nearby parks and neighborhoods
Monitoring birds on Chicago's westside
A closer look at the animals and plants that live in Douglass Park on Chicago's Westside
Neighborhood Nature 