Chicago Forest Preserves

[guppiecat]

On my previous-to-most-recent trip to Chicago, I dealt the irritation of the city to going to a lot of forest preserves. Specifically, McDowell Grove County, Blackwell County and Thatcher Woods. The set is here.

These little places of wild are interesting. They're unbuildable, so they're set aside for nature and given little trails. Then the citizens of Chicago dress up in remarkably tight-fitting clothes, put on headsets (so they can't hear the nature) and sunglasses (so they can't see the nature) and then jog through the preserves so that the nature can't get at them. (I am, of course, being completely unfair here... some of them are on bikes.)

I really like how some of these turned out.




This is the only froggie I saw.


Geese are easier to get in a row than ducks are.


Ooooh, artsy!


Flappy flappy flappy


I don't think that geese can read.


This is what the path probably looks like if you're on a bike. This is what it sounds like.


I find it endlessly amusing that they have these forest preserves to preserve the forests and animals, and then beavers come along and destroy the all trees. Some trees were in cages, I assume to keep to beavers out (or maybe the trees were just evil).


I am sure that these have a more official name than red-eyed demon ducks... but they don't have a better one.


Mmmm, cotton candy


I wonder how long it takes them each year to realize that there's ice over the ponds? I may need to get a video camera.


Sometimes beavers get bored.

Comments

[ann-totusek.livejournal.com]

I don't mind seeing and hearing the nature, and sometimes I don't mind the nature getting at me. If I REALLY don't want it to get at me, I wear DEET.

[trishtrash.livejournal.com]

Some of these are gorgeous. 3403 (sycamore seed - artsy indeed) & 3792 (birdie onna stick) really grabbed me.

[guppiecat]

Birdie on a stick is a Red-winged Blackbird. Interesting, the Cotton Candy one above is ALSO a Red-winged Blackbird. The males and females look very different.

[trishtrash.livejournal.com]

That did surprised me... there's a black/brown variation in the European blackbird, but nowhere near as striking as this. The female's speckling would have led me to conclude some sort of thrush, but not blackbird.

[tigertoy.livejournal.com]

The red-eyed demon duck is actually an American Coot, which is technically not a duck. But red-eyed demon duck is funnier. The bird demonstrating the value of cattails to wildlife is a female Red-Winged Blackbird. Most of the time trees are put in cages to protect them from deer (which are horribly overpopulated, which leads them to eat everything botannical to survive the winter) -- but I don't know anything about these particular cages.

[mplsfish.livejournal.com]

I was gonna say Coot. But I didn't have anything to back it up. Glad I got beaten to it. :)