Chicago River Report

The North Branch of the Chicago River flows through my neighborhood, and I am happy to tell you that there are no signs of Asian Carp...yet.

But there are signs of life.

Ten years ago, I was out for a bicycle ride with my youngest sons, twins who were then 11 years old.
I stopped the parade to take a closer look at the river as we crossed the Peterson Avenue bridge.  There had been press reports that fishermen had been catching large carp in the Chicago River.  This amazed me.

I had lived in Chicago for most of the preceeding fifty years, and, for most of that time, the river had mostly been devoid of living creatures as large as the reported carp.
We looked over the railing and we were amazed.  There were fish below us in the river, about twenty of them.  Not only that, but they were big and about half of them were golden-hued. 

Fast forward to last year: October 24, 2011.  I had not seen the carp again, but water fowl were in the water.  I was walking over the North Branch on the Lincoln Avenue bridge with camera in hand.  This bridge is only a block north of the Peterson Avenue bridge.

I looked over the railing and saw a blue heron standing at the water's edge.  Blue heron's are not inclined by evolution to pose for amateur photographers, but they will watch patiently when they think that their next meal might come along soon

I watched for a while.  He watched the river.  I watched the heron.
He was still there when I left.  My inference was that there were fish in the river that I could not see, but that the heron could. 

Yesterday, I decided to walk up to the Lincoln Avenue bridge to see what might be in the river. 

It's a mixed situation.

In the first place, the river looks good.  If you look upstream, you will not see the foamy, soapy glop that used to be discharged into the river from sewage filtration plant at  the river's edge at either Devon. Avenue.  The next bridge is Devon Avenue.


This is good news.



There are still ducks in the river.  I was going to make a snarky  remark about the way the ducks are staying out of the water.  Truth to tell, they need to perch on something because the river is flowing steadily to the right.  I guess they cannot get any rest unless they get out of the water.

And then, there are these tadpoles.  I was twenty feet away from this trio when I shot this photo.  Tadpoles in the river are good news because it means that adult amphibians are reproducing here.

They're hard to spot.  Look over near the left edge of the photo.  The ducks have been molting, which probably explains the feather.  And there are always idiots among us, which probably explains the can.





Which brings me to the young herring gull in the final photo.  The bird is pecking away at the dead fish as the river carries them downstream. 

What killed the fish?