Serendipity in the Park.

Two weeks ago, I was leaving the Nature Center after a pleasant walk.  The prairie plants in front of the nature center were already cloaked in shadow from the trees.


Fast-moving butterfly

Something was flitting among the plants, a fast and erratically moving butterfly.  I had to choose between trying to get a good look at the butterfly or taking its picture.  My camera was set at a fairly high shutter speed and a decent aperture, so I opted to shoot and decide from the image what it was I had been looking at later. 
Yes, I know this detracts from the immediacy of the experience, but it works for me because it gives me a record of what I have seen and a better handle on what it was I was looking at when I try to figure that out later.

I do not know much about butterflies, or nature for that matter.  I use photography as a learning tool.

So, I had the blurred photo of a butterfly in my computer and way in the back of my mind when I went for my morning walk three days ago. My camera was ready when I got to the NPVNC entrance.
There were the familiar enclosures in front of the Nature Center, which, by the way, includes not only offices, meeting rooms and rest rooms, but also an excellent small museum. 


Entrance to NPVNC

Welcome



Inside the mesh fence around the flowers was that black butterfly.  It took me maybe ten shots and a lot of contortions and adjustments before I could catch it between the wires.

You can see the details in the enlargement.


Eastern Black Swallowtail

 So, mystery solved.  Except for the gender.  Maybe next time.  Maybe someone will explain to me how to tell.

The excitement of a surprise discovery was not quite over.  I glanced over to my right as I walked towards the Nature Center.  Yes, I did a double-take:

Nature Center Entrance

Nature Center visitor.

This is not the first time I've seen this guy hanging out around the front of the Nature Center, just lounging in the garden waiting for rutting season to start.  Sometimes he hangs out on one of the grassy islands in the parking lot.

There are several stags hanging out around or inside the park, and a few does as well.  The does mostly still have fawns in tow. 

There are not as many fawns as there once were.  Sometimes I forget that this is an actual nature park.  Then something reminds me that nature includes predators.  On this same walk, I spotted a trail of footprints on the path near the bridge that divides the two ponds.  There had been a heavy rain the previous night, after a long dry-spell, so these were current footprints.  They were just under three inches long and they belong to a coyote.



Coyote footprint:  September, 2012

 



January, 2012 Coyote and ???

I spotted one coyote last January from a distance of 25 yards or so.  He ducked and disappeared.  I followed and found a trail footprints. 

There may be as many as three coyotes in the park.  Given the cleverness of coyotes, this number must be elastic.

The coyotes also play a role in the unhappy story of the geese inside the fence of NPVNC.  This is a story for another day.


Back to my September 4th walk in the park.

When I got west side of the park , I happened to glance up towards a bat "house".  There was a Cooper's hawk on top!  Of course he saw me.  I managed to take three quick shots before the bird flew off.

Cooper's Hawk on Bat House



Oops.

In future postings, I plan to show more of the fauna and flora of the North Park Village Nature Center.  There are interesting stories.

The best story of all in about the Staff that runs North Park Village Nature Center.  The staff and volunteers here does a remarkable job of making nature accessible to city folks.  It is hard work to keep nature looking natural. 
















Adventures at the North Park Village Nature Center

Introduction

 

I did not start out to be an urban naturalist.  As a naturalist, I have a great deal to learn.  On the plus side, I am a good observer and a halfway decent photographer with a very deep-running curiosity.

Several years ago I had a series of serious surgeries, lower back repair, hip replacement and knee replacement.  I managed to go back to work pretty quickly but the pain and the loss to mobility were, in a word, depressing.  Encouraged by my wife, I began to walk around our neighborhood on the North Side of Chicago.  Eventually I found my way into the North Park Village Nature Center. 

At first, I was mostly concerned with being able to walk without falling down.  Over time, I became stronger and my walks became longer.  I slowed down and spent more time looking, listening and photographing. Before long it dawned on me what an amazing window into nature this nature center is, how very amazing it is to find a place like this within the city limits. 

More recently, it dawned on just how much work goes into keeping the place looking natural.  The staff and the many volunteers work hard to give the rest of us a taste of something that transcends urban life, something that connects very deeply to what we understand about nature. 

And I do not exclude us from nature.  I believe that we are a part of the whole.  I believe that human nature is located within the continuum of evolution.  We are part of the fabric of life on this planet.

Here is the young goose who inspired this blog.  She was about six weeks old when I captured this image on June 11, 2012. 

What's in the picture?  I had just fed my breakfast to her, her three siblings and their parents --six geese in all.  As a rule I do not "feed the animals", but they were such persuasive beggars that I broke my own rule and gave them the two slices of whole-wheat toast I had carried with me for an out-of-doors breakfast. 

I took this photo just after I had passed out the last of my toast.

She walked up to me, cocked her head and seemed to be looking at me quizzically.  Was she wondering why more food was not forthcoming?  Was she wondering, as I was, what kind of intelligence was standing there in front of us?