A dominance of doves. Is that even grammatically correct? I don’t know, but it sounded good. And that’s exactly what’s happening out there in the garden. The robin has been supplanted by the mourning doves on the Birdfy birdfeeder.
Like the robins, the doves want to get in the picture and they are not shy about doing it. They are persistently chasing all the other birds off their perch in any kind of weather, but especially when it’s raining or snowing. And once they’re on there, they stay put.
It’s interesting to watch the choices that these birds make when it comes to eating habits. The doves are quite picky and push the seed around until they find just the right tasty morsel and the Birdfy camera is excellent for observing these personal preferences.
The camera also makes it easy to watch the interaction between the doves and the other birds that are trying to get a look in. Sometimes it pays to just ignore them. Other times, the dove takes a more positive stand and glares at them until they clear off. You can just about fit two doves on the feeder and although they will tolerate each other, there’s still a good bit of flapping and flouncing going on.
If you haven’t already done so, I hope you will join me on my other blog, Getting The Picture, where I take a tour of the Titanic.
Although the weather has been unusually mild for the time of year, we haven’t seen much of the sun lately, so I was glad that I had set aside some pictures that I’d captured while on a walk at Crabtree Nature Center back in November. With all the rain that we’ve had over the past few weeks, I imagine it’s rather soggy there now.
Over by the recently refurbished visitors center, a rescued owl was dozing on a perch in the sun, while inside we took a look at some fish swimming about in the new tanks, and a little Eastern Screech owl that seemed to have made itself quite at home in it’s new surroundings.
I’m looking forward to getting back on the trail, at Crabtree and other nature centers in 2024, but for now, I wish you all a Happy, Healthy and Peaceful New Year.
This is the time of year when I try to participate in photo challenges and one of my favorites is Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge. I enjoy going through the past year’s pictures and finding ones that I haven’t used before, especially when they remind me of warmer days. The subject for this challenge was Blue. Two of the shots were from my garden. The butterfly was at the Chicago Botanic Garden and the beautiful stained glass features were at the Sanfilippo Estate in Barrington.
The drought this summer really took a toll on the seeds that I planted in the hopes of having lots of flowers this autumn. I spent a fortune on some fancy new seeds most of which didn’t even germinate. Ironically, the seeds that I gathered the previous year from good old faithfulls like zinnias, cosmos and marigolds survived and I was thankful that they, at least, stayed around long enough to brighten the garden.
Typical of the weather gods, we have now had several days of rain and the only things to benefit from it are the lawn which until recently was almost brown, and a fine crop of mushrooms that have been popping up all over.
As I was clearing away some of the dead leaves from the irises and daylilies, I came across this spider. I’m not a huge fan of spiders especially when they’re indoors but this one was a beauty. There are still one or two butterflies hanging around and this one landed on what remains of the butterfly weed.
It’s that time of year when we are starting to see more and more squirrels in the garden, gathering their stores for the winter months. I’ve been putting out critter food along with the bird seed and thanks to the squirrels burying corn niblets all over the garden, we had quite a few corn stalks growing amongst the flowers. I left them to mature and now the squirrels are reaping the harvest.
The birds are enjoying the critter food too, and the other day a flock of grackles spotted the corn and landed in the garden. It made a change from the mob of sparrows that we usually see. It makes me laugh when I read on the seed bags all the different kinds of birds that the contents are likely to attract. Anything from nuthatches to ostriches from what I can make out. But they don’t stand a chance. I hardly get back inside the house when the sparrows are down and mopping up everything in sight.
But if we are going to see something other than sparrows, now is the time of year when they’re likely to show up as they make their way south for the winter. I was surprised to see a male rose-breasted grosbeak on the feeder the other day. I’m no expert when it comes to bird names so I usually rely on Google to set me straight. Hiding in plain sight among the sparrows are two that might easily be overlooked. The one pictured left is what I think they refer to as a lark sparrow and the one on the right, a white crowned sparrow.
Other birds just passing through are the feisty redwing blackbird and the blue jay, that likes to imitate the call of the hawk to frighten all the other birds away.
Speaking of hawks, we have seen them in the garden more frequently since the beginning of autumn. There are two kinds that appear to have taken up residence in the neighborhood, the red-tailed hawk and the Cooper’s hawk. The Cooper’s hawk is the one that usually lands right near the house, sometimes on the neighbor’s fence or occasionally on my fake tree, which is also favored by the downy woodpecker .
One of the last plants to remain flowering in the garden is the Brazilian Blue Sage, and the hummingbirds, that it attracts all summer long, paid one final visit before leaving for warmer climes.
This is always a busy time of year in the garden, clearing up and preparing for the spring, collecting seeds and dividing plants that are perhaps taking up too much space. Any plants that are surplus to requirements I like to put out where people can help themselves. I’d much rather give them away than throw them in the bin. I even have people stop by and tell me how well the plants are doing in their new home which is always good to hear.
I’ve visited Prairie Center For The Arts in Schaumburg on several occasions, usually for one of their summer concerts, but in all the years that I have been going there, I never realized that there was a sculpture park on the grounds of this Schaumburg Municipal Complex.
The Chicago Athenauem is an international sculpture park, planned by Greek architect and artist Ioannis Karalias. The park covers 20 acres of meadow, forest and natural prairie and is just down the road from Spring Valley Nature Center so it’s not surprising that this made a very pleasant as well as an interesting walk.
Displayed in outdoor rooms, these pieces were created by artists from Norway, Israel, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Switzerland, Greece and America and were brought to the park during the late 1990’s.
Along the way, we got talking with a gentleman who was evidently a resident of Schaumburg and who was very familiar with the sculpture park. He advised us to look at the artwork from all angles, something I always do. He also informed us that the creation, by Norwegian artist Jarle Rosseland, that looked rather like a model of Stonehenge, actually represented an ancient Viking ship.
The sculpture park is a public-private partnership between the Village of Schaumburg and The Chicago Athenaem: Museum of Architecture And Design and is open daily from sunrise to sunset.
Between processing pictures and a couple of other projects that I’ve been working on recently, I’ve been spending quite a bit of time at my desk, so I was happy to take a break and stretch my legs with some walks around Spring Valley Nature Center in Schaumburg. The weather on the first trip was overcast but the second visit saw clear blue skies. Despite one or two good downpours just lately, the water levels in the pond are quite low.
Despite the rapidly receding waters, there are still plenty of frogs around and I am able to get quite a few mug shots as they smile wryly back at me from the duckweed.
Speaking of ducks, I rarely see anything other than the usual mallards by the pond but, on this occasion, I sight a mother wood duck and her brood. Unfortunately, the more colorful male is nowhere to be seen.
Leaving the pond, I walk through the woods, up to the farm where I stop to talk to one of the docents as we watch another gentleman demonstrating how to carve a wooden spoon. I’m told that, ever since the Covid pandemic, they have had a hard time getting people to come in and take care of the animals which explains why they only have a couple of cows and a few piglets now. The horses have been sent out to a farm in Indiana for now.
Walking back through the prairie area, I always marvel at all the different wildflowers there are and, although I hardly ever see rabbits at Spring Valley, on this occasion I spot two young ones.
We have had quite a fair amount of rain recently, and as we walked in to Crabtree Nature Center in South Barrington the other day, everything appeared green, including a well-camouflaged turtle and a bright, eastern pondhawk dragonfly.
But as we traveled along the path, we could gradually make out other colors until, like a jigsaw puzzle, all the pieces came together to make the complete picture.
Last week, while the weather was fine, we took a trip to the Morton Arboretum in Lisle to see a new art exhibition called Of The Earth. The show consists of five creations by Polish American artist Olga Ziemska. The first, entitled Stillness in Motion, is made from reclaimed branches with a steel armature and is 6ft tall.
The artist used reclaimed materials from the Arboretum’s 1,700 acres to create her works. The next sculpture, Hear, is 5ft tall and 6.5ft wide and made from thousands of smooth river rocks. A nearby sign tells us to close our eyes and be still. It asks, can we hear what nature has to say? I can hear redwing blackbirds shrieking nearby, which makes me very nervous!
The exhibition’s intention is to remind us of the human connection to nature and the earth, and the setting, amid the trees and fields of the Arboretum, is ideal for this purpose. This piece is entitled Strata, is 8ft tall and 45ft long and is made with layered river rocks encased in a wire mesh and steel armature. It considers the human body as part of the landscape, emerging from the earth.
Oculus is 10ft tall and 9ft wide and is made of Arboretum logs and mirrored stainless steel set in a metal armature. It explores the idea of shared vision and collective sight and I can see a little mini-me standing in the field behind me.
The final sculpture, Ona, which means “she” in Polish, is 14ft tall, 20ft wide and 22ft deep. The eyes are open to reflect the surrounding scenery. I think this was my favorite piece. Apparently we picked the right week to go, weatherwise, as we are now getting some much-needed rain.
Last week, as a break from working in my own garden, I decided to spend a morning at the Chicago Botanic Garden. Their new Welcome Plaza is now open and their current theme is Love in Bloom. And where better to celebrate Love in Bloom than in the Krasberg Rose Garden?
This 3-acre Garden is filled with more than 5,000 roses, and there’s nothing quite like the perfume of roses in June first thing in the morning. Heavenly! It’s no wonder this is one of the most popular spots in the Botanic Garden.
Not surprisingly, this is one of the largest rose display gardens in the United States, with more than 150 varieties of roses on show along with companion plants such as peony, catmint, alyssum, boxwood, northern bayberry and lavender.
From the Terrace Overlook to the shade of the Arbor or the Rose Garden Viewing Terrace, where you can sit, surrounded by these gorgeous blooms, this is a rose-lover’s paradise.
Set amid a lush green lawn is the Rose Fountain. Shaped like the five petals of a rose, the center spray is surrounded by 50 jets of water timed to stay tight like a rosebud in the morning then slowly opening like the flower throughout the day.
The third Dome that we explored while we were at the Mitchell Park Conservatory in Milwaukee was the Tropical Dome. In this indoor jungle, that first opened to the public in 1966, there are 1,200 species of plants, the Canary Date Palm being the tallest tree that reaches almost all the way to the top of the 85ft high glass ceiling.
Temperatures are kept at a constant 75F – 80F and the plants are watered twice a day which keeps the foliage lush and green and the flowers radiant.
Although the flowers may not be as abundant as in the Display Dome, the colorful foliage that makes up the four layers of plant life that exist in a typical rainforest, more than compensate.
Everywhere you look, there is something to catch and delight the eye and, more than once, we found ourselves calling to each other to come and look at something incredible, including the fruit of the Sausage Plant.
The Nature of Things 