Enjoying the Day

This leopard frog is basking in the sun near the Kankakee River where there are copious quantities of frogs of various sizes this year.

Frosty Marsh

The marsh was quiet and frosty with the sky hinting of the snow to come. The muskrat lodges were batted down and the only birds that were out discussing the weather were the chickadees.  

2012 at the Marsh

The second day of 2012 has frightful weather---snow and high winds, frigid temperatures.

But for a few hours in the earlier part of the 1st day of 2012,we had blue skies reflected in the water of the marsh, as big puffy marshmallow clouds floated at the horizon. Magnificent!

Stormy Weather

A storm was just leaving the marsh as I was walking in for the day. Here the sun is just beginning to show its face again. Everything was fresh and clean.

Frogs and ducks were enjoying themselves. And the dragonflies began to hunt the mosquitoes as I grabbed my bug spray.

March Marsh

The green of spring starts out in the water in a canal at the Kankakee Marsh.

Algae have been blooming underneath the ice for a month, feeding the tiny organisms that are beginning to wake to become food for fish, birds, and frogs.    

Muskrat Sam

One lone muskrat took advantage of the warmer weather at the marsh to fix up under water entrances to his home.

Thinking about a nest?

These are the geese that made it through the extra hunting seasons and the blizzards that followed.

The geese are now waiting on the price of  real estate in the marsh to go down before they decide whether to nest in the boxes provided.

Winter at the Marsh

A couple of years ago this area, at the Grand Kankakee Marsh, would have been covered with Muskrat Lodges.

Since then the muskrat population has crashed and is now on the rebound; a reminder of the cycles of nature that are greater than a calendar year.   

Purple Martin

From the archives:

A Purple Martin to wish for on this cold December day.

This one was captured a couple of summers past in the Grand Kankakee Marsh in Indiana.