Mud Puddles

How many tadpoles can you see in this picture? Hundreds of tiny tads have been born thanks to this year's rains. These are growing up in a group of mud puddles on a service road at the Indiana Dunes. This picture was taken on June 9th.

By June 11th, the tiny tads had sprouted legs and lost tails. There's another round of tads of all sizes at various stages of development growing in the puddles. We've had heavy rains here, so this year the puddles won't be drying up any time soon, giving the tiny tads a bit longer to mature.

 

First Sighting

This is my first sighting of a skink in Indiana. It was incredibly fast and most of my photos were blurs of stripes that ran through the grass along side the trail.

He was generous, though, and stopped in the middle of the trail for a photo op and then turned into a blur again in the grass on the opposite side of the trail. This was the second skink that I spotted. The other didn't give me a chance. It had a brilliantly bluer body and went into hiding as soon as it spotted me.    

Sunset Over the Bog

So perfect was the June evening as the sunset dripped into the bog, one could even forgive the mosquitoes their dinner.

Hoary Puccoon

The inner beauty of Hoary Puccoon, one of our native wildflowers.

Tadpoles

In spite of the recent tree chopping to save the bog at the Indiana Dunes the tiny frogs are doing well and taking over the puddles in holes left behind by the heavy machinery.

Here are a few of hundreds of tadpoles that are easy to miss unless you know beforehand that they are there. No bigger than a hulled sunflower seed, these tadpoles are in a race with time. Will the puddle dry up before they mature? Or will the recent rains save them? Only time will tell.

  

"Lazily She Lingered Cradling a Dream"

In the sleepy forest where the bluebells

Smouldered dimly through the night,

Dermuid saw the leaves like glad green waters

At daybreak flowing into light,

And exultant from his love upspringing

Strode with the sun upon the height.

Glittering on the hilltops

He saw the sunlit rain

Drift as around the spindle

A silver-threaded skein,

And the brown mist whitely breaking

Where arrowy torrents reached the plain.

A maddened moon

Leapt in his heart and whirled the crimson tide

Of his blood until it sang aloud of battle

Where the querns of dark death grind,

Till it sang and scorned in pride

Love—the froth-pale blossom of the boglands

That flutters on the waves of the wandering wind.

Flower-quiet in the rush-strewn sheiling

At the dawntime Grainne lay,

While beneath the birch-topped roof the sunlight

Groped upon its way

And stooped above her sleeping white body

With a wasp-yellow ray.

The hot breath of the day awoke her,

And wearied of its heat

She wandered out by the noisy elms

On the cool mossy peat,

Where the shadowed leaves like pecking linnets

Nodded around her feet.

She leaned and saw in the pale-grey waters,

By twisted hazel boughs,

Her lips like heavy drooping poppies

In a rich redness drowse,

Then swallow—lightly touched the ripples

Until her wet lips were

Burning as ripened rowan berries

Through the white winter air.

Lazily she lingered

Gazing so,

As the slender osiers

Where the waters flow,

As green twings of sally

Swaying to and fro.

Sleepy moths fluttered

In her dark eyes,

And her lips grew quieter

Than lullabies.

Swaying with the reedgrass

Over the stream

Lazily she lingered

Cradling a dream.

The Awakening of Dermuid by  Austin Clarke

My Favorite Things

Cowles Bog, ducks, and Blue Herons this May Day.

A Jewel in the Shade

This pretty snake was heading for the shade after I walked up the path and disturbed it as it was enjoying the spring sun.

A Beast!

I heard a rustle in the tall grass along the wetland. This was a major rustle. What could it be? A deer laying low? A turkey? Maybe even a bunch of snakes awaking from a winter snooze?

This is what finally turned up---a major sized snapping turtle. As it eyed me from a distance, I waited for another rustle to make itself known. This one was smaller and ended up being a bird that headed directly for the snapper. Soon the snapper was eyeing the bird instead of me. I held my breath and for a minute it looked like snack time for the turtle. But at the last minute the bird awoke from its spring time jaunt and really took a look at that big rock in front of it and realized it for what it was and flew off.

Many of the These Trees Were My Friends

 Saving the Bog at Indiana Dunes comes at a price---thousands of trees that have been cut down. According to the experts the trees needed to be cut down because they sucked too much water out of the bog.

The bog is an ecosystem that is not found anywhere else. Rare plants are found here and no where else. The only thing is---bogs aren't made to last forever. This bog is following the progression of all other bogs before it---eventually it dries up and disappears, changing into woodland or meadow land. But after filling in much of our wetlands, we humans feel the need to protect the few remaining on public lands. So here is the dilemma---how to hold back nature's natural progression.

After

Before

And in this case the experts say the trees must go. And so this spring thousands of trees have been chopped down. Trees that previously gave song birds a resting place on migration; where premium bird watching occurred in other springs are gone. Trees that gave wild life hiding places and shelter---deer, muskrat, beaver, and tiny frogs are gone. Trees won't shade this summer's hikes. They're all gone. Sacrificed for a good cause, but mourned nonetheless.

"Many of these trees were my friends" said Treebeard in the Lord of the Rings. We feel the same sorrow.

The Bog

          

In the Blue

Some days Lake Michigan can look nearly tropical with that beautiful blue reflected from a spring sky.

The Blue Sea, Sun, Grass

Have me in the blue and the sun.

Have me on the open sea and the mountains.

When I go into the grass of the sea floor, I will go alone.

This is where I came from—the chlorine and the salt are blood and bones.

It is here the nostrils rush the air to the lungs. It is here oxygen clamors to be let in.

And here in the root grass of the sea floor I will go alone.

Love goes far. Here love ends.

Have me in the blue and the sun.

Have Me by Carl Sandburg

Over the Long Haul

This path winds up to the top of the dune on the horizon. Right over that ridge is Lake Michigan, 22,400 square miles of earth's surface made of fresh water.

Sand, Sea, Sky, Ice

Ice continues to build on the shores of Lake Michigan. The sand is solid in most places along the shore. Not so in the Dunes, however, which the sands are busy moving one scant grain at a time in blustery winter days.

February Shore

A lot of sand, a bit of ice, and misty air; the shore of Lake Michigan can be a placid place this time of year.

Lonely Shores

A LONELY lake, a lonely shore,

A lone pine leaning on the moon;

All night the water-beating wings

Of a solitary loon.

With mournful wail from dusk to dawn

He gibbered at the taunting stars,

A hermit-soul gone raving mad,

And beating at his bars.

Lew Sarett--- The Loon

Sea of Sand

This is the view from the top of one of many mountains of sand running along the shores of Lake Michigan at the Indiana Dunes. The Dunes are a sea of moving sand. In the foreground are a couple of trees that are being left behind as the dune moves on.  

Ducks in a Row

A row of Hooded Mergansers float silently along in a misty pond.

Not Sleeping Yet

Mid trail and not much bigger around than a blade of grass, this snake sat looking at me. In fact the first indication that I had that he was there was that I felt his eyes upon me.

It was a warm November Day and he was a baby fighting his winter nap---putting it off for another day.

Stormy Weather

Saturday's forecast---sunny and warm; a wonderful November day. After hiking into the Dunes a couple of hours I heard thunder. Once I got to Lake Michigan there was spectacular lightning show coming from the Chicago, Illinois area. The lake was a color that was bluer than blue.

The rain caught up with me on my hike out; a day full of this amazing earth and a reminder that the troubles of man are really so small after all.