Where are the Fish?

Compared to the crabs, snails, and plants washing ashore on Ocean beaches the Lake Michigan shoreline can be pretty blank.

Except when it comes to invasive species. Most beach garbage washes ashore with Zebra Snails attached---an invasive species causing havoc to the ecosystem.

The small fish in the picture puzzled me the other day. After searching the available information on the Internet I think it may be a Goby Fish, another invasive species from the ballasts of  ships coming into the Great Lakes system. Relatively small, this tiny fish apparently packs a big environmental impact by taking over native habitat and eating the native's food. This one was dead on the shore and had a stab wound--- probably killed and dropped by one of the many shorebirds that were resting and feeding on the Lake Michigan shoreline.  

Sick Trees

I'm still researching what's happening to this tree that has black spots in the bark all over its trunk.

But the research has put a fright in me---apparently there are just as many things, if not more, that threaten our trees as threaten humans. And we humans help spread the pests and disease at an alarming rate; albeit unwittingly. Firewood for fireplaces and campfires should not be moved except under the utmost caution.

It would be nice to have a national alert system where people could go to see what kind of pests and disease are attacking in their area and what they can do to help.

Re-engineering the Bog

Keeping Cowles Bog a bog is a task that requires constant maintenance and diligence against invasive plants. Here's one of the trails the park staff uses to get to the center of the bog to pull invasives and plant native species.

Visitors to the park can help with the effort by following the park signs that state which trails are for park staff only. A pair of hiking shoes can contain thousands of tiny seeds that can bring invasives back into the bog cycle.

A giant dune, a mountain of movable sand, can be seen in the distance of this picture.

Fighting Invasives

A few years ago this area of the Cowles Bog in the Indiana Dunes was covered with cattails. After years of hard work pulling invasive plants out and replanting those plants that are native to the bog, the area looks completely different.

The diversity of the original bog provides the food and habitat for the wildlife that depends on the bog for survival. Frogs, birds, small mammals, and some plant species that are only found in the Dunes area are what all the work is about.

Signs requesting visitors to stay on the hiking paths and off of the paths into the bog that are used by volunteers and staff in removing invasives and replanting natives are placed so that tiny seeds picked up by hiking shoes are not carried back into the bog destroying the hard won habitat for the birds and other wildlife.    

Invaded!

All those pretty purple flowers are poisonous to the environment of this Indiana wetland.

Three or four years ago there wasn't many if any of this invasive flower called Purple Loosestrife in this wetland. But today the plant has taken over, erasing the diverse and delicately balanced ecosystem of this swamp near the Kankakee River. Plants where fish raise young and plants where waterfowl and other birds feed are systematically being pushed out by the hearty and extremely invasive purple plant.

Probably arriving on an infected boat, Purple Loosestrife, if left unchecked, will quickly take over the whole area until there is no water visible for fish, fishing, or wildlife . We will have our hands full trying to save this wetland in future years.      

Dew's Soft Lips on Honeysuckle

DEEP Honeysuckle! in the silent eve

When wild rose cups are clos’d, 

and when each bird

Is sleeping by its mate, then all unheard

The dew’s soft kiss thy wakeful lips receive.

’T is then the sighs that 

throng them seem to weave

A spell whereby the drowsy night is stirr’d

To fervid meanings, which no fullest word

Of speech or song so sweetly could achieve.

Herald of bliss! whose fragrant trumpet blew

Love’s title to our hearts ere love was known,

’T was well thy flourish told a tale so true,

Well that Love’s dazzling presence was foreshown;

Had his descent on us been as the dew

On thee, our rarer sense he had o’erthrown. 

Emily Pfieffer--- To the Herald Honeysuckle

The Language of Flowers--Birdsfoot Trefoil

Birdsfoot Trefoil is native to Asia, Europe, and northern Africa. It's considered invasive in North America.

It's sometimes called bacon and eggs or butter and eggs. It's coloring Indiana roadsides yellow this time of year.

In the language of flowers it gets no respect; maybe because it is poisonous to humans it denotes revenge.  

Crown Vetch

Crown Vetch gets a crown for being an invasive plant. It also gives off quite an odor that is permeating the air in Indiana of late. The smell is a little bit like nutmeg unless you get too big of a whiff then it's just down right putrid.

It is beautiful though, coloring roadsides, ditches, and hills a lavendar pink.

Invasive Species -- Bittersweet

The Indiana DNR has been spending a lot of time pulling weeds at the Indiana Dunes.

They pull cattails out of the bog. Even though cattails are indigenous to Indiana they do not belong in the bog. They change the landscape of the bog pushing out native plants. Once the cattails are removed, sedges native to the area of the bog are planted. We have so little bog areas left like those at the Dunes. The bogs contain unique ecosystems that harbor endangered plant and animal species.

 Another of the invasive species is a plant that makes it into fall flower arrangements is bittersweet. This invasive is not indigenous to Indiana and is very invasive. The DNR worked hard for a couple of years pulling this plant out of the Dunes and it is now finding it's way back into the ecosystem. Plants like the bittersweet choke out trees and native plants that native animals, birds, and butterflies need to survive.