Top Sixteen Adventures of 2016

(Next year's list is "Top Seventeen Adventures of 2017", obviously.  2038 will get rather tiresome, I suspect, provided I'm still writing this blog by then!)

God has blessed me so much this year, and I've been able to participate in and see so many amazing sights and wonders.  If you're new to this blog and want to catch up on the most relevant parts of this blog, read on.  If you are an old reader of this blog, read on to see what I've ranked as what.  If you went on one of these trips with me, thanks for putting up with all my nonsense and for going along with me, because that really made my days.  If you've never been on a trip with me, sign ups are in the comments section below:)

By the way, I do know that we have a month to go, but I doubt I'll see anything in December that will be put on this list. December is such a busy month that I'm not likely to be able to do anything during it.  If I do have a surprisingly amazing adventure, it will be on next year's list.

16.  Electroshocking- Honestly, getting to go out and do this was great.  I caught more fish in this one outing than I ever have in my entire life, and I got to do it as part of a wonderful class.

15.  Being detained as a terrorist -This is one of my favorite stories to tell people, as an introduction to my life.  It probably shouldn't be, but it was quite exciting, even if that title is basically the punchline of the story.  Additionally, I got to hang out with my brother, something which I'm growing to appreciate a little bit more each year.  He actually took the photo above.



14.  Exploring Carpenter Park with Dan and Jesse-  There were so many toads, a few lifer plants, and just great times with great friends.

13.  Twenty-Three Smallmouth Salamanders in Lick Creek Wildlife Area - What's better than a Smallmouth Salamander?  How about finding twenty-three of them in about an hour of searching?

12. The Great Northern Expedition- If you can't tell, I have some of my best trips with my dad.  He put up with a lot on this day, and we had a great time, especially late in the day at Nachusa.




11.  Exploring Lick Creek Wildlife Area with Dan and Jesse-  This was the first trip we did as a group, and the three hikes I went on with those two are among the best  I've been on.  All trips are better when taken with friends, especially friends who appreciate nature, but who can also drag you out of it for a random conversation about philosophical topics and general nonsense.  This is especially good when you're exploring someplace you've never been before.



10.  The Ides of March - First Common Loon and Western Chorus Frogs, two of the best new birds and frogs I've seen this year.  Overall, it was a wonderful day, and I enjoyed it quite a bit, so much so that I split it into two blogposts. Links are here and here.

9.  Michigan Canoe trip-  My shoes may never smell the same way ever again, I may have fallen out of the canoe twice, and my sunglasses have never reappeared since, but this was awesome.  Next time, though, I'm going to get a little more prepared!

8. Seeing 14-plus duck species in Center Park-  If Northern Harriers drew me into birding, this expedition capped it off!  I got to see just about half of all Illinois duck species at once!  Links for both sections are here and here.

7.   Going to Revis Hill Prairie and Scrub Oak- Sand Prairie with Dan-
It was a difficult hike, but a great trip to two of the wildest spots in Central Illinois, and even better because I brought a friend along for the struggle. Several new plants and many strange insects awaited us in these, the absolute wildest of Central Illinois natural areas.

6. Going to Southern Illinois with the Environmental Club-  This trip had orchids, salamanders, friends, and grand adventures.  Plus, I got to see a Logperch! (It's a fish). Unfortunately, we didn't find any of the scorpions, copperheads, or anything else scary or dangerous (other than the heights at Fults Hill Prairie).  Still, there's always next time!  Links for both sections are here and here.

5.  First winter trip to Nipper-  This single trip got me into birding big-time (to the point where I say birding instead of birdwatching).  A single Northern Harrier along the road ended up becoming a hobby which I have spent countless hours doing this year. I also met people I didn't know who read my blog, and that was back in January!  Honestly, sometimes I forget how many people read this blog, and who all that might be.  And, I got to do this all with my dad!

4.  Going up to Mason County for the first time-  That was a long, lonely trip, but there were so many new  birds and experiences I had that I will never forget.  I saw the rarest lifeform of the year there, the Tennessee Milkvetch, and I found a large number of nature preserves only an hour or so from my house, with tons of exciting plants and animals.  The wild sandlands of Illinois are the best.  Links for the three sections are here, there, and ere.

3.  Going up to Chautauqua and Emiquon with Jesse and Dan-  Trips are always best with friends, especially when we debate philosophical concepts while watching sandpipers on a levee in the middle of a mild thunderstorm.  Trust me, it's an invigorating experience, and one which brought me plenty of lifer shorebirds and great memories with friends, as well as an interesting experience in accidental trespassing which I hope no future employer sees as a reason to not hire me...
Links for both sections are here and there.

2.   Going to Indiana Dunes- Five Orchids in one day! I've seen seven this year, and as it's November I am unlikely to see any more.  Roughly a quarter to a third of the lifer plants this year were seen on this trip, including a plurality of the best ones.  And, as with several of my favorite trips, I got to go on this with Dad.  Links for all four sections are here, there, and also here, and everywhere.

1.  Surviving this year-  Thanks to God for my survival this year.  Considering this is a website open to the internet and the general public, I don't plan on sharing all that's happened to me over the course of this year.  I will say that a close family member suffered from a serious disease.  They are completely fine now, (again-  Thank you, God!)  but between that and the usual hassles that come with being a full-time student, it's been a rather... interesting... year.  At the same time, I've gained so many good friends... too many to list! (And besides that, half of them are all named Josh, Jesse, Dan, Logan, or Jake- It would get confusing:)  I've been so many wonderful places and seen so many wondrous creatures.  I really look forwards to next year!

P.S.  Some of the older posts have egregious errors.  Rather than redacting them, I've decided to leave them in, mostly because I'm lazy, but also because I think it's fascinating to see how much the tone has changed from month to month and year to year on this blog.  My apologies for any incorrect information.  Also, there may be photos taken by other people.  Other than ones taken from state websites, I will be removing those for copyright reasons, albeit slowly over the next month.

Pokemon Go, Every Plant Ever, and Fifth Orchid Sydrome- Cowles Bog Trail

Many of my friends have recently started playing Pokemon Go, which is an augmented reality game.  For those who don't understand what this means, it involves traveling around the real world with your smartphone out, and you look at the world through your smartphone.  In certain areas,  you encounter Pokemon (if you don't know what those are, they are essentially weird video game creatures based off Japanese mythology).  As a result, the world has lately been host to a number of bizarre incidents, including robbers targeting Pokemon Go players.

However, the main appeal to me has been watching my non-naturalist friends turn into me on a hike.  "Ooh, a Charmander over here!"  Substitute Charmander for Carolina Wren or Michigan Lily, and the similarity is apparent.  Birding and botanizing, however, have the advantage of not running on batteries, since they exist in the "real" world.

After all, we birders and/or botanists invented this madness that is running around trying to find as many Pokemon/birds/plants as we can.  I recently read about a man who was driving along, and his wife asked him to stop.  When he asked why, she responded that there was a Pokemon on the side of the road.  Well, substitute Pokemon for Bald Eagle or Rough Blazing Star and you have my life in a nutshell. I have literally pulled off on the side of the road for both species at various times in the last year.

I had a similar experience recently on the Cowles Bog Trail at Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore.  Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore is such a biodiverse area that I found dozens of plants I'd never seen before, mixed among old familiar favorites.  There are so many pictures that I am just going to name each plant below, along with a ! if it's new to me, and a * if it's on the edge of its range.

* Canada Mayflower (Maianthemum canadense)

! Horsetail species (Equisetum spp.)

! Swamp Rose (Rosa palustris)

Rattlesnake Fern (Botrypus virginianus)

Cinnamon Fern (Osmundastrum cinnamomeum)

!* Lowbush Blueberry (Vaccinium angustifolium)

St. John's Wort species (Hypericum spp.)

* Sand Phlox (Phlox bifida)

!* Kalm's St. John's Wort (Hypericum kalmianum)

Bracken (Pteridium aquilinum)

!* Wild Lupine (Lupinus perennis)

! New Jersey Tea (Ceoanthus americanus)

!* Hairy Puccoon (Lithospermum carolinese)

Butterfly Weed (Asclepias tuberosum)

Goat's Rue (Tephrosia virginiana)

! Phlox species (Phlox spp.)

! Skunk Cabbage (in foreground) (Symplocarpus foetidus)

Sensitive Fern (Onoclea sensibilis)

Blue-eyed Grass (Sisyrinchium spp.)

! Tall Thimbleweed (Anemone virginiana)

And, the best two for last:

! Michigan Lily (Lilium michiganense)

!*  Eurasian Helleborine Orchid (Epipactis helleborine)

This last plant  was the very last plant I found on our hike, growing on the side of the road next to the parking lot.  The only non-native species of orchid to widely colonize in North American, in parts of Michigan and the Northeast this species is actually a weed.  I have a hard time putting orchid and weed together in the same sentence.

I've noticed a tendency on my hikes for there to be one last great discovery at the very end.  I can think of at least five examples offhand.  This happens so often that I am now calling it Fifth Orchid Syndrome.

All in all, when combined with the bog visit I did earlier in the day (links here and here) and the great views of Lake Michigan  and the Chicago skyline from the dunes, this was the first day this year to rival the Ides of March trip (links here and here).  Considering I've barely left the state this year, I've managed to find so much anyway.

Oh, and I also found a new subspecies of snake, the rare Chicago Garter Snake(Thamnophis sirtalis semifasciatus) :

So, it was basically a perfect day.

Orchids, Carnivorous Plants, and Ring Tone Thrushes

Ok, this may not  be a flowering orchid in Illinois, but we're getting closer.  If you didn't read last blogpost,(and I highly encourage that you do, link here) this orchid was found during a visit to Pinhook Bog in northern Indiana.  The species is Grass Pink (Calopogon tuberosus), one of eastern North America's more common orchids, albeit still rare in the Midwest.  Still, Indiana has more species of orchids than Hawaii, so finding this orchid isn't a particularly great achievement.

But it's an orchid!

Here's both size and location, in comparison to my shoe.  I'm very concerned someone on one of these hikes is going to pick this plant, and as it's the sole member of its species I saw on that trip, it's quite a concern.  Orchids don't like to be picked. Also, note the reddish growths near the flower.

Those would be Roundleaf Sundew (Drosera rotundifolia), one of the few carnivorous plants found in the Midwest.  As a matter of fact, almost all Midwestern carnivorus plants come from bogs.  There's a reason for that, and I'll get to it in a minute.  In order to get nutrients, these plants produce sticky nectar from hairs on their leaves, visible as droplets.  Insects get stuck in the nectar, and the leave curls around the insect slowly, before digesting it.

Growing nearby were many Northern Pitcher Plants (Sarracenia purpurea), another carnivorous species. In these, the insects just fall straight down into the pitchers, and are unable to get back up thanks to downward-pointing hairs, visible above on the edge of the leaf.  Sometimes, larger insects, such as bees, are able to chew their way out of the pitcher, and you can see that above as well.

The pitcher plants were in flower, and  their strange burgundy flowers could be seen sticking up all over the sunnier expanses of the bog.

Here you can see more pitcher plants, as well as the flowers, in greater detail.  Top to bottom, these are bizarre plants.  Part of the reason this bog has two sets of gates around it is due to the fact that these plants are dug up in the wild and sold to gardeners as a curiosity.  The same endangering collection happens to the orchids and sundews shown earlier, and it is a severe threat.

Almost the entire ground in certain sunnier patches was covered in sundews.  These are a different species, Spoonleaf Sundew (Drosera intermedia), which is a bit larger with less rounded leaves.

Here's a better look at one of the Spoonleaf Sundews.  They do rather look like spoons, though red, covered with hairs and sticky droplets, and lined up in a circle.  On second thought, maybe not.

We approached a hole in the bog, where water seeps up.  Note the dark color of the water. That is due to the fact that nothing leaves this bog.  As a result, tannins and other chemicals from dead leaves, peat, etc. make the bog constantly acidic (an average of 4-5 PH).  This has several curious effects, including a lack of decomposing fungi.  As a result, things like dead bodies have been preserved very well in bogs, as well as foodstuffs like butter and cheese.  The high PH, however, makes it difficult for plants to grow.  As a result, orchids grow here, thanks to the lack of competition and lower (but still extant) amount of soil fungi.  Carnivorus plants also grow here, getting their nutrients from insects and microorganisms instead of  from the soil.
As a matter of fact, the pond above is filled with a carnivorous plant called bladderwort (Utricularia spp.), which uses the aforesaid bladders, actually tiny vacuum traps, to suck microorganisms out of the water to feed on.  Living here would be a nightmare for most insects.

Here's a good view of one edge of the pond, with a single Pitcher Plant in the middle.

Far in the back of the pond, another species of orchid bloomed, the Rose Pogonia (Pogonia ophioglossoides).  In birding, there are what is known as nemesis birds.  These are birds that logically, you should be able to find, but somehow you always keep missing them.  The Rose Pogonia, for me, is a nemesis plant.  I've been to several areas where it is supposed to grow, only to be too early or late for the plant when I go.  Now, it was twenty feet away, but I couldn't get a good photo of this plant, which I want.  I'll call this a near miss.  Until next year, Pogonia.

Another new plant for me is this, the Bog Yellow-eyed Grass (Xyris difformis).  The vast majority of its relatives live in the coastal swamps of the Southeast.  The shrub in the picture above is something in the Heath family, but I don't know what it is in particular.  Heaths are very common in bogs, as they love the acidic soils.

Alongside the heaths came this Pink Lady's Slipper Orchid (Cypripedium acaule), a species I mentioned on the last post, but which I have always wanted to see in flower.  Still, these all seem as if they've made seedpods.  The dead bits are probably as close to a flower as I'm going to see this year.

The rangers have this photo of the flowers, but it's just not the same.

All around us in the bog, highbush Blueberries (Vaccinium spp.) bore their fruit, free for the taking.

Under the blueberry bushes, almost noting grew, only a few saplings, bits of moss, and a few orchids.

The boardwalk ended in a meadow near another pool in the bog.  Eastern White Pine (Pinus strobus) grew here, yet another reminder that this bog is a chunk of displaced Canada in its ecology.

Along the edge of the pool, Yellow Pond Lily (Nuphar advena) grew  Spatterdock is another name for this species, a plant which I rarely see.  This is my first time seeing it in flower.

Yet another carnivorus plant was visible from the end of the boardwalk.  Horned Bladderwort (Utricularia cornuta), a terrestrial (land-growing) species of bladderwort, bloomed in the open field.

Growing with the bladderworts and sundews was a rare clubmoss (Lycopodiella inundata), yet another northern species growing in this bog.  Also, deer tracks.

Here's a close up of the sphagnum moss itself, which lay everywhere in the bog.  It is the dead form of this moss that is used as peat.  Peat itself is burned as fuel and as a soil ingredient in gardening.  Many bogs have been dug up in Canada to mine the peat underneath.  However, this far south, this bog will likely remain as a natural curiosity for Midwesterners to treasure.

We walked back out into the outer layer of ferns.  So far, I'd seen four species of orchids, a clubmoss, five species of carnivorous plants, and many rare and endangered plants.  It was at this point that some bird began to sound like a cell phone ringing.  Yet another displaced Canadian, the Veery Thrush, sang from the bushes around us, and it's call sounds like a ring tone.  I'm not exaggerating.  Here's a link to a clip of the calls.  The Veery got its name from that sound.  They hid in the bushes all around us, invisible ring tones sounding everywhere.  I never saw one.

I have to say, if you're interested in the unusual or the rare, an excursion to Pinhook Bog is in order.  Just make sure it's a Saturday from 12-3, or else you won't see much of the bog besides two locked gates.  Call ahead to the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore if you want to check, in fact.

If you're one of my regular readers, who is quite comfortable to let me do the legwork, then Happy Independence Day!

If you're from Germany, the #1 non-U.S. country who reads my blog, then Guten Tag!