Indiana Nature Notes for April

Hello Red-Headed Woodpeckers!

Have you ever been in a room, heard a person entering, and by the sound of their footsteps, know who that person is without hearing their voice? That’s how it is for me, seated at my desk in the Kankakee Sands office! I can tell who is coming into the office because each of my coworkers has their own gate; as they round the corner, I can be ready with my good morning greeting for each of them.

That’s also how it is for me when I am out at Conrad Station Savanna with the woodpeckers! When I hear the drumming on the oak trees, I know which species of woodpecker to look up into the tree and say hello to.

All woodpeckers peck on trees to access the insects that are living in and under the bark of the tree. They use their long, barbed, sticky tongues to reach deep into holes and fish out insects, lessening the amount of drilling they need to do with their beaks.

Other reasons that you might see a woodpecker poking and probing along tree trunks are to access other foods that comprise their diet, such as berries, insects, seeds, nuts, bird eggs and even mice! Yes, mice! They may also be returning to a cache of insects and seeds that they had stored in the cracks and crevices of the tree’s bark to be eaten at a later time.

If all this talk of eating from the sides of trees has your head spinning, you can imagine the headache you might have after a day of hammering on a tree with your beak!  Rest assured that red-headed woodpeckers, like all woodpeckers, have bodies well-adapted to a life of foraging and hammering on trees. To absorb the shock of hammering, the woodpeckers’ brain case is larger than that of other birds, and their frontal bones are more folded to act as shock absorbers.

Like us chatty humans, red-headed woodpeckers use their voice to communicate. They use a (read this next part aloud) wheezy, loud queeah or queerp to communicate to other woodpeckers who are far away and a gentle dry rattle krrrrrr to communicate to buddies who are close by.

Unfortunately, red-headed woodpeckers are declining at an alarming rate of four percent annually in the Midwest. However, at Conrad Station Savanna red-headed woodpeckers are thriving in their preferred habitat of burned, deciduous woodlands of oak with large open areas between the trees. We hope to encourage those numbers to increase as we work this year to continue to improve habitat at Conrad Station Savanna, just as our staff have been doing over the past 30 years at Conrad.

This year, from April to October, we will be hosting a series of Weed Wrangles^© at Conrad Station Savanna on the fourth Friday of each month from 9 am to noon (Central Time). Our focus will be on removing undesirable, non-native, invasive plants in an effort to make a more suitable, desirable habitat for the red-headed woodpeckers, who prefer open oak woodlands with large open areas between the trees.

Through these family-friendly volunteer workdays, we strive to have fun working together to make the woods a more open, easy flying place for our woodpecker colleagues.

If you are itchin’ to see and hear a red-headed woodpecker, early spring is a great time! It is warm enough for a leisurely walk along the 1.5-mile Conrad Station Savanna trail, and because the leaves on the trees have not yet emerged, it’s often much easier to catch a glimpse of this stunning bird in spring than in the summer. Will you see and hear them… (insert drum roll)… we surely hope so! And when you do, be sure to say “hi”!

Learn more about the Weed Wrangles^© at Conrad Station Savanna.

Nature Notes for March

Marsh Gladness

It’s March! And there is so much to be glad about—the great greening up of the overwintered landscape, the songs of birds in the early morning and the thawing of the land leading to the prairies of Kankakee Sands being soaked with water. How glad I am for these wet, marshy places filling with shades of green and the fluttering of birds’ feathers!

Of the 8,400 acres that comprise Kankakee Sands, nearly one third of those are considered wetlands. Some of these areas are wet only seasonally, while others have soils which stay saturated all year long.

This pretty little native plant with fern-like leaves and cream-colored tubular flowers most often grows in dense patches. Several such patches grow along the Wet Prairie Trail in the North Bison Pasture, which is open during the late spring through the late fall when the bison are in the South Pasture.

Marsh betony spreads via a vast network of underground roots that allow it to “hold its ground” against other plants. And it also “holds its ground” beautifully on slopes, protecting against soil erosion.

Fun fact about marsh betony: its seeds float! What a perfect strategy for this plant that is already able to create more of itself in one location from its roots. Why not send those seeds floating off into the sunset to new locations where they can literally take root.

Several years ago, we harvested a small portion of marsh betony seeds from the plants growing in the North Bison Pasture. We then sowed those seeds over frozen ground (no floating away!) around a 12-acre pond in the prairie across the road to the north of the Bison Pasture. I love going back to this area each spring to look for evidence of the betony and being treated to views of the birds who also enjoy these wet places, such as the marsh wren, northern shovelers, sandpipers and pied-bill grebes.

March marks the beginning of the season when we get to witness the year-long connection between the marshy land, the grazing animals and the beautiful wetland plants. Taking an even wider view, a wetter Kankakee Sands reminds us that this land that was once connected to the Grand Kankakee Marsh, which covered thousands of acres from South Bend, Indiana to Momence, Illinois.

This March, come for a visit to Kankakee Sands to reflect on marshes of the past, enjoy the marshes of today, and look forward to the flower and feather-filled marshes of the late summer!

Nature Notes for February

Kankakee Sands as You've Never Herd Before

Have you been to Kankakee Sands and fallen head over heels in love with the prairie and bison? It’s easy to do when you witness first-hand the beauty of this wide open big-sky place that people have reconstructed with their hands and hearts.

Have you sat and watched the bison grazing passively on the prairie or taken a walk at Conrad Station Savanna when the wildflowers are in bloom? During those times, have you ever wished you knew a little bit more about this place that you have fallen in love with? Good news—learning more about Kankakee Sands has just gotten a whole App easier!