Kidd Lake Marsh Natural Area
Cape Monroe ~~ A Great Place for Wildlife Viewing
Cape Monroe (County), on the southwest coast of Illinois, is a renowned haven for wildlife. The reasons are simple: location and habitats. A bird’s-eye-view of the landscape helps to explain our county’s attraction for wildlife. The Mississippi River flyway, and associated riparian wildlife corridor, is the longest migration route in the Western Hemisphere, running […]
Wonderful Pelicans…
“A wonderful bird is the pelican, His bill will hold more than his belican. He can take in his beak Food enough for a week. But I’m damned if I see how the helican.” Dixon Lanier Merritt A postcard sent by a Florida-vacationing reader inspired Merritt, then an editor at Nashville’s daily paper The […]
Festival of the Bluffs ~~ Hikes, Displays, Music, Food…FUN!
Monroe County boasts the greatest contiguous swath of hill prairies in the Midwest. The largest complex, at Fults Hill Prairie Nature Preserve, has been designated a National Natural Landmark by the U.S. Park Service. One of only 600 such Landmarks in the U.S., Fults Hill Prairie’s recognition is testimony to its enduring value in the […]
They ARE Whoopers!
Dimly seen through a dreamlike fog and mist, the six huge birds are unmistakably, absolutely, incontrovertibly juvenile Whooping Cranes: five-foot tall, white-splotched-with-brown, black-tipped-winged wonders and the rarest bird species in North America. What are they doing in Monroe County? That, is, besides wading and eating the occasional frog or bite of corn as they slowly […]