Gulls flock at the bluffs of Fults Hill Prairie Nature Preserve. Tom Rollins, Thomas Rollins Photography.

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 from the Gulf of Mexico to the Canadian Arctic. Twice each year, 3½ billion birds, representing almost 300 species, use the flyway to move between breeding and wintering grounds.

Monroe County’s cape-like jut to the west, and the river’s long, circuitous route around the cape, bring scores of migratory birds over our wide, often wet, floodplain and wider-still forested bluffs and uplands. And when they get here, they like what they see: superb habitats, offering a wide array of in-route stopover sustenance or a welcome doormat to stay and start a family. But a bird-brained viewpoint doesn’t tell the whole story.

Our bluff lands and bottomlands are inextricably linked, both

A Great-blue Heron at Cape Monroe wetlands. Tom Rollins, Thomas Rollins Photography.

physically and ecologically. The imposing, unglaciated uplands have held their ground over geologic time in defining the limits of the floodplain. We call the bottoms a floodplain because it is a plain that floods; and try as the Corps of Engineers and Levee Districts may, as soon as it rains some, the bottoms have wetlands all over again, as spring-fed creeks, emanating from the bluffs, historically continue to send water to the bottoms, even as old man river tries to ship water to the bluffs.

The bluffline’s north-south orientation is also an important factor in linking bluffs and bottoms. Prevailing westerly winds, streaming unobstructed over the floodplain, are orographically forced to rise over the bluffs creating updrafts and cascading vortices of wind deep into the uplands. In fact, the bluffs rich mantel of loess soil deposits came from wind driven, pulverized rock dust from the bottoms during Illinois’ last glacial epoch.

Ring-billed Gull. Tom Rollins, Thomas Rollins Photography.

Where bluff meets bottom, literally along Bluff Road, there is an important intersection of differing habitats called an ecotone, which ecologically links wetlands, cliff face, and forest.  Wildlife, particularly amphibians and reptiles, breeds in summer in the wetlands and retreat to dens and hibernacula in the bluffs in winter. Similarly, many birds and other wildlife feed at wetlands by day, and take shelter in the bluffs at night. An ecotone offers critters the advantage of distinctively different habitats in close proximity.

Conner Lake, along Bluff Road near the county line and Rocher, Kidd Lake Marsh, along Bluff Road just south of Fults, and Pinkel’s Woods, a couple miles south of Valmeyer on Bluff Road, all are excellent examples of ecotones and the interface of wetland and upland habitats.

Taken together, our county’s expansive and diverse habitats support an amazing panoply of wildlife, one of the richest listings of resident and migratory species in the state. Our corridor sustains 1,000 plant species, of which five hill prairie species are found nowhere else in Illinois. Three hundred species of birds can be found in the corridor.

Sixty-three species of reptiles and amphibians live here, including four species occurring only in our county and no other place in the state.  And 45 species of mammals call the corridor home, including a flourishing population of bobcats.

And, though unknown by most local folks, our bluffland-bottomland corridor enjoys a regional, bi-state reputation for being a rare bird hotspot, with many unusual, vagrant species dropping in for a visit. In the last few years our corridor has hosted black-bellied whistling ducks, a mottled duck, wood storks, a brown pelican, tricolored herons, a swallow-tailed kite, a Swainson’s hawk, whooping cranes, a burrowing owl, and, most recently, a snowy owl, which is hanging around the eastern fringes of the corridor, near Red Bud.

Immature Bald Eagles. Tom Rollins, Thomas Rollins Photography.

Even this drab, dead-winter February is festooned with active and interesting wildlife in the corridor. Bald eagles are congregating again this winter, with the largest convocation, near Harrisonville, numbering 150 birds or so. The eagles aren’t long-distance migrants, however, as they all grew up within 20 or so miles of here, just up or down the river.

In winter, the eagles gather to re-establish social hierarchies, and the five and six year olds select life-long mates. The Harrisonville conclave, smack dab in the middle of the floodplain, is a perfect location. Nearby wetlands and the river provide ample food, but proximity to the bluffs is the key factor.

Eagles court by performing dramatic aerial acrobatics, including steep headfirst dives, with courting pairs locking talons in their descent and sky-tumbling together one over the other. Not surprising, the eagles conduct their courtship flights over the bluffline, taking full advantage of the persistent updrafts and eddies.

Ring-billed, herring and Bonaparte’s gulls have again moved into our area for winter, drifting south along the flyway when frigid temperatures overtook their colonial breeding and hunting grounds around the Great Lakes. Foregoing their typical fish diets, the gulls are perfectly willing to sample mollusks and grubs from prepared farm fields, leaving behind only gull poop in payment for their meals and visit.

This month’s ring-billed gull concentration at Kidd Lake has been historic. With the warm winter and open water, nearly 1,000 gulls have been observed, riding the updrafts before the cliff face and squawking their pleasure like a day at the beach.

If you are a wildlife lover, everyday offers a discovery on the southwest coast of Illinois in Monroe County — where our mountains meet our sea.

Clifftop, a local nonprofit organization, is focused on preserving and protecting area bluff lands.

A version of this article appeared in the February 17 2012 edition of the Monroe County Independent.

© 2012 all content rights reserved, Clifftop NFP.

A Great-horned Owl, Tom Rollins, Thomas Rollins Photography

Owls enjoy our special fascination. Perhaps it’s because they are a caricature of us: with upright, sometimes cuddly-looking, vertical posture, big, cheeky and expressive faces with large, emotive eyes, and cute little ears. But they really are the bird version of a wolf in sheep’s clothing: like a cat with wings, they are skillful predators designed for darkness.

Owls command the night. They are the second shift in a rodent’s worst nightmare, taking over the daytime responsibilities of raptors (hawks and falcons) to hunt mice, rats, voles and moles, and other small mammals, and not give a hoot in the process.

Several evolutionary biological adaptations have made owls the masters and mistresses of low-and-no light hunting. Foremost is the position of an owl’s eyes. Their large eyes, located forward on their faces, with beaks curved downward so as to not obstruct vision, gives them a wide, overlapped sight and field of view. It’s called binocular vision and is a measure of how much each eye can see the same area. Owls have about a 120-degree binocular field of view. For comparison, humans have about a 140-degree binocular field of view.

Eastern Screech-Owl, Tom Rollins, Thomas Rollins Photography

Equally important is the ability to see three-dimensionally (stereoscopic vision) for enhanced depth perception. Good stereoscopic vision is very dependent on how far apart eyes are set on a head. The flat, disk-like face of an owl allows for a wide separation between the eyes, and, as a result, about 70% of an owl’s field of view is seen stereoscopically; again similar to the stereoscopic ability of a human.

But good eyesight at night is also dependent on how an eye is constructed. An owl retina contains numerous rod-shaped photoreceptors enabling acute low-light vision, and the larger owl eye means a larger cornea, lens, and muscular iris to adjust the pupil to a wide range of limited light conditions. Good night vision alone, however, is not the only reason for an owl’s hunting prowess.

Owls have stupendous hearing. They have enormous ear openings concealed behind the edges of their facial disks. The tufted “ears” on several species of owls, including our local Great Horned Owls, are not ears and have nothing to do with hearing–the tufts are used to signal moods: if held vertically the owl is happy, if held horizontally, it’s a sign the bird is crabby.

Owls can adjust the shape of their large ear aperture — like us cupping our hands behind our ears to hear better – by moving cartilage around the ears’ opening. Owls can even direct their hearing attention backwards. Studies have shown that owls have particularly astute hearing for higher frequencies, such as a squeaking mouse or the rustlings of a scurrying vole.

Silent and secretive flight adds to an owl’s lethal hunting tool kit.  An owl can appear like an apparition out of nowhere and disappear in a heartbeat, much to the chagrin of targeted prey. Highly camouflaged plumage and an aerodynamic physique combine to make a hunting owl truly stealthy.

An owl’s short and wide wings, coupled with small body weight, make them remarkably maneuverable fliers. Our region’s Great Horned Owl for example, is two feet tall and has a five-foot wingspan, but only weighs five pounds. And, unlike all other birds, you cannot hear the wing beats of an owl on the prowl. The furtiveness of silent flight is made possible by finely fringe-edged pinion feathers that are covered with velvet pile thus dampening all sound of the wings moving through air.

A Barn Owl, Tom Rollins, Thomas Rollins Photography

Because of owls’ clandestine behavior, and the fact that they go to work after we’ve gone to bed, most folks know very little about owls.

Five species of owls regularly occur in southwestern Illinois.. Four of the species are year-round residents. Barred Owls, rich baritone hooters, are common throughout the area. Great Horned Owls, the largest owl in our region, can be found primarily in our deep woodlands. Eastern Screech-Owls, small, Robin-sized birds, frequent a variety of habitats. And, increasingly hard-to-find Barn Owls, ghostly-appearing with heart-shaped white faces, prefer open fields and grass lands.

Short-Eared Owls are wintertime-only visitors to our area. Although fewer in numbers than our year-round residents, they can be easier to spot. They prefer to hunt in the twilight of dusk or dawn, and will sometimes even hunt in broad daylight. Easily mistaken for a Northern Harrier (Marsh Hawk), they buoyantly cruise and hover over open farm grounds and grass lands.

Three additional owl species, from the far north country, will occasionally and rarely visit our region in winter: Long-Eared Owls, Northern Saw-whet Owls and the beautiful Snowy Owls, made famous recently by Hedwig, Harry Potter’s companion and familiar in the popular book and movie series. A well-remembered Snowy hung out in downtown Red Bud for a couple of days in March 1976; this year a Snowy Owl stayed near Red Bud for nearly a month (see link to the related CLIFFnotes article, below). And, a vagrant Burrowing Owl, from the American Southwest, was spotted near Fish Lake in Monroe County in May of 2010.

Tom Rollins, Thomas Rollins Photography.

Clifftop, Kaskaskia Valley Audubon Society, and the Monroe County Extension Service co-hosted a program as a part of the “Meet the Neighbors” natural history seminar series on Saturday, February 11th. Treehouse Wildlife Center presented a program on the natural history, habits and habitats of our owl neighbors at the Monroe County Annex, 901 Illinois St., in Waterloo, from 3 to 5 PM.  Live owls  assisted with the program.

Clifftop, a local nonprofit organization, is focused on preserving and protecting area bluff lands. 

A version of this article appeared in the January 20, 2012 edition of the Monroe County Independent.

© 2012 all content rights reserved, Clifftop NFP.

To read about and view photos of a Snowy Owl in our area, please look at: The Ghost of Hedwig.

To read about and view photos of creating new homes for Barn Owls, please look at Barn Owls in Search of Homes.

Pen DauBach, Clifftop

A recent report, commissioned by the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, makes the strongest case yet of the crucial importance of our Mississippi River bluff corridor for the long-term vitality of wildlife in the state. The Illinois Chapter of The Nature Conservancy’s May 2011 report —Adapting Conservation to a Changing Climate: An Update to the Illinois Wildlife Action Plan — tackles the thorny question of how to sustain our natural areas in a time of dramatic change.

The report sidesteps the debate on the causes of climate change– it’s simply not the issue. Numbers don’t take sides or point fingers. Thermometers and rain gauges throughout Illinois tell their own story. Overall, the state has marked a 5-degree rise in average daily temperature over the last century, with accelerated warming since the 1960’s. And precipitation in the state has increased 20% in the last 100 years, particularly since the 1980’s.

The prognosis of the vast majority of scientists is starkly consistent: over the next half century we can anticipate periods of dangerous summer heat waves, an extending growing season, increased flooding due to winter, spring and early summer heavy rain falls, prolonged periods of summer drought, and an overall additional increase in average daily temperature of 5 degrees by 2050.

While some people may disagree that Monroe County’s climate is getting warmer and periodically wetter, several species of wildlife think otherwise and are staking their futures on it.

Armadillos, little heat-loving, naturally armor-plated mammals native to Texas, Oklahoma, and our Gulf states, began migrating our direction in the late 1960’s. A few were sighted in southernmost Illinois in the 70s and 80s. Since the late 1990’s their population is expanding northward in Illinois, with over 200 sightings, including a half dozen in Monroe County.

Scissor-tailed flycatchers, very long-tailed neo-tropical migratory birds, have for eons wintered in Central America and bred on the hot Great Plains of Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas. In the early 1970’s they began to expand their breeding range northeastward. Vagrant scissor-tails commenced reconnoitering Illinois, with isolated summertime sightings here and there throughout the state. In 2000, a scissor-tailed flycatcher pair successfully nested in Union County, giving Illinois its first state breeding record. Last year, a pair spent most of the summer in St. Clair County, although their nesting attempts were not successful. This year a pair of scissor-tailed flycatchers nested successfully in rural Monroe County, fledging young in early July.

Dennis Jacobsen, Clifftop

Black-necked stilts, largish and gaudy shore birds with striking red legs, traditionally have wintered along the Gulf Coast and bred in wetlands of the northern Great Basin in Nevada, Idaho and Wyoming. In the 1970’s the stilts began a second breeding range trajectory, slowly moving northward along wetlands of the Mississippi River. As a result of the Great Flood of 1993 and expanded available wetlands, stilts were recorded breeding in Alexander, Union and Jackson Counties. The first stilts were observed in the Monroe County floodplain in 2006, and have successfully bred here every summer since 2008.

Plants, too, tell a similar story of moderating weather that allows species once confined to areas further south to survive and thrive. Kudzu — the vine that ate the South — was first introduced from Japan to the United States in 1876. It was cultivated as a fodder crop in the southeast states. During the Great Depression, the U.S. Department of Agriculture promoted kudzu as a control for soil erosion and it was widely planted in the Gulf states. Kudzu has literally taken over much of the South, smothering and girdling woodlands, entangling power lines and street signs. Kudzu began to move northward during the last 40 years, and several small patches were discovered in Monroe County five years ago.

James H. Miller, USDA Forest Service, Bugwood.org

These new “in-migrants” underscore that our climate is getting warmer. But, as the new study reports, other important factors are also at play which earmark Monroe County’s bluff lands as a critical component in the longer-term sustainability of wildlife during a time of climate change.

Monroe County’s geographic latitude has traditionally marked the northernmost limit for the survivability of a rich panoply of plants and animals considered “southern species.” Traditional wintertime temperatures precluded their survival any further north in the state.  As that line shifts northward with general warming, our region becomes more central to wildlife sustainment, but only if there are adequate, quality natural habitats for wildlife.

Our Mississippi River bluff lands are also the northernmost extent of the Illinois Ozarks, a remarkable natural area corridor looming above the Mississippi floodplain in Union, Jackson, Randolph, Monroe and a tiny bit of St. Clair Counties. The Ozark corridor still contains 60% natural land cover, and boasts a varied topography, with large, unbroken forests, prairies and grasslands, wetlands and waterways, all providing superb natural area habitats for a diversity of wildlife.

Dennis FitzWilliam, Clifftop

In fact, the IDNR-commissioned study concludes that the Shawnee Hills in southern Illinois, the Wisconsin Driftless area (Jo Davies & Carroll Counties) in extreme northwestern Illinois, and our own Ozark corridor bluff lands are the only areas in the state that contain a sufficient breadth and depth of natural area habitats to serve as refuges for wildlife sustainment if hotter times are ahead.

Given the importance of wildlife to our way of life, now is the time for landowners to redouble their efforts at keeping our bluff lands healthy and self-sustaining – so that both humans and wildlife can weather the warming together.

Clifftop, a local nonprofit organization, is focused on preserving and protecting area bluff lands.

A version of this article appeared in the August 5 2011 edition of the Monroe County Independent.

© 2011 all content rights reserved, Clifftop NFP.

"Was that a bat or an owl?!" Participants at the evening BioBlitz field trip delighted in the discovery of bats, owls, frogs, insects and more. Tom Rollins, Thomas Rollins Photography.

Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld occasionally rhapsodized to the press about varieties of “known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns.” The mystery and challenges of discovery – the ability to transfer the unknown into the column marked known – is a continual stimulus.

Already starting the sorting and classification process, entomologist Chris Dietrich, Illinois Natural History Survey, shows off just a few specimens collected during the BioBlitz at Salt Lick Point Land and Water Reserve. Tom Rollins, Thomas Rollins Photography.

That urge to know brought 52 scientists and naturalists to Valmeyer’s Salt Lick Point Land and Water Reserve for a 24-hour period of discovery on Friday and Saturday May 13 and 14th. The very early and preliminary total stands at nearly 1,000 life forms.

One thousand. That’s a lot of life.

Two species of moths that had never before been found in Southwestern Illinois moved into the known column.  A Great Plains Rat Snake, with no living specimens seen in the past 30 years, was found, thus confirming one of the scientists’ hoped for known knowns. A type of feather moss, only recently described from a population in Maine, was found; its discovery, in the time-honored traditions of science, creating a series of new questions best summed as “how here?”

More than morels were on their minds as mycologists Andy Miller, Illinois Natural History Survey, and Andy Methven, Eastern Illinois University, scouted for the 78 species of fungi found during the BioBlitz. Tom Rollins, Thomas Rollins Photography.

Besides discovery and the luxury of a full day of field work for scientists kept (like their specimens) inside the confines of labs and classrooms, the BioBlitz took on aspects of a reunion as former students worked alongside now-retired professors and, in turn, introduced their own students and interns. Conversations during the combination barbeque and pot-luck provided by the Valmeyer Boy Scout Troop and volunteers with Clifftop, the Salt Lick Point Stewardship Committee, and the Kaskaskia Valley Audubon Society, centered on the wonders of the natural resources so easily at hand. The only complaint was best expressed by botanist Henry Eilers of Shoal Creek Barrens who lamented the brevity of the time in comparison to the lushness of potential, noting, “My sector was 60 acres and I only was able to cover about five!”

Illinois Department of Natural Resources Heritage Biologist Scott Ballard cradles a Great Plains Rat Snake, the first live specimen of this species found in the area in about 30 years. Tom Rollins, Thomas Rollins Photography.

Making discoveries combined with the pleasure of sharing new stuff for participants in a special night hike. Watching the scientists collect insects, looking for tiny mussels and snails while listening for frogs and toads, learning about Big Brown Bats as Ed Heske showed off the male captured in a mist net, and wondering first at the soft calls and then the appearance of an Eastern Screech Owl, made the walk memorable.

Clifftop volunteers Paul and Karlene Feldker helped Mark Brown, IDNR's District Forester, and Robert Bellm, University of Illinois Extension Service Educator, show specimens of invasive plants and discuss control measures. Tom Rollins, Thomas Rollins Photography.

The BioBlitz continued through Saturday morning, despite rain and chilly weather, as Valmeyer’s Borsch Park was transformed into the setting for the second Festival of the Bluffs. Festival attendees joined in the spirit of discovery, too, watching raptor flights, meeting Barn, Screech, Long-eared, and Barred Owls, a Peregrine Falcon, Harris’s Hawk, American Kestrel and a Bald Eagle brought by the World Bird Sanctuary and TreeHouse Wildlife Center. Demonstrations and presentations offered attendees information on invasive plants, groundwater, conserving wildlife habitat and natural history. Area residents were able to learn the importance of taking steps as simple as “keep cats indoors” for wildlife’s sake from the Humane Society of Monroe County, and were able to explore more of Illinois’ wildlife habitat in the Traveling Science Center.

Exploring more, moving those unknown unknowns into the column marked known and, then, finding new questions to lead to even more discovery even turns a rain day into illumination.

Spectators thrilled to the return to the wild of a rehabilitated Turkey Vulture as Jeff Meshach of the World Bird Sanctuary, lofted the bird to freedom. The vulture will join the 103 species of birds tallied during the BioBlitz on May 13th and 14th at Valmeyer's Salt Lick Point Land and Water Reserve. Tom Rollins, Thomas Rollins Photography.

Festival of the Bluffs 2011 and the BioBlitz were co-hosted by the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, the Illinois Nature Preserves Commission, the Salt Lick Point Stewardship Committee and Clifftop. Generous grants to Clifftop from the Illinois Wildlife Preservation Fund and The Volunteer Stewardship Network, a program of the Nature Conservancy and the Illinois Nature Preserves Commission, funded both the Festival and BioBlitz.

Clifftop, a local nonprofit organization, is focused on preserving and protecting area bluff lands.

Versions of this article appeared in the June 1 2011 edition of the Waterloo Republic-Times and the 2 June 2011 edition of the Red Bud North County News.

To view additional photographs from the 2011 BioBlitz and Festival of the Bluffs, please see the photo album of that title on this website.

To review a listing of the BioBlitz life forms inventory, please visit that section of the Research Projects on this website.

© 2011 all content rights reserved, Clifftop NFP.

Dennis FitzWilliam, Clifftop

Our Mississippi River bluff land corridor is one of the most diverse natural areas in Illinois. The corridor constitutes its own ecosystem– the Northern Ozark Natural Division– and stands on its own singular geologic formation — the Salem Plateau– both science-based measures of the region’s uniqueness in the state.

An ecosystem is simply the sum total of all living organisms in a specific place. An ecosystem survives on a nexus of interdependent biological networks and relationships, with each living organism gaining shelter and sustenance from its co-inhabitants. And each ecosystem contains distinctive biological features, with its own unique list of organisms providing mutual benefits to each other.

You can think of your body as an ecosystem. Each of us has about 180 different species of microbes (bacteria, fungi, amoebas and viruses) living on our skin, about 700 different species of microbes living in our mouths, and about 800 different species of microbes living in our intestines. The microbes provide life sustaining metabolic and biochemical services for us, while we, symbiotically, provide shelter and sustenance for these fellow travelers. The enduring strength of an ecosystem is built around this mutuality of services.

Tom Rollins, Thomas Rollins Photography

Our bluff land ecosystem provides us a wealth of such services. Wild game and mushroom foods, timber production, wood fuels and illusive patches of medicinal plants are obvious products of our forests’ bounty. But the bluff land’s huge forested landscape — one of the largest contiguous woodlands in the state– provides many additional services.

The forest canopy and soil microbes purify air by filtering particulates and providing chemical reaction sites where pollutants are detoxified. Forest canopy and leaf litter protect the soil surface from the erosive power of rain. Forest trees and other plants store carbon and help to slow the course of global heating by regulating localized climate. It’s a no brainer that on a sweltering summer day the bluff lands remain considerably cooler than surrounding urbanized areas.

Tom Rollins, Thomas Rollins Photography

Our forests also maintain the water cycle, bind soils and prevent erosion. Deeper pockets of forest soil assist in storing water; and, all the soils help purify ground water, acting as a massive filtration system.

The bluff lands’ expansive quantities of plant life, generated each year through the process of photosynthesis, produce massive amounts of energy, forming the basis of an interrelated food chain, which powers the ecosystem to provide additional ecological services. Critical nutrient cycling, flowering plant reliance on animal pollinators, and effective seed dispersal all depend on the mutual collaboration of biota within the ecosystem.

Our bluff lands ecosystem also provides intangible services to human residents on a psychological level. Outdoor recreation in the bluffs contributes to our physical well being, and the stunning viewscapes and beauty of many of our natural areas bring emotional satisfaction to many local residents.

Tom Rollins, Thomas Rollins Photography

Intriguing new studies indicate that a diversity-rich natural ecosystem also provides significant physical health benefits by reducing risk of transmission of some bacterial-caused diseases.  Both Lyme disease and Ehrlichiosis (a newly-emerging human infection first described in 1990 and named for the German microbiologist Paul Ehrlich) are transmitted by ticks, and can cause symptoms ranging from a mild flu-like condition to serious long-term illness and, rarely, result in death. Both white-tailed deer and white-footed mice are the most common vectors of these diseases in the eastern U.S., a result of both species’ inherent ability to serve as “competent hosts” for both the disease-causing bacteria and to act as the most-frequent blood meals for the tick species that then transmit bacteria to eventual human hosts.

Ticks move through several larval stages during their lives, and, in each stage must have a blood meal to survive and grow. Disease-causing bacteria can be transmitted to ticks both through their mothers’ (that is, in the egg stage) or by taking a blood meal from another, already infected, animal.

As diversity declines the risk of encountering an infected tick rises, as recent studies done in the St. Louis area, and released in late 2010 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows. Bush honeysuckle creates a monoculture – the very opposite of diversity – that attracts both white-tailed deer and will support large populations of white-footed mice. A newly-hatched tick in a honeysuckle patch is far more likely to take its first blood meal from an animal already infected with either, or both, Lyme disease or Ehrlichiosis-causing bacteria.

Had the tick hatched within a native species rich area, the chance of its taking its first blood meal from a non-infected host, such as an opossum, raccoon, coyote, fox, or even a bird or turtle would be high.  These animals apparently are “incompetent hosts” – perhaps by natural immunity to the disease-causing bacteria – and so act as buffers between humans and tick-borne disease.  A healthy natural ecosystem, one with a high diversity of native species, serves to dilute the effects of disease transmission to us.

Moreover, the human-created honeysuckle monoculture works to harm us in further ways, as natural predators of white-footed mice – hawks, owls, coyotes and fox – and the human hunters of white-tailed deer cannot successfully seek their prey in the dense thickets.  Tick-borne disease risk increases as natural biodiversity decreases.

Dennis FitzWilliam, Clifftop. Native plant species diversity is critical for healthy habitats and, evidence increasingly shows, is crucial to OUR health, too,

A critical factor for the health and sustainability of our bluff land ecosystem is the biological native species diversity in the corridor. Native plant and animal species diversity acts as a kind of an insurance policy, with greater species numbers more resilient to stresses and disturbances in the ecosystem. The larger the number of native species means a greater capacity to self-sustain the system.

We know only a little about native species diversity in the bluff lands. Over the last decade natural history surveys in the bluff lands have cataloged 270 species of birds, about 700 species of plants, 46 species of mammals, 62 species of reptiles and amphibians, and almost 90 species of butterflies. But there is much, much more we don’t know.

Natural history records for the bluff lands, assembled over the last 150 years, indicate there should be about 1000 species of plants in the ecosystem. We don’t know how many of these species have died off or been supplanted by non-native species. We know almost nothing about insect life in the corridor. And we understand very little about non-flowering / non-vascular plant species (mosses, liverworts and fungi) in the region.

Tom Rollins, Thomas Rollins Photography

In an effort to fill in the gaps of what we don’t know, revalidate what we think we know, and have a little fun, a BioBlitz is coming to Valmeyer’s Salt Lick Point Land and Water Reserve.

From noon on Friday, 13 May, until noon on Saturday, 14 May, about 50 scientists and naturalists will identify and record as many plant and animal species as they can find as they scour Salt Lick’s 650-acre reserve.  The scientists will be coming from the Illinois Natural History Survey at the University of Illinois, Eastern Illinois University, Southern Illinois University-Carbondale, Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville, Southwestern Illinois College, Southeast Missouri State University, The Illinois State Museum, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, and the Missouri Department of Conservation, and will be joined by some of Illinois’ and Missouri’s best amateur naturalists.

On Saturday, 14 May, IDNR, the Salt Lick Point Stewardship Committee and Clifftop will co-host a nature festival at Borsch Park in Valmeyer, from 9 AM to 4 PM, to highlight the work of the BioBlitz and underscore the importance of conserving our precious natural areas. The festival will feature presentations and demonstrations by TreeHouse Wildlife Center, the World Bird Sanctuary, IDNR, and native plant sales by Missouri Wildflowers Nursery. A market place of nature-themed arts and crafts, food and bluegrass music by Cumberland Gap will be at the park.

Dennis FitzWilliam, Clifftop

During the BioBlitz, on Friday night and Saturday morning, special hikes will be conducted for the public to observe BioBlitz scientists at work. Mist-netting for bats, insect and mammal evidence – through collecting, scat and track analysis — and plant identification are among the myriad of activities involved in the BioBlitz.

Clifftop, a local nonprofit organization, is focused on preserving and protecting area bluff lands.

A version of this article appeared in the April 15 2011 edition of the Monroe County Independent.

© 2011 all content rights reserved, Clifftop NFP.

Tom Rollins, Thomas Rollins Photography

I grew up in the dawn’s long shadows of the bluff line. I have watched a lifetime of sunsets illuminating the cliff face — like a limestone necklace, jewelling the landscape of Valmeyer. My German ancestors spoke legions about the bluff lands’ magic and bounty; they spoke with that old German reverence for the natural world.

German is a daring language, with precise, inch-long words, bringing both abstract and concrete, active and passive meaning, all at once, to our deepest inner feelings. In German, Naturanschauungsunterricht captures the meaning of a reverence for nature — its study, its lessons, its joy — in a single word, and connotes our collective responsibilities as nature’s caretaker for future generations.

That notion — Naturanschauungsunterricht — is, in concept, very appropriate for preserving our bluff lands most precious natural heritage; and, in practice, is serving to insure protected natural landscapes, in perpetuity, for generations to come.

Tom Rollins, Thomas Rollins Photography

The Mississippi River bluff land corridor in Monroe County is one of the most resource rich natural areas in Illinois. A bird’s eye view of the lay of the landscape serves to illustrate the importance of that natural heritage. At the foot of the bluffs’ cliff face dramatically looming above the flood plain, ancient wetlands, dependant on spring-fed creeks emanating from the bluffs, host an unbelievable variety of bird life, amphibians, and reptiles, many of which migrate twice-annually to and from winter hibernacula in the bluffs.

Pen Daubach, Clifftop

Atop the cliff face, isolated patches and thin ribbons of hill prairie perch precariously to the bluff edges. Only 500 acres of loess hill prairie remain in Illinois, and 40% of the state’s total are in Monroe County. Nearby the prairies, small forest openings host limestone glades, an even rarer natural habitat in the state. Only 200 acres of limestone glade remain and 30% of them can be found here in Monroe County.

The upland forest, riding eastward across the corridor, is also distinctive.

From Valmeyer southward, the forest is mostly undeveloped, with several unfragmented blocks in excess of 2,500 acres making it one of the largest contiguous woodlands in the state. And forest-wide, throughout the corridor, deeply karstified terrane, marked by 10,000 sinkholes and more cave openings than any other region of the state, make it a very unique area in Illinois.

Tom Rollins, Thomas Rollins Photography

The 40-minute drive along Bluff Road, from Columbia to Prairie du Rocher, passes below some of the rarest and most intact wildlife habitat in the state. As a measure of its importance, some 2000 acres in the corridor are now permanently protected with conservation easements through a mix of conservation-minded and enterprising solutions.

Tom Rollins, Thomas Rollins Photography

The Illinois Department of Natural Resources owns and manages the 700-acre Fults Hill Prairie Nature Preserve, just a mile south of the Village of Fults. The preserve hosts the largest hill prairie acreage in the state. It is open to the public and features a 1½-mile loop trail system.

Tom Rollins, Thomas Rollins Photography

Nearly 700-acres of the corridor are privately-owned, but are permanently protected with conservation easements donated to the Illinois Nature Preserves Commission (INPC). INPC helps the landowners steward the tracts and they are, obviously, not open to the public.

The Village of Valmeyer, I am proud to report, conveyed a conservation easement on its 630-acre Salt Lick Point tract in 2005. The Salt Lick Point Land and Water Reserve is managed by INPC, with the help of the village’s Salt Lick Point Stewardship Committee volunteers and Valmeyer’s Boy Scout Troop # 345. The volunteers have established a wonderful 5-mile interlocking trail system on the site, which is open to the public.

Tom Rollins, Thomas Rollins Photography

Clifftop’s and the Southwestern Illinois Resource Conservation & Development’s recent joint acquisition of the White Rock tract adds a new and innovative dimension to land protection in the corridor. In the first ever joint-venture land acquisition initiative in the state, the two local nonprofit organizations jointly own and steward the 475-acre tract. White Rock is located about a mile south of Valmeyer, along Bluff Road. White Rock will be dedicated as a nature preserve, and after the establishment of a parking area and trail system, the site will be opened to public hiking in October 2011. Anyone interested in helping with the White Rock project should contact Clifftop.

When ready, White Rock’s public trail system will present another recreational opportunity for Monroe County. The Salt Lick Point Reserve and Fults Hill Prairie Preserve already see almost 4000 visitors a year. This not only represents a potential economic boon for our area, but also is testimony that lots of folks share that old fashioned reverence for nature and support saving some natural area space as a public place.

Clifftop, a local nonprofit organization, is focused on preserving and protecting area bluff lands.

A version of this article appeared in the March 4 2011 edition of the Monroe County Independent.

© 2011 all content rights reserved, Clifftop NFP.

Tom Rollins, Thomas Rollins Photography

The bottoms are abuzz with reports of large concentrations of Bald Eagles along Levee Road. Nothing seems to capture the imagination and excitement of Monroe Countians like a gathering of eagles.  2010 was a remarkable year for eagle watchers in our area and the numbers seen so far this year indicate that 2011 may be an even better year to see these magnificent birds.

Adult and Immature eagles soar on thermals over Fults Hill Prairie Nature Preserve. Tom Rollins, Thomas Rollins Photography.

Winter is the social season for eagles, with convocations gathering to feed and roost communally along the Mississippi River. The birds seen here are not long-range migrants, with most born and living out their 30-year life spans within a 20 or so mile distance up or down the river.

Social hierarchies develop during their winter gatherings, with the oldest, most aggressive eagles occupying the highest perches. During their winter conclave, five and six-year old eagles may form their first durable mated pair bonds. Most eagles mate for life.

Immature American Bald Eagles are mostly brown. Tom Rollins, Thomas Rollins Photography.

Bald eagle females are always larger than males. Immature eagles are various shades of brown, with heads and under wings mottled various densities of white and brown as they age. Immature eagles are larger than adults, owing to longer wing and tail feathers. Young eagles do not attain the full adult feathering – the distinctive white heads and tails — until they are four years old.

In these parts, eagle nesting usually begins in April. Eagle nests, normally used for decades, are imposing structures of sticks and branches, often 5-6 feet in diameter, with the largest ever recorded nearly 10 feet across.

Tom Rollins, Thomas Rollins Photography

Female eagles usually lay 2, sometimes 3, bluish-white eggs — about 3″ long and 2″ wide– over several day intervals. Both males and females alternate incubating the eggs for 35-45 days. Young nestlings are tended by both parents. The first born often kills or starves its sibling(s). Newborns gain feathers in about 5 weeks, and can fly and leave the nest in 11 weeks, but usually return to their nests to feed and rest.

For fledgling eagles, flying from the nest is easier than landing. They tumble and crash, until learning distance, maneuver, and clasping. By late spring, they are on their own, but usually hang around in extended family units for several years until they begin breeding. While eagles have few predators, only 4 in 10 juveniles make it to adulthood.

Two immature bald eagles soar over the bluff lands. Tom Rollins, Thomas Rollins Photography.

Eagles are opportunistic feeders. While their main diet is fish, they will eat waterfowl, rabbits, mice and other small rodents, and carrion. Eagles are famous for being lazy feeders and often prefer to steal another animal’s food.  An eagle must consume about 10% of its body weight, a pound or so of food, a day to survive. A seemingly big adult eagle, with a 7-foot wingspan, only weighs 10-14 pounds. An adult eagle can lift and carry only about 4 pounds.

The Bald Eagle has only recently become a familiar sight again in the county and throughout the contiguous 48 states of the U.S. Over- hunting and the wide-scale use of certain pesticides after World War II brought a dramatic decline in eagle populations. By 1970, only 791 pairs were estimated to be breeding in the lower 48 states. Eagle and raptor hunting was a fairly common practice as many people thought that control of any and all predator species would increase available game for people; countless birds of prey were slaughtered for sport.  While the Bald Eagle Act, passed by Congress in 1940, prohibits their killing, illegal shooting still occurs.

Pesticide contamination now is minimal among Bald Eagle populations in the U.S.  Organochlorine (DDT) and carbamate pesticides were widely used to control insects on crop and forestlands from 1946 into the 1970s.  These groups of pesticides undergo chemical transformations in animals and increase in tissue concentrations as animals consume other animals exposed to the chemicals.  Plants, insects, spiders and other critters exposed to the pesticides were consumed by birds, fish, or other animals. These animals, in turn, became food for eagles and raptors and both toxicity and concentration of poisons increased with each swallow on up the food chain. The metabolized pesticide compounds did not kill adult birds but made females less able to produce calcium.  Females then produced eggs so thinly shelled that the weight of the incubating birds simply crushed and destroyed them.

While the recovery of Bald Eagles certainly is a remarkable conservation success story, they and all raptors still suffer significant human-created mortality, including electrocution, collisions with vehicles and towers, entanglement with fishing lines and assorted garbage, poisoning from ingesting lead shot and fishing sinkers, and entrapment in leg-hold traps set for fur-bearers.

Banning of DDT biocides in 1972 and passage of the Endangered Species Act in 1973 enabled eagles to turn a crucial corner and begin recovering their population numbers. In 1982, five breeding pairs lived in Illinois. In 1996, 23 pairs were tallied in the state. A statewide winter survey in 2008 found 4,292 Bald Eagles in Illinois, 40% of which were immature birds. Slightly over 100 breeding pairs were found in the state in 2009. Currently, a minimum of eight pairs is believed to be breeding in Monroe County.

The American bald eagle’s slow climb from near extinction has sparked national interest and support for its recovery. Eagle watching has now become a favorite wintertime pastime. If you are lucky enough to be in Great Outdoors Monroe County, you don’t have to go very far to find a gathering of eagles.

Tom Rollins, Thomas Rollins Photography

Among the best spots for viewing our eagles is along Levee Road, where large gatherings of roosting birds may often be easily spotted near Harrisonville and near Kidd Lake Marsh. Hikers in our bluff lands find the vantage points of Salt Lick Point Land and Water Reserve, White Rock Nature Preserve, and Fults Hill Prairie Nature Preserve offer unique viewing: the ability to look down on soaring eagles. But even in-town residents can occasionally spot eagles as two immatures recently offered a dramatic series of in-flight talon-grasping play as they soared over State Highway 3 between Columbia and Waterloo.

Clifftop, a local nonprofit organization, is focused on preserving and protecting area bluff lands.

A version of this article appeared in the February 4 2011 edition of the Monroe County Independent.

© 2011 all content rights reserved, Clifftop NFP.

Pen DauBach, Clifftop

Now that cold winter has gripped our bluff lands, many natural sources of animal wildlife foodstuffs are becoming depleted. While “hard mast” oak acorns and hickory nuts strew our forest floor, they will begin to decompose in the winter’s duff. Our grasses and forbs, both important animal food sources, have died back. Crops, which help feed many of our critters, are harvested out of our farm fields. And, many, thin-skinned “soft mast” native fruits — like mulberries, persimmon and blackberries– have already been consumed or desiccated by the cold temperatures.

But, in reserve, many of our common woodland native trees, shrubs, and vines still have berries, which will persist throughout winter and provide a safety net of food sources for wildlife. And wildlife is drawn to berries in winter like a wet dog to a well-dressed visitor.

Our native berries provide an important source of carbohydrates, fats and sugars for wildlife, particularly in the dead and coldest months of winter. Many berries have low appeal to wildlife when they first mature, but alternate cycles of freezing and thawing soften and sweeten the berries, making them more palatable to wildlife.

Jeff Vanuga, USDA NRCS, Bugwood.org

The dark purple fruits of our warty-knobbed hackberry trees are favorites of fox, squirrels, quail, and turkey. They also support 24 species of birds and are adored by flickers, sapsuckers, mockingbirds and cardinals. Hackberry berries are also a favorite food of our reclusive and seldom seen nocturnal flying squirrels.

Eastern red cedar trees, trooping along fencerows, invading old fields, and skulking deep in the woods, provide valuable nesting and roosting habitat for birds.  Their dark blue berries with a whitish blush overall, which are borne only on the female trees, are favored by bobwhite quail, turkey, rabbits, fox, skunks, opossums, red squirrels (but not gray squirrels), and coyotes. In addition, they attract 54 species of birds, especially our wintering-over cedar waxwings, mockingbirds and thrashers.

Pen DauBach, Clifftop

As the name indicates, possum haw, or swamp holly, also produces fruits loved by opossums.  Our only native holly produces bright red fruits, which remain on the tree during the winter so long as birds and mammals let them stay.  Although the secondary name suggests this holly only grows in moist soils, it actually can be found far from bottomland woods and does well in a variety of habitats, including our drier upland woods.

The red berries of flowering dogwoods and the white berries of rough-leaved dogwoods, both high in calcium and fat content (24% by weight), help sustain all 62 species of mammals in the county, turkey and quail, and 40 other species of birds. Woodpeckers, cardinals and bluebirds especially adore these berries.

Dogwoods, among some of our other native berry-producing trees, demonstrate an important evolutionary reproductive strategy called “foliar fruit flagging.” The berries bright colors combined with brilliant fall foliage readily attract wildlife, which consume the berries and then drop seeds, often miles from the tree, insuring greater reproductive success for the tree.

A number of shrubs, in addition to rough-leaved dogwoods, also produce wintertime berry food for wildlife.  Spicebush’s glossy red berries are favorites of rodents and squirrels and also sustain about 20 species of bird life.

Pen DauBach, Clifftop

Smooth sumac’s clustered red berries attract small rodents and 31 species of birds, especially bluebirds. White-tailed deer also like the berries. But the sumac’s best friend is a cottontail rabbit. Studies have shown that sumac seeds in rabbit pellets germinate at a much higher rate than any other eaten or uneaten sumac seed.

Our native Viburnums — black haw, nannyberry and rusty nannyberry  — produce blue-black berries eaten by game birds, robins, bluebirds, thrashers, Eastern chipmunks, and squirrels. Viburnum berries however often rot on the twig. There low fat content dampens their appeal for much wildlife.

Ohio State Weed Lab, Ohio State University, Bugwood.org

Whether growing as a shrub or in vine form, the small white berries of poison ivy are an important food source. More than 60 species of birds relish the fruit. Many are fall migrants attracted by “foliar flagging,” others are winter residents including bobwhites, yellow-rumped warblers, and flickers. Animals seem to have no difficulty with this plant, richly colored and attractive red in the autumn, which causes a scratchy, weepy itch on contact for most people.

Hanging like ropes from the forest’s canopy, wild grapes provide oodles of soft mast to stock the wildlife larder.  There are five species of grapes native to Monroe and Randolph Counties.  The grapes are eaten in winter by bobwhite quail, turkey, pileated and red-bellied woodpeckers, thrushes, waxwings, cardinals, and deer.  Raccoons, opossums, skunks and squirrels also eat wild grapes.

Terry Spivey, USDA Forest Service, Bugwood.org

Among other native vines, the berries of American bittersweet feed 15 species of birds and small mammals. And our very common Virginia creeper, a member of the grape family, which sports beautifully brilliant fall foliage and luscious and nutritious blue berries, supports an additional 35 species, including skunks, foxes, deer, flickers, woodpeckers, bluebirds, thrashers, robins and fox sparrows. Fermented Virginia creeper berries on the vine will occasionally mildly intoxicate wildlife.

So please proceed with caution in our bluff lands vast forests, carefully marking your distance from tipsy thrashers or stumbling skunks. And, if you are inclined to conserve and support our myriad of wildlife, take care of the berry-producing native trees and shrubs in your woodlots and lawn edges, and consider planting more of them for the benefit of wildlife.

Clifftop, a local nonprofit organization, is focused on preserving and protecting area bluff lands.

A version of this article appeared in the December 3 2010 edition of the Monroe County Independent.

© 2010 all content rights reserved, Clifftop NFP.

Ohio State WeedLab,University of Ohio, Bugwood.org

Canada nettle (Laportea canadensis), also called “wood nettle” or simply “stinging nettle,” causes the immediate response by the unwary person who reaches out to touch the actually graceful foliaged plant with the fat drooping clusters of small blossoms.  The delayed response – usually more irritation caused by an unremitting itch – is due to contact with poison ivy (Toxocodendron radicans), another attractively foliaged plant especially when autumn weather brings out its bright red and orange coloration.  But what is it that makes these plants toxic to us?

Joseph M. DeTomaso, University of California-Davis, Bugwood.org

The very hairy stems and leaves of Canada nettle contain small needle-sharp barbs that can pierce the skin.  The intense sting is caused by a complex chemistry of compounds that also form the basis of formic acid, the stinging compound released by some species of biting ants.  Many people experience sharp pain from a nettle’s sting with some people, who apparently are especially susceptible, reporting pain for hours and, among a very rare few, reactions that include swelling and pain lasting for days.

Stinging nettles have a wide distribution with members of the family Urticaceae found throughout the temperate zones, including Europe, Asia and North America.  A few species of nettle, such as Urtica doica, also known as “stinging” and “wood” nettle, have native ranges that include both Europe and North America.  This particular species occurs in Illinois, but only rarely in our area where Canada nettle is common.

As you might suspect such a widely occurring plant with such bad effects has a host of folk stories and a long history.  A very toxic form of nettle was supposed to have been introduced into Britain by Romans.  Told that the climate of Britain was nearly unendurable due to winter cold, Roman soldiers planted nettles and harvested leaves and stems which they then rubbed into their arms and legs. The belief seemed to be a combination of hope that the ache of multiple stings would help warm them and that their irritated reddened skin would then retain heat.

Heat is the one sure method to remove the sting from nettles.  Once processed by boiling the plant losses all its painful chemicals.  Nettle stew, boiled nettle salad, and even nettle pudding and nettle beer were among the food uses.  Heat processing also allowed nettle textile manufacturing which actually flourished for a short time during World War I in Germany and Austria when raw cotton imports were unavailable.  Nettle cloth was said to be very fine and comparable to high quality linen and even silk.

Clothing, however, is the one way that the “ouch” of contact with nettles can be delayed, as many a hiker has sadly discovered.  The stinging hairs and barbs can detach onto clothing and then release their stings at a later time.

James Miller USDA Forest Service, Bugwood.org

The ache and itch of poison ivy often doesn’t start until hours or even days after contact with this plant.  Oil, called urushiol, contained in all parts of the plant, but especially concentrated in the stems, causes an allergic reaction in most people.  The weeping blisters and reddened rash areas are due to the body’s flooding the contact area with histamines.

Steve Dewey, Utah State University, Bugwood.org

Only actual contact with the oil – not just walking near a poison ivy plant, or contact with the fluid released from poison ivy blisters – causes the allergic reaction.  But, oil from poison ivy can be transmitted on clothing or even by pets or livestock that carry the oil on their coats.  One of the more dangerous forms of contact can be exposure to burning poison ivy, as the oil in the plant can be carried in smoke and cause throat and lung irritation.  A few people have little to no reaction to poison ivy, but such apparent immunity may not be constant and can change through life or, even, in the course of a year.

Folk remedies for both nettle stings and poison ivy rash, oddly, included using the plants themselves as cures.  The juice of a nettle plant, extracted by squeezing the stem, was said to relieve the burn of nettle barbs.  Old folk remedies for creating immunity to poison ivy included eating a few early-spring leaves or drinking a tea made from the leaves, a form of “cure” far more likely to cause poison ivy rash in the mouth, throat, or digestive tract.

Orange jewelweed can reduce the sting of stinging nettle. Pen DauBach, Clifftop.

An old remedy for human reactions to both plants offered the added benefit of ready availability as this curing plant often grows in the same area and even among both nettles and poison ivy.  Juices from the leaves and stems of jewelweed, also called spotted-touch-me-not, may relieve the painful acid reaction to a nettle sting.  Native Americans also used a poultice made from jewelweed to reduce the rash and itch of poison ivy exposure.  Both orange (Impatiens capensis) and yellow jewelweed (I. pallida) grow in rich, moist soils in shady areas and both species can be found in our area, although orange jewelweed tends to be more common.  The small, cornucopia-shaped flowers begin blooming in June and continue through September on plants that can reach four feet in height.

The alternate common name – touch-me-not – is derived from the same characteristic that gives all impatiens their scientific and common generic name.  These plants are, simply, “impatient” and spread their ripened seed at the slightest touch.  The bedding garden varieties of impatiens have been hybridized from species originating in Africa and in Europe, and, as most gardeners know, are wont to spread seed the short distance from pots into gardens.  Our native varieties are a bit more exuberant and will explosively eject seed for a several foot distance when a ripe seedpod is touched.

A landscape – or, more properly in our bluff lands – a creekscape dotted with poison ivy, stinging nettle and jewelweed may cause us to sigh and wish away the plants that hurt us.  But, the three types of plants also illustrate additional benefits and harms.

Poison ivy fruits nourish more than 90 species of animals. Ohio State Weed Lab, Ohio State University, Bugwood.org.

Poison ivy berries, small white fruits growing in clusters, sustain and are relished by about 90 species of animals.  Nearly all mammals of our area, including opossums, raccoons, squirrels and deer, and more than 75 songbirds as well as quail and turkey eat poison ivy berries.  At least two moth species depend on poison ivy foliage as food during their larval, or caterpillar, stages of life.

The brightly colored upperwings of an Eastern Comma. David Cappaert, Michigan State University, Bugwood.org

The underwing shows the white "comma" marking of Eastern Comma. David Cappaert, Michigan State University, Bugwood.org

Stinging nettle is the larval food host for several butterfly species, including the strikingly beautiful Red Admiral and the more cryptically colored but still elegant Eastern Comma and Question Mark.  Two moth species also rely on nettle during their larval phase.

Our native impatiens also is host to at least two moth species during their larval phase.  And, the cornucopia-shaped flowers offer a rich nectar source for hummingbirds, bees and butterflies.

But, while native impatiens may delight us, and hummingbirds, both in color and abundance of bloom and perhaps offer us relief from a nettle’s painful sting, they can have another, very damaging effect.  Livestock, including cattle, goats and sheep, can be poisoned if they eat large quantities of jewelweed.  For these animals spotted-touch-me-not is a truism rather than a name of playfulness.  Beauty – or eatabilty and utility – perhaps is not in the eye of the beholder so much as it is within the nature of the species.

To learn more about plants of our area, particularly those that, like jewelweed, may cause toxic reactions to domestic pets and livestock, the public was invited to a talk with Dr. Dwight Boehm of the Waterloo Animal Hospital.  Dr. Boehm’s presentation was on Monday October 4^th at the Monroe County Annex Building, 901 N. Illinois St., Waterloo.  This presentation was co-hosted by Clifftop and the Monroe County University of Illinois Extension Service and as part of their continuing seminar series “Meet the Neighbors.”

Clifftop, a local nonprofit organization, is focused on preserving and protecting area bluff lands.

A version of this article appeared in the September 17th 2010 edition of the Monroe County Independent.

© 2010 all content rights reserved, Clifftop NFP.

Tom Rollins, Thomas Rollins Photography

In the past 300 years, people have transformed Monroe County’s landscape. In pre-European settlement times, 86% of Monroe County’s 255,000 acres was forested, including portions of the American Bottoms and most of the uplands. There were approximately 13,000 acres of prairie — five percent of county lands — with a large swathe of tall grass prairie along Prairie du Long Creek west of Hecker, a large prairie at New Design, east of Burksville, and extensive patches of wet and dry prairie on the Mississippi River bottomlands. Three centuries ago, eight percent of the county — some 20,000 acres — was wetland, mostly along the Mississippi and Kaskaskia floodplains.

Native American peoples who lived here certainly altered the landscape, primarily by periodically setting fire to prairies and woodlands.  Horticultural practices with associated settlement areas occupied limited spaces and were used for only a few years before relocation to a new area.  When our Euro-American predecessors came here they began a series of dramatic alterations to the landscape, timbering large swathes of woodlands, plowing prairie, and draining marshes and wetlands to plant agricultural crops.  Few areas, even the tops of the bluffs or the wettest soils of ancient lake and marsh beds, were deemed so inaccessible, so unworkable, or so lacking in exploitable reward that some form of human intervention did not occur.

Our forefathers largely looked at the transformations they made as a battle against nature and success as progress away from it.  By and large they declared victory as acres devoted to wheat and corn, small grains, orchards, market crops and livestock increased exponentially during the nineteenth century.  Throughout the later half of the 20^th century acreage devoted to corn, wheat, milo and especially soy increased and replaced most mixed farming operations.  As the need for even more production and greater tractor power along with newer hybrids made possible an even stronger focus on these crops,

Pen DauBach, Clifftop

hedgerows and even the space once occupied by traditional shade trees marking rest times and field edges were brought into agricultural use.  The natural landscape and wildlife within it was what was left over, or, perhaps, what was left behind.

Today, 20% of the county is forestland, with the largest contiguous block coursing along the bluff lands overlooking the Mississippi.  Today only 156 of the original 13,000 acres of native prairie remain, all perched above the cliff face along Bluff Road. And, today, only one percent of county land is classified as wetland.  Our woodlands, prairie remnants and wetlands, collectively make up our “natural areas,” and are what wildlife largely depends upon.  While all the peoples who have lived on the land have altered it, our all encompassing and continuing transformations have resulted in a humanscape rather than a landscape.

Dennis Fitzwilliam, Clifftop

The fate of wildlife and our remnant natural areas is in our hands.  As heirs to the humanscape we may choose to manage our lands for the benefit of wildlife and take up our responsibility as caretakers.

We can prevent further fragmentation of natural habitats. In reducing woods, wetlands, and grasslands for development and modern industrial agriculture, we have created isolated pockets of natural habitats to host the myriad of wildlife we enjoy. These small islands of habitat are not self-sustainable, plant and animal genetic diversity cannot be perpetuated, and smaller pockets of nature are more vulnerable to disturbances.  We can stop creating more isolation and, even, reduce the effects of past fragmentation by bringing nature back home – native trees, shrubs, flowers and grasses — into our gardens, backyards, field edges, woodlots and public spaces.

We can help keep our oak-hickory woodlands oak-hickory woodlands.  The reduction in size of acreages and opening up for development within our forests has allowed Sugar Maple, a bottomland native, to gain a foothold in many wooded tracts. The maples then over-shade and stifle oak acorn and hickory nut regeneration. When our oaks and hickories reach senescence and die they too often are replaced by a predominantly maple forest.  And a maple woodlot does not produce foodstuffs to sustain our wild game populations.

We can reduce the spread of non-native invasive plant species that overcrowd and outcompete native plants disrupting and even eliminating the natural plant-animal food chain. There are plenty of non-native plants in the county that do no harm and in fact are of great benefit such as Asian soy and Mexican corn, to name the two economic bedrocks of our agricultural prosperity.  But some non-native plants, largely because they have no natural predators, simply take over.  They provide little to no human benefit but grow so rampantly that they create their own monoculture that is a wildlife desert.

Bush honeysuckle is clearly the best example in Monroe County. It has over taken the understory in many wooded areas, shaded out native tree recruitment, reduced the supply of mushrooms and wildflowers, and created impenetrable landscapes precluding a walk in the woods.  And, while birds and small mammals may eat the berries, thus spreading bush honeysuckle seeds ever further, they do so because their natural foods are increasingly in short supply.  Worse still for wildlife, the nutritional value of honeysuckle fruits is only about half that of native berries.

Tom Rollins, Thomas Rollins Photography

The humanscape – the legacy left to us — means a natural world ever more dependent on us for survival. Only our conservation practices and concerted actions will determine the longevity and sustainability of our area’s wildlife and remnant natural areas. We are no longer just owners of land but more than ever now are also guardians.

Clifftop, a local nonprofit organization, is focused on preserving and protecting area bluff lands.

A version of this article appeared in the July 2nd 2010 edition of the Monroe County Independent.

© 2010 all content rights reserved, Clifftop NFP.