Downstate Voyage

Alright ladies and gentlemen, I am going to try a brand new approach to my blog-timeliness! Blogging about an event weeks, no days,  after it happened (as opposed to months). Free form, free wheeling, typed out quickly and not scrutinized for days and days before releasing it into the blogosphere. In essence, a real blog post! Here goes:

Downstate Voyage Part 1:The Nature of Downstate

This is Southern Illinois. At 3000 feet. So much national and state forest and I've only experienced it from above.

Well that changed this weekend. I loaded up the Arboretum SUV with chainsaw, binoculars, fuel, road snacks and clothes and drove the five and a half hours to the southern tip of Illinois to see what this vast green swath is like from the ground. Sandwiched between the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, the area is a beautiful nature gem far from the confines of Chicagoland, protected from the metropolitan area by a wide swath of flat boring farmland. A majority of the area is Shawnee National Forest, speckled with farms, small towns, and state lands (my concern as the Illinois State Forest Health Entomologist!...Assistant)

The next morning began at 5:30 am, with a drive to LaRue Pine barrens some birding. I'm no morning person, but the lush green fields on the drive made me giddy! I've been so starved for color, warmth and life that the green cones in my eyes were nearly exploding, addling my brain. The ground layer of the forest we wandered through was green, speckled with the white and purple of spring ephemerals. We joined a guide who could identify birds just by hearing a single tweet, and saw many lovely birds including a prothonotary warbler (or swamp candle, as these bright yellow birds are known.) Having absorbed the early morning beneath glorious limestone cliffs, we moved on to another area to learn about a massive collaborative restoration effort happening in the region.

Calling the project (a tad cheesily) "Let the Sun Shine In", a number of different state, national, private, and NGO partners are working together to restore the open, light-providing oak/hickory forests that once blanketed the hilltops of the area. Due to the Forest Service's poorly thought-out Smokey the Bear campaign of long ago, natural fire has been completely suppressed in these areas, encouraging the slow uphill creep of maples and beech, with their broad light-hogging canopies and barren light desert of dead leaves below. These closed in canopies prevent the regeneration of oaks and prevent the growth of a rich, biodiverse ground layer of flowering forbs and grasses. (Just to return to the insect theme of this blog, no flowers=no pollinators. Also, oaks provide resources for a huge number of butterfly and moth species along with other insects! Also, biodiversity! Need I say more?...)

To accomplish this, they are logging out the maples and beech (and using the proceeds from the timber sales to fund their restoration activities), thinning the mid canopy, of course, burning. We toured the hilltops of the Shawnee observing the process and geeking out over plants, and then returned to the visitor center for some tasty local BBQ.

The Fierce Beast!

After lunch, we returned to the place where we went birding, which is actually called, appropriately, Snake Road.  The road is closed to vehicles in the spring and fall to allow for reptile and amphibian migration, but open to bird and, mostly, snake watchers on foot. When we pulled up, we found our guide halfway up a talus slope, pawing through the rocks, a long wriggling thing in his hand. When I walked over after parking, I found him holding a grey snake in one hand, the other covered with blood, and a gorgeous long black king snake on the ground (the purveyor of the bite). The king snake was receiving the rapt attention of a very enthusiastic photographer with multiple expensive cameras slung over his lightweight REI safari wear. The nonplussed snake coiled on the ground glaring at him, as the guy took on the air of a fashion photographer. "You're so fierce!" he exclaimed (I am not kidding), snapping pictures in rapid succession.

Cottonmouth!

Seemingly unaware of the dried blood between his thumb and forefinger, the guide led us on. All I really wanted to do was bask, reptile-like, in the warm sun, but we ambled along and delighted in the spring ephemerals. Along the way, the snake enthusiasts pointed out a cottonmouth (apparently very common in that area!) wending its way gracefully across a pond, on the hunt for fish and frogs. With the encouragement of the photographer (librarian by day it turns out), it turned and flashed its white mouth at us. While it wanted to clearly alert us of its presence, I felt no danger from it, since it clearly had no inclination to attack.

Day two found us, full of pancakes, at another lovely site, which had been opened to enough light to allow grass and flowering plants to grow. And accompanied by an pollination biologist/entomologist! Although I loved observing the beautiful birds, snakes and plants, lets be real, I am an entomologist. This became abundantly clear as I found myself in an in-depth conversation about pollinator specialization, y-tube olfactometers, and sesquiterpenes with the pollinator biologist while all the others were trying to identify the sprouting plants to species. Her lab is surveying the pollinators in the area, which has, amazingly, never been done before. Besides a few fat bumblebee queens, the bees were all staying in out of the wind. Overall, Southern Illinois natural areas: highly recommended!

Downstate Voyage Part II: Actual Entomology

For those of you wondering, "uh, where are the bugs?" I'll throw a few in. Actually, in order to play hooky and go play in the woods during the work week, I had to justify it by "working" on my way back up. I had to stop in Richview on the way up to drive around in a gator and look at trees, and take some home with me. Tough work.

This summer we will be working with a Canadian company to try out some new traps that they use to disperse an emerald ash borer-killing fungus to its intended targets. So I had to scope out an ash plantation to see if it was suitable for research.  I met Gary on his family's old land, and immediately hopped into the 4 wheeler and sped off into the trees, a muddy black and white border collie racing along behind. He regaled me with stories of the multiple generations of his family who had owned the land as we toured the rows of young trees. Sadly, his grandchildrens' inheritance in board feet may not survive the oncoming EAB onslaught.

Gary and his trees. Since I am no timber surveyor, I am using his height and a photo to estimate tree height.  High Tech!

Then, he asked for my "professional opinion" on whether he had emerald ash borer and, well damn, I couldn't say! It was a bit of a humbling experience to realize you can look at all the online photos of damage that you want, but when you are looking at a relatively healthy ash with no leaves, its really hard to tell! There were galleries under the bark of the dead logs I looked at, but once an ash is dead, anything can go after it. So, I took a lot of pictures, swallowed my pride and admitted "let me get back to you on that..."


But, I did find several exciting things when tearing the bark off of the logs, including this guy:

Which is NOT and emerald ash borer, despite its lovely emerald color. Don't be fooled, EAB are streamlined and bullet shaped- just right for living under the bark of a live tree. This is a tiger beetle, with long legs and protruding mandibles perfect for running down and hunting prey.

This guy, as far as I can tell, is a horned passalus beetle, and nearly the size of my thumb. My embarrassment  at not being able to definitively diagnose an EAB infestation was quickly forgotten upon the discovery of cool bugs. 

On my way out, we cut down an ash, chopped it up, and I loaded it into the back of my vehicle, on the hopes that live adult ash borers will emerge that we can use for research. And finally, I headed back north, into the, sigh, snow. But it gave me hope that spring will someday return to the frozen north!