Kankakee Sands: A smattering of birds from a recent visit

A large tract of restored prairie stretches into the distance at the Kankakee Sands, owned and managed by the Nature Conservancy. I spent five days in and around this northwestern Indiana site at the tail end of June, my third visit here to date. It is an amazing area full of biodiversity, as evidenced by my spending the better part of a week in a preserve that is "only" 8,400 acres. On my prior visits, I only allotted a day or three, and that wasn't nearly enough time.

John Howard, Laura Hughes, and Linda Romine came over for the first half of this excursion. All are expert field workers with expertise in a wide variety of subjects. We hit insects hard during that time and found lots of notable subjects. We even mothed two of those nights and came up with some moths new to us all. The latter half of my trip, I focused heavily on birds. As the time change meant that what would normally be 6 am to my internal clock was 5 am. That meant a few VERY early mornings to be in position at first light, a necessary evil of chasing birds. But it was well worth it, and I'll share a few of those species below.

The Kankakee manager is Trevor Edmonson and he is a most helpful fellow. Few conservation organizations manage their holdings with the sophistication of The Nature Conservancy, and Trevor exemplifies this biodiversity-focused management attitude. He and his staff are extremely helpful to visitors, and he even offered his email to those interested in visiting Kankakee: trevor.edmonson@tnc.org

An Indigo Bunting (Passerina cyanea) rests atop a thorny snarl of blackberries between bouts of singing. There are scads of bird photography opportunities here, of species both common - like this one - and not so common, at least to those of us that live to the east.

This Bell's Vireo (Vireo bellii) spent some time in this thicket singing its charismatic jumbled song. While pretty common at Kankakee - the most frequent vireo in the preserve, along with Warbling Vireo (V. gilvus) - Bell's Vireo quickly drops off to the east. This is one of the easternmost sites in which Bell's Vireo is easily found in numbers.

What I said about the vireo above largely applies to Dickcissel (Spiza americana). The little cardinalids are abundant at Kankakee but rapidly decrease in frequency to the east. Their chattered mechanical songs were the dominant part of the avian soundscape in most spots that I visited. In this shot, a Dickcissel sings from the emergent stalk of a Compass Plant (Silphium laciniatum), a giant prairie sunflower. The plant is at its eastern range limit here.

An adult male Orchard Oriole (Icterus spurius) strikes a pose in a Rattlesnake-master (Eryngium yuccifolium). This species is far more common at Kankakee Sands than its better-known brethren, the Baltimore Oriole (I. galbula). Orchard Orioles frequent open country interspersed with scattered trees and shrubby copses, and the males' loud whistled songs, often ending on an upslurred note, give them away. This bird was mated and had a nest nearby. Interesting but by no means unique was the presence of a "helper" - a first-year male. I've probably seen this a half-dozen times. The young male will assist with the feeding of chicks and seems to be completely accepted by his elders.

Eastern Kingbirds (Tyrannus tyrannus) are very common at Kankakee, but nonetheless I was quite pleased to find an active nest about 20 feet up in a scrubby oak. The parents were busily feeding an unknown number of chicks. I staked myself in good light and attempted to photograph the powerful flycatchers as they returned with food for the young. This bird is sallying after a Rose Chafer Beetle (I think, they were common) and a split second after I made this image, the beetle was caught. It was promptly taken to the nest and fed to a chick.

A Northern Bobwhite (Colinus virginianus) sings on a distant fence post. As an aside, this is part of the fence that hems in a massive pasture, in which a herd of about 100 Bison range in. They look quite at home on this great plain.

Bobwhite have pretty much vanished in my region (Ohio), victims of a large-scale shift to industrial agriculture and the attendant annihilation of habitat. They're easy to find at Kankakee and I heard the iconic whistles of the little quail in many areas.

If you like sparrows - and who doesn't! - Kankakee Sands is the place for you. A Grasshopper Sparrow (Ammodramus savannarum) perches on a fence row, a very common singing spot for the grassland species. This might be the most common nesting sparrow here but is by no means the only species. Stablemates include Eastern Towhee (Pipilo erythropthalmus), Chipping Sparrow (Spizella passerina), Field Sparrow (Spizella pusilla), Vesper Sparrow (Poocetes gramineus), Lark Sparrow (Chondestes grammacus), Savannah Sparrow (Passerculus sandwichensis), Henslow's Sparrow (Centronyx henslowii - VERY common), Song Sparrow (Melospiza melodia), and Swamp Sparrow (Melospiza geaorgiana).

Ten species of breeding sparrows! Include migrant and wintering species, and the Kankakee sparrow list balloons to about 19 species! In all, over 240 species of birds have been documented at Kankakee Sands.

Dickcissels in the prairie

 

A Dickcissel (Spiza americana) between bouts of song. The exuberant singers are everywhere at Kankakee Sands, a large prairie restoration project in northwest Indiana owned and managed by the Nature Conservancy. I just spent the better part of five days there and in almost every place, the Dickcissel song was the most conspicuous part of the soundscape. This was very cool to someone who spends most of their time in Ohio, where the little "prairie cardinal" (they're in the same family, Cardinalidae) is on the periphery of its range and not very common.

Naturally I turned my lens to the boisterous songsters, which typically perched on fence wires or posts. Like the one above. That's OK, but not really what I had in mind for a perch. Especially in a huge prairie teeming with native flora, including many species that don't make it as far east as Ohio. Although, regarding the above image, the bokeh is to die for. And good bokeh (background quality) is extremely import in photography.

I came across a nice colony of Compass Plant (Silphium laciniatum), and unsurprisingly a Dickcissel had staked it as part of its turf. This was the shot to have! A Dickcissel singing atop a stem of this spectacular prairie plant. Compass Plant is a giant member of the sunflower family, towering to 8-10 feet. The deeply cut leaves are distinctive, and orient themselves on a north-south axis, at least on sunny days. This is said to help the plant reduce the radiation it receives by keeping the broad portion of the leaf away from the direct rays.

After about 45 minutes of watching the songster emit his tune from a few less than desirable perches (at least to me, the paparazzi) he finally alit on this still unfurling Compass Plant stem. Yes! I began clicking away and had plenty of opportunity to do so. Once a male Dickcissel mounts a singing perch, it'll remain for quite some time if nothing spooks it. This guy was there for a good ten minutes. The only thing that might have improved the situation was if the Compass Plant had flowers. But it was just beginning to bloom, and few plants had flowers. The yellowish splotches behind the bird are the flowers of distant plants, but he deigned not to land on any of those stems.

The core ranges of Compass Plant and Dickcissel are very similar. Both are classic Great Plains prairie species. Opportunistic Dickcissels have fared better than the plant. They'll occupy weedy roadsides, railroad rights-of-way, hayfields and meadows. One hears their chattering songs along many of the roadsides while driving about. The Compass Plant, on the other hand, is not nearly so opportunistic and is a prairie obligate. As Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Iowa and other big prairie states have lost over 99% of their pre-settlement prairie, primarily to the to the agriculturalists, the big prairie plant has declined greatly.

I hope to put up other posts about my trip to Kankakee Sands. It was epic and I saw - and photographed - lots of things. I highly recommend a visit, especially if you are into birds, butterflies, or plants. The manager is Trevor Edmonson, and he and his staff are very helpful to visitors. If you have questions, feel free to email Trevor at: trevor.edmonson@tnc.org

A truly Regal Fritillary

Ominous skies boil over the prairies of western Indiana. It didn't take a meteorologist to predict an imminent monsoon, and sure enough, the skies soon let loose.

I finally made a long overdue trip to Kankakee Sands in Newton County, Indiana, to see one of the Midwest's most notable prairie restoration projects. This site is only about an hour south of Chicago, and my friend and Chicagoan Joyce Pontius bopped down to join me, and we were to meet up with Mike Homoya and Roger Hedge of the Indiana Department of Natural Resources. Mike and Roger wisely decided to cancel, as they had a long drive and the day looked like a complete washout.

But as fate would have it, the weather soon cleared and conditions became fine for exploration. Warm weather and mostly clear skies were essential ingredients for finding my primary target. More on that in a minute.

This region once was covered by a marsh so vast it was known as the "Everglades of the North". Tens of thousands of acres of wetlands interspersed with prairie and oak savanna that attracted clouds of migratory birds and hosted scores of breeding animal species among a dizzying array of plant species. It didn't take long for people to begin plundering the bounty of Beaver Pond, as the area was also known. Eventually the agriculturists set about attempting to drain the vast wetland, and by 1930 they had largely succeeded.

In the late 1990's, The Nature Conservancy got a rare opportunity to purchase a big chunk of this area, and dubbed it Kankakee Sands. They and many partners now own and manage nearly 8,000 acres, with the long-term goal of interconnecting and restoring 20,000 acres of former prairie.

Massive prairie meadows await the visitor, and they are rich in biodiversity. Birders go crazy here. Henslow's Sparrows are everywhere, as are Dickcissels. Blue Grosbeaks are easily found, as are several dozen other breeding birds. Plant diversity is huge, and includes several prairie species that don't quite make it as far east as Ohio. Many are rare in Indiana; all told, about 130 state-listed plant and animal species occur at the Kankakee Sands. We were fortunate indeed to stumble into one of the harder to find rarities: the Western Slender Glass Lizard, Ophisaurus attenuatus. This bizarre reptile lacks legs and is incredibly snakelike. I got some nice photos, and if time permits I'll write about the glass lizard later.

The primary objective was a gorgeous butterfly; everything else was gravy. As befits a huge prairie with lots of flowering plant diversity, there were butterflies everywhere. This is a Red Admiral, Vanessa atalanta, nectaring at the flowers of Buttonbush, Cephalanthus occidentalis. As you may have noticed, it's a boom year for them.

Summer Azures, Celastrina neglecta, were also everywhere. This one is also sipping from Buttonbush. This plant is a great native for the yardscape, especially if you like to draw in butterflies.

I don't recall ever seeing such a high density of Viceroys, Limenitis archippus. Wetlands and roadside ditches were full of various willows, which are primary host plants for this species.

A bit scarcer and much harder to find than the aforementioned buttonbush-loving butterflies is this, the Bronzed Copper, Lycaena hyllus. While large for a copper, it is still a tiny butterfly and they tend to stay low in the vegetation of wet meadows. Finding a few was nice, but out target butterfly is far rarer than this.

Yes! It didn't take long to find Kankakee Sands' most celebrated lepidopteran resident, the Regal Fritillary, Speyeria idalia. This is a big butterfly, near the size of the more familiar Great Spangled Fritillary, Speyeria cybele. Like the latter frit, Regals are extroverts and easily spotted.

We didn't see many Regal Fritillaries, perhaps 4-5, but I'm sure a higher tally could have been achieved by ignoring all of the other cool fauna and flora, and focusing on butterflies. This one is tapping nectar from Wild Bergamot, Monarda fistulosa, a favored food plant.

The Regal Fritillary has become a poster child for butterfly conservation, due to the species' alarming collapse. They used to occur in Ohio - many counties - but it has not seen for at least two decades, and is now considered extirpated. It's disappeared from perhaps 14 other states in its range, too. The Kankakee Sands population is the only one left in Indiana, I believe.

While no one knows exactly why the fritillary is disappearing, it's - like so many other declining rarities - probably a combination of factors. Death by a thousand cuts, sort of. Their host plants are various species of violets in the genus Viola, and those of course must be present. Viral infections have been implicated in diminishing isolated populations. In some areas, excessive use of pesticides may cause collateral damage to the fritillaries. Increased fragmentation of suitable prairie and meadow habitats has undoubtedly taken a toll - this is a species that seems to need large tracts of appropriate habitat. But the undeniable HUGE factor is outright loss of habitat. Over 99% of original Midwestern prairie has been lost, mainly to agriculture, but other types of development have also  eliminated prairie.

Hopefully, restoration of prairies such as at Kankakee Sands can stave off the demise of iconic species such as the Regal Fritillary, and many other prairie-dependent animals and plants.