Monk Parakeets

We now have a flock of twelve or more Monk Parakeets in our neighborhood. They are really chowing down at the bird feeders. They fly around in groups and are very noisy. I imagine that it won't be to long till we see their large stick nests in the preserves, since we are only 1/2 block from Hidden Pond. This one I'm sure is thinking what was my great great grandfather thinking flying up here from South America. They were first sighted in the Hyde Park area more then ten years ago.

Good turnouts last weekend

We had a good turnouts for both our workdays last weekend. We were suprised by a
call saying we couldn't burn either day because of a air quality alert. We moved a lot
of wood at Hidden Pond consoladating piles, preparing them to burn at some
future date. We had new people show up for both workdays. I think you can see
by the group picture that we are a good mix of gender and age. We all work very
well together,the experienced helping the new volunteers. At Black Partridge
John reported clearing brush between the parking lot and the creek.

Three crews work at Cap

Last Saturday afternoon at Cap Sauers was one of three workdays last weekend in Palos. We had three different crews working in different areas of Cap. Matt Mulvaney was doing his Eagle scout service project, and he brought out 25 or more troop members and friends who cut honeysuckle up on the Eskar Trail. Kathy had her chainsaw crew out and they were cutting buckthorn east of the entrance trail. Another group of 7 or 8 volunteers were burning brush piles west of the entrance trail. I think we burned 6 or 7 piles and threw more ground litter on the piles. Thanks to all who made this a very successful workday at Cap. I know Bob was very pleased. Thats Bob serving up tea and cookies at halftime in the last picture.

Creating Katydid Savana

The end of January we were at Katydid prairie creating a savana at the south end of the prairie. All oaks were left with ash, elm and black cherry being removed. This will be a interesting place to observe over the Spring and Summer growing season to see the effect of the increased light. One of the sawyers became creative and made a stool which Dennis used at break time. Trasforming areas like this makes for one of the most exciting workdays. But then each workday creates it's own small transformations, even clearing garlic mustard from around a fallen log creates a better place.

It has been a while since I posted, between the holidays and computer problems I have not been able to give the blog the time it needs. I hope to post more regularly in the future. The pictures are from the January workday at Hidden Pond, a historic day for the site. We had six chainsaws going and lots of other volunteers to haul and burn. We cleared the east end of the prairie and some on the north end too. Thanks to all who were out that day, it made a huge difference. The February workdays have been busy too and we will feature one on the next entry.