4/7/11
I figured today I’d direct my expedition toward Cowles Bog. Hiking the rail-side Calumet trail was fairly uneventful other than the constant buzz and hum of mist hitting the high tension power lines that run along the tracks and trail. The bird activity was really chill, with the occasional woodpecker, titmouse, robin, and a lone Eastern Towhee (Pipilo erythrophthalamus) also known as ground robin.
It was maybe a half mile down the path that I came across a relatively well beaten path which perked my interest. I naturally decided to explore. As I moved along I came across an increasing number of evergreens which from a distance looked like Fir trees (Abies sp.) but were actually Spruces (Picea sp.) and in pretty fair condition. There was also a great amount of rose plants (Rosa sp.) which made the majority of the live underbrush and could prove very difficult to move through but my staff was handy in helping temporarily move the thorny limbs aside.
As I proceeded deeper, which for the record there wasn’t much of a path anymore, I found the ground getting wetter and the vegetation changing accordingly with the rose bushes giving way to budding Skunk Cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus), a plethora of moss, and evergreens and oaks (Quercus sp.) changing to Green Ash (Fraxinus pennsylvanicus). Soon the ground became far too generous with the depths it allowed my boots to reach and inspection of the horizon revealed that the trees abruptly ended and a wall of cattails (Typha latifolia) was further ahead. I was confident at this point I was indeed approaching a bog but this was not the ideal way of doing it both for the sake of habitat I would disturb and my own by not getting randomly trapped in muck with no way of being found. I veered back toward the main trail and, with all my nimbleness and best efforts, gracefully crashed and stumbled through a wall of dead branches blocking all ways back to the main path. Along the way I heard a Pileated Woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus) knocking and while I was not able to get a good view of the bird I did get a good view of one of its abandoned nest projects.
I proceeded once again beside the train tracks and soon reached the trail head, well actually road, of the Cowles bog trail. By now the mist had lifted a little, and I was able to see quite a distance. The best part? There was quite a distance over the bog to observe! This bog was huge with the trees on the opposite side like twigs emerging from the mist. While much of it may have seemed like a monocrop of cattails, which admittedly it was, it was still mind boggling how beautiful and vast this area was.
While I was not able, in the interest of time, to walk the entire path another indication of the bog’s size was that I never did find the center. One of my hopes of coming to this area was also to chase down the Sandhill Cranes (Grus canadensis) that eluded me last time but I was disappointed in this; I hadn’t even heard them call once throughout the day. In fact the Red-winged Blackbirds (Agelaius phoeniceus), which usually are a staple of any wetland, were pretty scarce. Moving a short way along a constructed path into the heart of the bog ended up scaring, on two occasions, the same species of bird which I cannot positively identify because by the time I had noticed the bird’s presence, it had already taken off and flew into a new, inaccessible, area. I suspect based on the habitat, flight pattern, the call, and what little I did see of the plumage though that they were Woodcocks (Scolopax minor). By the time I turned around to return to the road I had reached a point where my staff sank a foot into the muck before hitting anything solid.
To Be Continued
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