Bugs! Mud! Water! Fun!

Summer camp isn’t just for kids.

This week, 15 grandparents and their grandkids came to Severson Dells Nature Center for an outdoor adventure, and the chance to bond in nature. 

Creek sloshes, butterfly catching, pond mucking and scavenger hunts were among the activities that people from age 7 to 70 took part in.

One of our campers was Rockford Register Star Columnist Geri Nikolai, who grew up on a farm but hadn’t dipped her toes in a creek since she was in grade school. She wrote about the camp on the paper’s Website in a story, Camp reveals creepy — and fun — side of nature.

It wasn’t the first time I’d waded through a creek, but it’s been 50 years since the last time. And I would not have been there, except that granddaughter and I were at Severson’s grandparents/grandkids nature camp, and the 9-year-old insisted I go in the creek with her. I’m glad she did.

I had forgotten how cold the water feels in some spots, and warm in others where the sun is hitting it. How fun to maneuver over the rocky bottom and discover what’s living under the rocks. Our group found bugs, jellylike eggs, and two crawfish — one live and one dead.

For Geri and her granddaughter, fun was a byproduct; the camp had a purpose. Her granddaughter was afraid of the woods. See related video: Overcoming Fear of Deer

One reason I signed us up for this camp was my grandchildren’s fear of anything approaching wild. Last summer, when we were searching for 17-year cicadas at another forest preserve, 9-year-old refused to walk down a trail surrounded by woods. Bears, she shrieked.

At Severson, she walked down wooded paths with groups, found no dangerous animals, and let on that it was kind of pretty out there. She freaked when we discovered a snake in a downed tree, but later forgot about that as she entered prairie grass to net a butterfly.

Experience is a great way for kids to overcome fear. And there’s now better way to experience nature than with grandma, grandpa, or both.

Read Geri’s story:  Camp reveals creepy — and fun — side of nature.

Video

WTVO Stateline Green Visits
Camp-Peek-Into-Creek

e-Notes From the Dells

June 2008

Spread the word about Severson Dells to your people! Forward this newsletter by clicking the link at the bottom of this page.

  In this issue . . . . .

1. A World Class Butterfly Dude and A Top Shelf Author
2. Butterfly Hikin’ With the Pros
3. Kiddie Lit and Outdoor Discovery
4. What You’ve Missed in the Rock River Times
5. Whaddya Mean There’s Nothing to do Around Here?
6. Hall Creek Scamper: Run Green on July 26
7. What Kids Say About Nature
8. Leopold Project: Using A Sand County Almanac as a Curriculum Guide (Register by Sat.  June 21)
 

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   1. World Class Butterfly Dude & Top Shelf Author

Over the years some of the country’s greatest naturalists, conservationists, authors and artists have come to Severson Dells.

  We’ve got a double header you won’t want to miss: World renown butterfly expert Robert Michael Pyle and a Severson Dells’ favorite, writer extrordinaire Scott Russel Sanders.

Pyle’s Bio: http://www.xerces.org/Butterfly_Conservation/butterflyathon.html
Sanders Bio: http://www.scottrussellsanders.com/biog.html

They’ll be at the Nature Center on Friday, June 27 for a twin bill, starting at 6:30 p.m. The program is entitled The Extinction of Experience. IT’S FREE! Sponsored in memory of Dr. Alan Hutchcroft.

Scott will read from his forthcoming book, First Boy in the Woods.  

Bob is making a return trip, too, as he traverses North America on a quest to find as many of the 800 species of butterflies that call the continent home.  He’ll talk about how close daily involvement with nature is the only true antidote to alienation and what he calls “the extinction of experience.”

Then, they’ll lead a group discussion on how we can reconnect a society that has pushed nature away.

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    2. Butterfly Hikin’ With the Pros
  Note: These hikes are open to members only and there are fees. But they’ll be worth every penny!
To join, call (815) 335-2915. 

Come, be in the presence of butterfly greatness. Bob Pyle and Jim Wiker know Lepidoptera.  They want you to know butterflies, too. They’ll lead Severson Dells members on two separate hikes to discover our region’s flying jewels on Saturday, June 28.

Bob, is founder of the Xerces Society, a worldwide organization that  seeks to protect and conserve invertebrates. He is one of the top butterfly experts in the world. Jim wrote the book, literally, on Skippers of Illinois.    You won’t find a higher caliber nature walk this summer, if ever. So call and sign up.

Click here to learn more.

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3. Children’s Lit as Springboard to Outdoor Discovery 

If you read to a child, you need to join us this Sunday, June 22, to help make kid’s books truly come alive.   You’ll explore cross-cultural picture books and venture afield for activities suggested in the stories.

The workshop will be co-led by Mira Reisberg and Clifford Knapp.

Click here to learn more

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4. What You’ve Missed in the Rock River Times

Severson Dells staffers are writing weekly columns for the Rock River Times. Please pick up a copy of the paper, or buy an ad to support our work!  

The candied fable – by Don Miller My Weeds — by Brian Leaf The last float – by Don Miller Seeking a sense of place — by Don Miller The gift of nature education — by Brian Leaf

 

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Support Severson Dells: Shop at our Gift Store

Books, puzzles, jewelry, natural lotions and more. Proceeds support environmental education.

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5. Whaddya Mean There’s Nothing to Do Around Here?

June 2008
22: Using Children’s Literature as Springboards to Outdoor Discoveries, 1:00 pm
23-25: Grandparents and Kids Camp, 9:00 am
27: Extinction of Experience, featuring Robert Michael Pyle and Scott Russell Sanders, 6:30 pm
28: Butterflies in the Field with Robert Michael Pyle and Jim Wiker, 9:30 am and 1:30 pm.

July 2008
08-10: Nature Play for Little Kids, 9:00 am
12: Leopold Education Project, 8:30 am
22-24: Adventure Quest Camp
26: Hall Creek Scamper
26: In Flow With Nature’s Inspirations, 8:30 am
26: A Night of Music: Everybody Needs a River, 7:00 pm
27: Bats at the Beach (at Pec River FP), 7:00 pm

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6. Hall Creek Scamper: Run Green!

Come run with us on a trail race that’s more than just a romp through the woods. Hall Creek Scamper Race Director Stephanie Baliga has applied the 4 Rs — reduce, reuse, recycle and rethink — to this event. Her goal: Create a running event in a beautiful setting that minimizes waste and energy inputs.

So on July 26th, there’s a 5k open race, a 5k youth race and a 1 mile run-walk-scavenger hunt. In addition to individual awards, we’ll score the 5k races like a cross country meet, so get a few running pals together and compete as a team.

Register online now!

Race begins at 8 a.m. Register now as entries after July 23 will cost more.

There will also be a green expo where area businesses will display their environmentally friendly wares.
Someday, we hope this will become a template for other race directors to follow.

Click here for a video about the race (produced by Phil Pilcher of The Abilities Center).

Volunteers needed: Contact Stephanie at dellsgreenrun@gmail.com

Learn More About The Hall Creek Scamper.

We need a race director for 2009. Know anybody? dellsgreenrun@gmail.com

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7. What Kids Say About Nature   Do you remember seeing your first deer? Jasmine saw her first whitetail during a visit to Severson Dells.

Click here and she’ll tell you her story.

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  8. Leopold Project: Using A Sand County Almanac as a Curriculum Guide

When: Saturday, July 12, 8:30 am-3:30 pm

Where: Severson Dells Nature Center, 8786 Montague Road

For Whom: Teachers and Youth Leaders (Illinois teachers can earn 6 CPDUs!)

What: The Leopold Education Project is a curriculum that guides learning through direct observation of the natural world. Aldo Leopold’s book, A Sand County Almanac, forms the basis around which the curriculum is centered. Participants will receive a curriculum guide, a copy of A Sand County Almanac and a set of task cards.

How Much: $45 (Full Scholarships Available Through Winnebago County Pheasants Forever)

Instructors: Dr. Clifford Knapp, Professor Emeritus at NIU and Richard Benning, Severson Dells Nature Center.

Pre-registration is required. Deadline June 21. Call (815) 335-2915 to register.

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About Severson Dells Nature Center

What: Your link to the Natural World in Northern Illinois Where: 8786 Montague Road, Rockford, IL 61102 When: Open Mon.-Sat., 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m.; Sun., 1-4:30 p.m.
Call: (815) 335-2915
Write: info@seversondells.org

Severson Dells Nature Center is a 501(c)3 non profit organization. Our mission: To Link People to Nature Through Education.

We rely on donors to support our work. Click here now to show your support.

© Severson Dells Nature Center

 

Don Miller is doing fine. Some read into the Rock River Times column he wrote a few weeks that he was ill. Aside from the usual aches and pains, Don is A-OK.

His column is about a dear friend, who was diagnosed with cancer. He didn’t know if they’d ever get the chance to float the Kishwaukee River again so he floated the river with her in his mind, recording his thoughts in a wonderful piece that must be posted so you can read it.

This is as it appeared in the Rock River Times’ May 21-27, 2008, issue.

The Last Float

by Don Miller

It has been weeks since the doctor told you the cancer you had was terminal. Your memory isn’t of the conversation of that day, but of the family being by your side and the hugs and warmth of the room. There is no time to waste; in short time, you develop your “bucket” list.

One of the things you would like to do before the end is to float the Kishwaukee River one more time. That day comes, and we put in at the canoe landing at the Kish River Forest Preserve, our destination to be Atwood Park. The river is as you remember-clear, swift and cool. You don’t care what that Miller guy says, the Indian translation of Kishwaukee is “clear waters,” and not “sycamore trees.” You are not going to paddle. Mentally, you find yourself somewhere in between wanting it all to come to an end quickly and going slowly to have the time to say goodbye to all the people and places you have loved. The current sweeps you—and your thoughts—downstream.

You have always found the rocky wall of rapids just down river from the put-in a little unnerving. However, this time, the canoe slits the “V” without you even thinking of spilling. A kingfisher chatters to you from a low branch hanging above the water’s surface. Then, she lifts off her perch and heads down river, the river guide. Does she know what is at the end of this float? At the end of her flight? Freedom.

Families on the grassy banks are watching the river flow. You pass them by and hold your hand high, and face your palm open toward them: the sign of friendliness and peace. The people respond and then grow smaller, until they vanish out of sight. At the end of the boundary of the forest preserve, the river takes almost a 90-degree right turn, heading west into a sinking sun. You squint to the bank on the south, and you see the sign, “Fran’s Bend.” You smile a Mona Lisa-like smile. Behind the half grin you know there will come a time the sign may have little meaning to most; but for those few, there will always be a special memory.

Passing by Rotary Forest Preserve in the late spring, one can still see all the way through the woods. Everything is exposed, nothing can hide. The area has a green cast to the forest floor and trees, the hope of a coming spring. How many of them have you seen? This is the best of them. You hear the shrill “whoo-eek, whoo-eek, whoo-eek” of the wood ducks leaving the water off the point of Goose Island. The words of Wendell Berry’s “The Peace of Wild Things” float in your consciousness:

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water,

and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

The Kishwaukee Gorge is one of the best swimming holes in the whole valley. You remember floating the current, bobbing in your life jacket, suspended in the waters, carefree and not all that younger. You choose to sit and watch today. An osprey glides overhead and lands across the river and calls, “chewk, chewk, chewk.” You think possibly he is telling the swimmers to get out of the river; he eats those fish they are swimming among.

Naked sycamores, towering cottonwoods, majestic eagles, muckets, sandshells, pimplebacks and mussels—all of those beautiful river critters that make this their home. How many generations have called it theirs, just as you and your daughter and granddaughter have? Water beads on your cheek, the sky is blue, a few clouds are forming.

You toss a rock into the flow, and ripples go in all directions. How far will they travel? You have made many ripples in your life. These include waves of education, those you have helped in so many ways and your family. You will never realize your impact. What ripples will those you have touched send out? Endless.

Just before the bridge at Atwood Park, you begin to worry that on this last float you will not see the great blue herons. Then, circling overhead almost on cue, the river dancers appear. They lightly drop out of the sky on the rocky bar. They watch intently as you float to the other side as to not scare them away. You raise your palm to them. They watch you float down the river. The setting sun casts long shadows. The air is beginning to chill, and it wakes you from the mystic spell of the heron’s gaze.

The take-out is now a new canoe landing. We bypass the mess and get out beyond the cement pad on the grass. The big cottonwood is gone, the stairs are not the same. Changes occur. It doesn’t matter—this is your last float anyway. You did what you could, more than most. You stare out at the river; it continues to flow, as will the lives of all of those you are leaving. You think it is all good, but wish maybe to ride the current just a little longer. But you say, “No.” There are new trails to travel into the unknown. Like always, you welcome the new adventure. You sit and breathe it all in and think…who said you can’t take it with you, because you know you will.

Don Miller is education director at Severson Dells Nature Center, 8786 Montague Road, Rockford. For more about Severson Dells, visit www.seversondells.com.

The bounty of the spring migration brought two new birds to the Severson Dells Nature Center’s list this week — Summer Tanager and Harris’ Sparrow.

Summer Tananger

Harris’s Sparrow

Photographer Mary Kay Rubey (Click here to view her gallery) captured both on camera Thursday, May 8. Both species were spotted again on Friday, May 9. The Tanager was in a bush on the north side of the center; the Harris’ sparrow was seen on the ground under the bird feeders at the nature center.

Summer Tanagers are normally found in the dry oak and mixed forests of the Southern US, although the species breeds as far north as Wisconsin.

Harris’ Sparrow breeds in northern Canada, west of Hudson Bay and into northern Manitoba. Its Eastern range in winter is typically Iowa.

The two new species join more than 190 others that have been documented at Severson Dells Forest Preserve the past 32 years.

This week’s sightings:

May 6: Monarch Butterfly

May 6: Ruby throated hummingbird; Flicker; Rough-winged swallow; Blue Gray Gnatcher; Swainson’s and Wood Thrush; Red-eyed Vireo; Warblers: Tennessee, Yellow, Yellow-rumped, Palm, Black and White, American Red-start, Northern Water thrush, Common Yellow Throat; Scarlet Tanager; Rose-breasted Grosbeak; Rufus-sided Towhee, LOTS of Indigo Buntings; Sparrows: Chipping, Field, Song, White-Throated, and White-Crowned; Eastern Meadowlark; Baltimore Oriole; Goldfinch,
Flicker, Gray Catbird; Downy woodpecker; phoebe, Tree swallow; Blue jay; Cardinal; Crow; Chickadee; White-breasted nuthatch; house wren; robin; red-winged blackbird; cowbird; grackle; purple finch; house finch; turkey vulture, Green Frog; Bullfrog; painted turtle; red-eared turtle; Monarch butterflies; painted lady; cabbage whites

May 7: Red-headed Woodpecker; Orioles; Green Heron at pond

May 8: Harris’ Sparrow; Summer Tanager (1st spring); Lincoln’s Sparrow

May 9: Harris’ Sparrow; Summer Tanager

In this issue

1. John G. Severson, 1921-2008
2. Second Chance to Slosh in a Creek
3. It’s Happening May
4. Don Miller Classic: An Ode to Parents
5. The Prettiest Run You’ll Enter This Year
6. The Bioblitz
7. Sightings
8. Birds, blooms and rebates
9. Who Was Severson Dells?
10. Note to Insightbb.com subscribers

Click here to read May’s e-Notes From the Dells

An Ode to Parents

Don penned this poem for the Spring of 1990. With Mother’s Day and Father’s Day drawing near, this is an ode to his parents for raising him with an environmental ethic. His hope was then, as it is now, that it had meaning to someone else.

I was fortunate in life.
I was very young when my senses were made aware of Nature’s beauty.
I have seen the mountains reaching for the heavens.
I have felt the fine, cool mist of the ocean.
I have heard the geese on their southerly flight.
I was able to touch quiet rivers as we paddled and dreamed of days long ago.
I was taught of dependence and interactions in the natural world.I was inspired! I live with an admiration and a respect.
I owe my life to those people who allowed me those inspirations.
Those inspirations did not come from Leopold or Muir, but someone nearer.
Some day I hope my children will be able to say these words to me.

by Don Miller

Click the Brick

Second Bat Program Added: 5:30 p.m., Saturday, April 19