Underwhelmed by Lockport Prairie (original post 7/16/12)

I joined a walk on Saturday at Lockport Prairie Nature Preserve in Will County, in hopes of seeing the federally endangered Hines emerald dragonfly, and also to check off another IL nature preserve (bringing my grand total to 35).  It was fairly disappointing.  There was an odd mix of people--the guy leading the walk was an extremely knowledgeable consultant who has been doing population studies of the HED since 1995, so I had no complaints there.  There were a few odonatophiles there, who knew their dragons & damsels and had fancy binocs and asked all the right questions.  There were several older folks there with no apparent ecological knowledge, who showed up in shorts and tennis shoes (I should have been tipped off to this when the guy taking my registration info over the phone asked if I needed any special accommodations for the walk [and why did he ask for my birthdate?  Weird.]), and who had a lot of trouble navigating the uneven ground when we ventured off the boardwalk.  I have to admit, I took a wicked delight in imagining them trying to navigate the Carex stricta that grows in knee-high tussock mazes in some preserves.  And then there was me, the dumbass botanist who brought a camera instead of binoculars.  I had dreams of a Hines perching obligingly by the path so I could get shots of its sexy green eyes.  I failed to do my research--they are fliers, not perchers.

Turns out, it didn't really matter anyway--some of the experts claimed to spot the Hines in the air (they are distinguished in flight by their thickened rear ends and the tendency for their abdomens to curve slightly downward--a gestalt not mentioned in the field guides), but the consultant didn't seem too convinced as to the authenticity of these claims.  We saw hordes of green darners, 12-spotted skimmers and black saddlebags, but no emeralds.  It seems that the rivulets coming down from the bluff are mostly dry in this time of drought, and in the areas where they're still wet, the dead cattail canes from last year had gotten flattened by the windstorm on July 1, so all of the good cruising habitat for the dragons was covered up.  I got a couple of sweet dragonfly fridge magnets though, courtesy of the Will Co FPD, so I wasn't too miffed.

Afterwards, I went on a solo hike down the trail cutting through the center of the preserve, parallel to the bluff & river.  I figured that since it's a dolomite prairie, with leafy prairie clover as an alleged inhabitant, there should be some unusual flora.  I figured wrong.  It's not that it was in BAD shape, other than a preponderance of cattail & a couple of phragmites infestations; the prairie was just boring.  A mix of native & pasture grasses, with your typical seed mix forbs--Monarda, Rudbeckia, Pycnanthemum.  I went off-trail to investigate a promising looking area in the marsh level, where the cattails haven't gotten a foothold yet.  Not bad--calamint, Deschampsia, Lysimachia quadriflora, and various low sedges & bulrushes.  Overall, very low diversity.  There must be good pockets hiding somewhere though.

As a nice postscript, I got my first tick of the year, about a day and a half after the excursion.  I found one attached to my noggin last night.  What in the hell had he been doing for 36 hours?  I had washed my hair since the walk, done numerous scalp checks, and put all of my hiking clothes in the hamper.  Maybe he had been hanging out in my car all day, and he hopped back on when I went for a drive.  Maybe I picked him up at Elizabeth's house.  Mysterious little buggers.