James Surowiecki wrote a book a few years ago that began with an anecdote about a crowd that guessed the weight of an ox. When their individual guesses were averaged, they were spot on. The title sums it up: “The…
It’s been called a lot of things: Priest’s Crown, Irish Daisy, Swine’s Snout, Milk Witch and Peasant’s Cloak, to name a few. But regardless of its name, the dandelion is a plant almost everyone knows. This alone makes it special.…
Many Peorians will remember the names, “Uncle Bob and Aunt Billy.” Bob and Sybil Prager were naturalists at Forest Park Nature Center over four decades ago. Bob was a pioneer in restoring some of the beautiful, though little known, flora native to Central Illinois, from the fragile snow trillium, to shooting star, to the eight foot tall big bluestem grass. The clearing where the Nature Center’s “Deer Run Trail” meets “Valley Trail,” is actually an amazingly diverse prairie planting, that was meticulously planted and weeded by Bob, Sybil, and a small cadre of volunteers.
But there’s a problem: research can inadvertently put scientists in conflict with commonly held beliefs that might differ from unwelcome new conclusions. Copernicus and Darwin experienced this. The former taught us that the Earth orbits the Sun, not visa versa.…
Nancy Utesch has a quotation inscribed on a stone in her kitchen, right above the stove: “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye.” This quote from Antoine de…
Amid solitude and snow, the sound of “chick-a-dee-dee-dee,” gives voice to the winter wind. That one-of-a-kind call is so common and recognizable it gives the chickadee its unusual name. This familiar bird may be tiny but it has a very…
The practice of bringing an evergreen tree indoors to celebrate the winter solstice very likely began around the 16th century in Germany. Now conifers and Christmas go together like eggs and Easter; like cake and birthdays, like Molly and Fibber…
There’s a date I won’t soon forget. Tuesday, October 1, 2013. On that day, first thing in the morning, my wife and I entered a restaurant / gift shop in Jacob Lake, Arizona (just a stone’s throw from the north…
Don Jurgs had been a prisoner of war in Germany during World War Two. More recently he was Santa Claus at Mall of America, but I knew him when he was a naturalist in Bettendorf, Iowa. He liked to say…
As days shorten, attention turns not just to football, but to such real life topics as harvest and preparation for winter. We tend to plan ahead more now than at any other time of the year. It’s a time of…
