Granted a mild, sunny evening, we headed down to the Forum Nature Preserve, a local, prairie-wetland refuge that we ignored in recent weeks due to the oppressive heat and humidity. In our absence, the prairie grasses had grown to five feet or more and were now adorned with the golds and purples of late summer: goldenrod, yellow coneflowers, black-eyed susans, thistles and blazing star. Indigo buntings sang from atop the prairie saplings while goldfinches and yellow-billed cuckoos foraged across the woodland border.
But the highlight of this evening was at the large seasonal lake, which, following two months of excessive heat, had nearly evaporated, leaving a broad, shallow, meandering pool. Frogs and turtles peered from the deeper areas and small fish splashed about, desperate to find a path to safety. Taking advantage of this evening buffet, great blue and green-backed herons, stalked the shallows, feasting on the hapless victims, while, along the expanding mudflats, killdeer, spotted sandpipers and a host of migrant shorebirds, fed on aquatic invertebrates, exposed by the shrinking lake.
Away from this center of activity, white-tailed deer browsed in the fading sunlight, nighthawks circled overhead and a barred owl called from the creekside forest. Were it not for a persistent and annoying horsefly, it would have been a peaceful, evening stroll.
