Chicago Nature Now! Alert June 23, 2016 Right now, Bluff Spring Fen is the place to visit. Watch this video to learn about what you’ll see: Here’s what’s happening in Chicago nature, Right Now!: Bluff Spring Fen in Elgin, Illinois is the best preserve to visit at the moment. It offers flowers like the fragrant pasture rose, foxglove beardtongue,...

Miraculous Spinning Seed of Porcupine Grass   Watch this video to experience the spinning seed of porcupine grass:         In June, you can find porcupine grass and their spear-like seeds at prairies and savannas across the Chicago region, including: Belmont Prairie in Downers Grove, Illinois Bluff Spring Fen in Elgin, Illinois Illinois...

Chicago Nature Now! Alert June 16, 2016 Here’s what’s happening in Chicago nature, Right Now!: Bluff Spring Fen in Elgin, Illinois for pale purple coneflowers, foxglove beardtongue, and porcupine grass. Fermilab Prairie in Batavia, Illinois for foxglove beardtongue and miraculous melting spiderwort. Belmont Prairie in Downers Grove, Illinois is normally...

Miraculous Melting Spiderwort To follow is possibly my favorite caption from my book, My Journey into the Wilds of Chicago: A Celebration of Chicagoland’s Startling Natural Wonders: Spiderwort is a prairie flower, as ethereal as it is enduring. The name is a consequence of its long slender leaves that break suddenly downward, mimicking the legs of a crouching...

National Get Outdoors Day 2016: Saturday June 11 June is National Great Outdoors Month and Saturday, June 11 is National Get Outdoors Day. I have some wonderful Chicago area nature preserves for you to visit, right now, just in time for this special day! But don’t just get outside on Saturday. Keep visiting this website for regular ChicagoNatureNow! Alerts and...

Premiere ChicagoNatureNow! Alert The premiere ChicagoNatureNow! Alert appears below. However, before I recommend the best nature preserve to visit this weekend, I’d like to give you some background about this website and my mission: to support Chicago nature by connecting Chicagoans with nature. There are over 350 square miles of natural area within about an hour’s...