The Eastern Cottontail

An Eastern cottontail rabbit searches for something to eat at the edge of a grassy area.

August 11, 2023 – Long ears, large back feet, big dark eyes, a rusty brown coat, and a small round fluffy white tail that looks like a cotton ball, last seen nibbling grasses at the edge of a brush pile early this morning. That general description matches only one creature known to inhabit the thickets and the brushy areas here in Northeastern Illinois, the prolific and celebrated Eastern cottontail rabbit. Besides those remote thickets and brushy areas, the cottontail is a common sight around farmsteads, along rural roads, and even in urban yards and parks. Where there is cover and a food source, cottontail rabbits are most likely nearby. Sometimes the cottontail is a nuisance to hobby gardeners, a nemesis to some, provoking an ongoing battle of determination between species. Cottontails are prey for hawks, foxes, snakes, coyotes, domesticated carnivores, and even humans. The quick and alert bunnies always have a nearby fast escape route down a small shadowy path and into the thickest of cover, where they can hold tight until the danger is gone. Cottontails are, unfortunately for them, a winter game to hunters using dogs, usually beagles, to find the hunkered rabbit and start the chase; when pursued, the cottontail will run in large circles coming back near where the chase began trying to throw off the pursuer. During the great depression, the Eastern cottontail and other small game became a necessary meat source for many hungry Americans. The cottontail fell victim to snares, clubs, and guns, most certainly thinning out the local rabbit populations during that difficult and needy time. Native Americans would use the soft rabbitskins for blankets, clothing, and slippers for their newborns and toddlers to keep them toasty warm on those cold winter nights. One early account describes a Chippewa-made rabbitskin baby blanket, sewn with fifty to seventy skins and measured fifty inches square. The cottontail rabbit helped stave off hunger and provided protection from the elements during the hard times for humans; it has found a place in the lore and literature of generations, passing on life lessons in song, poetry, children’s books, and oral tradition. We all have stories of the Eastern cottontail rabbit, and I remember a frosty morning in Grampa’s leafless sleeping orchard; a small pile of yellow apples lay mostly brown and rotting near a stump. There was a thicket at the edge with cockleburs and briars, brown, sticky, barbed, and tangled; my 12-year-old face was red from the cold air, it was an unusually chilly late November, and the wind came with a sting. Suddenly with a step that crunched and smashed the frozen weeds, the explosion startled me; a cottontail, a blur of fur, darts from its hiding place, and for that brief moment, I had all but forgotten the bitter wind that tortured me. But the trickster was gone, over the rise and out of sight. After a pause and a sniffle, my heart resumed its usual rhythm, and the chill set in once more. Next time you see that little cottontail out there nibbling the grasses in your yard, take a moment and think about the long history of that resident of the briar patch and its deep connection to man.

The cottontail takes a moment to groom and wash its face.

Hawks And Deer

A Red-tailed hawk, one of the most recognized birds of prey in North America

January 14, 2019 – A Red-tailed hawk, one of the most recognized birds of prey in North America, seen perched in a dead tree watching for movement in a nearby field. The Red-tailed hawk is most often seen hunting along rural highways and busy interstates perched on fence posts and in trees with an intense focus on the grassy areas where a prey animal, like a vole, a mouse or even a Cottontail rabbit might make a fatal mistake and show itself. It is not unusual to see a pair of Red-tailed hawks perched side-by-side during the winter months prior to the nesting season.

The buck was running in obvious fear with its’ mouth wide open and its’ tail straight up

A beautiful fast moving White-tailed buck that was spooked by hunters who were removing their deer stands for the season from a woods east of Kankakee. The buck was running in obvious fear with its’ mouth wide open and its’ tail straight up, a doe not far behind the buck followed in the same direction. In a matter of seconds the two scared deer were across a harvested bean field through a hedge into another field before vanishing into another woods.

The Michigan Lily

Michigan Lily Flower

Michigan Lily Flower

July 5, 2018 – The Michigan lily is a strikingly beautiful flower having blooms of yellow-orange to orange-red that are covered with purplish spots. The flower seems to float in the sea of the surrounding summer foliage. Their contrast of color against that summer world dominated by green can easily remind one of the paper lanterns of the Chinese Shangyuan lantern festival as the orange lilies give the impression of a glowing lantern hanging at the end of their long sturdy green stems. The lilies, with their unusual recurved peddles, bloom for about a month from early to mid-summer. They are perennial and can reach a height of 4 feet. These pendent lilies attract hummingbirds, butterflies and many other species of insects to their nectar. The winged visitors become covered in a yellow-orange pigment of pollen as they fly from flower to flower finding sustenance while at the same time pollinating the lilies. As the flowering stage wanes the glorious attraction of bright color soon gives way to those less glamorous earthy seedpods. The Michigan lily is not considered rare, compared to the almost indistinguishable Turks Cap lily found in a few counties in far Southern Illinois, but it is an uncommon native plant species found in scattered counties throughout the state and does require a healthy natural area to even exist. Michigan lilies can be cultivated adding both beauty and the benefits of nectar to a personal garden or landscape but the real treat is to see the plants with their showy blossoms thriving in the wild in some remote sunny opening at the edge of a wooded area where they will most certainly attract pollinators and nature lovers alike.

Wild Michigan Lily

Wild Michigan Lily Plant