Who knows what kinds of treasures are buried under the beautiful sand of the Indiana Dunes State Park? Come find out on Saturday, May 19 as you Go Minelabbing on National Metal Detecting Day.

Advance registration is required for this fun-filled day that includes over $25,000 in prizes, raffles and giveaways. Kids have their own hunt with a chance to win an X-TERRA and other prizes, and adults can win E-TRACs, Excaliburs and other prizes.

You can register at www.gominelabbing.com, and your $25/adult or $3/child fee includes lunch and dinner, a Task Force Donation, access to all hunts, contests and games, raffle tickets, goodie bags, gift certificates and more.

Schedule of Events
7:00 AM Parking opens
8:00 AM Registration begins
9:00 AM Excalibur hunts begin
10:00 AM Activities guest speaker
11:00 AM Lunch service begins
11:30 AM Kids hunt
12:00 PM Morning hunt raffle & Minelab speaker
1:00 PM E-TRAC silver hunts begin
2:00 PM Activities and guest speaker
3:30 PM Afternoon hunt raffl e
4:00 PM Dinner service begins
5:00 PM Minelab speaker, dinner raffle & grand prize drawing

If you’ve ever been curious about the nightly nature noises in your backyard, join frog expert Bob Brodman as he unveils the secret life of frogs during the Saturday, April 7 Open House at the Douglas Center for Environmental Education.

Mr. Brodman has been studying the diversity of frog species in Miller Woods and other locations in the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore’s wet environments for years and will be on hand to show pictures of these elusive animals at 1:30 p.m.  Weather permitting, he will also lead a hike to the interdunal ponds outside to access the numbers and species of the amphibians visiting today. Families can enjoy frog crafts and games as well throughout the day.

This program is part of the year round free Saturday open house programs at the Douglas Center. Bring the whole family and learn more about this declining animal species worldwide and ways you might help.  Free refreshments and a frog craft will be on hand afterwards.

The Douglas Center is located at 100 N. Lake Street in Gary, Indiana. For more information on this or other programs at Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, visit the park website at www.nps.gov/indu/planyourvisit  or contact our information desk at 219- 395-1821.

By Alyssa Nyberg, Kankakee Sands Nursery Manager and frog aficionado (edited for BTB)

In the spring, when the nighttime temperatures are above 45 degrees, the March air becomes thick with the sweet song of frogs calling from the wet ditches, depressions and ponds of the Kankakee Sands Prairie Restoration.

In our Kankakee Sands region, there are 12 species of frogs and toads that might be calling during spring evenings.   Frogs and toads are easily identified by their calls, like the high pitched ‘peeeeeep’ of the spring peeper or the plucked banjo string ‘plounk’ call of the green frog. Frogs will call during their mating season in the spring, then quiet down for the summer and fall and finally hibernate in the winter.

One of the quietest members of the spring frog symphony, but one of the most abundant at Kankakee Sands is the Northern leopard frog (Rana pipiens).   It is the frog you are most likely to see hoping ahead of you on the trail or bounding across the road, legs dangling behind it when it is airborne. The Northern Leopard Frog is 2-3.5 inches in length, a respectable size for a frog.  Its base color can range from bright green to an olive green-brown; it will always have dark rounded spots on its back that resemble the spots of a leopard.

The historical range of the Northern leopard frog in Indiana was throughout northern, central, and southeast part of the state in freshwater sites with ample vegetation like wetlands, marshes, ponds and moist fields.  In the summer they wander far from standing water through moist vegetation.  Over the past 30 years, the numbers have declined so dramatically that now in Indiana the Northern leopard frog is federally listed as a ‘species of special concern’, which means it is being monitored but not yet managed as a protected species with Federal oversight.

A Northern leopard frog’s diet consists of insects and spiders, slugs and earthworms, and occasionally other smaller frogs.  A Northern leopard frog is part of the diet of birds, snakes, bull frogs, and small mammals like the raccoon and opossum.

The mating call of the Northern leopard frog is a low quiet deep rattling snore lasting 3 seconds followed by a ‘chuckling’ or the same sound that you can make by rubbing your thumb against a balloon.  It is one of the quietest calls of all the frogs in our area. The call is often overpowered by the more robust calls of other species.  However, the northern leopard frog is less secretive than other breeds and relatively easy to spot.  Breeding season for the Northern leopard frog is mid-March to the end of April.

March on out to Kankakee Sands this March.  During the day, go ahead and re-discover the joy of catching a frog, holding it in your hands, and then watching it hop away.  During the night, enjoy the surround sound of the frog choirs at Kankakee Sands.  Bets are on that you are sure to see a Northern leopard frog when you come.

If you are interested in taking part in frog call surveys or frog monitoring, there are several websites where you can learn more about becoming a frog monitoring volunteer.  Chicago Wilderness Calling Frog Survey http://www.habitatproject.org/frogsurvey/index.html or FrogWatch USA  www.aza.org/frogwatch/  or Indiana DNR Amphibian Monitoring Program  www.in.gov/dnr/fishwild/3325.htm .

The Kankakee Sands Efroymson Family Prairie Restoration is a 7,800 acre prairie restoration project of The Nature Conservancy located in Newton County, Indiana.  The Nature Conservancy office is located on US 41 between CR 400N and CR 250N. The mission of The Nature Conservancy is to preserve the plants, animals and natural communities that represent the diversity of life on Earth by protecting the lands and waters they need to survive.  Kankakee Sands is always open for visitation and an informational kiosk is located out front of the office with information about the project, the trails, and the prairie ecosystem.  For more information about the project, visit our website at www.nature.org/Indiana , or call 219-285-2184.

Enjoy a sweet taste of our shared Indiana Dunes heritage at the annual Maple Sugar Time. Join National Park Service rangers and volunteers at Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore’s historic Chellberg Farm from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. on March 10 & 11, 2012 for this fun and educational event marking the unofficial start of spring.

Over the past 400 years, pure maple sugar and syrup have played very different roles in the lives of dune’s residents. This difference is as much a result of our changing relationship to our natural resources as it is a change in technology. Take a short easy stroll down the farm trail and learn why American Indians first boiled maple sap into sugar and how latter European settlers used large iron kettles to make the sap into syrup. Then, stand in the warm steam of the sugar shack where sap is boiled using the same methods that the Chellberg family used during the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Try your hand at drilling a tap hole or help the kids complete a junior ranger activity sheet so they can earn a Junior Ranger Heritage Patch. Enjoy a free taste of pure maple syrup and compare it to modern “pancake syrup,” then warm up in the farm house and collect recipes featuring maple syrup. Admission for all activities is free. Pure maple syrup and sugar, and related products, will be for sale.

Maple Sugar Time takes place at the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore’s Chellberg Farm on Mineral Springs Road between U.S. 20 and Highway 12 in Porter, Indiana. For more information on this or other programs at Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, visit the park website or contact the park’s information desk at 219-395-1882.

While glaciers shaped the entire Beyond the Beach area, the Moraine Region
showcases their phenomenal earth-moving power. Picture a bulldozer a mile high and as wide as your eyes can see. That was the power of the Wisconsin ice sheet as it pushed slowly south from Canada, reaching as far as central Indiana. The enormous glacier gathered immense amounts of debris—from sand to giant boulders—as it scraped over the land. As the climate warmed about 16,000 years ago, the glacier melted back to the north, dropping its debris as it retreated.

That debris formed the hills—what scientists call glacial moraines—of the Moraine Region. Glaciation shaped the sites you’ll see as you explore this region—from Pinhook Bog, which formed from a glacial ice chunk left behind by the retreating glacier, to Taltree Arboretum and Gardens, perched atop the Valparaiso Moraine, with its 360 acres of woody plant collections, formal gardens, wetlands, woodlands, and restored prairies.

You can sample and take home flavors from the land at such Moraine Region sites as Anderson’s Vineyard and Winery and Broken Wagon Bison Farm. The two communities within the Moraine region—Hebron and Valparaiso—invite you to discover quintessential Midwestern living, from the peaceful small-town feel of Hebron to the lively college-town atmosphere of Valparaiso. Whether you stop for a meal or stay for the weekend, you’ll find all the amenities you need, plus a big welcome, here in the Moraine Region.