My ninety-year-old neighbor used to tell me that he was going out fishing… not catching, but fishing. It’s about the experience, he’d tell me. And that is how it is with me and birding… it’s about the experience. Attempting to see some birds—sometimes being able to watch and identify them, and…
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December and January are ‘a visiting time’ – a time to escape the chill of winter and explore new spaces in far-away places, or to travel to see friends and family in old familiar haunts and catch up on the year that was. It’s also a visiting time for sparrows, and my grandfather always told me that…
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October is loud and raucous on the Kankakee Sands prairie. It can also be dark and ominous. In the early morning, you can hear them long before you see them. Off in the distance is a lone tree or perhaps a small cluster of trees. Their branches beginning to tremble. Growing ever louder, a…
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Nature isn’t always what it seems —a chatty little grasshopper sparrow taught me that. For the first ten or so years that I worked at the Kankakee Sands Nursery, I was always looking down, either at the native plants that I was planting into the soil or at the seeds that I was harvesting for our…
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For great springtime birding, there's no place like the Indiana Dunes. More than 350 bird species live or migrate through the dunes every year, drawn to Lake Michigan's open waters and to the diverse habitats available for nesting. Beaches, dunes, woodlands, wetlands, and prairies decorate the…
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Have you set a New Year’s resolution to try something new this year? Or perhaps you’re reading this in June and laughing at the thought of keeping your resolutions but still ready to get outdoors? We have seven awesome ways to go beyond the beach in the Indiana Dunes area. So shake off the sand and…
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This week begins my second month at Indiana Dunes Tourism. As the new kid, I look for ways to learn more about the dunes area. I approached my boss with the idea of actually attending the annual Indiana Dunes Birding Festival, rather than just setting up a welcome table. “Go for it! I think you’ll…
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- Sandhill Cranes landed at the Great Marsh in Beverly Shores, Indiana near the Indiana Dunes. After a 60-year absence, Sandhill Cranes are returning to the Great Marsh in Beverly Shores to raise their young. The cranes have always used the marsh for stopovers during migration, staying for a night…
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