Dragonflies, mosquitoes and nettles…

Pat Fisher (HCH President) led 13 hikers on Saturday July 12 on a simple out and back hike along the Heron Rookery Trail, which follows a portion of the Little Calumet River that once featured over 100 Great Blue Heron nests. After 60 years of nesting here, the herons have moved on to new nesting grounds. These woods remain alive with dozens of birds including kingfishers, woodpeckers and a wide variety of migrating and nesting warblers.

The trail was lush with vegetation including nettles in many places that tried to grab onto legs of the hikers. Dragon flies were abundant, as they had good feeding grounds with the swarms of mosquitoes that followed the hikers on the trail. The result was a hike that had a brisker than usual pace — but the mosquitoes kept up with us. Thankfully most hikers had a good supply of repellant and we all used it liberally. The trail did feature nice spots to listen to the flowing water of the Little Calumet river, to stop to admire the variety of fungi on fallen logs near the trail and see dragon flies posing to have their pictures taken ( photos from the hike )