For my column this month, I decided to look back on all the amazing things that I saw and photographed over the course of the last calendar year. The year presented me with a few unique opportunities including checking four items off my personal bucket list: 1) Photographing a total solar eclipse (in April), 2) Photographing the aurora borealis in Illinois (in August and October,)
3) Photographing a comet over northern Illinois (in October), and 4) Seeing and photographing Whooping Cranes in Illinois (in March and November)! Another noteworthy happening during 2024 was photographing and documenting the nesting and chick rearing of Meghan and Harry, a pair of Bald Eagles nesting in Hinckley, Illinois, starting back in January and continuing throughout the year!
This abundance of natural riches bestowed on us this year was truly a blessing. Hopefully, the coming year will be as good for all of us as this year was for me. Our Fox River Valley provided the setting for most of the spectacular natural phenomena I observed and photographed in 2024. It’s my hope that the watershed will continue to be sustained and prosper under the stewardship of organizations like Friends of the Fox River and other ecologically-minded groups. These groups can only be successful with grassroots support from people like you who enjoy and care about our precious resource!
My gift to all of you this holiday season is a collection of pictures of some of my favorite moments from 2024 organized on a month-by-month basis. Until next month, I wish you and yours a happy holiday season and a very happy and prosperous 2025!
Keep On Fixin’ the Fox!
January
Probably my best picture ever of Meghan and Harry, the Hinckley nest Bald Eagle pair. Meghan is on the left.
I saw these two in a dead tree at the Afton Forest Preserve in Dekalb County along the headwaters of Little Rock Creek, a part of the Fox River watershed!
Sunset over the corn crib in my Snowy Owl territory in Lee County. I couldn’t resist this beautiful shot. I didn’t see any Snowy Owls this past year, but one has already made an appearance in the watershed in the last few days in McHenry County near Woodstock!
Hopefully, this will be an irruption year and many more will come down!
An American Kestrel photographed at Afton Forest Preserve on a bright, sunny but cold January day!
The American Kestrel is the smallest member of the falcon family in the United States and is an exceptionally pretty bird. This one is a male who is generally more colorful than the female.
February
Bonnie, the name we gave the female Bald Eagle at the Eldamain Road Bridge nest, sits in the nest bowl.
She may have an egg or eggs in the nest as they typically lay their eggs in late February or early March in our area.
Meghan and Harry in their nest along Little Rock Creek near Hinckley. Nesting season has begun for the area Bald Eagles!
March
A very exciting picture for me!
This was the first time I saw Whooping Cranes in my life! They were spotted at the Nachusa Grasslands in Lee County near Franklin Grove, Illinois about an hour drive northwest of me.
While not in the Fox River watershed, they are such rare birds I’ve included their photos here. As of this writing, only 68 are known to exist east of the Mississippi River in the United States!
Three of them were also spotted in a forest preserve in Kane County in the Fox River watershed this spring!
Another shot of the magnificent Whooping Cranes flying over the Nachusa Grasslands. These are huge birds that can stand five feet tall! They were far away from where I photographed them from (at least 500 yards).
If you do get an opportunity to see them, try not to get too close. A good rule of thumb is no closer than 100 yards if you’re observing from a car and no closer than 200 yards if you’re on foot.
A close-up view of a male Pileated Woodpecker in a tree right above me in the Hoover Forest Preserve along the banks of the Fox River near Yorkville, Illinois.
While not nearly as rare as the Whooping Cranes, they are uncommon enough to make for an exciting find and photograph! They are the largest of the seven woodpecker species native to Illinois and can be about the size of an American Crow!
April
A spring ephemeral wildflower, Hepatica is shown blooming in the Hoover Forest Preserve. These early flowers are called ephemerals because they don’t bloom for very long.
Once the leaves of the trees in the forest fully emerge, there’s not enough light for these pretty Bloodroot flowers to continue blooming. It’s a short-lived treat to see them though.
Another bucket list item (in addition to the Whooping Cranes) for me! I travelled to the area around Muncie, Indiana to view a total eclipse of the Sun!
While the eclipse covered over 90 percent of the Sun’s disc in the Fox Valley area, friends who had seen totality told me I had to witness the spectacle personally.
I’m glad I did!
It was probably the most amazing, awe-inspiring sight I have ever seen!
As the instant totality ends, a phenomenon known as the diamond ring occurs when the Sun’s disc first emerges from behind the Moon. This is a picture of the diamond ring!
May
A beautiful Eastern Meadowlark in the bright sunlight with a brilliant spring green background highlighting the bird’s colors! These birds hold a special place in my heart as they were quite common in my area during my childhood – not anymore though!
As the open grassland and fields gave way to more development, the meadowlarks became much less common to the point of seeing one being a really special occasion.
I was lucky to find this one along a fenceline near the Dekalb-LaSalle County border in the watershed.
A Tree Swallow shows off his iridescent plumage from a perch on top of a bluebird box in Shabbona Lake State Park.
Shabbona Lake is part of the Fox River watershed as it is the result of the damming of Little Indian Creek.
A Red-spotted Purple butterfly resting along a trail in the Hoover Forest Preserve.
These are very pretty insects that add color to a hike in the woods in the late Spring.
June
A Great Blue Heron flies above the waters of the Fox River. These birds look and sound like something almost prehistoric!
They are fun to watch as they hunt for fish and other aquatic life in the river, wading very slowly and patiently before striking with their dagger-like bill when they find their quarry.
A White-tailed Deer peers out from the weeds along a trail at Hoover Forest Preserve.
There are quite a few deer in this preserve, and they are always nice to see!
A Hackberry Emperor Butterfly resting on “my” bench on the Fox River observation platform at the Hoover Forest Preserve. These little butterflies are beautifully marked with understated colors.
A group of baby Mallards follow along behind their mother in a swift portion of the Fox River near Yorkville.
They are so cute!
July
A Red-winged Blackbird balances in the wind atop a dead goldenrod plant from last year in a meadow at the Hoover Forest Preserve.
A common but very beautiful bird in our watershed!
An equally beautiful, but not as common bird, the Rose-breasted Grosbeak perches in a tree along the Fox River at the Hoover Preserve.
This one is a male.
A field of sunflowers blooms at Shabbona Lake State Park. These flowers are planted to attract doves for hunters in the Fall. They also attract other birds and wildlife like deer.
One of Meghan and Harry’s offspring who recently fledged is trying out his or her landing skills on the tip of a high branch in a tree along Little Rock Creek.
While learning to fly is a big deal for a young eagle, learning to land is a little tougher!
August
Another bucket-list photo: the Aurora Borealis over Leland, Illinois! I was out at one of my dark sky spots taking pictures of the Leonid meteor showers when some movement in the sky caught my eye to the north. I pointed my camera toward Ursa Major (the Big Dipper) and saw this! What a sight! The solar maximum has provided quite a few opportunities to see the aurora from the Fox Valley area this year!
An Osprey hovers over the Fox River as it searches for fish in the water below. The Ospreys didn’t show up for me at the Hoover Preserve until August this year.
I wonder if they waited until after the young eagle fledged at the Eldamain nest to avoid irritating the adult Bald Eagles.
The eagles are very proficient at stealing fish from the Osprey after they do the hard work of catching them!
I was out along Big Rock Creek between Hinckley and Big Rock, Illinois one warm August evening when I saw this gorgeous sunset!
We’ve had some really pretty sunsets this year!
As I admired the sunset, I noticed I was alone in watching the spectacle. Meghan and Harry, the Hinckley Bald Eagles were perched in a dead burr oak tree overlooking Big Rock Creek taking in the sunset too!
Speaking of Meghan, I submitted this photo of Meghan “talking” with her offspring on a branch in a tree close to the nest. I think she was telling them it’s time to get out on your own!
The eagle center people said that they hadn’t ever seen a picture like this where and adult and two juveniles were sitting so close together on the same branch.
The shot made quite a stir among followers of the National Eagle Center!
September
Great Egret flies above the water willow patch in front of the observation platform along the Fox River in the Hoover Forest Preserve.
The egrets are such stately birds!
A Great Blue Heron strikes a funny pose on a rock bar in the Fox River at Hoover.
The blue color really shows on this bird.
An unusual shot of a Turkey Vulture from very close range! This vulture landed in a tree above me while I was sitting on the bench on the platform at the Hoover Preserve. He was no more than fifty feet from me!
They are really interesting albeit homely birds.
I hope you’ll indulge me as this isn’t a wildlife shot. I’m a big railfan though and the Union Pacific Big Boy steam engine 34014″ made an excursion trip through our watershed in early September. I took this photo of it in Maple Park, Illinois on the morning of September 9.
For a railfan like me, it was an amazing sight and sound.
October
A view of Comet C/2023 A3 above Big Rock Creek early on an October evening. The bright sky caused by the full October supermoon really washed out the brilliance of the comet.
It was still an amazing sight!
A cropped view of Comet C/2023 A3.
There is the possibility of more comets becoming viewable to the naked eye in the coming months!
A male Downy Woodpecker checks out some berries growing on a vine on a tree branch overhanging the Fox River in the Hoover Forest Preserve.
The Downy Woodpecker is the smallest of the woodpeckers native to Illinois.
A little DeKay’s Brown Snake coils next to a maple leaf along a footpath in the Hoover Preserve. This snake is about a foot long and is full grown.
They are commonly seen at the Hoover Preserve.
A Sandhill Crane loiters in the yard of a business along Galena Boulevard in Sugar Grove.
More and more sandhills cranes are nesting in the Fox River watershed!
November
A Red-bellied Woodpecker clings to the side of a tree along the Fox River near Yorkville. Red-bellied woodpeckers were uncommon here years ago as they were considered more of a southern bird.
In recent years though, they have become one of the most common woodpeckers in our area!
Holy cow! Two more Whooping Cranes! These two were in the bottomlands along the Illinois River just east of Spring Valley, Illinois on the LaSalle/Putnam County line.
I’ve now seen and photographed four of the 68 known whoopers east of the Mississippi River in this calendar year!
A Whooping Crane stands next to a Sandhill Crane. In the stubble of a harvested corn field.
You can see that the Whooper is much bigger than the Sandhill.
Another view of the two Whooping Cranes near the Illinois River.
A female Belted Kingfisher surveys the surface of the Fox River from a an overhanging branch. These pretty, active birds are one of my favorites!
They will stay around all year if there’s open waer to allow them to fish.
December
A Snowy Owl photographed in the Fox River watershed a few miles east of Woodstock, Illinois on Bull Valley Road on the afternoon of December 11, 2024.
It’s hard to tell if this bird is a subadult male or an adult female as both have the mottling on them.
It was nice to see a Snowy Owl already this year!
I’ve included a much closer shot I took of a Snowy Owl in Lee County in March of 2021. Hopefully the early arrival of the Woodstock Snowy Owl will portend good things in terms of numbers of wls that come down this winter.
It’s always fun when they do!
Meghan and Harry perched in a tree just downstream from their nest along Little Rock Creek. They have already begun fixing up the nest for next year’s brood of young eagles.
There’s some symmetry in having the eagles as both the first and last subjects of this column!
They are wonderful birds and are like old friends to me!
An old coot (the author) on the platform overlooking an icy Fox River at the Hoover Forest Preserve, one of his favorite habitats.
Have a Happy Holiday season everyone and try to get out and enjoy the natural wonders our watershed provides!
Keep on Fixin’ the Fox!
