Blog

By Jack MacRae House finches are common birds with a common name. They are moderate sized birds with a conical, sparrow-like bill. Male house finches are red/pink on their forehead, face, throat, and breast. They have a pink rump. Their wings, backs, and bellies are streaked with shades of brown. Female house finches are streaky,...

What’s Your Connection to Friends of the Fox River?

Sunday, December 1, 2019

by Gary Swick We are all connected on many levels and in many ways; as family, community, culturally, professionally and as members of our watershed’s ecosystems. I’m going to suggest that you may also have a spiritual connection to the Friends of the Fox River. Genetic Connections The origin of...

Meet Your Neighbors: Meet the Sumacs

Friday, November 1, 2019

By Jack MacRae The burgundy leaves of sumac fill the Fox Valley’s fall woods. The hue comes from the pigment anthocyanin and is greatly influenced by the weather. Here is how: Cool nights (below 45f) inhibit the tree’s chlorophyll production. Without chlorophyll, sugars accumulate in the leaves. Increased sugar leads to a rise in...

It’s Your River – Vote to Protect It!

Friday, November 1, 2019

By Gary Swick, President While in Waubonsee Creek in Oswego, with 7th graders from the Aurora University STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) school, I got a surprise. We were doing a physical-feature analysis to make a map of the creek segment that we were monitoring. Students focused upon two concrete...

It WAS Our Fox River Day!

Tuesday, October 1, 2019

By Gary Mechanic, Executive Director The 1st It’s Our Fox River Day was a successful start for an annual event despite some awful weather for a cleanup. More than 150 volunteers braved the winds, cloudy skies, and rain to pick up trash. For the first time in history, local organizers...

Nature’s Gifts

Tuesday, October 1, 2019

Sunday, September 1, 2019

By Gary Swick, FOFR President Nature offers us much that we take for granted. Our need for drinkable water, clean air, and bounty of food choices are often underappreciated because they are so readily available. In addition, nature provides many beautiful gifts of art for our appreciation. Many of us...

Blue Greens in the Fox – Another Dam Matter

Sunday, September 1, 2019

By Art Malm, P. E., FOFR Director A disclaimer: The study of algae is a huge and enormously complex science. Every generality thought to be true has its exceptions. Even the word algae should be printed with an asterisk, explaining its use to be generally related to microscopic organisms that...

Meet Your Neighbors: A Year in the Life of a Smallmouth Bass

By Pat Kirmse Spring A warm March rain raised the temperature of the Fox River to 47 degrees and a 15″ smallmouth bass starts to stir. She is five years old and has survived another Illinois winter, the coldest and snowiest in her life. Fortunately there were no heavy midwinter...

Meet Your Water Snake Neighbors

Thursday, August 1, 2019

By Slithering Jack MacRae Queen snakes are gentle but squirmy water snakes with unique colors. They are not female king snakes, but belong to an entirely different taxonomic genus and family. Their very cool name in Latin “Regina septemvitatta” means Queen Seven Stripe. Queen snakes are about 2 feet long...

Plastics are Breaking the Laws

Thursday, August 1, 2019

By Gary Swick, President At our Yorkville river cleanup, I realized that my very full bag of trash was exceptionally light. It lacked the usual heavy glass bottles and pieces of metal. The contents were primarily cigarette butts, plastic bottles, food wrappers, and miscellaneous other plastic products like polystyrene (Styrofoam)....

The Fabulous Fox Water Trail

Thursday, August 1, 2019

By Art Malm, P.E., FOFR Director The Fabulous Fox Water Trail will open the adventure and beauty of our Fox to residents and visitors of the Fox River Valley like never before. Getting to Know You, Getting to Know All About You It is hard to really know when...

Dam Removal as an Act of Patriotism

Monday, July 1, 2019

By Gary Swick, President July is a time for celebration because July 4th is Independence Day for the United States of America. This holiday is not religion-oriented, nor a family-centered time for gathering. It doesn’t involve greeting cards or dressing up. But it does involve decorations with flags and some...

It Takes A Community

Monday, June 3, 2019

By Gary Swick, President Remember Hilary Clinton’s 1996 book, “It Takes a Village,” and her 2016 Democratic National Convention speech reminding us that alone we can neither rear a healthy family, build a business, heal a community, or lift a country by ourselves? Collaboratively, we do better when we pool...

Meet Your Neighbors: Cartoon Teachers

Saturday, June 1, 2019

By Jack MacRae Today’s “Meet Your Neighbors” will look at 2 obscure and uncommon plant species and how their ancient names have been memorialized in popular culture, namely Calvin and Hobbs and The Simpsons. A Bitter Teacher Calvin (no last name was ever given)’s educator adversary was Miss Wormwood. In botanical...

Harmony

Wednesday, May 1, 2019

By Gary Swick, President Lying in a hammock feels like harmony to me. It’s the cradled feeling of being safely supported while swinging in suspension. It’s peaceful and joyous. May brings about an incredible demonstration of nature’s harmony, with many factors playing into a unified production. Can you imagine trying...

Those Dam Flies

Wednesday, May 1, 2019

By Art Malm, P.E., FOFR Director It’s that first warm, wonderful day of spring. The breeze is light; you feel the sun’s radiant energy through your light jacket. A perfect day to be paddling, or biking, or hiking, or just hanging out along the river. But ugh! Nasty swarms of...

Saving Long Lake – Part One

Tuesday, April 2, 2019

By Gary Mechanic, Executive Director Late last year one of the final pages of a decades long battle to save Long Lake (in Lake County Illinois) came to a close when Illinois’ Attorney General Lisa Madigan announced a settlement with Baxter Healthcare that will end that company’s decades-long pollution of...

“So Far So Good…Part 1”

Monday, April 1, 2019

By Art Malm, P.E., FOFR Director The Illinois State Water Survey and the Prairie Research Institute of the University of Illinois have completed a major new water quality study for the Fox River. “Water Quality Trends Analysis for the Fox River Watershed: Stratton Dam to the Illinois River” (“WQTA”) shows...

State of the Fox River Report

Friday, March 1, 2019

By Gary Swick This year’s State of the Fox River Report is a celebration of things gone well and progress that deserves recognition. But this is an interactive report and celebration! So whenever you see a 👏, please celebrate by standing and yelling, politely clapping, smiling & nodding, or shouting...

Resolve to Be a Better Friend

Tuesday, January 1, 2019

By Gary Swick, President In December’s newsletter, I offered the Fox River’s holiday gift list. I also promised that I would suggest a few resolution ideas to help you to give the Fox River what it wants. The resolutions should be specific, achievable, relevant, measurable, and personal. We are all...

Student Monitoring Season Wrap-up

Monday, December 3, 2018

Saturday, December 1, 2018

By Meghan Yancey The fall water quality monitoring season has come to a successful end! This was my first season with Friends of the Fox River (FOFR) and it’s been great for me to see both students and teachers committed to continuing this work. This fall we worked with 12...

Stardust, Mercury and Smallmouth Bass for Dinner

Saturday, December 1, 2018

By FOFR Director Art Malm, P.E. Since I’ve received no dam questions this month I’ll take this opportunity to start a conversation about contamination of fish in Our Fox. As Joni Mitchell famously sang at Woodstock, and astrophysicists now explain, we are all stardust. Every element in our body, all...

Meet Your Ex – Next Door Neighbor!

Saturday, December 1, 2018

By Jack Frost MacRae They were the perfect American tree. They were among the tallest, the widest, and had the straightest grain. They grew fast, were numerous, and were resistant to rot and decay. Their nuts fed billions. They were pretty. And, Mel Torme wrote a celebrated song about them....

The Fox River’s Gift List

Thursday, November 1, 2018

By Gary Swick, President Many years ago I was given a wood carving from an anonymous source. The accompanying note read: “This is the River Spirit. It only speaks to children and a few select adults. You are one of those.“ So I was sitting by the Fox River wondering...

How Does the River Flow?

Thursday, November 1, 2018

From time to time Friends of the Fox River receives questions thru our website or Facebook page about the river, pollution and other watershed related issues. Here’s a question we received that FOFR Director Art Malm researched and answers. J. Faust asks: Do you have an estimate of the volume...

Mill Creek Watershed

Thursday, November 1, 2018

By Holly Hudson, Senior Aquatic Biologist, Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning The 31 square mile Mill Creek watershed includes portions of four municipalities (Batavia, Campton Hills, Geneva, and St. Charles) and five townships (Batavia, Blackberry, Campton, Geneva, and St. Charles. The primary land uses in the watershed are agriculture (30%),...

Giving

By Gary Swick My assigned topic for this month’s President’s article is Giving. This seems appropriate as we are entering the giving period, culturally marked by Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the religious holiday mother lodes in December. Now we participate in the latest non-profit annual holiday Giving Tuesday....

Will The River Stop Flowing?

Monday, October 1, 2018

By Art Malm, FOFR Board Member Will the river stop flowing altogether in dry years if the low head dams like the one at Carpentersville are removed? “I remember back in the 60’s when we walked across the top of the Carpentersville dam and it was dry”. This was the...

The Seasons of the Fox River

Monday, October 1, 2018

Saturday, September 1, 2018

By Gary Swick Personally, I love living in a region that has distinct seasons. Walking ankle to waist deep in a stream on a hot summer day is always a refreshing experience, and something my children always loved. On a calm fall day, gliding in a kayak or canoe on...

What Will It Look Like?

Saturday, September 1, 2018

By Art Malm, FOFR Board Member Maybe the first question asked by almost anyone considering dam removal is “what will it look like?”. There aren’t many people left in the Fox Valley who remember what the Fox looked like before the dams were built. Doubtful their grandparents did either. The...

What is Education For? Citizen Empowerment

By Gary Swick It’s back-to-school season for Friends of the Fox River (FOFR) and our team of educators is geared up to teach more than two thousand students how to collect water quality data in their schools’ local streams. Our “Watershed Watchdogs” education program is composed of lessons in traditional...

How Well Do You Know Your Friends?

Sunday, July 1, 2018

By Gary Swick, President Our personal friends are different to us than other people we pass in traffic, store aisles, or on the bike trail. What makes friends special to us is our understanding of them. This higher level of understanding usually comes from something we have in common. Until...

Creating a Watershed of Caretakers – May the Next Generation Go Viral

Friday, June 1, 2018

My Gmail automatically adds the following below my signature: “Spreading the Peace with the Planet Virus”. Things such as bacteria, viruses, and fungus usually don’t bring about positive, or warm and fuzzy feelings. But these organisms are essential for ecosystem operation. Bacteria grab nitrogen from the atmosphere for soil fertility....

Who Drinks the Fox River?

Friday, June 1, 2018

By Kyla Jacobsen, FOFR Board Member Years ago, people settled and communities grew up along rivers. People and animals had access to water and it was an easy way to transport goods by rafts or floats down the river. There were no dams back in those days and it allowed...

Meet Your Neighbors: Do Birds Poop in the Woods?

Friday, June 1, 2018

by Jack MacRae Most birds do their best to maintain a tidy nest. Removing eggshells, stray feathers, and bits of food is serious business for avian parents. And of course, there is loads of excrement. Some baby birds defecate every time they eat, up to 13 times a day. Fortunately, nature provides disposable bags...

Meet Your Neighbors: The Green Heron Summer Tour

Tuesday, May 1, 2018

by Jack MacRae Green herons return to the Fox River during the third week of April. They play on a smaller, more intimate stage than their big blue cousins, usually shunning the commotion of large communal rookeries. Little Green Love Shack Upon arriving at his territory, the male starts building his love...

People + Legislation = Water Quality Protection

Monday, April 30, 2018

by Gary Swick Having access to clean water is a need for all living things. The natural environment provides that through the hydrological cycle. Humans routinely interrupt that process and threaten their own water quality. It is the mission of Friends of the Fox River to protect our watershed through...

The Fox’s Formerly Phenomenal Filtering Freshwater Mussels

Monday, April 30, 2018

By Arthur Malm It has been 100 years since the passage of Illinois’ Sanitary District Act of 1917. That Act allowed voters to petition for a referendum to form a sanitary district and build treatment plants to “conduce to the preservation of the public health, comfort and convenience”(1). Since that...

Finding Harmony with the Fox River

Sunday, April 1, 2018

by Gary Swick McHenry County Green Drinks recently invited Friends of the Fox River to talk about paddling the Fox River. We decided that our Executive Director Gary Mechanic would talk about the physical aspects of paddling, and I would offer a spiritual perspective. I’m a spiritual guy, but I’m...

Meet Your Neighbors: Spring Cuties

Sunday, April 1, 2018

By Jack MacRae Ephemeral Flora Spring beauties (claytonia) are true cuties. They’re wee little flowers found in our mature oak and maple woods. Look close and you’ll see five peppermint pink striped petals that form a saucer shape corolla, two soft green sepals that form the calyx, and five stamens with...

Love Our River Days

Saturday, March 3, 2018

by Gary Mechanic, Executive Director The Fox River has come a long way from the days when it was the most used and abused river in Illinois. An 1908 monograph describes the Fox River: “… the tributaries often bring large amounts of sediment, and various manufactories along the river discharge...

The Who’s Who of Fox River Protectors

Thursday, March 1, 2018

By Gary Swick Because our watershed is biologically significant, it’s experiencing continual growth, and it’s home to a lot of conservationists, the Fox River is fortunate to have an incredible assortment of protectors. The list of who’s doing what can be quite confusing, with an alphabet soup of acronyms. The...

2018 Annual Photography Contest

Thursday, March 1, 2018

Thursday, February 1, 2018

Our Annual Photography Contest has become a big hit, so we are excited to step it up this year! Our theme this time around is “SEASONS OF THE FOX RIVER.” We want you to try to capture the beauty of the Fox River in the context of a particular time...

Diversity and Stability

Thursday, February 1, 2018

by Gary Swick One of the basic concepts of ecology is that diversity leads to stability. The Fox River watershed has two kinds of diversity! It can boast of biological diversity, and a diversity of groups that work to preserve and increase the biological diversity. Diverse Origins Illinois may seem...

Dams of the Fox River, A Layperson’s View

Thursday, February 1, 2018

by Eric Pepa When I became a member of Friends of the Fox River several years ago, one of the first things I learned was that we were not Friends of the dams of the Fox River. As a layperson (an architect by profession), my interest in the Fox River...

Meet Your Neighbors: Where Do the Ducks Go in Winter?

by Gary Mechanic The hero of J.D.Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye” Holden Caulfield famously wanted to know where the ducks go in winter, and who doesn’t? While some of us, and many of our furred and feathered neighbors leave before winter, some that stay survive by using clever tactics. Puff...

Meeting New Challenges

Monday, January 1, 2018

By Gary Mechanic, Executive Director 2017 was the worst of years, and the best of years, and I’ve seen a lot of years. I’m 70 and I’ve never seen federal protection of the environment take such giant steps backwards! Since the USEPA was created in 1970, it has dragged it’s feet creating pollution...

Meet Your Neighbors: The Duck with a Golden Eye

Monday, January 1, 2018

By Jack MacRae Goldeneyes don’t dabble. They are diving ducks with a talent of Olympic proportion. They’re synchronous divers. When feeding, all the birds in one section of a flock may dive at the same time. They swim to the bottom of lakes and rivers in search of crunchy food....

Resolution 2018

Monday, January 1, 2018

Resolution 2018: Connect to Nature By Gary Swick It’s in the middle of the Friends of the Fox River’s mission statement; Connecting people to nature is what we do. It initiates a natural wonder within people that brings a sense of joy and a desire to care for what we love....

Meet Your Neighbors: Happy Pines to All

Friday, December 1, 2017

By Jack MacRae December seems like an appropriate time to talk about evergreens. You see them growing on most landscaped properties in the region! Not only are these trees everywhere, this is the month when pines, firs, cedars, and spruce are bedecked as Christmas trees and wreaths. In spite of...

Cruising for Visions

By Gary Mechanic, Executive Director Following the recent solar eclipse, Friends of the Fox River’s President Gary Swick drew a parallel in his monthly newsletter article between the ancient anxiety caused by the temporary darkness of an eclipse, and the depressing darkness that many of us feel about the temporary...

Strategic Planning – Retreat to Advance

Strategic Planning Retreat – A Unifying Spirit By Gary Swick We all seem to have different methods of charting our courses. Some of us planetary creatures live our lives by being blown by the winds of fate from one place to another. This may work fine for milkweed seeds, but...

Meet Antoinette White

Meet Antoinette White Aurora Outreach Educator Recent Monmouth College graduate Antoinette White is a welcome addition to our Fox River Monitoring Network. With a double major in environmental science and biology, and the recommendation of our veteran educator and Aurora Watershed Watchdog program leader Emily Dombrowski, we know her work...

Meet Your Neighbors: “Eat Your Neighbors!”

Wednesday, October 4, 2017

Eat Your Neighbors! By Jack MacRae Homer Simpson once commented that turkeys are the only animals smarter than man (season 13, episode 3). He was wrong, of course, as there are no doubt others. But people and turkeys do share a special bond, if not an elevated IQ. The wild...

New Education Team

Wednesday, October 4, 2017

New Education Team for the Fall Season By Gary Swick For many years, Friends of the Fox River’s streams outreach education program was a one-man show, run by retired Johnsburg teacher David Rigby. In 2009, the project was funded by a federal grant for 3 years. The program quickly grew...

2017 Fox River Basin Survey

The 2017 IDNR Fox River Basin Survey By Steve Pescitelli, Illinois Department of Natural Resources, Division of Fisheries During the summer of 2017, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources conducted fish surveys in the Fox River basin as part of a statewide program to monitor the health of Illinois stream...

Winners of the 2017 Photo Contest

Tuesday, October 3, 2017

GRAND PRIZE WINNER: Bradford Vineyard- Foggy Morning on the Fox River near Saw Wee Kee Park- $100 Cabela’s Gift Certificate The panel selected this panoramic photo of a gaggle of geese as they lounge on melting ice near the bank of the Fox River. Thick, foggy air mists across the...

Meet Your Neighbors: “Squirrels, Chucks and Chips”

Sunday, October 1, 2017

Squirrels, Chucks and Chips by Jack MacRae Squirrels are the Fox Valley’s original “preppers.” Every autumn, both tree and ground squirrels spend considerable time gathering and stashing their nuts for the months to come. Acorns, nuts, seeds, and corn provide the critical calories necessary for winter survival. Where Did I Leave...

2017 Annual Photo Contest Results

Tuesday, August 29, 2017

A beautiful foggy morning photo near Saw Wee Kee Park in Oswego. Photo by Bradford Vineyard Our 2017 Annual Photo Contest has ended and our selection committee is in the process selecting winners. We received a wonderful assortment of photos- 47 total- portraying this year’s theme of “The of Flora...

Meet Your Neighbors: “The Lives of Grass”

Friday, August 25, 2017

“The Lives of Grass” by Jack MacRae There are many grasses in the Fox River Valley; tall types, short types, native and introduced. Here are three short biographies. Grama Grass Through the lens of a magnifier, sideoats grama, Bouteloua curtipendula has some of the prettiest reproductive organs you can find...

Doug Williamson – a Great Friend to the Fox

Tuesday, August 1, 2017

By Gary Swick Doug Williamson grew up in Indiana, and finished his high school career in Chicago. From there he headed to DeKalb where he earned two degrees from NIU. Doug’s professional career was mainly within Carpentersville’s Community School District 300 (D300). A teacher there myself, I saw that he...

Flooded Fox brings some Lessons

Tuesday, August 1, 2017

by Gary Swick Rivers and their tributaries usually have seasonal cycles of spring and fall flooding, with a “low flow” condition in summer. Flooding has benefits to the natural river system through nutrient distribution and scouring of sediment. The land areas that absorb the flood conditions are referred to as...

Why Do I Think You Owe Me A Beer?

Monday, July 31, 2017

by Gary Swick, FOFR President For a non-profit organization, finding financial support for their important work is always a challenge. Friends of the Fox River (FOFR) has a long and strong reputation for incredible achievements from volunteer efforts. FOFR is now at a point where we are expanding our services,...

Fly Fishing the Fox

Monday, July 31, 2017

By Pat Okonek, Board Member, FOFR One of my favorite hobbies is fishing, especially fly-fishing. I took it up as a youngster and had the good fortune of growing up next to a river. Besides lots of actual fishing, I learned how to “read” rivers and learn how fish behave and...

2017 Annual Photography Contest

Sunday, July 16, 2017

It’s that time of year again when spring is in full bloom and some of the best opportunities for photographing life on the Fox River abound. And the time has come for Friends of the Fox River’s Annual Photography Contest. So in keeping with the season, the theme for this year’s...

Our Waters, Our Fox

Sunday, May 14, 2017

Article written for the April 2017 “Bravo Magazine” by Dean Tripp Our Fox By its very nature a river belongs to more than one people, place and time. Our Fox is no exception. The water flowing into and out of it is a resource we can’t create or destroy; we...

Meet Your Neighbors! “21st Century Fox”

Monday, May 1, 2017

This is the first article in a new regular “Meet Your Neighbors” column of our newsletter. Each issue will bring you a short story about one of the other species with whom we share our ecosystem. And of course, how could we not start with the Fox! This piece is...

Birds, Bales and Waters of the United States

Thursday, March 30, 2017

Wednesday, March 29, 2017

When Illinois became a state in 1818, 8 million acres of wetlands or 23% of the state’s land area provided critical habitat for a wide variety of mammals, birds, fish, mussels, amphibians, and insects. Today only 1.2 million acres remain. 90% of Illinois’ wetlands have been destroyed! The new administration’s...

Spring Has Sprung! (How your yard affects the Fox River)