Education

Tyler Creek Wing Park Pool

Harmony

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 to orchestrate spring: arranging the … Read more

Fox River Midge in Blue

Those Dam Flies

By Art Malm, P.E., FOTFR 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 bugs seem to be everywhere … Read more

Long Lake

Saving Long Lake – Part One

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 Long Lake. Behind the Attorney … Read more

Chipping Sparrow

Meet Your Neighbors: Chipping Sparrows

By Jack MacRae Every April, a paranoid little bird appears in my yard.  He perceives his adversaries everywhere he turns.  He then feels compelled to physically confront these interlopers with every fiber of his 0.43 ounce body. Unfortunately, he is seeing his own reflection.  He cannot comprehend that he is the bird in the gazing globe, hubcap, rear-view mirror, … Read more

bobcats

Meet Your Neighbors: Cats Named Bob

By Jack MacRae Our bobcats are busy. February means females are looking for houses and males are looking for females. Bobcats den in old forests with a dense, shrubby under-story, where they create a hidden home within the hollow logs and tangled roots. Gestation lasts 60 days and the circle of life continues. Hakuna matata. … Read more

Meet Your Neighbors: Voley Moley!

By Furry Jack MacRae Voles live fast and die young.  There are millions of these mousy rodents in our grassy neighborhoods throughout the Fox River’s watershed, but they almost never make it to their second birthday. Meadow voles have their own cycle of life.  Bio-chronologists have learned voles do not subscribe to a typical 24 hour circadian rhythm, but … Read more

Pocahontas_by_Simon_van_de_Passe

Pocahontas, PCBs and Reputation

By Art Malm, P.E., FOFR Director Recently I was at Disney World with my granddaughters who told Pocahontas how much they loved her song “Just Around the River Bend”. “Do you live near a river  bend?” Pocahontas asked. “No, we live in Elgin” Kayla replied. “Oh” said the Princess, “You live near the Fox River.” … Read more

students in a stream

Student Monitoring Season Wrap-up

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 schools and over 1,000 students … Read more

Smallmouth_bass

Stardust, Mercury and Smallmouth Bass for Dinner

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 the carbon, oxygen, phosphorous, calcium … Read more

chestnut tree

Meet Your Ex – Next Door Neighbor!

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. Then the blight came and … Read more