1 Nov 2017

FOCUS

Newsletter of the Mayslake Nature Study and Photography Club

Hosted by the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County www.naturecameraclub.com

Up Coming Programs

November 6th

– "Monarchs and More: Nature

Stories in Our Own Backyards" by Lori Harris

November 20th

– Competition

December 4th

– Holiday Party

November 6th

"Monarchs and More: Nature Stories in Our Own Backyards"

by Lori Harris

Butterflies flitting, bluebirds nesting, dragonflies soaring...

Nature stories worth telling, unfold in our own backyards everyday. As

photographers we are in a unique position as both observers and storytellers. Lori Harris is eager to use her art and nature

stories to inspire children. She has raised more than two dozen species of native

Illinois butterflies. In the process hundreds of young people have become devoted to the preservation of Monarch Migration, a

story that is most definitely unfolding in our backyard today.

Lori Harris has been an artist and teacher in the Chicago Area for over 30 years. It was through a volunteer experience at

Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum that she first became fascinated by the shape and form of butterfly chrysalides. From there she formed Salt Creek Butterfly Farm and

learned to raise butterfly species of the area. She leads art classes where children

can observe the colors, forms, shapes and

patterns of butterflies and caterpillars and also facilitates a senior Adopt-a-Caterpillar

program. Recently branching out into Giant Silk Moths, Lori will raise

Polyphemus Moths with the weaving club to collect "Ahimsa" silk for spinning.

Lori now teaches Montessori preschool in Western Springs. She wrote and illustrated her first children's book,"Butterfly Birthday" in 2016.

2 Nov 2017

Best Wishes Get Well Soon Ron Szymczak is

recuperating from surgery to repair a broken heel.

Send Ron your best wishes to get well soon.

Barbara Dunn

MNSPC Member Survey

The MNSPC Board would like to find out more about our

current membership since we have new members as well

as new Board members. We have created a survey to find

out more about your background, your interests and

suggestions on how to improve our programs and extra-

curricular activities. We would appreciate your completing

the MNSPC 2017 Survey by clicking on the below link.

Comments are welcome. We will share the results at an

upcoming meeting and use the results to help plan future

programs and activities. The closing date for the

survey has been extended to November 8. Take the

survey today!

http://www.surveytool.com/s/SAD98F1476

Note: the closing date for the survey has been extended

to November 8.

.

Gary Saunders

Holiday Party December 4th

The “Swap Meet” will return as part of the evening. The program for the

evening will be a member-submitted slideshow, consisting of members’

favorite thing or place to photograph. The program will run as a loupe

throughout the evening. Members will submit 10 images to Fred, who

will compile them into the program.

3 Nov 2017

Next Competition – Monday, November 20

th

New Process for Critique of Images Our November 20th meeting will be a club competition. Even if you are not submitting images, please attend as this is a great opportunity to view images by your fellow members. Also, the critique portion of the evening includes discussion of photo techniques. Each individual will have one print and one DPI

critiqued. Please write “Comment” on the top of the Print Image Commentary Card and DPI Image

Commentary Card that you want a critique on. Digital entries must be submitted to the competition mailbox competition@mlnpc.com- by Sunday November 12th. Print entries can be submitted on the night of the competition or can be dropped off at the Mayslake business office any time before the competition date. Mounting boards for print images are on sale at the regular club meetings. The forms for each competition image, digital and print, are submitted on the night of the competition. If you cannot attend the competition, please send them with a friend on that night. Forms cannot be emailed ahead of time. Please hand in prints and paperwork in by 6:45 pm so that committee members can get everything organized and ready to go at 7 pm. The competition guidelines and forms for the 2017 - 2018 competition year are posted on the Club website. If you have a question about whether an image meets the guidelines, it is best to ask before you submit. You can send a copy of the image to Ron Szymczak (ronald.szymczak@sbcglobal.net) for guidance. If you have not submitted images in competition before, you will compete in Class B. If you have a question about your class standing, please email Ron. Submitting either prints or digital images in competition is a way to determine how your photography is viewed by others - in this case a panel of three judges composed of one Mayslake member and two outside judges. As images are critiqued, you will learn what the judges saw as strong points in an image and also hear their suggestions on techniques to enhance the image. Remember, the best ways to improve your photographic skills are:

- Take classes from experts

- Shoot - shoot - shoot

- Take advantage of opportunities to get feedback on your technique, such as participating in club competition. If you have any questions at all, please feel free to email Ron

at ronald.szymczak@sbcglobal.net.

Mike Lake

Marcia Nye

4 Nov 2017

Upcoming Outings

Sandhill cranes at Jasper-Pulaski Fish & Wildlife Area in November Brookfield Zoo Holiday Magic in December Eagles at Lock & Dam 14 in January

More information to come

October Fall, Falls, Fungi & Full Moon

in the UP

A group of 6 MNSPC members traveled to the western Upper Peninsula of Michigan to capture the

fall colors, surging waterfalls and streams, forest fungi and the full moon over Lake Superior. It was a great

time and the group brought home many fantastic photos. See them on the MNSPC Yahoo site.

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/MNSPC/photos/albums/892662446

Mark your calendar for next October to attend this

"road trip" outing.

Fran Piepenbrink

Steve Ornberg

Sheila Newenham

Fran Piepenbrink

5 Nov 2017

Exhibits Fred Drury

Our final exhibit for this year will be ‘Nature’s Colors.’ I need your framed images by Saturday

morning, November 11. I‟ll hang the new exhibit (and take down the „State & National Parks’ Exhibit)

on the weekend of November 11-12. Please let me know the following for each image you plan to

exhibit: image name, overall frame size, location of subject and price (if for sale).

Looking to plans for next year, I mentioned last month that we have a „busy‟ exhibit schedule:

First is an exhibit of up to 65 images which will hang in Mayslake Hall; that‟s the big room you enter

when you come in the main entrance. This exhibit will run from January 9 thru February 25. The

theme is „nature‟ but we are allowing „hand-of-man‟ for this show. Rest assured that these images

will get a lot of viewing given their conspicuous location! Images for this show should be dropped off

at the Mayslake Office Monday, January 8, 6-9 PM and will be available for pick up on Monday,

February 26, 6-9 PM. I’m hoping that we’ll go ‘all-out’ for this show and that we’ll see many

‘new exhibitors’ in the process. I‟m setting a maximum limit of 5 images per exhibitor, subject to

future adjustment. Let me know your plans ASAP (I‟ve already heard from several members, and

thank you!) and for each image you plan to exhibit: image name, overall frame size, location of

subject, and price (if for sale). If we do a good job on this project, it could become an annual event,

and the publicity directed to the exhibit by the FPDDC is a significant benefit to the Club. I have

already received a number of submissions for this show, but we‟ve still got room for many more, so

keep the submissions coming!

Second is a return to the Westchester Library, also for January-February. This show has a limited

exhibition space so I‟m looking for about 25 images, no more than 2 per exhibitor. Here again the

theme will be „nature‟ and we‟ll allow „hand-of-man‟. Please let me know the following for each image

you plan to exhibit: image name, overall frame size, location of subject. Westchester Library cannot

„sell‟ images, but I will provide them my contact information and we‟ll post an appropriate notice so

someone having a „purchase interest‟ can get in touch with me, and I‟ll pass along the contact

information the image maker.

Third, we‟ve been invited to participate in an Illinois Bicentennial event at Mayslake. The exhibit

(presumably in Mayslake Hall) will include fine art as well as photography and will run from July 18

thru August 11. “All works should be inspired by the state of Illinois; whether that means the history,

architecture, nature or some other aspect is up to the artists”; so hand of man is encouraged. More

detail on this in the future.

If you have questions or concerns regarding any of the above, please give me a call at 630-665-6598

or drop me a note at fred@marklandimaging.com.

6 Nov 2017

MNSPC Adventures

We are starting a new column

in the Focus, called MNSPC

Adventures. This column will

highlight the photo trips from

some of our intrepid members

so you can not only see

where they have been and

what they have been doing,

but maybe peak your interest

in visiting some of these

areas. If you would like to

contribute to this column in

future Focus editions please

email Sheila Newenham at

drsnewenham@gmail.com

with a couple of paragraphs

about your trip and a couple

of images.

How Many Bears are in that Pile???

We‟d been watching several grizzly bears with cubs gorging on

sedges near the water‟s edge in Glendale Cove, British Columbia.

There were also a couple of single adult bears foraging further back

from the water, mid-way to the tree line in the estuary. In all, I could

see 13 coastal grizzly bears from my seat in this flat-bottomed boat.

In front of me, a sow with three cubs had just retreated into the

woods to give way to a higher ranking sow with her single cub.

We had come up Knight Inlet from our cabin on Minstrel Island in a

motor boat this morning and then transferred to a small boat to navigate

the shallow cove. This area is renowned for coastal grizzly bear

viewing as it has a large resident population. It was hazy and smoke

from a record-breaking wildfire season in the BC interior obscured the

mountaintops. There was a good breeze blowing that left a chill. I wore

my winter headband and gloves along with layers to keep warm.

Earlier as we approached the back of the cove, we had watched three

bears swim across a side channel in the estuary to get from the steep,

rocky east shore to the sedge flats in the middle. Now that the sow and

cubs we were watching on the west side of the estuary had moved off,

we decided to head over to see if those bears were still around. There

were two bears back along the river channel in plain view who

appeared to be catching a mid-day nap. As we rounded the point in the

middle, we could see fur peeking above the sedges.

7 Nov 2017

Was it another sleeping bear? As we got closer it seemed like it must be two bears. Two young adult

siblings on their own together? A sow and cub? Those are really the only combinations of grizzly bears

that I‟d expect to nap so close. We creep closer. A little bit more bear is revealed. One is definitely on

top of the other. Only cubs sleep in a pile! Our guide thinks maybe it is a sow with a cub. We can‟t see

enough of the bears to judge size, so it‟s anybody‟s guess. We float a little bit past this ambiguous bear

pile and get a perspective from the opposite side. A huge head slowly lifts, gently regards us and softly

lies back down. This is a sow lying on her back, she picked up her head to look over her belly at us, and

the other piles of fur are two cubs nursing atop her.

Read the rest of this story and others, along with more pictures on my blog, Exploring Nature

https://hippiemoose.wordpress.com/2017/08/24/how-many-bears-are-in-that-pile/

Sheila Newenham

Exhibit Area Upgrades The Board approved new equipment in late September and the upgrades

have arrived. We‟re adding two new lights and will be installing diffusers

on most of the other lights. The diffusers will broaden the beam delivered

by the current lights which means wider, more balanced overall light.

8 Nov 2017

CONSERVATION REPORT:

Wolf Road Prairie

by Jack Shouba, Conservation Chairperson

Wolf Road Prairie, located at the northwest corner of Wolf Road and 31st Street in Westchester, is a unique

property for several reasons. It is biologically rich, with a rare oak savanna, a rare black-soil prairie, and a

wetland. The southern half of the 80 acre site contains sidewalks left over from the 1920s when it was

subdivided into 597 lots which were never developed (except for the sidewalks) due to the Great Depression,

the fragmented ownership, new zoning and wetland protection laws. The sidewalks make it easily accessible and

are a good place from which to photograph the prairie. Mike MacDonald used a photo of Wolf Road Prairie on

the cover of his book My Journey into the Wilds of Chicago.

The story of saving Wolf Road Prairie is also interesting. In the late 1960s and early 1970s I became interested in

the prairie and wondered how it could be saved. I gradually became acquainted with several other people who

had the same interest, but the project was deemed too costly and too complicated for the state, the county, or

existing conservation organizations to tackle, and there really was not much appreciation of prairies at the time.

So a group of us started the Save the Prairie Society in the early 1970s and incorporated it as a non-for-profit

organization in 1975. We publicized the prairie, gave talks and led walks, raised money, purchased lots, lobbied

elected officials, and began doing some burning and other management, all the while working to convince the

Cook County Forest Preserve District and the Illinois Department of Natural Resources to get involved. Today,

the prairie is an Illinois Nature Preserve; half of it is owned by the Cook County FPD and half by the IDNR. Save

the Prairie Society still owns one lot (plus some acreage in the buffer to the west); we moved a historic

schoolhouse/residence to that lot and are working to restore it as an educational center.

Prairies do not maintain themselves without human intervention, since they are fire dependent and we no

longer have the wildfires of the past to keep the trees and shrubs under control. Prairies, like woodlands and

wetlands, are being inundated by invasive non-native species. The Forest Preserve District is the lead agency for

management of the prairie, with Save the Prairie Society continuing to assist by raising funds to hire restoration

contractors to remove invasive species and by sponsoring volunteer work days. Unfortunately, shrubs such as

dogwood and buckthorn continue to be a problem.

Save the Prairie Society (STPS) has recently received a grant from the Illinois Clean Energy Community

Foundation for restoration of the prairie, but they need our help to receive the grant money.

First, you can donate money specifically for restoration of the prairie.

Second, you can volunteer at a workday; if we get 400 volunteer hours, we get another $4000.

Third, you can post photos or prairie information on Facebook or other media (and tell STPS about it). One

hundred hours of "social media activity" will earn another $2000.

See savetheprairiesociety.org for more details.

9 Nov 2017