Kane County's natural areas are full of fascinating creatures
Build a nest and they will come. If you're a bald eagle, that is. And if you build near a major thoroughfare.
Indeed, they came - first the serious birders, then the casual birders, then the paparazzi, with excited ecotourists right behind. The crowds lined up on the narrow shoulders of a 50 mph stretch of Randall Road to view an active bald eagle nest high atop a tree on Mooseheart property.
Notified of the traffic danger this posed, police erected signs banning parking on the shoulders of the dangerous curve. Undeterred, people continued to line their cars along both sides of the road. Some brought spotting scopes, some binoculars, some brought the whole family. Moms and dads with kids in tow darted across four lanes of traffic to get as close as possible to the eagles.
Randall Road rubberneckers hit the brakes to see what the commotion was about. Traffic jams ensued. The spectacle made local news as well as Chicago news. The eagles, oblivious to it all, looked on with cool indifference.
As a naturalist who has made a lifelong career of fostering connections between people and the natural world, I have been scratching my head trying to figure out the Mooseheart eagle phenomenon. The good news is that there are suburbanites who desire a connection with real, live, wild wildlife - not just a passive look at exotic animals on the Discovery Channel or in the confines of a zoo. The not-so-good news is that many people have risked their lives and others' to watch wildlife from Randall Road when there is ample opportunity to observe wildlife under safer conditions in Kane County natural areas.
I've come up with a theory and a corollary for this puzzling phenomenon. First, a critter's either got charisma or it doesn't. It has nothing to do with "good" or "bad" in animals. It has everything to do with the complexities of human perceptions of animals.
Big birds of prey, such as the Mooseheart eagles, are in the highly charismatic category. So, too, were the Geneva Courthouse owls that drew crowds from 2005 to 2008 when they nested four years in a row in the big trees on the courthouse lawn. People lined up every year to peer into spotting scopes at the big birds and their big, gawky chicks.
Oddly, I haven't seen any crowds lining up to get a peek at hellgrammites in our creeks. Hellgrammites are impressive predators just like the ever-popular birds of prey only smaller, spineless and squirmy. They spend their youth underwater. These are voracious youngsters with fearsome adaptations for their role as predators in the food webs of streams and rivers. They grow up to be harmless Dobson flies.
They're really cool - so why aren't there hordes of people lined up at our creeks to look at these guys? Insects just don't have the charisma of birds of prey.
Or - here's a good one - Argiope spiders. These are stunningly beautiful arachnids whose webs are intricate works of art. How many people rush to the prairies in the middle of July to see these eight-legged wonders of the invertebrate world?
What about snakes? We have some awesome snakes in Kane County. Several years in a row I've watched plains garter snakes emerge from a hibernaculum at one of our forest preserves in the spring and retreat into that very same hole in the fall. How cool is that? Evidently not cool enough to have to jostle crowds vying for the opportunity to watch this remarkable seasonal event.
These and other fabulous animals don't draw crowds or make news, while the eagles do. The Mooseheart eagle phenomenon is due to the fact that they are charismatic animals that have captivated the collective curiosity. Not all wildlife in Kane County inspires this kind of fan club who will risk their lives and others' just to catch a glimpse of the object of admiration.
The corollary of the charisma theory of eagle eco-tourism on Randall Road is this: People have lost the ability to observe the everyday wildlife around them. It takes something big and showy - like a bald eagle - to catch their attention.
Living in the sterility of housing developments and shopping malls, many suburbanites have no clue how to listen, look and smell in the natural world. It's hard to listen to, let alone recognize, natural sounds while your ears are plugged with earbuds. Staring at computer monitors, watching big screen televisions, and peering at tiny phone screens all day, strained eyes tend to glaze over the real world. Tooled with GPS units, travelers don't have to make mental maps of the natural landscape to navigate. And the sense of smell? From toddlerhood, everyone recognizes the smell of shopping mall popcorn, carryout pizza, and car exhaust. But nary a suburbanite can detect the subtleties of fox musk in February or allure of basswood blossoms in May or the aroma of prairie mint in July.
The connection between people and the Mooseheart eagles is, overall, a very positive thing. It has certainly been an educational experience for many and has inspired admiration and respect of birds of prey. The challenge is to learn to observe the less dramatic wildlife that abounds in our close-by natural areas. After all, not all wildlife will pose for the masses like the bald eagles atop their aerie. Most wildlife is secretive and retiring (which makes the discovery of them all the more exciting). By removing the earbuds and fine-tuning our hearing, by powering down the LCD screen and readjusting our eyes, and by learning how to pick up subtleties in scents, we'll discover that there are plenty of awesome wildlife to observe in the woods and fields and marshes.
Take your own ecotour - be it a casual hike or a family outing - to a forest preserve near you. There are hundreds of cool creatures to see, year round, in our natural areas. Before you go, hone all your senses. Be aware of your surroundings. Be ready to be amazed.
• Valerie Blaine is a naturalist with the Forest Preserve District of Kane County. You can reach her with questions or comments at blainevalerie@kaneforest.com.