With the beautiful spring weather today, we took a hike at Starved Rock State Park before lunch. We decided to take the trail to St. Louis Canyon. There aren’t too many stairs and it isn’t a very long hike to get to the waterfall at the end. At the beginning there are some steep cliffs without railings, so keeping little kids close is very important. There are a few bridges to cross the stream, and lots of bluffs to look at. Once at the end, there is a nice size waterfall, and a huge sand hill to climb. It’s a great short hike and easy for the whole family.

My lunch today took me by blackwell forest preserve.  I was on my way to make a delivery in Wheaton, and decided to stop at blackwell and take a short hike.  Despite the heat the hike was relaxing.  I parked right at the first lot of off Butterfield road and hiked along the path toward Mckee Marsh.  There were numerous tree and northern rough-winged swallows flying about.   I also had some great blue herons and great egrets in the small pond as well.  There was a yellow warbler singing along the pond edge and a northen oriole in one of the cottonwoods singing too.  A large garter snake slithered across my path and I also saw a muskrat cruising around.

Today on my lunch break, I stopped at Elburn forest preserve in Elburn.  It’s located on route 38 just west of route 47.  The preserve is a very nicely wooded area with a small trail that winds through the woods.

The woods were just full of flowers and birds.  The most abundant flowers were the rue anemone, and the most trilliums I have ever seen!  The forest floor was just covered in these 2 species and alot of other species were just starting to get some blooms as well.  Purple and yellow violets were scattered here and there and Solomon’s seals were getting close to blooming as well.  I was looking for some morels, but found none.  There were downy and red-bellied woodpeckers all over the place.  I even saw a great-horned owl, breifly, as it flew away from me.  There were several warblers, but I was without my binoculars.  This doesn’t happen very often.