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Dunes Creek
Most people go to Indiana Dunes State Park to see the dunes and the beach along Lake Michigan. That’s why I went there on June 17, but I also couldn’t help noticing and being intrigued by the colors of Dunes Creek close to where it empties into Lake Michigan. I’ve read that the warm colors are due to tannins released by black oak leaves that fall into the creek and decay there.
© 2016 Steven Schwartzman
Roughly elliptical
If you thought I’d show only one set of patterns from the beach at Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore on June 17, you don’t know me well. Here’s another.
© 2016 Steven Schwartzman
A seagull and its avant-garde shadow
Click for greater size and detail.
Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore; June 17.
UPDATE: In a comment below, Joan Leacott has identified this as Larus delawarensis, the Ring-Billed Gull (ornithologists now capitalize common names of birds).
© 2016 Steven Schwartzman
Given enough time
Given enough time and enough freedom from human interaction, the Indiana Dunes gradually cover themselves with vegetation, including trees, as you can see in these views from West Beach at Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore on June 18. The image below shows how a pond that had formed in a hollow between two dunes supports rich vegetation around its fringes.
© 2016 Steven Schwartzman
Sunset on the same day
Having glimpsed the Chicago skyline from Indiana Dunes State Park early on the afternoon of June 17th, we went a little further west later in the day and staked out a high place at the Portage Lakefront from which to view what we hoped would be a good sunset. It was.
As in the previous photograph, a telephoto lens made things seem larger and closer than they really were.
© 2016 Steven Schwartzman
Öd und leer das Meer!
“Öd und leer das Meer!” are the words that Wagner gives to the shepherd near the beginning of Act III in Tristan und Isolde: “Desolate and empty the sea!”
Lake Michigan isn’t the sea, but it’s so large that from most places along the shore you can’t see the other side. That was true in the photograph you saw that looked east from Zion, Illinois, on a stormy evening. It would also be true in this June 17th view looking northwest from Indiana Dunes State Park, except that the faintly visible Chicago skyline stands proxy for the western shore of Lake Michigan.
The skyline in this photo, though small, still looks larger and closer than it did in reality, thanks to the telephoto lens I used.
© 2016 Steven Schwartzman
A perennial favorite
From June 9 at Illinois Beach State Park here’s Lupinus perennis, known as wild lupine and apparently also as sundial lupine, Indian beet, and old maid’s bonnets.
Melissa Pierson provides more information about the species: “This is closely associated with black oak sand savanna and fire. If a fire isn’t run through pretty regularly, we see sharp declines in numbers of lupine. This is the host plant for the Karner Blue butterfly, which used to be found at Illinois Beach but is no longer. There is still a population of them at Indiana Dunes, I understand.”
Speaking of an association with fire, here’s a nearby scene from the same outing; notice the oaks and lupines.
© 2016 Steven Schwartzman
Portraits of Wildflowers 