Spotted: my first black squirrel in Chicago! Seen them in Detroit and Toronto before, but this little peekaboo is unique among the tawny grey fauna here at home.

How about you? Are the squirrels where you live grey, black, red, or perhaps a distinguished and scholarly white? Tell us all!

Last night, I found a brown creeper on the sidewalk. Stranded on its back, barely moving twig-lean legs, eyes huge and flat black. I lifted it up and brought it home, waiting for the treatment center to open. Dark and quiet place, but this morning the creeper hadn’t made it. I’m still seeing its frail feet twitch, feeling the little shudders run through it, thinking it would live, be strong.

So our butterfly is the mascot for this morning, when I need something hopeful, lovely, easy, something less melancholy than a bird I couldn’t save.

These elegant trees angle across the path in the Cook County Forest Preserve. They’re just moments away from the Leaning Tower of Niles. Coincidence?

Um, yes, probably.

Fall is here and birds are passing through. On Saturday errands took me downtown. I didn’t want to find birds, didn’t want to see them broken on the ground. But it’s that time. Time for this little thrush to fly the last time, to fall, to close its eyes and tousle its feathers softly on the way down. Like sleeping.

Curling toes, weightless bones beneath speckles, soft as anything. Like sleeping.

Tyrannosaurus rex returns to reclaim its prehistoric domain, spreading terror throughout Chicago. And I, for one, welcome our new reptilian overlords!

(Q. “Return”, “reclaim”… would T. rex actually have roamed over Chicago back in its late Cretaceous heyday?

A. So far, the fossil record suggests its North American distribution ended well to the west, in today’s Rocky Mountain states.)

(Q. So this is an advance? Territorial aggression? Manifest destiny, but in reverse, and for giant lizards?

A. Yes.)

A little road trip with dogs in tow is getting to be an annual tradition.

Byron was ready to be out of the city.

Half an hour away, and like someone else’s world completely.

Ditto found his moment of serenity in mid-hike, middle of the trail.

I expected to marvel at the dunes, but the thing that really took my breath away was this vast sea, vast view of only trees. So deep that the brush of ten thousand years passed it right over.

From here, the city looked very far away.

They make happy fluttery noises. Their feathers shimmer like oil-slick rainbows. They’re often the only wild creature I see for days on end. Is there anything non-awesome about pigeons?

No. The answer is no. Because a South African IT company has now shown that pigeons can transmit data faster than the nation’s internet service. Learn about Winston the pigeon’s feat of data derring-do here, and learn more about the brief, irreverent history of IPoAC (IP over Avian Carriers) from Mashable.

In the wake of the Great Depression, America’s job creation efforts targeted unemployed workers in every profession. The Works Progress Administration (WPA) matched over 8 million Americans with projects from highway construction to vaudeville. And from 1936 to 1943, graphic artists created over 2,000 poster designs, supporting themselves through their skills while at the same time spreading the government’s word: about good nutrition, about upcoming performances from the WPA’s Theater Project and, soon, about the war.

On the subject of interacting with nature the posters had plenty to say, mostly pretty bossy, and generally along the themes of
1.) Go Experience It
2.) But Don’t Screw It Up.
Here are a few of my favorites, which you’ll spy brightening up the virtual walls if you drop in for coffee at Nightingale Square:

Want more? Browse over 900 WPA posters in the Library of Congress collection.

Or flip through this poster set on flickr.

(click for larger image)

Starring in this scene is a beautiful flower with a less-than-luscious name, the scabious. Yes, bad as that: it is related to “scabies”; and even though it commemorates the flower’s power to cure, much nicer not to be reminded of that most unpleasant situation. Apparently it also goes by “pincushion flower”, for the sloping dome at its center. And one cultivar, Scabiosa atropurpurea, is the hauntingly folkloric “mourning bride.”

Whatever we call them, the moths don’t mind. Scabiosa is rich in nectar, and you’ll seldom see one without a butterfly or moth nearby.

The other star here is northern sea oats, Chasmanthium latifolium. On the end of long lamppost stems, it shows lovely flat little heads, pleated like origami packets tight around the seeds inside. Powerful seeds held there: like its sibling grasses it is firmly territorial, and spreads its seeds with lebensraum abandon.

That is all.