Fire & Wind

Besides the manmade items at the Spring Valley Nature Sanctuary detailed yesterday, there was also evidence of human intervention in the landscape. Such as acres of grassland, burned.

It's intentional burning, of course. It's well established that many ecosystems need a regular burn to stay healthy, and Spring Valley management burns different patches every year. This year we noticed that some of the land next to the Schaumburg Road parking lot had also been torched, right up to the asphalt.

There was also plenty of evidence of wind destruction. Maybe this tree cracked and fell during the blizzard in early February or because of the big blow last October.

But it's not really destruction. The fallen tree is merely on the way to becoming food for other creatures.