Places to go and things to do         

[JULY 5, 2003]  From events listed by the Illinois Department of Natural Resources:

Saturday, July 5, 8:30-10 p.m.

Giant City State Park, Makanda, is hosting a series of astronomy viewings with the help of the Astronomical Association of Southern Illinois. We'll view the moon, deep space and more. The first program is Saturday, July 5, from 8:30 to 10 p.m.

Join us at the parking lot of the Giant City Visitors Center for these exciting adventures. No reservations required. Bring a blanket or reclining lawn chair for full viewing pleasure. All programs are on a weather-permitting basis.

August schedule:

• Saturday, Aug. 2, 8-10 p.m.
  Meet atop the water tower in the parking lot of the Giant City Lodge to view Mercury.

• Saturday, Aug. 30, 8-9:30 p.m.
  This is an excellent time to view Mars.

For more information call [phone].

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Every Monday and Tuesday through Aug. 19, 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.

The Illinois State Museum's “Summer Festival of Films” offers free educational films this summer for children. The weekly one-hour program is presented at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. each Monday and Tuesday through Aug. 19 in the Thorne Deuel Auditorium, located on the museum's lower level. Topics include animals, dinosaurs, volcanoes, nature, travel, art and more. A different selection of quality films is shown each week, and each program concludes with a cartoon.

The summer film showings are especially recommended for nursery school classes, day-care groups and families. Please call [phone] for reservations for groups of 10 or more.

The museum is located at Spring and Edwards streets in Springfield. For directions, see http://museum.state.il.us/ismsites/main/
directions.htm.

[From an Illinois Department of Natural Resources
press release]

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Illinois nature notes         

[JULY 5, 2003]  Notes from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources:

The eastern mole, widespread throughout Illinois, depends on earthworms for its primary food source; an 80-gram mole needs 50 grams of earthworms per day. Moles sometimes collect and store worms alive in special chambers. The stored worms are immobilized by a bite to the head segment. Up to 470 worms have been recorded in one chamber.

A single little brown bat, common in Illinois, can catch more than 1,000 mosquitoes in just one hour, while a colony of 150 big brown bats, also widespread in Illinois, can protect local farmers from as many as 18 million rootworms each summer.

The female crawfish frog, uncommon and declining in southern Illinois, lays between 3,000 to 7,000 eggs in shallow, ephemeral pools each spring.

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Surveys conducted by trained Illinois Department of Natural Resources staff looking for signs of river otters, beavers and minks along stream sections in 73 counties during the late winter and early spring have found evidence indicating there are stable populations of each species in all parts of Illinois. The annual Furbearer Sign Survey found indications of otters on 34 percent of stream sections surveyed, while signs of beavers were found on 88 percent and signs of minks were found on 70 percent of the stream sections surveyed. Visual sightings, along with discovery of tracks and scat, are the most common indicators of the presence of the wildlife species targeted in sign surveys.

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Improvements in the population and distribution of river otters in Illinois are linked to the state's release of wild otters in the Wabash, Kaskaskia and Illinois rivers from 1994 to 1997. The Illinois Endangered Species Protection Board upgraded the otter's status from endangered to threatened in 1999.

Combined survey data from 1999-2003 indicates river otters are present in all major watershed areas and in 95 percent of the state's wildlife population management areas. Wildlife biologists estimate Illinois' otter population, believed to have been fewer than 100 animals in the early 1980s, had increased to more than 1,800 in 2001 and is continuing to grow.

[From an Illinois Department of Natural Resources
press release]

Flowers and Things 515 Woodlawn Road Lincoln, IL [phone] "Your Professional Florist"

Lincoln Community Theatre presents "STEEL MAGNOLIAS" July 11-19 2 p.m. on Sundays &  8 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday Phone [phone] P.O. Box 374, Lincoln, IL  62656 http://www.geocities.com/ lincolncommunitytheatre

Our staff offers more than 25 years of experience in the automotive industry. Greyhound Lube At the corner of Woodlawn and Business 55 No Appointments Necessary

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Anthropologist Michael Wiant presenting  
Illinois archaeology program

[JULY 5, 2003]  The Illinois State Museum's next monthly archaeology program, entitled “Our Collections: Archaeological Specimens at the Illinois State Museum,” will be on Wednesday, July 9, at 7 p.m. at the museum's Research and Collections Center, 1011 E. Ash St. in Springfield. Dr. Michael Wiant, curator of anthropology, will present the program, which is free and open to the public. Join us for a behind-the-scenes look at exceptional objects in the Illinois State Museum's archaeology collections.

[From an Illinois Department of Natural Resources press release]

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