In celebration of Save the Dunes’ 60th Anniversary, they will be hosting a volunteer workday on Saturday, May 19th, from 9AM to 2PM. They will be having Garlic Mustard Fest with a potluck lunch and nature hike at our Trail Creek Fen Nature Preserve in Michigan City. This is a family event, so kids are welcome to come out and help.

They will start off with a nature hike in the morning to learn about this unique nature preserve and all the restoration activities that Save the Dunes’ staff and volunteers have accomplished.
Then, they will help Save the Dunes’ staff with hand-pulling garlic mustard and dame’s rocket, which are two invasive species that have became a big problem with preserving this site. These two invasive species are biennials that were brought over from Europe and have been rapidly taken over natural areas and have spread throughout Northwest Indiana and other parts of the country.

Afterwards, they will have a potluck luncheon. Save the Dunes will provide the main dish and drinking water, and volunteers are welcome to bring a side dish, desserts, or other beverages.

If you’re planning on attending the volunteer workday, please contact Samantha Erdelac at sam@savedunes.org or call the office at 219-879-3564. Please let them know if you are also planning on bringing a food dish or drinks to the workday. See below for directions and a map of the site.

Who knows what kinds of treasures are buried under the beautiful sand of the Indiana Dunes State Park? Come find out on Saturday, May 19 as you Go Minelabbing on National Metal Detecting Day.

Advance registration is required for this fun-filled day that includes over $25,000 in prizes, raffles and giveaways. Kids have their own hunt with a chance to win an X-TERRA and other prizes, and adults can win E-TRACs, Excaliburs and other prizes.

You can register at www.gominelabbing.com, and your $25/adult or $3/child fee includes lunch and dinner, a Task Force Donation, access to all hunts, contests and games, raffle tickets, goodie bags, gift certificates and more.

Schedule of Events
7:00 AM Parking opens
8:00 AM Registration begins
9:00 AM Excalibur hunts begin
10:00 AM Activities guest speaker
11:00 AM Lunch service begins
11:30 AM Kids hunt
12:00 PM Morning hunt raffle & Minelab speaker
1:00 PM E-TRAC silver hunts begin
2:00 PM Activities and guest speaker
3:30 PM Afternoon hunt raffl e
4:00 PM Dinner service begins
5:00 PM Minelab speaker, dinner raffle & grand prize drawing

While every Kankakee Region site is worth visiting, if you’re short on time, you’ll only be able to visit a few. Below are recommendations for great sites to see in a day…or two.

Spend a Day

•  Start at the Dorothy Buell Memorial Visitor Center (Site 1) for maps and birding, fishing, or biking companion guides. Be sure to pick up the Indiana Dunes Activities Guide. This guide will provide detailed information about restaurants and accommodations in the Dunes, Moraine, and Kankakee regions as you explore the Trail.

•   Jasper-Pulaski Fish and Wildlife Area (Site 57) is well known to hunters and anglers, but a trip to this site for nature enthusiasts who visit in November is well worth the drive. This designated Audubon Important Bird Area provides more than 8000 acres of ideal habitat for migratory birds. In November, sandhill cranes number in the tens of thousands – quite a spectacle! View this short film to learn more about the migration at www.in.gov/dnr/slides/cranes/index.html.

•  Enjoy lunch or dinner in Kouts. Check the Activities Guide to find the perfect spot.

Or

•  Move on to spend the afternoon paddling or motoring the Kankakee River. There’s no livery at Dunn’s Bridge County Park (site 55)—yet. But for those with small boats, canoes, or kayaks, Dunn’s boasts a historic bridge and a nice launch for small boats and plenty of parking right on the Kankakee.

Add a day and make it a weekend!

•  Stick around and enjoy dinner in Hebron or at one of Valparaiso’s many downtown dining venues. Check the Activities Guide for details.
•  Stay the night in a bed and breakfast or at one of the many hotels in Valparaiso (see Accommodations listing on pages 58 and 59).

•  The following day, explore the Grand Kankakee Marsh County Park (Site 58) for spring birdwatching, wildlife watching, boat launch, fishing, hunting, and hiking.

•  Enjoy lunch in Hebron or head back to Valparaiso. Check the Activities Guide for details.

•  Spend the afternoon fishing or strolling along the Kankakee and bayous at LaSalle Fish and Wildlife Area (Site 59). Shoreline fishing is an option and three boat ramps are available. Your catch of the day may include small or largemouth bass, walleye, bluegill or rock bass. Parking area and Access Road 3 offer scenic roadside wildlife viewing!

If you’ve ever been curious about the nightly nature noises in your backyard, join frog expert Bob Brodman as he unveils the secret life of frogs during the Saturday, April 7 Open House at the Douglas Center for Environmental Education.

Mr. Brodman has been studying the diversity of frog species in Miller Woods and other locations in the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore’s wet environments for years and will be on hand to show pictures of these elusive animals at 1:30 p.m.  Weather permitting, he will also lead a hike to the interdunal ponds outside to access the numbers and species of the amphibians visiting today. Families can enjoy frog crafts and games as well throughout the day.

This program is part of the year round free Saturday open house programs at the Douglas Center. Bring the whole family and learn more about this declining animal species worldwide and ways you might help.  Free refreshments and a frog craft will be on hand afterwards.

The Douglas Center is located at 100 N. Lake Street in Gary, Indiana. For more information on this or other programs at Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, visit the park website at www.nps.gov/indu/planyourvisit  or contact our information desk at 219- 395-1821.

By Alyssa Nyberg, Kankakee Sands Nursery Manager and frog aficionado (edited for BTB)

In the spring, when the nighttime temperatures are above 45 degrees, the March air becomes thick with the sweet song of frogs calling from the wet ditches, depressions and ponds of the Kankakee Sands Prairie Restoration.

In our Kankakee Sands region, there are 12 species of frogs and toads that might be calling during spring evenings.   Frogs and toads are easily identified by their calls, like the high pitched ‘peeeeeep’ of the spring peeper or the plucked banjo string ‘plounk’ call of the green frog. Frogs will call during their mating season in the spring, then quiet down for the summer and fall and finally hibernate in the winter.

One of the quietest members of the spring frog symphony, but one of the most abundant at Kankakee Sands is the Northern leopard frog (Rana pipiens).   It is the frog you are most likely to see hoping ahead of you on the trail or bounding across the road, legs dangling behind it when it is airborne. The Northern Leopard Frog is 2-3.5 inches in length, a respectable size for a frog.  Its base color can range from bright green to an olive green-brown; it will always have dark rounded spots on its back that resemble the spots of a leopard.

The historical range of the Northern leopard frog in Indiana was throughout northern, central, and southeast part of the state in freshwater sites with ample vegetation like wetlands, marshes, ponds and moist fields.  In the summer they wander far from standing water through moist vegetation.  Over the past 30 years, the numbers have declined so dramatically that now in Indiana the Northern leopard frog is federally listed as a ‘species of special concern’, which means it is being monitored but not yet managed as a protected species with Federal oversight.

A Northern leopard frog’s diet consists of insects and spiders, slugs and earthworms, and occasionally other smaller frogs.  A Northern leopard frog is part of the diet of birds, snakes, bull frogs, and small mammals like the raccoon and opossum.

The mating call of the Northern leopard frog is a low quiet deep rattling snore lasting 3 seconds followed by a ‘chuckling’ or the same sound that you can make by rubbing your thumb against a balloon.  It is one of the quietest calls of all the frogs in our area. The call is often overpowered by the more robust calls of other species.  However, the northern leopard frog is less secretive than other breeds and relatively easy to spot.  Breeding season for the Northern leopard frog is mid-March to the end of April.

March on out to Kankakee Sands this March.  During the day, go ahead and re-discover the joy of catching a frog, holding it in your hands, and then watching it hop away.  During the night, enjoy the surround sound of the frog choirs at Kankakee Sands.  Bets are on that you are sure to see a Northern leopard frog when you come.

If you are interested in taking part in frog call surveys or frog monitoring, there are several websites where you can learn more about becoming a frog monitoring volunteer.  Chicago Wilderness Calling Frog Survey http://www.habitatproject.org/frogsurvey/index.html or FrogWatch USA  www.aza.org/frogwatch/  or Indiana DNR Amphibian Monitoring Program  www.in.gov/dnr/fishwild/3325.htm .

The Kankakee Sands Efroymson Family Prairie Restoration is a 7,800 acre prairie restoration project of The Nature Conservancy located in Newton County, Indiana.  The Nature Conservancy office is located on US 41 between CR 400N and CR 250N. The mission of The Nature Conservancy is to preserve the plants, animals and natural communities that represent the diversity of life on Earth by protecting the lands and waters they need to survive.  Kankakee Sands is always open for visitation and an informational kiosk is located out front of the office with information about the project, the trails, and the prairie ecosystem.  For more information about the project, visit our website at www.nature.org/Indiana , or call 219-285-2184.