I Guess This Was the Last

Mike Timmons
12 minutes ago
2 min read

12/30/2025

I was sure I would make it out again before the end of the year. At the beginning of this month, we were gearing up for snow storms and colder weather. I planned to get out. The weather turned bitter, though, and then the snow turned to rain. The holidays moved in... time passed quickly.

I wrapped up work early one Friday at the start of the month and headed up to Kankakee Sands. It is a long drive up. The weather was sunny and clear down here in Indianapolis. As I moved north, the weather turned. High winds and clouds moved in. I wondered about just turning around. I decided to be stubborn and press on. I could see a gap between the clouds and horizon, and I figured there would be some sunshine around sunset.

I got into Kankakee with about an hour before the sun would set. I could already see owls up. I did not strive for an exact count, but I am sure there were around 8 in the area. That is a pretty could number for a mile or so stretch of road. There were a number of people in the area. It tends to be a madhouse up here, at times. People block the roads, leave car doors open into the road, and make a bit of a nuisance of themselves. I am not excluding myself from the latter group, but I try to be conscious of cars coming up behind me and move on before they get to me. About 15 minutes after arriving, a local was laying on their horn and yelling at some cars parked in the road. Not long after that, DNR showed up and started running people out. I am sure the officer gets tired of continually telling people to move; some more than once. I made a few more patrols through the area and left. That is my biggest issue with coming up here. It is too long of a drive to turn around and get ran out because people cannot be more considerate.

As for the owls, they were staying down and out of the winds. I rarely saw one off of the ground. It was just too windy. The sun did come out, and the lighting was great. Most of the owls were on the wrong side of the light though. I finally found one perched up on a beautiful dead mullein stalk in some great sunset light. Unfortunately, the DNR officer was right behind me, and I just looked at it as I drove by and turned left to head back to the highway and home.

Thanks for reading,

Mike

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