[shareprints gallery_id=”41514″ gallery_type=”squares” gallery_position=”pos_center” gallery_width=”width_100″ image_size=”small” image_padding=”1″ theme=”dark” image_hover=”false” lightbox_type=”slide” comments=”false” sharing=”true”]Under overcast skies, we headed down to Knoch Knolls Park, mindful that typically in mid-April the wooded landscape along the DuPage River becomes blanketed with bluebells.
For years, vivid memories of the beautiful violet-blue bluebells in this tranquil setting have carried us from one spring season to the next in the park with a history that dates back to 1830 when the Scott family settled here.
Bicyclists in large numbers passed us along the paved path that led to the bridge over the DuPage River. And before we crossed the bridge, we observed a joyful group of men and women playing Frisbee golf in the distance.
Frisbee golf is an internationally-played flying disc game in which individual players throw a flying disc toward a wire basket on a set course. In the spirit of the game of golf where a low score is better, the object of the game is to follow a course from start to finish in the fewest number of throws of the disc.
Yet, our trips to Knoch Knolls are not to play games.
Rather, the natural surroundings that include sounds, sights and smells of springtime attract us to the woodlands where we’ve often watched beaver and deer in the distance and enjoyed bird calls overhead.
When we’re looking for bluebells, we take a hard right on the first trail just over the bridge.
On today’s trek, we quickly were in the middle of a sea of green, budding with bluebells. Uprooted trees, tangled branches and knotted treetops produced an unusual calm all along the DuPage River.
As we traipsed along the dirt paths, signs of controlled burns and a ground covered with brown fallen leaves from earlier seasons were in plain view, but no dangling bluebells appeared just yet.
Still we were delighted to discover an occasional clump of bright yellow daffodils, mayapples (a.k.a. “umbrella plants”) popping through the brush and tiny white bloodroot among many other wildflowers along the trail.
Buddy up and head on down to Knoch Knolls where it’s time to keep your eyes out for the bluebells, likely to open by the end of the week. Next time we’ll try to remember to take our pocket field guides of Illinois birds and trees.
