July 18, 2026 Jubilee State Park
We held our July field trip at Jubilee State Park near Peoria, Illinois. We walked some trails starting at Red Fox Run picnic area. The forecast was for very hot weather and the water levels along the Illinois and Vermillion Rivers were much too high for hiking as...
June 20, 2026 (Volo Bog)
June 20, 2026 – Our June field trip included a visit to Volo Bog (near McHenry, Illinois). Since this was roughly a 3 hour drive from central Illinois, some of us elected to spend Friday night at a hotel. We had 6 members of our group participate. We spent a fir...May 16, 2026 (Merwin Preserve)
Our May field trip took us to Merwin Nature Preserve (near Lexington, Illinois). We had 21 people participate. Not everyone is in the group photo as some arrived later. We conducted this joint field trip with the Herpetology Section of the Peoria Academy of Science....
March 21, 2026
For our March, 2026 field trip, we visited Bennett’s Terraqueous Gardens in East Peoria, IL. We had a great turnout with 18 people (and Einstein – the dog). Jose took a number of photos and those are included below in a gallery. Here are soe of the insects...2026 Meeting Schedule
We discussed our tentative agenda for 2026 at our February 21, 2026 planning meeting. Many thanks to Brittany for hosting the meeting at the U of I Extension Office in Pekin. The schedul can be found in this linked PDF file. This will open in a new broswer...Holiday message – 2025
Jose developed this excellent video summarizing some of the insects and arthropods we encountered in 2025. Hope you enjoy. Alredy looking forward to 2026 and our excursions! Hope to see you...October 18, 2025 Field Trip
We took our final field trip of the 2025 season to Singing Woods/ Tawny Oaks on Saturday, October 18, 2025. Many thanks to Jose for leading the group. Photos from the excursion can be found on our Facebook page. [That link will open in a new browser tab.] Our next...September, 2025 Picnic and potluck
We will hold our annual picnic and potluck on September 20, 2025 at 5 p.m. at Jubilee State Park (Red Fox Run picnic area), near Peoria, Illinois. Jose put together this video to help everyone better understand what will be observing after our picnic. If you plan to...August, 2025 Weston Cemetery Prairie field trip
We visited Weston Cemetery Prairie (0.5 miles east of Weston, IL) on August 17, 2025. Although it was a hot summer day, we had roughly 10 souls make the trek. We spent about an hour at the site observing a number of insects. Surprisingly, we did not see many...
Peoria approximella (a moth named in New York for Peoria, IL). Photo of Michigan specimen courtesy Jim Vargo (used with permission).