2021 Meetings

We decided in January to establish our tentative event schedule for 2021. Given the pandemic, these dates may change (or we may decide to pursue another route). Please check this page for updates. These are listed below. All events start on Saturday at 9 a.m. unless otherwise noted. In the event of inclement weather, we plan to meet the following day (Sunday at 1 p.m. rather than canceling the trip this year). We welcome new members and look forward to meeting you at these events. You can also find us on Meetup this year. [Our Meetup calendar has also been updated with this schedule].

• February 20th will be a Zoom session – Mark DuBois will discuss fossil insects from China and Mongolia. These are compression fossils from Jurassic and Cretaceous times. This meeting will start promptly at 9 a.m. and will be recorded. For questions, you may need to login again as we are using the free version of Zoom. Contact Mark directly if you would like to listen to the recording of this meeting.
• March 20th will be focused on the ISU day of insects sessions. Frank Hitchell will give us a preview of the session he will be providing. This will be done via Zoom starting at 9 a.m.
• April 18th – we will meet at Frank’s house and drive to Henry Gleason Nature Preserve (Mason Co.). We moved this event to Sunday. We will meet at Frank’s house at 1 p.m. For those who want to meet at the preserve, we will arrive at 2 p.m.
• May 15th – we will meet at Frank’s house and drive to Dixon Waterfowl Refuge (near Hennepin). If you wish to meet at the refuge, we will gather at 10 a.m. at the observation tower.
• June 19th – we will meet at Frank’s house and drive to Dirksen Park (Pekin).
• July 17th – we will meet at Jubilee Park (near Red Fox Run) for a walk in their prairie area.
• August 21st – we will meet at Frank’s house and drive to the Illinois State Museum (Springfield). We have canceled this trip. See you next month.
• September 18th – we will meet at Jubilee Park (probably Red Fox Run) at 5 pm for a picnic and night collecting/ observing of insects.
• October 16th – we will meet at Frank’s house and drive to Singing Woods.
• We do not presently plan to hold events in November and December but our plans may change. Stay tuned.