Regardless of our human encroachment here, nature finds a way. As flocks of fans watch Ernie Els play, downy phlox sprouts nearby. As players approach the 18th green, eighteen green frogs sing in the nearby wetland. At the seventh tee, a tree swallow slices the sky. On the fringe, deer. Near the rough, a rough-legged hawk. On a dogleg, a coyote.

I think about both of my daughters taking flight as I walk Cherokee Marsh and delight in the return of the tree swallows. The birds dip and glide across blue skies, chirp and chatter in the tree knots, and make ballets in the clouds, so many that there are clouds of swallows. An iridescence of joy. A presence of happiness. Of home.

Jim Mand, Paul Noeldner, Jan Axelson, and Tom Jarvis have relocated and remapped nest boxes for the bluebird nest box trail in the North Unit of the Cherokee Marsh Conservation Park. There are also bluebird trails at the South Unit of Cherokee Marsh Conservation Park, Meadow Ridge City Park, the TPC Wisconsin golf course, Yahara Heights County Park, Cherokee Marsh Natural Resource Area, Token Creek County Park, and the VFW Club on Highway CV.

The grass known as big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii) is called the “king of the prairie.” It can grow taller than all of us. It has roots that can reach ten feet down. Some folks might think it’s a plain plant, a plain plant on the plains. But, it is host to the larvae of butterflies: the rare byssus skipper, the common wood nymph. The grass is a womb for colorful living origami that dances on the air.