Eighteen years for the children of St. Jude….
Hi everyone, it’s Brad. Normally Brian writes the intros to one of my stories, but this time he’s letting me have a go at it.
Long time Intrigued readers know that Jan participates in the ultimate community-based fund-raising effort in the country: The 45th annual St. Jude Memphis to Peoria Run (M2P) to raise money for the Kids of St. Jude. In case you didn’t know, Memphis, TN and Peoria, IL are 465 miles apart. Why would anyone voluntarily run that far during the hottest week of the summer? It’s all for the kids.
The St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, TN is the premiere children’s cancer research center in the world (my humble opinion). Danny Thomas (“Make Way for Daddy” fame) said that “no child should die in the dawn of life” and founded the hospital in 1962 in Memphis to treat, and now cure kids with cancer. Forty-five years ago, former Peoria County Sheriff Mike McCoy had “One Crazy Idea” to raise money for the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis by hosting a running relay from Memphis to Peoria. In 1982, 21 runners completed the 465-mile journey raising $22,000.
Fast forward to 2026. This was Jan’s 18th year participating in the Memphis to Peoria (M2P) Run. Runners leave Memphis about 11am on Wednesday to the thunderous cheering of hundreds, possibly thousands, of St. Jude employees lining the roadway. Runners then run, 24×7 relay style, back to Peoria over the next four days and nights. Two teams of runners, Gold and Blue, tag-team for eight hours at a time all the way back to Peoria. Jan is on the Gold Team. When she’s not running, she’s also showering, eating, helping in a chase van, and driving a motorhome to the next stop for the team along the route. This means precious little sleep time. Because of her spectacular organizing skills, she is able to eek out a couple of hours of sleep (literally only two or three) each day over the four days. As Mike McCoy is fond of saying, “it’s a fund-raising event, not a running event,” but you’d never know it by the number of runners that participate.
The M2P Run ends at the Peoria Civic Center with not only the 180 runners from Peoria (including more than a few former St. Jude patients), there are 35 doctors and staff running from the St. Jude Children’s Hospital, and another 2,000 or more from 33 satellite runs all over Illinois converging on the Civic Center to start the fund-raising telethon. This year set fund-raising records again. Not only did the M2P smash its efforts from the prior year with a record $1.9 million, the entire telethon (all of the satellite Runs, golf outings, talent shows, corn boils, lemonade stands, etc.) raised over $12.6 million dollars for the Kids of St. Jude this year.
Since 1982, the combined efforts from M2P and all of the satellite runs has raised over $101 Million for the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital; much of it from right here in Central Illinois. That’s what I call long-term, unwavering committed communities. This is what a community’s heart looks like when banding together to support Hope for children and families seeking cures.
Now that this year’s M2P Run has completed, the motorhomes have been returned to their respective rental companies, the runners safely returning home, and the confetti cleaned up, Jan can rest. Well, at least until next year’s M2P prep starts. As you would guess, Jan’s more than a little tired. She puts on a brave face when she tries to convince me, “but it’s a good tired.” I’ve made the one-night, no running required, bus trip to Memphis many times. Heck no, I’m not a runner; just a huge cheerleader for her. But I know exactly why she continues to run for the Kids of St. Jude.
For now, Jan is resting and recovering. BTW, in a couple days I’m taking her on a fabulous vacation so she can rest and recover in style. Shhh! Don’t tell her it’s also part of another photo assignment.
Take it away Brad. (that sounds funny coming from me)…
During retirement, Jan and I have taken up various activities besides birding. Shhh, don’t tell Brian, he thinks we focus on birds 24×7. We hike with a friend Trish when our schedule allows. While on spring hikes at a Spring Creek Preserve (SCP), I like to listen to the birds to see what’s out there. I can by no means identify all of them by their call, but I can recognize a call when it’s new to me, or the area.
The last few springs, usually from May to late June I heard a bird call that rises in pitch and accelerates the higher the pitch. At first, it reminded me of a staccato slide whistle, stopping to hit all the notes all the way to the top of its range. This song definitely stands out from the chirps and chips and warbles we normally hear on our hikes.
SCP consists of three reclaimed farm fields that have been allowed to go back to nature. Each is full of young trees and grasses native to the Illinois prairie surrounded by mature woods tucked into the folds of the river bluff. There are also plenty of hiking trails through the woods for all ability levels. We seldom have to worry about water in the creek separating the fields, but when it runs, it runs full.
In the first of the hiking fields next to the parking lot, let’s call it Field A (that’s its real name anyway), I can usually hear an escalating song. As we walk along, I hear it again. But by the time we’ve reached the end of Field A, I can no longer hear it. Hiking the path around Fields B and C, I don’t hear the song at all. Turning around, and taking the fields in reverse alphabetical order, C to B to A, I begin to hear the song again once we near the end of Field A by the parking lot. Taking out my trusty bird listening app, Merlin, it identifies the singing bird. But when I go to enter it into eBird later, it tells me it’s very unlikely to hear that bird at that location. Ever. One app says it is, the other says it isn’t.
Talk about calling your [bird] shot, hit the jump to read more about this rather pretty rarity..so the experts say.
On a recent Wildlife Intrigued IW4 hike (Intrigued Corporate Warbler Watch and Walk in the Woods) (Jan was on assignment for St. Jude) with Brian and another experienced birder Lisa (story intro here), she mentions she’s heard and seen the bird in question also but didn’t mention where she saw it exactly. When I guessed Field A of Spring Creek Preserve, she said I was right. I convinced Brian to drive all the way over to SCP, practically guaranteeing he’d spot this +1 in Illinois for him.
When Brian and I arrived, I said that I normally see this bird right near the parking lot, and then again on sunny first half of the Field A path. The morning was quite chilly so we bundled up and began the walk, cameras in tow. Within 2 minutes of leaving the gravel parking lot, his ears perked and said, “well, there it is.”
We could hear the Prairie Warbler (Setophaga discolor) calling from the middle of Field A but couldn’t see any. Prairie Warblers aren’t a +1 for either one of us. But this was the first time, I believe, he was able to see one in Illinois.
On the return leg of the 1-mile hike as we neared the end of the oval around Field A, a Prairie teased us by calling out very loudly from a tree right on the hiking trail. Getting a few snaps in the tin, we were both very happy to have caught the bird that the apps say shouldn’t be here. Go on, check out your favorite site for bird maps and you’ll see a small smudge left of center in Illinois. Ironically, the smudge looks like the shape of Field A at SCP. I know, the spot on the range map is really larger than the size of Field A, but I’ve not been able to hear, or see the Prairie Warbler anywhere outside of Field A. They aren’t even in Field B or C. Neither I, nor my bird listening app, have ever heard them other than near the parking lot and the first couple hundred yards of Field A.
Elated from having spotted one, we headed back to our cars. As we neared the parking lot, an impossibly loud Prairie Warbler call rang out. It was sitting right where I told Brian it had been on prior visits, in a tree next to the parking lot not 20 feet from where we were standing. It was as if the bird was waiting for us. This time, it didn’t tease us with only the upper branches.
It had settled into the top of a very young tree in full sunshine, singing its heart out. The Prairie also gave us all of the necessary poses for identification, including a good shot of the cinnamon-colored spots on its upper back.
Prairie Warblers can live up to 8 years in the wild. They are considered at the Yellow Alert Tipping Point because they have lost 50% of their population in the past 50 years. Forests are being cleared and developments going up faster than second growth forests can take hold, losing much of their preferred habitat. Thankfully we have a little slice of their paradise right next door…for now.
These little birds have two main songs in their repertoire. The “A” Song is what I hear on Field A, and is the courtship song. It’s the song that is faster and ascending. The “B” song is directed at competitors and is slower with longer clear ascending notes ending with raspy tones. I think it’s very hard to be threatening when you are so small and brightly colored
Prairie Warblers like second growth forests, which might explain why they like this area so much. The farm fields are a recent addition (since the year 2000 or so) to the preserve. This means the trees growing where the fields used to be are very young. The whole preserve is only 262 acres, not much territory to even warrant a smudge on the Prairie Warbler range map. The Prairie Warbler range doesn’t really include Illinois at all, only on the fringes down south and this little spot in central Illinois. Their primary range does include most of the eastern half of the US but mainly south of the Ohio River, a tiny bit of New England, and a little west of the Mississippi and along the Gulf Coast. They can be found on some Caribbean islands and along the eastern edge of the Yucatan Peninsula.
Did I mention this Prairie was sitting and singing from the tree right next to the parking lot? It was the last tree before the picnic table and crushed gravel in the parking lot. I think Brian and I spent the majority of 15 minutes for the whole adventure. Oh sure, we did chat about corporate matters once we had photos to write about. But most of the effort was contained to within 200 yards of the parking lot.
Thank you for reading. If you want to see more Prairie Warbler photos, please visit here.
Credits:
Thanks again to Jan for proofreading and editing.
Wildlife Intrigued 
Beautiful little birds.
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