Stretching through central Illinois’ Island Archipelago is a second chain of islands. Compared to the five main island cities, they are very small in size. They can only be found from late spring to early autumn. Their prominent feature is the fields of tall sunflowers that cover them. Each island is home to thousands of these flowers soaking up the hot summer sun and the cool rains of passing thunder storms.
These islands appear in different places every summer. When the right person finds one, the social media lights up with texts, tweets and post spreading its’ location to those who visit them each year.
Every day people travel out to visit these island, until the flowers have lost their big, sunny yellow blooms and the birds feast on their dried seeds. I met a car load of girls that drove from a little town twenty miles away to visit the one near Peoria.
Finding an island in a different location each season summer gives it a special quality and you cannot help but feel that enchantment when you wander among the rows. If you visit at sunrise, and the mist is still laying low over the field and into the dark woods at it’s edges, it is like sleep walking through a dream or a fairly tale.
I tried to capture something of that magic from the island we visited. These photos were taken an hour or so before sunset.
Prairie Beacon 
Beautiful!
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