Chicago EXPLORING NATURE & CULTURE

WWINITLERD 20E01 RNEchicagowiS ldernessmSag.org

WILEY NEIGHBOR • B ORN AGAIN RIVER What is ChicagoWilderness? Chicago Wilderness is some of the finest and most significant nature in the temperate world, with a core of roughly 200,000 acres of protected natural lands harboring native plant and animal communities that are more rare–and their survival more globally threat - ened–than the tropical rain forests.

CHICAGO WILDERNESS is an unprecedented alliance of 124 public and private organizations working together to study and restore, protect and manage the precious natural ecosystems of the Chicago region for the benefit of the public. www.chicagowilderness.org

Chicago WILDERNES S is a quarterly magazine that celebrates the rich natural heritage of this region and tells the inspiring stories of the people and organizations working to heal and protect local nature. www.chicagowildernessmag.org CHICAGO WILDERNESS A Regional Nature Reserve Looking In Both Directions O P P

O o be human is to want to make things, to con - Asa Gray herbarium at Harvard. He also tried the S I

T struct and build, to shape and mold. We do this Internet. Typing in “Vasey” to conduct a search, Ed E : Twith sand and snow for play. “Look, Mom,” says found a “very famous George Vasey who was an S u

n young Sonia Pollock in the photo here, “look what I’ve Australian general in World War II.” Ha. Wrong turn. s e made.” We do this with homes and schools, churches Gradually Ed found the real Dr. Vasey. “There’s a very t o

n and entire landscapes for human society. The history of poignant letter written in 1863 before Vasey learned o our efforts is writ large upon the land, how we have that his younger brother, who was in the Union Army, a k

sculpted from wild places the shape of our hopes and had been killed in the battle of Fredericksburg,” Ed l e a

v dreams, our farms and cities. recalls. “It’s like looking e s

But equally human with through a lace curtain, or a a n our passion to build is a shade on a window–it’s misty d w yearning for knowledge, and veiled but you can see the i n d beauty, and excellence. We shapes of the past. Vasey b l o are a curious and imagina - arrived in Ringwood eight w n tive species, endlessly years after the invention of s n inventive, sometimes irre - the plow, so there was very lit - o w

sponsible, sometimes even tle ground that had been d r i wise. The humbling lessons plowed then. The prairies and f t

b we have learned in the cen - barrens were still original. He y

W tury just ended are that we lived in the twilight of the i l l do not, despite our clever - prairie wilderness. To read his a r d ness, know all. We have letters is to see that world

C l a learned that changing the through the eyes of a 28 year- y

. land is not always right, or old botanist who’s in love good. We have learned that with plants.” changing the land can mean To read the story of Ed’s losing our selves and our search for Dr. Vasey is to see P h

place in the world. o the world through the eyes of t o :

This issue is full of good M a passionate and hungry i k e

news, small and large. The M sleuth, to celebrate with him a c

story of the born-again river D the joys of discovery. But Ed is o n a

in McHenry County (page l also the kind of historian d 8) shows that we, as groups who’s looking for the future, of people working together, can make amends, can re- here in the Middle West, by shuffling mussels, ungirdling shape the landscape to provide better habitat for scores rivers, planting the seeds of ancient plants along the of species–and better places for humans to enjoy. The sides of modern streams. “We’ve learned how to take poem by Mona van Duyn on page 28 illustrates the things apart and reduce them to the smallest piece, but transforming power of the world outside our windows. when we do, we lose how they’re connected and it And Ed Collins’s search for Dr. Vasey demonstrates in leaves us, in the end, empty,” Ed says. Stewardship–car - moving fashion the transforming power of curiosity. ing for the land and restoring it–gives us that chance, he Ed’s search for Dr. Vasey, a 19th century physician says, to be re-connected. To be a part, not apart. and botanist who arrived in McHenry County in 1848 Chicago Wilderness offers all of us this priceless and settled at Ringwood, spanned two continents and opportunity to re-connect our semi-urban selves with took him to the archives of numerous universities. Ed wild nature, to shape the land wisely and well, to build a found a plant species list for McHenry County in the meaningful future. I am so proud to be a part of this.

Debra Shore

EDITOR

W INTER 2001

P h

CONTENTS o t o :

P a t

W a d

FEATURES e c k i / R o o t

WILEY NEIGHBOR R e s by Chris Hardman ...... 4 o u r c

4 e

Burgeoning coyotes–they make folks nervous but help the ecosystem. s BORN AGAIN RIVER ...... 8 Bringing the Nippersink back to nature, backhoe-style. SEARCHING FOR DR. V ASEY by Ed Collins ...... 10 Finding the future by researching the past. P h o t o

D E PA RTMENTS :

P a t

W a d

Into the Wild ...... 17 e c

8 k Wintry destinations for making tracks–and following them. i Natural Events Calendar. Working the Wilderness: The Herbicide Helper ...... 18 By Joe Neumann Meet Your Neighbors ...... 25

Seeding the Snow , a women’s nature journal. Northern shrike. Greg P h o t o

LeFevre, restoration veteran at age 14. :

K a n a

Letter From a Father, a poem by Mona Van Duyn ...... 28 e

H i r a b a

Feeding Birds: A Primer ...... 30 y a

31 s h

by Bob and Karen Fisher. i Snowy! ...... 31 Kanae Hirabayashi and an Arctic owl. Chicago The Chicago River : A Book Review ...... 32 WILDERNES S Volume IV, Number 2 News from Chicago Wilderness ...... 33 BOARD OF DIRECTORS: President : Dr. George Rabb Reading Pictures ...... 40 Vice-President : Dan Griffin Secretary : Laura Gates True Progress. Treasurer : Barbara Whitney Carr Jerry Adelmann, Laura Hohnhold, John Rogner, Ron Wolk

EDITOR ...... Debra Shore SENIOR EDITOR ...... Stephen Packard ASSISTANT EDITOR ...... Sheryl De Vore NEWS EDITOR ...... Alison Carney Brown ART DIRECTOR ...... Carol Freeman/Freeman Design WEBMASTER/DESIGNER ...... Jennifer Dees SUBSCRIPTIONS MANAGER ...... Lisa Phillips

www.chicagowildernessmag.org Chicago WILDERNESS is published quarterly. Subscriptions are $14/yr. Please address all subscription correspondence to Chicago WILDERNESS , P.O. Box 5054, Skokie, IL 60076-5054. (847) 965-9253. [email protected] Please direct editorial inquiries and correspondence to Editor, Chicago WILDERNESS , 5225 Old Orchard Road, Suite 37, Skokie, IL 60077. (847) 965-9275. 28 e-mail: [email protected] Chicago WILDERNESS is printed on recycled paper. ABOVE: The spirit of a bird can warm a winter heart. And in a poem of Mona Van Duyn (see Chicago WILDERNESS is endorsed by the Chicago Region page 28), it can do much more. Photo by Robert Shaw. Biodiversity Council. The opinions expressed in these OPPOSITE: Thorn Creek, Jurgensen Woods, Cook County Forest Preserves. Photo by Joe Nowak. pages, however, are the authors’ own. COVER: Coyotes’ electrifying howls enrich the night for people living near forest preserves. © by Chicago Wilderness Magazine , Inc. Photo by Alan G. Nelson/Root Resources. ISSN 1097-8917. Postmaster, address service requested to Chicago WILDERNESS , P.O. Box 5054, Skokie, IL 60076 W INTER 2001 All rights reserved. WILEY NEIGHBOR by Chris Hardman

A lone coyote crosses a frozen slough in western Cook County.

he North American coyote has long been a symbol Chicago residents were taken by surprise in March of of the wilderness. Snout pointed toward the evening 1999 when the Chicago Tribune publicized the capture of a Tsky with a full moon at his back, the coyote reminds coyote that was hiding under a taxi on Michigan Avenue. us of what is truly wild in this country. Or does it? These That was no surprise to Chris Anchor, a wildlife biologist days, the coyote can be found anywhere in Chicago with the Forest Preserve District of Cook County charged Wilderness–from the bustling streets of Chicago to cultivat - with capturing and releasing the urban coyote. According ed suburban neighborhoods to the natural wilds. to his studies, all coyote habitat in Cook County is occu - Coyotes were roaming Chicago Wilderness forests and pied and spoken for. The coyotes have been living among prairies long before Europeans immigrated here in the us for several decades. 1800s. Journals kept by early explorers indicate that coyotes “One of the reasons they have been so successful is that were abundant in Illinois in the 1800s but their popula - they are rather plastic in their feeding habits, are oppor - tions declined dramatically in the latter part of the century. tunistic, and take advantage of a wide variety of food It wasn’t until almost 100 years later that their numbers sources,” says Frank Drummond, a wildlife biologist for the increased, starting in west-central Illinois in the early 1970s Lake County Forest Preserves. Coyotes can survive on any and moving to the northeastern part of the state in the late type of food. Although their preference is rodents, voles, 1970s and early 1980s. According to Mammals of Illinois , and mice, they can also eat insects, grasshoppers, beetles, written by Donald F. Hoffmeister, there were between grubs, snakes, lizards, and frogs. In cities they hunt rats and 20,000 and 30,000 coyotes living in Illinois by the mid- house cats, scavenge from garbage cans and dumpsters, and 1980s. dine on road kill. Wiley Buck, now working for the The key to the coyote’s survival is the animal’s amazingly Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, examined for adaptable personality. The coyote can live in the most his Master’s thesis what coyotes were eating in the suburbs. remote regions of the country or survive well inside our Focusing on Cook, Lake, McHenry, Will, and DuPage largest cities. In this region, coyotes are most common in counties, Buck studied coyote scat to determine suburban forest preserves with a good mix of grassland and open coyote diet. “The very interesting thing is that we found woods, but they also live in cemeteries, local parks, and very little human-related food: garbage or pets,” he says. even at O’Hare Airport. “In other urban areas like San Diego and Los Angeles,

4 C HICAGO W ILDERNESS more coyotes, but where the diets have because the coyotes are been studied, they allowing themselves to depend a lot on cats be seen. “I think what and garbage-picking to you’re seeing are the make a living, but the effects of evolution of ones in Chicago behavior,” says Bluett. Wilderness are being “When that popula - pretty traditional and tion increase was going eating wild food.” The on in the ’70s, you had majority of the coyote’s P

h animals coming into o

diet was made up of rab - t o

: residential areas under

B

bit and deer. r a

d dire circumstances

Ironically, widespread S e

m only–deep snow, cold e

development through - l /

I temperatures. Over l l i

out the Chicago n

o several generations i s

Wilderness area has D

e that tendency to be p

resulted in more food a r

t afraid of people and be m

for the coyote. Most e n

t very elusive has given

forest preserves were a o f

N way ...to animals that a

mix of agricultural fields t u

r just take people for a l

and woodlots before R

e granted.” s

they became conserva - o u

r Chris Anchor points c

tion land. The mosaic e s out that coyotes feel of woods and grasslands Coyote pups emerge from their den at Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie. quite safe in well-pop - that results provides ulated areas where ideal habitat for the small mammals coyotes love to eat. hunting is not allowed. “Coyotes, in general, in Cook As prey populations have exploded, coyotes have found an P County are not legally hunted or trapped so they’ve lost a h o abundant and easy food source. t o lot of their natural fear of humans,” he explains. “In this :

M Although the Illinois Department of Natural Resources i k area coyotes view people neutrally. We get a lot of reports e

(IDNR) reports that the coyote population has been stable M

a of coyotes hunting in neighborhoods in the middle of the c

D since the 1980s, more people throughout the Chicago o

n day, walking through picnic groves while picnics are going a

l Wilderness region are reporting more coyote sightings and d on right in front of people.” coyote-human interactions than ever before. IDNR Wildlife biologists are confident that even as coyotes get Biologist Bob Bluett suggests that the reason people bolder, by following certain rules, humans can co-exist encounter coyotes more often is not because there are with coyotes peacefully and enjoy sharing the land with P h o t o :

L y n n

M .

S t o n e Coyotes’ sharp teeth are a threat to cats and small dogs. But these predators are helping restore balance in our wildlands.

W INTER 2001 5 this clever and beautiful animal. The The gray fox seems to fare much bet - number one rule is to never feed coy - ter because they are able to escape otes. “The only documented cases of coyotes by climbing trees. [coyotes] attacking humans have Deer are affected by coyotes in a occurred in areas where people feed different way. Adult deer are rarely a them, and they all occurred in people source of coyote food in the Chicago that were age five and younger,” says Wilderness area. Because Illinois coy - Anchor. “So it’s imperative that peo - otes don’t live in large packs, they are ple do not begin to feed coyotes.” less apt to attempt the takedown of a Feeding coyotes completely breaks large mammal like a deer. They do down their natural fear of humans and feed on fawns and on road-killed deer. P

h can cause them to become unusually A recent study by John Oldenburg, o t o

: aggressive. Especially in residential Manager of Grounds and Natural

S t e

p neighborhoods with young children, Resources, and his colleagues at the h e n

the results of well-intentioned feeding DuPage County Forest Preserve P a c

k could be tragic. In order to prevent District shows that newborn fawns are a r d coyotes from viewing humans as a definitely an important food source food source at all, experts recommend for coyotes in their area. Of 129 sam - securing garbage cans so coyotes don’t ples of coyote scat they collected SCAT ANALYSIS become regular visitors scavenging for between late March through mid-June scraps in the back yard. Bringing in of 2000, 21.7 percent contained Recent analysis of three piles of dog or cat food and water in the white-tailed deer. By identifying the coyote scat from specimens in west - evening also eliminates a potential size of bone remnants, the researchers ern Cook County by Chris Anchor, coyote food source. Although coyotes were able to determine that the wildlife biologist with the Forest can pose a threat to small cats and remains belonged to newborn fawns. Preserve District of Cook County dogs, a simple solution is to keep dogs “What this suggests is that predation on leashes and bring cats in at night. probably plays a greater role than we Prairie vole remains As with any wild animal, the best were originally thinking,” says Meadow vole remains way to enjoy coyotes is from a dis - Oldenburg. “If we can have any nat - Rabbit fur tance. As long as humans do not ural predation going on to help us Fox squirrel fur threaten them or their pups, coyotes manage deer that would be a great Plastic from a child’s toy will be the first to run away during a benefit.” This new information is now Grass typical coyote-human encounter. being used in DuPage County’s com - Cherry pits According to IDNR statistics, only 16 puter model to help predict deer cases of coyotes attacking humans population and determine harvest have been documented in a 30-year numbers. period. “Whenever I’ve handled the Coyotes are great communicators. animals in the traps, they are very Scientists have identified at least 11 docile and just kind of lie there and different kinds of vocalizations such as let you work on them and put on the lone howls, group howls, group yip - collar and take the blood samples,” ping, and barks. Coyotes use their

P says IDNR Natural Heritage Biologist voices to establish territory, signal a h o t

o Brad Semel. “I’d rather work with a warning, indicate location, and send :

S t

e coyote than a raccoon.” greetings. Brad Woodson, restoration p h e

n According to Illinois biologists, the ecologist for the McHenry County

P a

c effect coyotes have had on other Conservation District, says that k a r d native wildlife varies from species to campers enjoy hearing coyotes in the species. They note that red foxes have evening. “I think that’s a neat thing They’re not vegetarians. Most people lost territory to coyotes. “The foxes that adds to the camping experience,” seem to love lions and cheetahs and are getting pushed back into different he says. Coyotes also use facial expres - coyotes–in concept. But we’re not areas. We are getting calls about foxes sions and body positions to all that comfortable with the fact in subdivisions and under trailers. I communicate with each other. For that they tear apart other animals think these foxes are trying to find lit - example, grimaces can indicate for dinner. Yet we can’t truly care tle niches where the coyotes aren’t aggressive feelings. A complex com - for nature without appreciating nat - because where the two of them come munication structure is imperative for ural processes. Carnivores, scav - into contact, the coyotes are actually animals used to living as a commu - engers, and decomposers are all part killing the foxes,” explains Semel. “I nity; because coyotes normally live in of the beauty of nature–if we have had radio collars on two foxes that packs, they need to be able to com - the wisdom to perceive it. were killed by coyotes. They don’t eat municate with each other to avoid them. They just seem to eliminate fights or misunderstandings. In the them from the range of competition.” Chicago Wilderness area, coyotes live

6 C HICAGO W ILDERNESS alone, in pairs, or in temporary family groups. Like other canines, coyotes are very territorial. They mark their territory with urine or scat and warn off any interlopers with aggressive displays. Most territories are already spoken for, which explains the presence of coy - otes in the more populated areas. “We did some work with coyotes that came out of city of Chicago,” explains Chris Anchor. “We radio-collared them and let them go. Basically what every sin - P

gle coyote tried to do was get back to h o t o

where they came from. We would take :

P a t

them to the most extreme areas of the W a county where they had every opportu - d e c k i nity to stay away from people if they / R o o

chose to, and every single animal t

R e chose to try and get back to where s o u r they came from.” c e Coyote parents are good parents. s Both take responsibility for protecting Like many predators, coyotes practice a form of birth control. Each coyote pack occupies a discrete the pups, feeding them, and teaching territory. Only the alpha female breeds in each pack. them how to be a coyote. During the first week of life, the pups are blind extermination under a department and helpless, and the mother rarely titled Animal Damage Control leaves the den. A few weeks later the (recently the name was changed to pups will take their first tentative Wildlife Services). Each year hun - PREVENTING COYOTE steps out of the den and begin to dreds of thousands of coyotes are explore their surroundings. The next legally killed. Ranchers in the West PROBLEMS two months are spent learning what hold a particularly strong hatred for to eat, how to howl, and how to spot the coyote, blaming them for the loss If you may have coyotes on your predators. With the arrival of the fall, of livestock. The canines are labeled property or in your neighborhood, the pups usually venture out on their problem animals and are trapped, follow these tips: own. shot, and poisoned. Built into the coyote’s survival As more people come into contact • Do not feed coyotes. Problems occur strategy is the natural tendency to be with this beautiful and wild animal, when people begin feeding coyotes, suspicious of anything or anyone new. perhaps fear will turn into respect. either deliberately or inadvertently. The coyote knows every inch of his Biologists remind us of the important Garbage must be stored in secure con - territory and will immediately notice a role coyotes play in the environment. tainers. Do not put meat scraps in new presence. When young pups are They help to control rodent popula - compost heaps. tions. They keep in balance the around, a coyote mother can easily be • Remove outside pet food containers. spooked into moving her pups into a numbers of mid-sized predators. Without coyotes, elevated numbers of Coyotes will prey upon small mammals new den if she senses something out attracted to pet food. of place in her territory. Their suspi - foxes, raccoons, and opossums actually cious nature keeps them out of sight eliminate many bird species. “It’s • Keep pets indoors or keep a watchful when human visitors arrive, making always good when you see them,” says eye on them. Walk dogs on a leash, seeing a coyote a rare treat. Actually Brad Semel, “because you know that especially at night. more people have seen coyotes than there is still part of the real wild they realize. Because coyotes look so Illinois left. It certainly would be nice • Do not leave small children outside much like domestic dogs–with the to see some of other creatures they unattended. coloring and build of a German used to co-habitate with, like the elk and bison, and think about what this • Encourage your neighbors to follow the Shepherd–they have been able to same advice. travel through populated areas in a place looked like 100 years ago.” sort of disguise. Unfortunately, coyotes have a sad Writer Chris Hardman is occasionally awakened From Wisconsin Department of history with humans. They are one of by the howls and yips of coyotes on her property. Natural Resources the most persecuted animals in North America. In 1931, the U.S. govern - ment began a campaign of coyote

W INTER 2001 7 BORN AGAIN RIVER Re-Meandering the Nippersink

t began as a dream, the inchoate yearning of one And the dreamer dreamed of un-ditching a noble man–a dreamer–standing high on a hill overlooking river–of restoring the gentle meanders, of setting the Ia flooded valley of a ditched stream. There had waters free. been a tremendous rain. It was his humble job, as a It took years, of course. It took big money, big new ranger for the conservation district, to find the machines, hours knee-deep in mud, choking in dust, lost picnic tables. backbreaking work. It took persuasion, planning, To his astonishment he saw–lo and behold–the research, a team. Flying overhead to study the land, natural meanders of a wild river. Like a memory digging down to find old channels. made real, the floodwaters had settled in sinuous So the dream became a waking vision, the vision depressions marking the ancient channel, where became a plan, and the ranger became a restoration once the river ran, before it was shunted into the ecologist, leading the team that set the waters free. straightjacket of a ditch. –Debra Shore Photographs by Pat Wadecki

8 C HICAGO W ILDERNESS 1939 1967

Straightened Ditch

Original Meanders

This aerial photo shows the original stream mean - This photo shows the cultivated landscape. Settlers ders in blue. Over the millennia the streams have removed trees, used gravel from the kames to fill developed lazy meanders among the rolling kames, the stream’s channel (though its skeleton remains visi - those gravelly hills deposited by glacial rivers. ble), installed miles of drain tiles to make the fields tillable, and dug a straightened ditch to contain the waters of the Nippersink. This was the situation when the McHenry County Conservation District (MCCD) purchased this parcel in 1990 and when Ed Collins stood on a hill and looked at the river in 1986.

“Nippersink means the place of little waters,” declared Ed Collins who was saddened that the P

h waters were relegated to o t o

: a ditch. “This stream now

L a

u gives back to her people r e l

R the priceless gift of local o s s wilderness.”

W INTER 2001 9 “Gentlemen, start your engines,” someone shouted. And the decorated backhoe operated by John Aavang, began to close off the old ditch and open the way for the re-meandered river. In the background, dozer driver John Peters helps to complete the mission.

Beth Jarvis (left), plant propagation specialist for the MCCD, prepares to release a symbolic bouquet of mixed prairie wildflowers into the newly opened channel. “Blue honors the men and women who channelized the creek 50 years ago and used its waters to make productive farms and raise families,” said Ed Collins, who directed the project with colleague Brad Woodson. “Mixed flowers are for the many partners that made this project possible. Orange carries the aspirations of the Natural Resource Management Department who worked on the stream for not only the Nippersink but for other Midwestern streams that can benefit from restoration. White for the generations to come who will enjoy the stream and build their own memories upon its banks.”

Nancy Ellison (at right), vice-president of the Board of the McHenry County Conservation District, prepares to cut the ribbon at the ceremony on August 26th restoring the Nippersink. She’s joined by Don Larson (red visor), vice-chair of the McHenry County Board, and Ann Kate, member of the Board. Ellison recalled grow - ing up in Deerfield and playing in the creek behind her house looking for crayfish and tadpoles. “But a housing development and golf course changed that,” she said.

10 C HICAGO W ILDERNESS Call it the Mussel Shuffle. Dozens of celebrants–includ - P ing Spring and Phil Hayden h o t o : of Carpentersville–rolled up L a u their pants and waded into r e l

R the old ditch to search for, o s and rescue, mussels. s

In excavating the old, original channel, the district crew found entire mussel beds still intact containing 1,200-1,500 specimens of 16 different species. In the ditch were five species of the most common types of mussels, those that can tolerate pollution and silt; only two of those five species were found in the shell deposits in the excavated bed of the origi - nal healthy stream. Ed and his colleagues expect rare mussel species will recolonize the restored stream.

Part of the intrepid summer crew laying erosion control matting. “It was one of the most moving experi - ences I have been part of in my career,” Ed Collins said. “The young workers–many between the ages of 19 and 21, making less than they could have made working at McDonald’s–worked their hearts out. After they rebuilt the kame, they buried two time capsules in the top. (See rebuilt, but not yet revegetated, kame in photo on page 12.) They enclosed letters, poems, and thoughts that they felt the people of the next century should know were important to them and told why midwifing this most difficult birth meant so much to them. Gradually they realized they were redefin - ing the relationship between Americans and rivers.”

W INTER 2001 11 This deceptively time - less photo was taken in the midst of major changes. The aquatic vegetation was planted here and the rocks installed to hold the soil and create habitat. Excavated dirt and gravel from another section of the channel was recently piled to rebuild the glacial kame on the horizon. Soon it will be planted with the grasses and flowers of dry prairie. The bulldozers have left and the animals will return.

NIPPERSINK : B Y THE NUMBERS

Age of the Nippersink: 12,000 years Mussel species detected in original Nippersink channel: 16 Average age of crew on re-meandering project: 22 years Mussel species in channelized ditch: 5 Total length in miles of the Nippersink: 24 Mussels relocated into new stream: 2,100 Miles of Nippersink within Glacial Park: 7 Man-hours devoted to project: more than 40,000 Miles added to length of the Nippersink by re-meandering: 1.1 Gender of heavy equipment drivers who rarely got stuck in the mud: female Miles of erosion matting placed along newly graded banks: 22 Gender of heavy equipment drivers with something to prove who Biodegradable staples used in securing erosion control matting: tended to get stuck in the mud: the other one 1,000,000 Cost of the project: $586,000 Plants planted by MCCD staff, volunteers, and school groups: 220,000 Temporary MCCD tattoos distributed on opening day: about 200 Cubic yards of dirt removed to create meanders, fill portions of Name of anthem composed by MCCD Natural Resource Music the ditch, and rebuild three kames: 165,000 Division: “Set the Waters Free” Tons of rock used for erosion control along banks: 1,100 Time capsules buried in glacial kame by youthful workers on this project: 2 Acres of restored marsh and wetland: 290 First public official to canoe the new Nippersink: Illinois Lt. Feet of drain tile removed from the watershed since the project Gov. Corinne Wood began: 500,000 Gallons of flood storage capacity provided by restored wetland and marsh: 94,511,000

12 C HICAGO W ILDERNESS Searching for D OCTOR V ASEY by Ed Collins y quest for Dr. Vasey began as a simple attempt to libraries as each new piece of information produced new locate information about plants to guide the com - leads. I have reviewed nearly 300 letters written by Dr. Mposition of restoration plans. As I have so often Vasey, most dated between 1849 and 1866, the time period found in conducting research for purely ecological reasons corresponding to his active collecting in northeastern over the past decade, beneath the empirical data lay a com - Illinois. Many Vasey letters provide tantalizing clues about pelling human drama. the composition and structure of the Chicago region’s nat - Fifteen years ago I joined McHenry County ural communities. Perhaps more importantly, his insights Conservation District’s newly formed Resource and observations have allowed me to see the landscape Management Division and moved my family near the dis - from a fresh perspective, through the eyes of a man living trict’s headquarters in Ringwood, Illinois. Eager to learn in a time when much of the human impact on our natural everything of relevance to heritage lay in the distant McHenry County’s natural his - future. tory, I devoured information wherever I could obtain it, BACKGROUND including that cornerstone for George Vasey was born in understanding the complexities of Scarborough, England, in the plant communities of north - 1822. His family immigrated eastern Illinois, Swink & to North America the next Wilhelm’s Plants of the Chicago year, settling in Oriskany, Region. New York, and moved to Anyone familiar with this Illinois around 1840. tome knows it is not light read - The fourth of 10 children, ing. Persistently I plowed through Vasey left school at 12 to the confusing matrix of Latin take a job as a store clerk. names a few pages each day. As Unable to afford books on my botanical comfort level grew, botany, he borrowed several, I began to notice periodic refer - copying them entirely by ences to the town of Ringwood. hand. During Vasey’s tenure Without exception, the botanical as a clerk, he met and reference to Ringwood also iden - befriended Dr. P. D. tified George Vasey as the Knieskern, a physician and collector of the relevant speci - one of the foremost botanists men. of the day. Encouraged by “Agoseris cuspidata PRAIRIE Knieskern, Vasey eventually DANDELION One of our very entered into a botanical cor - rarest plants. Known in our area respondence with Asa Gray only from McHenry County, at Harvard and other promi - where it was collected by Vasey nent botanists. Vasey’s in a prairie at Ringwood on May Photo of Dr. George Vasey, courtesy of Hunt Institute for relationship with Gray, who 20, 1858.” Botanical Documentation, Carnegie Mellon University, was then preparing one of Not only did Ringwood’s loca - Pittsburgh, PA. the first comprehensive tion, a mile south of the District botany manuals, flourished headquarters intrigue me, but also the early dates of many for decades to come. of the specimens. I reasoned that as a botanist Vasey might At 21, George completed advanced studies at Oneida have left records related to the county’s natural communi - Institute and decided to study medicine, graduating from ties before many of the human changes associated with the the Berkshire Medical Institute in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, last 170 years had occurred. As time allowed, I began to in 1846. Vasey married Martha Scott of Oriskany and a unravel the mystery of this pioneer plant collector from year later relocated to Ringwood, arriving via the Erie Ringwood. Canal. Here, he would spend the next 18 years of his life Over the years that search has spanned two continents, practicing medicine and pursuing his other great passion: three countries, and dozens of museums, arboretums, and collecting plants.

W INTER 2001 13 As the years passed, Vasey’s medical practice flourished. This year (1864) is the apex of Dr. Vasey’s Illinois botanical The construction of the Fox River Railroad in 1854 correspondence encompassing nearly fifty other collectors. allowed him to extend his medical practice to Elgin. He It also marks the beginning of a series of events that would opened a dry goods store to support a result in the Vasey growing family including four children, family abandoning his wife, Martha, and mother, Jane. The northeastern breadth of his botanical correspondence Illinois forever. In and collecting expanded as well. rapid succession, By 1858, his list of correspondents measles, scarlet numbered in the dozens including S. B. fever, and whoop - Mead of Hancock County, John ing cough Kennicott of Cook County, Michael devastated both Bebb of Winnebago County, and Dr. parents and chil - Engelmenn of St. Louis. Late in that dren. Aaron Vasey same year, Vasey, Kennicott, and several succumbed to other prominent naturalists established whooping cough the Illinois Natural History Society. The in June, four Society supported natural history and months after his agricultural innovation, eventually birth. evolving into the Illinois Natural Martha Vasey History Survey. Vasey served as presi - grew progressively dent and collections curator for several weaker. In a des - years. perate attempt to save her life, George moved the family to Richview, Illinois in Washington

Herbarium specimens collected by Dr. George Vasey, from the collection of the Field Museum.

A son Frank was born in 1859, and Flora Nancy, a daughter, in 1861. Vasey became a prolific writer for the Prairie Farmer and the Natural History Society. His books and articles included floristic inventories of the entire state, treatises on buffalo, and even a book on the philoso - phy of laughing and smiling. County in 1866. The fervent hope that a milder climate Aaron Vasey was born in 1864 and named for George’s might improve his wife’s condition proved short lived. She brother killed at the battle Fredericksburg the year before. died within a month of the move.

14 C HICAGO W ILDERNESS Vasey’s botanical correspondence ceased until 1867, While Vasey’s notes on individual species are insightful, when he began to write once again to long time friend the tantalizing hints concerning the appearance of the Michael Bebb, a botanist from Rockford. Perhaps the fact larger landscape should be even more compelling to today’s that Bebb had also lost his own wife a year before created a land managers. special bond between the two men. For instance, Vasey selected only two natural communi - In 1871 after joining John Wesley Powell’s exploration ties—prairie and barrens—in assigning specific habitats to of the Colorado River, Vasey accepted a position in the plants he had identified. In 1849, much of the rugged, Washington, D.C. as the first botanist for the Department poorly drained topography of northeastern Illinois still of Agriculture. Later he would become the first Director of defied cultivation despite the fact that settlement had the Smithsonian’s National Herbarium, a position Vasey begun more than a decade before. The country was recov - would retain until his death in 1893. ering from a severe economic depression, called the Era of Hard Times, that had lasted more than 10 years. Agricul- SPECIMENS OF WILDERNESS tural drainage lay 30 years in the future. Thus in many The period from 1848 when Vasey arrived in Illinois areas, the sparsely settled landscape of McHenry County until his relocation to Washington in 1866 holds the most still retained large blocks of native vegetation. relevance for restoration ecologists working in the Chicago The character and richness of the prairie is understood region. His correspon - today as well as it was dence is rich in in Vasey’s time. By first-hand information 1849 the fecundity of relating to the area’s the prairie soils had natural history. been well established Shortly after arriving and the introduction in Illinois, Vasey of the steel mold - renewed his associa - board plow earlier in tion with Gray. His the decade had con - earliest letter conveys vinced most farmers the excitement for that well-drained botany felt by this 28- prairie soils were year-old newly superior for crop pro - graduated physician: duction. “I have for some time The barrens, how - had it in contemplation ever, have been to write to you, believ - harder to understand. ing that you will be Vasey, like many of interested in a few his contemporaries, remarks on the botany possessed an intimate of this section... I have familiarity with the concluded to give you a diverse flora of east - list of the plants with ern forest. By Vasey’s some occasional time the term “bar - remarks which may pos - rens” had come to sibly be serviceable to Ed Collins (right) acts the part of 19th century scientist “Edward Carrington” mean a very specific you in the preparation in heritage festivals. His wife, Denise (center), is a painter. Daughter Aimee, natural community of a second edition of at left, portrays their daughter. type, recognized by your manual which by the way is an exceedingly valuable book, the predominantly agrarian society of the time as possess - and has been of great service to me, and I presume many other ing certain attributes in terms of structure and learners of botany.” October 9th, 1849, Ringwood, Illinois composition. Consider the clear and concise criteria Vasey included in this letter “A List of Some Interesting assigned to barrens in Peck’s 1836 Illinois Gazetteer : Plants of McHenry County Illinois,” a handwritten key “In the western dialect the term barrens has since received a placing many plants he observed as occurring in either very extensive application throughout the west....The timber is prairies or barrens. Some of those observations on now-rare general scattering, of a rough and stunted appearance, inter - plants are striking today, 150 years after they were first spersed with patches of hazle (sic) and brushwood.These penned. barrens occur where the contest between fire and timber is kept Platanthera leucophaea (prairie white-fringed orchid) up, each striving for the mastery. Common in prairies and barrens “Dwarfish shrubs and small trees of oak and hickory have Cypripedium candidum (small white lady slipper orchid) contended for years with the fire for a precarious existence, Abundant in marshes and wet places while a mass of roots, sufficient for the support of large trees Sporobolus heterolepis (prairie dropseed grass) Perhaps the have accumulated in the earth. As soon as they are protected most common grass of the prairie. from the ravages of the annual fires, the more thrifty sprouts Castilleja coccinea var. flava & sessiliflora (Indian paint - shoot forth, and in ten years are large enough for corn cribs and brush) found together and most abundant. stables.

W INTER 2001 15 “The rapidity Nowhere does this intrinsic connection to place ring with which the with more resonance than here in the Heartland. We are young growth people of the deep soil, rooted in the rich blackness of pushes itself for - prairie earth. Equally crucial to land stewardship is the cul - ward, without a tural legacy that is part of every wild place regardless of its single effort on location. We must understand that as stewards we shepherd the part of man not only rare plants and animals, but also the tears and to accelerate it, laughter and dreams that define each acre as clearly as do and the readi - its natural communities. Failing this, we have learned only ness with half of the story that land yearns to tell us. which the The Midwestern culture we have inherited was inti - prairie becomes converted into thickets, mately connected to that natural world, directly dependent and the barrens into a young forest, shows that in another gen - upon its resources for survival. Ours is the world the settlers eration, timber will not be wanting in strove to build, the pinnacle in a any part of Illinois.” long struggle to conquer a wilder - Vasey clearly distinguished ness continent. In an odd way, between the barrens and two other their greatest and most enduring communities he knew well, the legacy may be the doorways they treeless prairie and the dense have left us back into that wild Eastern forest. He makes it clear world. In every painting, every that the fire-dependent oak barrens journal, every dog-eared letter lies were a major part of the landscape a secret portal back to the natural as he saw it. world. As interesting and useful as the One is tempted to speculate natural history information in the what the good Doctor might have Vasey correspondence is, the human thought of our rediscovery of the drama associated with the letters is wilderness in our own backyard even more evocative. The trials and triumphs of an indi - were he alive today. I am convinced he would support it vidual emerge through flowing cursive handwriting as one enthusiastically for in one of his final letters from reads the letters. Ringwood, he wrote these lines to his friend and fellow “I have the pleasure to announce the recent arrival at my botanist Michael Bebb: house of a very interesting young stranger a little daughter mak - “I believe with you that those who love nature, and ing the third of that kind and including the boys completing my researchers into the field of nature, are generally men and half dozen. We welcome her to our fireside. Her mother is doing women of blameless well thanks to kind providence.” February 25th, 1861, lives. If the poet is cor - Ringwood rect in saying the “I know that the attachment between yourself and wife must undevout astronomer have been very strong from the few glimpses I was permitted to is mad, would it not be take of your conjugal relations. Alas that our earthly ties should equally proper to say be so easily sundered. When I lost my little child last year I the undevout naturalist thought that this world was a failure if there was no future for is also mad. For surely us. But we have the reasonable and comforting assurance that it is our appreciation there is a better and an eternal world beyond and there we may for things of beauty no doubt be permitted to continue and perpetuate the friendship that we come closest to and attachments we form here. So I trust my dear Sir that you ourselves and to the have to sooth your great bereavement the Christian hope of a creator of all that is glorious reunion above.” October 25th, 1865, Ringwood blessed.”

PEOPLE OF THE DEEP SOIL Ed Collins is a restoration ecologist with the McHenry County These poignant vignettes of one man’s life have Conservation District and one of the architects of the Nippersink re- bequeathed to me one of the most important insights of all meandering project (see page 8). His popular course–“Landscape into the management of natural areas. Land is a sentient Genealogy” taught at several Chicago Wilderness locations–shows entity possessed of a tangible living spirit. Human culture how to research the history of land in the region. has always been a personification of the land itself, a mirror through which nature reflects back her qualities in the character of the people who become part of that landscape.

Tools for an early botanist, from top: lap desk, egg collection, collecting kit called a vasculum. The smallest egg is that of a Carolina parakeet, now extinct. The vasculum, made of tin, was filled with damp peat moss into which Vasey would place whole specimens collected in the field, later to be pressed, recorded, and saved–for us to study.

16 C HICAGO W ILDERNESS Into the Wild OUR GUIDE TO THE WILD SIDE P h o t o :

S t .

C h a r l e s

P a r k

D i s t r i c t

3 4

1 CAMPTON HILLS PARK - Kane County

2 FULLERSBURG WOODS - DuPage County 1 2 5 1 2 4 5 3 GLACIAL PARK - McHenry County 3 4 LYONS WOODS FOREST PRESERVES - Lake County

5 WEST DUPAGE WOODS - DuPage County

Maps: Lynda Wallis

W INTER 2001 17 Working the wilderness

The Herbicide Helper by Joe Neumann

t’s chilly, damp, and dreary. We are tramping through the region. It arrived in the 1950s. Its numbers expanded explo - woods. What has drawn us out of our comfortable beds on sively in the 1970s. Now its population is leveling off. This last Ithis Sunday morning? If you could ask us, we would mut - statement may seem strange until you wander an unmanaged ter: “Buckthorn.” Buckthorn is a European shrub that can forest preserve. Much of the site is sure to be so packed with grow to the size of a small tree. In the case of buckthorn, buckthorn that no more can crowd in. Yet if population dynam - green is not good. Because it is adapted to Europe’s climate, it ics are largely responsible for slowing buckthorn’s expansion, leafs out early in the spring and remains green through district employees and volunteers can take some credit too. We November. This trait makes it an appealing landscape shrub. have cleared it from thousands of acres of woods and prairies. Its ability to spread into our native landscape makes it a per - Today’s crew consists of seven volunteers and district natural - nicious weed. ist Laura Ashman. We warm Each of my companions up on some small buckthorn has a saw. I am holding a tool and then shift to a substan - of a different sort. It is a her - tial stand. Ellen has her bicide called Garlon. If you hands full with a buckthorn cut down a buckthorn and do with several twining trunks. not apply herbicide to the She manages to saw through stump, it sprouts aggressively. one but it is so entangled We use the least persistent, with its brethren that it can - most effective herbicide in as not be removed. I hold the small amounts as possible. severed trunk out of the way Forest Preserve District of while she applies her saw to Cook County Outreach another trunk. A herbicider’s Coordinator Jerry Sullivan responsibilities call for him reports that only 160 pounds to move among the crew. a year of herbicide are put His role expands from simply into the approximately 8,000 being a mechanical applica -

acres of natural lands under P tor to being an all-around h o t

active management in the o helper always ready to lend a :

S

district. To apply herbicide t hand with the downing of a e p h

on public property, you must e difficult buckthorn or some n

P

pass a test of the Illinois a chitchat to provide relief c k a r

Department of Agriculture. d from the work. I apply herbi - Garlon’s active ingredient is cide from a plastic container triclopyr. The Extension Toxicology Network Web site with a spout. The spout allows me to apply the herbicide http://ace.orst.edu/cgi-bin/mfs/01/pips/triclopy.htm provides directly to the cambium layer next to the bark where woody detailed information on Garlon, such as its average half-life plants actively grow. This application minimizes the herbicide (about 46 days depending on soil conditions). used and ensures that no nearby plants are inadvertently herbi - Buckthorn is a more insidious killer than the Asian long- cided. While I have been moving among the group, Chuck has horned beetle. It shades out other plants. Even the mighty been laboring on a gargantuan buckthorn. I take a turn with the oak begins life as a lowly sprout. Nothing but bare soil lies saw. But brute force is not enough to topple this buckthorn. beneath a large buckthorn. The weight of its trunk closes our cut. The saw blade binds. We On a damp day in the fall of 1990, I went on a tour of a abandon the base and direct our efforts against the upper limbs. forest preserve led by Ralph Thornton, then the land manager We remove them all except one that arcs away from our cut. for the Forest Preserve District of Cook County. He told us The weight of this limb will help keep our cut open. We set the that we would learn to hate buckthorn. Oh no, I thought, I saw at the base again. Chuck slices furiously into the wood. I may cut it if that is what needs to be done but I will never push on the trunk, applying my muscle to keep the cut open. hate any part of nature. I still feel the same way. Unlike Finally the buckthorn topples with a thud. “The townspeople Ralph, I never had the depressing experience of witnessing can sleep in peace tonight,” Chuck declares wearily. Not just the forest preserves being overrun. A district ecologist once yet. I carefully apply herbicide to the stump. Done. Rest easy, outlined to me the history of buckthorn in the Chicago townspeople.

18 C HICAGO W ILDERNESS CAMPTON HILLS PARK - Kane County

D IRECTIONS ampton Hills Park sive herbs, shrubs and trees corner of the park: a pristine is a splendid 240- (natives and non-natives) dry hill prairie. Farmers, dig - Heading northwest on I-90, exit C Randall Rd. and go south, acre parcel in St. have been assiduously gers, and dumpers never Charles owned–get this–by removed. Successful clearing reached this area. Little through Elgin to Rte. 64. Head the Illinois Department of has given way to a flower - bluestem, side oats grama, west on 64 for about a mile, Corrections. Why? Because ing of native plants and northern dropseed, and por - and turn left (south) on Peck a youth home for male grasses, and a surge of frog cupine grass dominate. Rare Rd. The first intersection will felons aged 9 to 18 is and bird life. prairie flowers include stiff be Peck and Campton Hills Rd. located here, surrounded by The Carol Stevenson aster, purple prairie clover, Go west (right) on Campton a tall barbed-wire fence and Wetlands (named for their cream wild indigo, and Hill’s Hills Rd. and take the second security system. It has been greatest advocate) contains thistle. entrance to reach the natural a correctional facility of one two fens bordered by a In the fall, the marsh areas. sort or another since the ridge. In summer the fens hopped with blackbirds and turn of the century. But hold grass of parnassus, kinglets and a chorus frog those facilities occupy only fringed and bottle gentian, (sounding like someone a few acres. Visitors turning flat-topped aster, and strumming a comb). The onto the road for Campton swamp thistle. In the trees frog was “singing his last Hills will see sprawling soc - and shrubs around the fen, swan song,” Ochsenschlager cer and football fields on look for nesting orioles and said, “before he’s sub - the left, and then pass the towhees in the summer merged” for the winter. Youth Home. On the east months. This beautiful area needs side (following a veer to On the west side is volunteers. Workdays are the right) is the first of the another wetland complex the first Saturday of every restored areas in Campton with a fen, sedge meadow, month, 9:00 a.m.-noon, all Hills Park. and two pothole marshes. year round. The next nature The history of this land is Look for swamp aster, walk is scheduled for as mixed as the topography. angelica, and cardinal flow - Saturday, March 31, 2001 It was used for farming, ers, none of them common. from 10:00-11:30 a.m. To mining, trapping, hunting, A suite of frogs can be sign up for workdays or the and dumping. Some of it is heard in the marshes start - walk, call Mary still farmed, but the other ing in the spring: gray tree Ochsenschlager at (630) activities have ceased. The frogs, spring peepers, and 513-3338. St. Charles Park District western chorus frogs. began renting part of it Bluebirds and bobolinks — Gail Goldberger more than 15 years ago. At sing out over the meadow. one time there was a pro - Savannas flank this area posal to develop a golf with walnut, shagbark and course here. But Carol bitternut hickories, and bur, Stevenson, a local activist, white, and chinquapin oaks. formed Friends of Campton Perhaps the prize of the Hills Park, and they fought day lies in the southwest to keep the land open and natural. And they won! Campton Hills Drive Carol, as volunteer steward, and many volunteers worked with District Naturalist Mary N Ochsenschlager to restore the landscape, creating prairie, wetland, and savanna communities. d a o R

Today, Campton Hills is a k c

mosaic of restoration, and a e veritable study in biodiver - P sity. In just three miles of trail visitors can take in a sedge meadow, marshes, fens, savannas and a dry hill prairie. Acres of aggres -

Route 38

W INTER 2001 19 FULLERSBURG WOODS - DuPage County

D IRECTIONS his 221-acre pre - the natural resources. place to examine animal Fullersburg is located in the serve of meadows, One forest preserve trail tracks in winter. All told, southeast corner of Oak Brook. T woodlands, prairies, leads to Graue Mill, a there are nearly five miles From Chicago, take I-290 to I- and wetlands along the National Historic Landmark of trails through 294 south and exit at Ogden Salt Creek, offers visitors operated by Hinsdale Fullersburg. Ave. Go east to York Rd., then four trails with interpre - Township. Frederick Graue Educating the public north one quarter mile to Spring tive signs. The Fuller used the waters of Salt about man’s influence on Rd. The forest preserve entrance House, built in 1840 by Ben Creek to run his mill. The the ecosystem is the main is on the right. Fuller and moved to its cur - basement was used by focus of the dedicated staff rent site in 1981, is at the slaves as a stop along the of Fullersburg Woods. preserve entrance near underground railroad. Corn Nature Center Supervisor Graue Mill. It’s considered is still milled there and a Tom Prey provides students one of the oldest known museum includes furniture the opportunity to become examples of early balloon from the 1800’s. The Mill is stewards of the land as construction. Fullersburg open every day between 10 they plant trees, monitor (now Oak Brook) was a a.m. and 4:30 p.m. mid- streams, and learn about thriving town until the train April to mid-November. For biodiversity. The staff line to Aurora bypassed the information, contact Graue recently enlisted the help settlement in 1862. A Mill at (630) 655-2090. of 30-40 local schools to Civilian Conservation Corps The restored prairie along raise 150 bass, which were camp was built at the 1.3-mile Interpretive released along the River Fullersburg during the Trail attracts a variety of Walk in Naperville. Depression. Later, the site songbirds such as cerulean, During the winter, natu - became so popular for local Kentucky and black- ralists Jack MacRae (author recreation that officials had throated blue warblers. Red of Chicago WILDERNESS’ to restrict picnicking and fox, beaver, muskrat, coy - Natural Events Calendar on boating in order to protect ote, white-tailed deer and page 24–stop in and say 31st Street other mammals also make hey to Jack), Phil their home there. Look for Courington, and others some of them along the inspire students with pro - banks of Salt Creek. Birders grams about winter ani - Salt have seen the black- mals, wildlife issues, the Creek crowned night herons and web of life, and how to be d

a the Coopers’ hawks here a nature detective. o R during migration. Stop in the Nature Center k r o

Y Fullersburg is a great and experience plants and animals of the wetlands, take an environmental quiz on the computer, or touch t

e Environmental

e the vertebrae of a wooly r Theater t S

mammoth. The Visitor s Visitor m Center Center is open to the public a d A N daily from 9:00 a.m. to S 5:00 p.m. except for pr in Thanksgiving, Christmas g Ro Even, Christmas Day, and ad New Year’s Day. Biking, horseback riding, and cross- country skiing are allowed on the main trails. Bring your pet as long as it Graue remains on a leash. Call Entrance Mill (630) 850-8110 for more information.

= Parking — Susan Larys

20 C HICAGO W ILDERNESS GLACIAL PARK - McHenry County

D IRECTIONS lacial Park takes us offers a bit more challenge See pp. 8-12 for an outside our every - for experienced cross-coun - account of the re-meander - Take Rte. 31 north to McHenry. “G Turn left on Harts Rd. and travel day experience and try skiers. In January and ing of the Nippersink in transports us in time to a February when there is Glacial Park. 0.6 miles to the park entrance. land on the eve of settle - snow, the Nordic Ski patrol Parking is available at Weidrich ment, with all of its pos - provides hot chocolate and Education Center (north of the sibilities stretched out cookies at Weidrich Barn on entrance or follow the park road before us in waving weekends. The site itself is around the curve to the parking prairie grasses and wet - open from 8:00 a.m. to area east of the marsh). Other lands alive with the call sunset. parking is available on Keystone of migratory waterfowl,” By mid-March spring Rd., just east of the intersection says Restoration Ecologist migration is underway and of Barnard Mill Rd. Ed Collins, rhapsodizing various waterfowl, shore - about the Conservation birds, and raptors can be District’s 3,000-acre seen making their way crown jewel near through the area. Richmond. For more information, The site’s 330 acres of call (815) 338-6223. dedicated Illinois Nature Preserve provides habitat — April Anderson for 18 species of state endangered and threatened plants and birds, including least bitterns, sandhill cranes, upland sandpipers, Tryon black terns, pied-billed Grove Road grebes, yellow-headed blackbirds, Henslow’s spar - rows, and northern harriers. In 1993, thirteen wild turkeys were reintroduced to the site. Today, flocks of West Solon Road 20 to 50 wild turkeys can be seen flying to their favorite oak perches at N dusk. Short-eared owls top the Nippersink Lost winter visitor list. Creek Valley

“Sometimes you’ll see as d a Kames Marsh P o i

many as five or six in the R o n e e

prairie at dusk,” says n e

o r

t R Collins, “and they’ll get s y o

e a d fairly close to you. They’re K Harts Road not timid at all.” h t r

Hiking, cross-country ski - o N

Kames ing, and snowmobiling (on l i a r

restricted trails), camping, T

e i

and pets on leashes are r i a r

welcomed all winter long. P 1 3 Biking is only permitted on e t

the Prairie Trail that runs u o along the former Chicago R and Northwestern RR line Wonder north and south of Harts Lake Ba rn Road. ar d Mi = Parking The Nippersink Trail is ll Ro one of the more forgiving ad beginner’s cross-country trails while Deerpath Trail

W INTER 2001 21 LYONS WOODS FOREST PRESERVES - Lake County

D IRECTIONS aved from housing put in a lot of work plant - grass appear. Dropseed is From I-94, go north until it and agricultural ing and burning. They can considered to be the most becomes Rte. 41. Take 41 north S development, Lyons take pride in fall’s healthy common prairie plant to Delaney Rd. Turn west Woods is a 264-acre high display of prairie thistle native to the area, rather (right), onto Delaney and follow quality mix of restored and side-flowering aster. than the taller grasses, to Yorkhouse Rd. Turn right onto prairie, oak savanna, forest There’s also a notable lack according to letters from Yorkhouse and take it about and fen near Waukegan. of buckthorn, garlic mus - Dr. George Vasey, 19th cen - four miles to North Ave. Take The preserve is named for tard and unwanted weeds. tury botanist and expert on North to Blanchard Rd., and turn its first known landowner, An outstanding mesic grasses (see p. 10). left into the parking lot. Isaac Reed Lyons of prairie, covering the west In spring and summer, Massachusetts, who arrived half of the preserve, and look for trillium, liatris, here in 1843 and served as also accessible from sedges, Drummond’s aster an alderman and business Blanchard Rd., just west of and several varieties of owner in Waukegan. North Ave., harbors several goldenrod. Towering saw - An evergreen grove just state-endangered species. tooth sunflower, iris and off the parking lot on Flowing in the prairie prairie dock also provide Blanchard Road—a great winds, big bluestem, Indian shelter for bobolinks, spot for birding—was once and switch grasses, soon to prairie larks, and many part of George Pavlik’s tree be tamped down with species of snake. Red-tail nursery in the 1940s. Winter snow, surround several fox are also at home here. visitors will enjoy the pine abandoned goldfinch nests Lyons Woods is bounded scent and needle-softened and busy bluebird boxes. on the west by the North trail leading north into the Bluebird habitat efforts Shore bike path (McClory savanna of planted white, have been successful here; Trail), and includes three bur and black oaks. Red several bright males may be more miles of trials open to osier dogwood, bottlebrush seen flitting between the hiking, bicycling and cross- grass, New England asters, taller dogwood and buck - country skiing. Pets are and grassleaf goldenrod line thorn trees. Students at allowed on leashes, and a the trail in the meadow of nearby Clark School have public toilet is available at former agricultural fields. helped with the boxes, the easternmost Blanchard Tom Smith, Lake County plantings and workdays, as Road trail entrance. Forest Preserve District part of the Mighty Acorns Volunteer Coordinator, and Preservation Partners — Lisa Phillips explains that though the programs. Near the school, area is still somewhat dozens of low, pillowy degraded, his teams have stands of prairie dropseed

Trail Access

N e u n e v A

h h t t r a o P

N e k i B

e r o

h d

S a

o h R t r n o a

N d i r e h S

= Parking Blanchard Road Trail Entrance Access

22 C HICAGO W ILDERNESS WEST DUPAGE WOODS - DuPage County

D IRECTIONS est DuPage among gently rolling oak gnawed trees can be found Woods, a 460- hills, hawthorn-dotted by the river, too! W East Entrance: From I-88, exit acre parcel of prairie, and the river. There Hiking, bicycling, horse - land divided by the West is also a fen on this side of back riding, cross-country at Winfield Rd. north. Pass Branch of the DuPage the preserve. “It’s the only skiing and birding are Roosevelt Rd. (Rte. 38) and go River, offers fens, flood - fen on the south side of the among the preserve’s winter west on Gary’s Mill Rd. The plain, dry mesic wood - river,” said Volunteer highlights. Small outdoor parking lot is on the right. lands (white and red oak, Liaison Cindy Hedges, “and picnic areas and latrines are shagbark hickory), sedge for 1.5 acres it’s very also available. The site is West Entrance: From I-88, exit meadows, and a small diverse.” The fen contains open from one hour before at Winfield Rd. north. Go west prairie. It’s downstream four “special concern” sta - sunrise until an hour after on Roosevelt Rd. (Rte. 38) to from East Branch Forest tus plants that are moni - sunset. Rte. 59, then go a few miles Preserve and upstream from tored closely by staff and The forest preserve dis - north. The parking lot is on the Blackwell Forest Preserve volunteers. trict is looking for volun - right. near Winfield. “One of our volunteers teers to conduct spring On the west side, Black located blue-winged war - amphibian surveys at Workday Schedule: Sat., March Oak Trail, a one-mile blers on the east side last DuPage Woods. Training will 17, 9:00 a.m.-noon. Dress for crushed limestone loop trail, spring,” noted Hedges. take place Thurs., February the weather (long pants, long offers a wonderful ramble “They are uncommon-to-rare 8, 7:00-9:00 p.m. at sleeves, sturdy boots or shoes). among majestic pre-settle - in the area, but need Blackwell Nursery Complex The forest preserve district pro - ment oaks skirting a 40-acre shrubby prairie patches.” on Mack Road. vides work gloves, tools, and fen. “This is still the only The dry, shrubby Elsen’s Hill For more information, call equipment. preserve in the county in Prairie also contains rare (630) 876-5929. which the swamp goldenrod Christmas fern and running is found...it’s very rich ground pine. The woods pro - — April Anderson floristically,” noted Scott vide great habitat for mink, Kobal, a plant ecologist deer, coyotes, foxes, great with the Forest Preserve horned owls, screech owls, District of DuPage County. and nuthatches, as well as Hikers will also appreciate red-bellied, red-headed, and four loop trails totaling 4-5 downy woodpeckers. miles on the east side Fascinating old beaver-

Entrance Forest Avenue

N r ve Ri e ag uP D ch an Br t es W 9 5

e t u o R d a o R Entrance d o o w n y W R oos eve lt R oad = Parking oad Mill R Gary’s

W INTER 2001 23 Natural Events CALENDAR Here’s what’s debuting on nature’s stage in Chicago Wilderness by Jack MacRae

W INTER 2000 – 2001

THE BEGINNING OF WINTER THE MIDDLE OF WINTER Gulls of Winter Looks Like Liver Most of the sleek gulls that all A very early blooming wood - Our Native Pines Poop as Communication year long patrol the skies above land wildflower—hepatica—is Late December seems an The crushed limestone trails our landfills and strip mall park - often found on slopes in our wet appropriate time to write about that wind through our forest pre - ing lots are either ring billed or forests. The fragile flower pines, as assorted cedars, firs, serves seem to serve two purpos - herring gulls. But at this time of emerges from the decaying red and spruce are being hawked as es. First, they enable people to year, large majestic gulls known oak leaves. The spring leaves of Christmas trees. But Chicago walk through the preserve, ideal - as black-backs are soaring over the hepatica are actually from Wilderness has only two native ly seeing nice things without the cold waters of Lake the previous growing season, species of pine—the white pine causing damage to the plants Michigan. With distinctive slate still green after several months and the brilliantly named jack and animals. The other purpose black feathers on their wings and under the snow. The green color, pine. Both have been growing of our trails is to provide a place across their shoulders, these of course, is leftover chlorophyll here for thousands of years while for coyotes to go to the bath - dashing birds may finish the from last year’s photosynthesiz - all the others have been intro - room. Using their feces as a winter in our area, then take off ing. duced from other regions. Up means of communication, coy - and spend the rest of the year Hepatica gets it name from until the time of settlement in otes are careful to place it in a cruising the waters off the coast looking like liver. The two the 19th century, white and jack location assured of being well of northeast Canada. species of hepatica in our area pines were abundant in the traveled. Most of the visiting black- are the sharp-lobed and round- sandy soils adjacent to Lake At a glance, coyote scat looks backs are youngsters, their lobed, referring to the shape of Michigan. The great majority of a lot like dog poop. But if you plumage containing streaks of that livery leaf. The round-lobed them were harvested for lumber get down on your hands and gray and pale brown. They don’t species prefers to grow in soil to build the early buildings in knees and look real carefully, receive their striking adult slightly more acidic than the Chicago. At the Indiana Dunes you’ll notice coyote poop has plumage until they are four or sharp-lobed variety. National Lakeshore, the shifting lots of hair. Domestic dogs usual - five years old. sands have covered and uncov - ly don’t get a lot of hair in their Greater black-backed gulls are ered stumps of white pines that diet. (I was kidding about get - a little bit bigger than lesser are older than the Great ting on your hands and knees. black-backed gulls. Say that Pyramids in Egypt. Most people are able to see the three times fast. hair while standing, without Rough Legs drawing too much attention to THE END OF WINTER A few rough-legged hawks themselves.) have begun their annual winter Thawing Frogs sojourn, down from their summer Sycamore: A Tree with This time of year some wood nesting grounds around Hudson Balls frogs are frozen as a fish stick. Bay. Prairie in the winter, their There will be a full moon on But no need to worry. They’ll habitat is tundra in the summer. February 8, 2001. If there is a soon be defrosting and hopping These misnamed buteos actually fresh layer of snow, it would be down to a local flatwoods pond, have soft legs, with a layer of an ideal night to sneak out and eager to procreate their species. feathers covering their tarsi. pay a visit to our stately Wood frogs have the shortest Approximately every four years or sycamore trees. Their smooth, window for breeding activity of so, there is an increase in the gleaming upper branches con - our local frogs. As the air and number of northern birds of prey trast beautifully against the dark water temperatures rise to 41 including rough-leggeds and night sky. Dangling from the top degrees, wood frogs show slight snowy owls. This irruption is branches are their balls, distinc - breeding activity. When the air caused by the cyclical fluctua - tive spherical seed clusters that temperature rises to 50 degrees tions in the rodent populations, will break apart during the gusty and water temperature reaches creating a situation where there winds of spring. the upper 40s, breeding activity are a lot of predators and rela - Sycamore trees are common reaches maximum intensity. In a tively few prey. When this hap - throughout the valleys of the few short weeks it will be over pens, winged hunters are forced lower Des Plaines and Kankakee and these dark frogs with the to expand their winter range to River systems. They are uncom - black mask will quickly return to the south. mon in the northern section of their solitary lives in our mature, Chicago Wilderness. mesic forests. Wood frogs are uncommon in northeastern Illinois, but frequent in northern Indiana, and common farther east.

24 C HICAGO W ILDERNESS Meet your neighbors

Seeding the Snow: artists of the restoration P h o

“We stood between the ponds to do t o s :

our survey. We were treated to a C o r a s concert that surrounded us with u e

N i c

surprisingly well-orchestrated vocal - h o l a ists. Smiling, we listened for a s crescendo. After it came, the peep - ers dropped off one by one, leaving a silence as powerful as the frog voices had been.” —from “Nightwalk,” by Karen Holland Rodriguez in Seeding the Snow, Fall-Winter 1997 Christiane Rey and Nancy Freehafer, standing at rear, making art happen. eople who do restoration and con - journal’s title became Seeding the Snow . Restoring and Reinhabiting servation work realize that, in The first issue appeared in spring of Damaged Land. see p. Pnature, it takes many voices to 1997. Since then Freehafer says the 39.) At a recent make a healthy chorus. In recent years, a addition of Christiane Rey as art potluck dinner, a group group of Chicago-area women have director has brought a stronger sense of of 20 supporters, contribu - given a new voice to nature interpreta - continuity, as did formulating their mis - tors, and volunteers gathered to tion with the biannual journal, Seeding sion statement. The production team hand-bind and mail the recent the Snow . It’s a collection of original art - also includes graphic designer Corasue Fall/Winter 2000 issue. The women sat work and writing by women in the Nicholas (who designed the Chicago around tables and on the floor, drank Midwest involved in the restoration Wilderness Atlas of Biodiversity ). hot cider and carefully poked holes into movement, conservation efforts, or local “If the restoration movement is to the spine of each issue, then tied them nature in general. keep growing,” says Rey, “it has to go with raffia. They talked about the color Co-editor Nancy Freehafer says the beyond on-the-ground environmental variations and quality of the covers, idea for the journal sprang from a concerns, and become more emotional which are handmade by WomanCraft, women’s prairie restoration weekend in order to reach a wider audience.” Inc., a women’s job skills program affili - campout in July 1994 at Nachusa Seeding the Snow includes high quality ated with social service organization, Grasslands in Lee and Ogle County near woodcuts, photographs, poems, and Deborah’s Place. As they worked and Franklin Grove, Illinois. Freehafer’s essays on everything from prairie loose- later ate a bountiful meal, they talked friend and fellow editor Karen Rodriguez strife to one woman’s first seed gathering about politics, an upcoming seed pro - had been working on an article about trip. Ideally, says Rey, the artwork they cessing day, and their lives. women in restoration and was thinking choose stands on its own alongside the “This is a community for women in of eventually writing a book on the sub - text, with equal weight given to both. the Chicago area,” says Freehafer. “They ject. After the campout, Rodriguez and Rey sees the journal’s usefulness as a have really taken Seeding the Snow on as Freehafer began collecting manuscripts place for women to express feelings they something they believe in.” from others and talking about the pro - might not feel comfortable expressing ject at subsequent gatherings. They elsewhere. In fact, many of the women — Lisa Phillips realized a need for an ongoing place for whose work is eventually featured in women’s nature interpretation, so the Seeding the Snow don’t really know much To subscribe, mail your name, book idea evolved into Seeding the Snow . about restoration or conservation, but address and phone with $14 (for two Freehafer and Rodgriguez held a plan - they will learn about it through the issues per year) to: ning meeting for the journal in journal. September 1996. During a time of Though circulation is currently only a Seeding the Snow uncertainty for restoration efforts (a few hundred, a September 1999 profile 2534 N. St. Louis moratorium had temporarily been in the Chicago Tribune helped increase Chicago, IL 60647-1206 imposed in Cook County), the journal both submissions and subscriptions, and provided a place for women to continue Freehafer says they are trying other ways To submit your work for publica - their involvement, above and beyond to reach new readers. Seeding the Snow tion, or volunteer for the next doing the work itself. The best time to will sponsor a March 11 nature writing potluck binding party, call plant some seeds for spring is in a light workshop to be led by Stephanie Mills, Christiane Rey at (773) 478-2019 or snow, one of them realized, so the (author of In Service of the Wild: Nancy Freehafer at (773) 342-6665.

W INTER 2001 25 Meet your neighbors

Northern Shrike: on vacation

n a cool December day last Chicago Wilderness region, says McHenry County. year, Gayle Wagner watched a Bailey. But that doesn’t mean the The northern shrike defends large Onorthern shrike ( Lanius excu - species’ numbers are rising. National winter territories–as many as 540 bitor ) in McHenry County pluck what Christmas Bird Count data from 1900 acres. Like other members of its family, appeared to be a very frozen grasshop - through 1980 show northern shrikes including the loggerhead shrike (a per impaled on a state threatened twig and chomp breeder in Illinois), it down. Last the northern shrike February, Tom catches it prey, then Lally watched a stores it in caches shrike fly down known as larders by to a small tree impaling the prey on used as a a sharp projection. caching site and “Hawthorns, crab yank the apples, osage orange, remains of some and barbed wire are small mammal common sites for off a thorn and loggerhead shrikes in wolf it down. Illinois, and are Meanwhile likely sites for win - Richard Biss was tering northern entertained shrikes as well,” says while a shrike in Bailey. his Lake Villa The northern backyard in shrike is found here Lake County only in winter. The flew near a wet - loggerhead shrike land, caught a spends winters in the vole, and ate it. South but breeds These experi - regularly at Midewin ences are rare National Tallgrass

P Prairie near Joliet. for birders in the h o t o Shrikes possess

Chicago :

R o

Wilderness b extremely acute

C u

region–the r vision. A trained t i s /

northern shrike T shrike once spotted h e

only visits here E flying bumblebees at a r l y

in the winter least 100 yards away. B i r d

from about e You may not get to October through r experience shrikes March and its numbers are declining go through irregular series of cycles. catching bumblebees in Chicago in eastern North America. These facts These fluctuations probably occur Wilderness this winter, but if you should give pause to observers who based on winter severity and prey choose the right habitat and wait may not realize birds need not only availability on the shrike’s Canadian patiently, you may spot a northern good habitat for breeding, but also tundra breeding grounds. shrike perched atop a tree, scouting for good wintering habitat. Indeed, says Northern shrikes wintering here prey. Be patient and keep your dis - Steven D. Bailey, an ornithologist typically choose wet prairies and grassy tance from this wary species because it with the Illinois Natural History areas near wetlands and lakes where often flies if approached too closely. Survey, “most shrike species tussocky grasses provide habitat for its throughout the world are declining, favorite foods: voles, mice, and small – Sheryl DeVore for various reasons, some of which are birds. Some fairly reliable places to still unknown.” find northern shrikes annually include Last winter, Illinois birders docu - Illinois Beach State Park in Lake mented a record number of northern County, Fermilab in DuPage County, shrikes–105–and most were in the and Moraine Hills State Park in

26 C HICAGO W ILDERNESS Snowy owls nest on open tundra. They defend themselves by ruffling their feathers (making them appear twice as large) rotating their wings and spreading them to look like a great (and fearsome) animated fan. Meet your neighbors

Greg LeFevre: citizen of the earth

tion work, Greg’s tastes still run to the outdoors. He took a week’s vacation with his family last summer in the Bighorn Mountain region of Wyoming, where he could do what he loves: hike, camp, backpack, fish. P h

o Now a sophomore at Lake Zurich t o s :

High School, Greg has returned as a W e n

d volunteer to collect seeds from native y

P

a plants on weekends. Seed harvesting u l s o remains one of his favorite activities. n Young Greg LeFevre (in middle) seeding the snow at Grigsby Prairie with friends. “Autumn is my favorite season, and I like being in rural areas and along the t is not unusual for volunteers to he’s not going to get tired of restora - railroad tracks,” he says. “It’s a more receive recognition for five or 10 tion work.” social occasion and gives you a real Iyears of service at the annual meet - This past summer, Greg was hired sense of accomplishment. Anybody ing of Barrington’s Citizens for by Citizens for Conservation as one of can do it; you don’t need to be in spe - Conservation (CFC). Last February three full-time summer interns. He cial physical condition.” Greg LeFevre was honored with a 10- was by far the youngest intern in the While he’s unsure of precise future year award, along with several other five-year-old program—and also the plans, Greg is clear about the quality restoration volunteers. But Greg was most experienced. Greg was an easy of his own endeavors in the restora - 14 years old at the time. choice for the job, which attracts a tion arena. “Maybe I have a guilty Greg’s dad, Bob LeFevre, started large pool of applicants. “We knew conscience,” he says, “but I feel I have volunteering with CFC in the late what kind of worker he was,” says a responsibility not only to perform a 1980s, when the local conservation restoration coordinator Tom job, but to do it for the future of the group began a prairie reconstruction Vanderpoel. “We knew his knowledge restoration–on a very local level, but project in Barrington Hills, later base and how he interacted with other really as a citizen of the earth. Others named Grigsby Prairie (see CW, volunteers. Some of the applicants feel they have to do well in sports or summer 2000). Sometimes he brought aren’t ready to tackle hard work.” school, but this is what I want to do his two young sons to workdays. “I Greg says that as an intern, “you well at.” liked to be outside,” says Greg, “so I definitely get to do more of the whole job. “I knew my dad was always the tagged along with dad.” – Wendy Paulson Greg came week after week. He first to come and last to go, but I harvested seed, piled cut brush, didn’t appreciate all the preparation weeded, and sowed seed as the prairie and wrap-up for volunteer days. I no expanded. He still says he volunteers longer could work from 9 to 11 as a mostly because he loves being outside. ‘convenience volunteer.’ As an intern, But on further reflection, he admits I felt more responsibility. I was that he likes the sense of accomplish - expected to perform. I couldn’t just ment. “You can look back at the end watch the sunset.” of the day and see a hillside cleared of While he has worked at a variety of buckthorn, and it really makes you Barrington-area restoration projects, feel like you’ve done something.” Grigsby Prairie continues to be Greg’s Early on, it became clear that Greg favorite. “I’m more partial to open was a natural at restoration work. He prairies. When bobolinks began learned to recognize blazing star, nesting here, I knew it was becoming prairie coreopsis, sideoats grama, and a really high quality place. And it has other prairie species in their seed diversity, a variety of micro-ecosystems stages and needed little or no instruc - –wetlands, mesic areas, a bit of tion on seed-collection outings. He savanna, hills with little bluestem. It’s worked hard and became a resource quiet,” he adds, “which makes it dif - and inspiration to adult volunteers. ferent from the other restoration areas. “He’s very dedicated,” says CFC vol - You feel really welcome here.” unteer Gail Vanderpoel. “You can tell When he’s not involved in restora -

W INTER 2001 27 P h o t o :

LETTERS FROM A FATHER R o b

e by Mona Van Duyn r t

S h a w

Ulcerated tooth keeps me awake, there is we had the girl sprinkle extra there, but say, such pain, would have to go to the hospital to have they eat something awful. I sent the girl to town it pulled or would bleed to death from the blood thinners, to buy some more feed, she had to go anyway. but can’t leave Mother, she falls and forgets her salve and her tranquilizers, her ankles swell so and her bowels IV are so bad, she almost had a stoppage and sometimes Almost called you on the telephone what she passes is green as grass. There are big holes but it costs so much to call thought better write. in my thigh where my leg brace buckles the size of dimes. Say, the funniest thing is happening, one My head pounds from the high pressure. It is awful day we had so many birds and they fight not to be able to get out, and I fell in the bathroom and get excited at their feed you know and the girl could hardly get me up at all. and it’s really something to watch and two or three Sure thought my back was broken, it will be next time. flew right at us and crashed into our window Prostate is bad and heart has given out, and bang, poor little things knocked themselves silly. feel bloated after supper. Have made my peace They come to after while on the ground and flew away. because am just plain done for and have no doubt And they been doing that. We felt awful that the Lord will come any day with my release. and didn’t know what to do but the other day You say you enjoy your feeder, I don’t see why a lady from our Church drove out to call you want to spend good money on grain for birds and a little bird knocked itself out while she sat and you say you have a hundred sparrows, I’d buy and she brought it in her hands right into the house, poison and get rid of their diseases and turds. it looked like dead. It had a kind of hat of feathers sticking up on its head, kind of rose II or pinky color, don’t know what it was, We enjoyed your visit, it was nice of you to bring and I petted it and it come to life right there the feeder but a terrible waste of your money in her hands and she took it out and it flew. She says for that big bag of feed since we won’t be living they think the window is the sky on a fair more than a few weeks long. We can see day, she feeds birds too but hasn’t got them good from where we sit, big ones and little ones so many. She says to hang strips of aluminum foil but you know when I farmed I used to like to hunt in the window so we’ll do that. She raved about and we had many a good meal from pigeons our birds. P.S. The book just come in the mail. and quail and pheasant but these birds won’t be good for nothing and are dirty to have so near V the house. Mother likes the redbirds though. Say, that book is sure good, I study My bad knee is so sore and I can’t hardly hear in it every day and enjoy our birds. and Mother says she is hoarse form yelling but I know Some of them I can’t identify it’s too late for a hearing aid. I belch up all the time for sure, I guess they’re females, the Latin words and have a sour mouth and of course with my heart I just skip over. Bet you’d never guess it’s no use to go to a doctor. Mother is the same. the sparrow I’ve got here, House Sparrow you wrote, Has a scab she thinks is going to turn to a wart. but I have Fox Sparrows, Song Sparrows, Vesper Sparrows, Pine Woods and Tree and Chipping and White Throat III and White Crowned Sparrows. I have six Cardinals, The birds are eating and fighting, Ha! Ha! All shapes three pairs, they come at early morning and night, and colors and sizes coming out of our woods the males at the feeder and on the ground the females. but we don’t know what they are. Your Mother hopes Juncos, maybe 25, they fight you can send us a kind of book that tells about birds. for the ground, that’s what they used to call snowbirds. I miss There is one the folks called snowbirds, they eat on the ground, the Bluebirds since the weather warmed. Their breast

28 C HICAGO W ILDERNESS Photo at right by Frank Navratil, of his backyard feeder. Birds from the left: two house finches, mourning dove, cardinal, four house sparrows, another dove, and a dark-eyed junco. A fifth house sparrow is on approach for his final landing. is the color of a good ripe muskmelon. Tufted Titmouse VI is sort of blue with a little tiny crest. It’s sure a surprise how well Mother is doing, And I have Flicker and Red-Bellied and Red- she forgets her laxative but bowels move fine. Headed Woodpeckers, you would die laughing Now that windows are open she says our birds sing to see Red-Bellied, he hangs on with his head all day. The girl took a Book of Knowledge on loan flat on the board, his tail braced up under, from the library and I am reading up wing out. And Dickcissel and Ruby Crowned Kinglet on the habits of birds, did you know some males have three and Nuthatch stands on his head and Veery on top wives, some migrate some don’t. I am going to keep the color of a bird dog and Hermit Thrush with spot feeding all spring, maybe summer, you can see on breast, Blue Jay so funny, he will hop they expect it. Will need thistle seed for Goldfinch and Pine right on the backs of the other birds to get the grain. Siskin next winter. Some folks are going to come see us We bought some sunflower seeds just for him. from Church, some bird watchers, pretty soon. And Purple Finch I bet you never seen, They have birds in town but nothing to equal this. color of a watermelon, sits on the rim of the feeder with his streaky wife, and the squirrels, So the world woos its children back for an evening kiss. you know, they are cute too, they sit tall and eat with their little hands, they eat bucketfuls. From IF IT BE NOT I by Mona Van Duyn Copyright © 1982 by Mona Van Duyn Reprinted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a Division of Random House Inc. I pulled my own tooth, it didn’t bleed at all.

W INTER 2001 29 Bird feeding

ATTRACTING BIRDS TO YOUR FEEDERS & Y OUR YARD By Bob and Karen Fisher

ever fed birds 12-14” high chicken-wire barrier around Suet cakes placed in special baskets before? Be or under these plants. A stalking cat attract woodpeckers, chickadees, and Npatient–a must jump this barrier, usually alerting nuthatches. Buying animal lard (avail - P

h month may pass before the birds to its presence. (If neighbors able in tubs in the cooking oil section o t o

: birds appear regularly. have cats that are routinely outdoors, at the supermarket) and spreading it on

J i m you may choose to not feed the birds. the sides of a tree in the cracks in the

To increase species F l y

n variety, provide several Feeder birds are easy prey for cats, and bark readily draws this group of birds; n / R

o different types of seed it’s very difficult to protect them from it’s more natural for these birds to cling o t

R in a variety of feeders sneak attacks, even with these precau - when they eat. Nuthatches, chickadees, e s o

u scattered at various tions.) Remember, our native hawks are and downy woodpeckers also love r c e s locations. natural predators, to which our feeder peanut butter. Try packing peanut It’s a myth that you can’t stop birds have developed defenses over the butter (mixed with a little corn meal) feeding once you’ve started. Birds adapt millennia. But feral cats are not native, into the crevices between the scales of a well to changes in food supplies and so birds are very vulnerable. large pine cone and suspending it from will move around to find new sources. Empty seed hulls are a nuisance. If a branch using a thin wire. Chickadees But in an extreme winter cold spell you clean regularly, seed debris won’t will often hover with heavy snow cover you might want kill the grass, but an easier way is to like humming - to recruit your neighbor to keep the clear a circular area under a feeder, and birds, picking off feeders filled while you’re basking in a mulch it with wood or bark chips. Some bits of peanut tropical sun. birds, like fox sparrows, just love to butter from the Locate pole feeders 8-10 ’ from trees if scratch through the mulch with their pinecone. you can. Use a large diameter, tubular feet to find those hidden seeds. Birdbaths or n sleeve (the least expensive choice is 4” Black oil sunflower attracts tufted tit - other water a m e e mice, northern cardinals, blue jays, sources are bird r diameter PVC pipe available at hard - F

l o black-capped chickadees, goldfinches, magnets. In the r ware and home centers) over the pole a C

:

and various woodpeckers. Use tube winter, water is o

to prevent squirrels and raccoons from t o h

climbing; their claws slip on the smooth feeders; those with a 1” mesh cage important. Use a P surface. Cover the tube at the top with around the tube allow smaller birds like heated bird bath or use a small thermo - a plastic baffle to prevent birds from chickadees to enter, restricting the statically controlled heater that can be getting trapped down inside the pipe. larger birds. immersed in your present birdbath. Some pole assemblies now give you the Nyger (aka thistle, but not the Don’t forget to change the water fre - ability to hang several feeders from one prickly thistle that is a gardener’s pest!) quently and periodically scrub the pole. This is a great way to draw a larger requires special tube feeders with very container. Otherwise outbreaks of avian variety of birds to one viewing area. If small slit openings; fine mesh bags work illnesses can occur. Ground areas should you hang feeders from a tree, use a long well also. Providing nyger attracts be swept and the dropped seed and hulls S-shaped hanging hook, and a large goldfinches, house finches, pine siskins discarded. Feeders should be scrubbed at deep dome baffle over the feeder. Trim (when they invade from up north every least once a month, perches and all, any branches squirrels can use to jump other winter), and common redpolls. with a mild bleach and water solution. on the feeder. Buy small quantities of this seed at first Rinse thoroughly to get all the bleach Squirrels and raccoons are nest until these species begin coming. Shake residue out and dry completely before predators and are upsetting the balance the feeder every day, as the small slits in using them again. Store the seed you of healthy ecosystems, so try not to feed the tube will clog with the debris in the buy in a cool, dry, closed container to them. seed. If house finches hog these feeders, keep it fresh. A metal garbage can with Birds require nearby try using the a tight fitting lid works great. Mice shrubs or trees to dart to upside-down style can’t chew their way in. safety from a sharp-shinned tube. Most house Feeders and seed are available at or Cooper’s hawk attack, finches dislike many different stores, but those special - but it’s important to make hanging upside izing in bird feeding have the freshest sure cats can’t hide under down to feed, seed and the greatest variety of feeders, P h

o whereas the along with a knowledgeable staff to

those bushes within t o :

pouncing distance. Use a K goldfinches love it. answer your feeding questions. a r e n

F i s h e

30 r C HICAGO W ILDERNESS Several excellent Web sites exist with lots of useful information and answers to your birdfeeding questions. Try these: (US Fish & Wildlife) http://migratorybirds.fws.gov/pamphlet/feed.html (Cornell Lab of Ornithology) http://birds.cornell.edu/birdfacts/feeders.html SNOWY !

October 25 at Montrose. This immature Snowy Owl is the earliest record for this species in my 20 years of birding in Lincoln Park. P h o t o :

C a r o l

F r e e m a n P h o

Lugging her birding scope and digital camera to Montrose Point, t o :

K

Kanae Hirabayashi pauses to show off a regurgitated owl pellet. a n a e

H i r a b a y a s h i

November 2. Here is a shot of the Snowy, P h

o still here, in the rain. A couple of passersby t o :

K

a were fascinated to see the beautiful visitor n a e

H

i from the tundra perched on the sign of a r a b a y a school-kids’ garden. s h i

November 15. This morning at Montrose, there were a short- eared owl, Cooper’s and sharp-shinned hawks, three northern harriers, and 50 crows who harassed Snowy who tried to escape them at the tip of Fishing Pier. But the crows wouldn’t leave it alone. Twice, the Snowy, as if it knew that crows wouldn’t come P h o t o close to humans, landed seven feet away from us. When the owl :

K a n a

e flew around us, we could feel wind from the owl’s wings. Then

H i r a

b crows stayed away a short while and gave the Snowy a little time a y a s h

i to calm down. The picture (left) was taken at this time.

Kanae Hirabayashi Chicago, IL USA

W INTER 2001 31 Book review

e all think we know the The Chicago River is organized Perkins Woods Chicago River, but, for most chronologically in three sections. The in Evanston Wof us, the acquaintanceship first section outlines the geological and a member is slight. We have a jumble of impres - foundation of the river and the legacy of Friends of sions. I have taken a boat up the of the Ice Age as well as of the Native the Chicago river’s main stem to look at the sky - American cultures that flourished in River. She line; I’ve visited the I & M Canal in the region for 13,000 years before tells her story Lockport; I’ve participated in restora - European settlement. with energy tion work along the North Branch. The second and third sections are and enthu - But until recently, these impressions focused around various issues or prob - siasm, and she have been fragmentary, and my desire lems. Chapters in the second section provides to fit them together was not strong. reflect the 19th century passion for numerous All this changed when I read Libby progress and commerce expressed quotes that Hill’s new book The Chicago River through huge engineering feats: the reflect the lan - (published by Lake Claremont Press, construction of the I & M and the guage as well $16.95). A part of my world that had Sanitary and Ship Canals, the as the thought of the planners, politi - been relatively invisible has become of attempts to remove the sandbar at the cians, common citizens, and press of great interest. I’ve even started my river’s mouth, the efforts to dilute and the respective eras. own explorations, inspired by Hill, divert sewage away from the growing Hill’s book demonstrates the bewil - who “climbed through brambles, city. dering multiplicity of interests that waded through garlic mustard and The section on the 20th century have connected the river to the city buckthorn, squealed the car to a halt” shows a growing public consciousness and nation ever since the early 19th in her efforts to see and century. understand the river. Indeed, a reader can get The Chicago River is a RE-D ISCOVERING tangled up in the political, good read. But it is also planning, and engineering an important book for it developments, including is the first to present, as THE CHICAGO the names and acronyms Hill says in her subtitle, of government and civic both the river’s “natural” groups. The constantly and its “unnatural his - RIVER changing geography of the tory.” The book illumines river can also be con - the river’s ancient history as well as its fusing. Yet Hill has clearly worked to key role in the birth and growth of unsnarl the tangled strands of informa - Chicago. More than that, as “a micro - tion. And if the book seems too cosm of the uneasy relation between detailed, it is complete, and thus an nature and civilization,” this history excellent reference. reflects the wider world in which we In the past, people found the live. meaning of life in stories of their land - There are more than 30 maps, scape. This sense of history, of showing the changes to the river over belonging to place, is often lost on the years. The book is richly illus - those of us who live in the modern trated with photographs, paintings, city, in a landscape that is repeatedly and drawings. of the river as a source of beauty, and a being torn up. Libby Hill’s book serves These include a painting of Wolf new understanding of disease that led to reconnect us to our landscape and Point as it was in 1832, complete with to the construction of modern water to our history. a little log tavern; a drawing of a sec - treatment plants. This section also The Chicago River is a hopeful book. tional view of tunnels for foot and includes chapters on the transforma - Despite the current frantic rate of horse traffic built under the river in tion of the Skokie Marsh, the development along the river, public the 1860s; and an amazing picture of a construction of the deep tunnel, the awareness and involvement in hotel being lifted and moved by hun - work of the Forest Preserve District, restoring the natural processes of the dreds of men when the city of Chicago and a discussion of the citizens’ groups river have never been greater. And was raised to build sewers. that are currently involved in despite all the straightenings, the The book contains a glossary, restoring health and beauty to the channels, the wallings in, the tunnels extensive notes on sources, a bibliog - river. under, despite its reversal, Hill raphy, a list of organizations and Author Libby Hill teaches in the reminds us, the Chicago River is still government offices that can provide Geography and Environmental Studies there, at essentially the same place as more information, and a five-page Department at Northeastern Illinois it was when the Native Americans chronology that is a great help in University and works for the camped along its shores. keeping track of the various strands of Northeastern Illinois Planning the story. Commission. She is also steward of —Nancy Freehafer

32 C HICAGO W ILDERNESS In 1900, the Sanitary and Ship Canal opened and the flow of the Chicago River was reversed. No longer did waters enter Lake Michigan, but they began to flow downstream eventually ending up, via the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers, in the Gulf of Mexico. News of the wild

Q LINCOLNSHIRE VOTES FOR and the current options for management. institutions. Ultimately, the entire collec - NATURE Armed with that knowledge, our commu - tions of each institution, totaling more This vote did not need a recount. A nity chose to protect the wealth of than 2,000,000 specimens, may be avail - confusingly worded referendum sought to diversity in Florsheim rather than sacrifice able online. eliminate culling as an option for control - all else for a single species.” Botanical institutions maintain herbaria ling overpopulated deer in Florsheim Many conservationists saw this refer - to assist in the identification of plants, to Nature Preserve. The referendum was endum as a test case for similar actions in provide data necessary to document past opposed by conservation groups, including other communities. The resounding vic - incidence of plant species, map current National Audubon Society and the Sierra tory should encourage other communities species distributions, detect changes in the Club. By a margin of 62 percent to 38 per - to support good management of their nat - diversity and distribution of species, and cent, the voting public in Lincolnshire ural areas. forecast trends. vPlants will become a wisely rejected the measure. — Steve Frankel much needed research tool for Chicago This victory for good sense is due Wilderness, and will significantly promote largely to the impressive educational W A CHICAGO REGION the plant information interests of schools, efforts of the Friends of Florsheim, a grass - “VIRTUAL HERBARIUM” community groups, educators, and other roots group that organized to rally In September, The Morton Arboretum plant professionals. community support for their local preserve. received a $420,000 grant from the The referendum question was a compli - Institute of Museum and Library Services E ROUTE 47 cated one for an election ballot and was to develop and launch an online Ten years ago, U.S. Senator Daniel worded in a way that suggested that a few herbarium – vPlants – of Chicago region Moynihan recognized that governments fences could solve the problem. The group plants. This database is being developed had spent untold money on highways that sponsored the referendum also over the next two years in partnership without paying attention to how transporta - opposed brush control and prescribed with the Field Museum and the Chicago tion affects land use and the environment. burning. Lincolnshire resident and Friends Botanic Garden. It will encompass data Moynihan drafted legislation that for the member Jamie Godshalk described how about, and high resolution color images of, first time made federal transportation the Friends were successful. “We asked plants in the herbaria of these three pre - funding sensitive to these issues. Recently, Lincolnshire voters to choose wise man - eminent Chicago area botanical the Route 47 communities of Woodstock, agement based on what was best for the institutions. While the initial focus will be Lake in the Hills, and Lakewood, along whole ecosystem. We provided people with plants of the Chicago region, vPlants will with the McHenry County Conservation information on the effects of deer browsing readily allow future expansion and cre - District (MCCD), received a major grant 9 ation of a larger database of plants from this funding (now called the Federal 8 5 4 beyond our region. Highway Administration’s Transportation vPlants will provide an Equity Act for the 21st Century, or TEA- 7 6 immense, searchable database of 21) to develop best management practices 12 14 plant information to anyone with that will guide development in ways that 17 an Internet connection and a will protect the headwaters of the 17 13 Web browser. “Our project will Kishwaukee River. 14 16 17 revolutionize access to plant While much of this property is already 15 17 14 11 information and dramatically annexed and zoned, it is still underdevel - 5 oped leaving a window of opportunity to 3 10 expand the number of potential herbarium users,” says the pro - achieve conservation goals. Conservation 18 1 ject’s principal investigator, Dr. Research Institute (CRI) is administering

o Christopher Dunn, director of the demonstration project that will give

F D 17 e 17 s research at The Morton these communities the tools to achieve 8 P 17 l 14 a i n Arboretum. The Web-based their goals. e s 7 system will include a “portal”– “Since this is a pilot project, the process 13 17 10 hosted by The Morton of involving the communities is very 10 14 4 Arboretum–and three separate important. By making quality decisions 17 10 9 databases housed and maintained now, we can not only forestall negative 14 x 2 18 17 by each of the three participating environmental impact but expensive and frustrating retrofitting later on,” says 10 LAKE Melinda Perrin of CRI. “If we can show MICHIGAN that this process works, it will become a

e model for sustainability in other areas g a 14 P u D facing similar development pressures.” Little Calumet The Route 47 corridor includes streams N 12 17 that feed into the Kishwaukee River, a high quality stream. Partner municipali - 20 ties, the MCCD, and Illinois Department 0510 Miles of Natural Resources will work with the Openlands Project and CRI to develop a plan that includes giving people trans - portation alternatives while protecting the K a nk Kishwaukee and biodiversity. akee

W INTER 2001 33 News of the wild

Funds for the Route 47 project include week of meetings followed to brainstorm a In 1986, the U.S. Army Corps of the $198,000 TCSP grant, $12,000 from plan of action for the island. After about a Engineers (ACOE) denied SWANCC a MCCD, and $26,000 from Woodstock, year of organizing, more than 60 organiza - permit to fill lakes and ponds on the Lake-in-the-Hills, and Lakewood. The tions signed an agreement and the Bartlett land citing its authority to regu - project is augmented by a $20,000 State of Hawaiian group is a reality! The emphasis late “waters of the United States” under Illinois Conservation 2000 grant for a nat - will be on public awareness that will sup - the federal Clean Water Act. Using its ural features study along the Kishwaukee port and inspire on-the-ground Migratory Bird Rule, the ACOE claimed River throughout the study corridor. conservation work. jurisdiction over intrastate waters that are — Alison Carney Brown or would be used as habitat by birds. When Y ILLINOIS RIVERS 2020 the solid waste agency sued, both the dis - R CHICAGO RIVER On November 3, the U.S. House passed trict court and the Seventh Circuit Court ENHANCEMENTS the final version of the Water Resources of Appeals found for the ACOE. In May, The Chicago Department of Development Act (WRDA 2000) that the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear Environment and the U.S. Army Corp of includes a $100 million, three-year autho - the case and held its hearing on October Engineers teamed up in a $4 million pro - rization for the Illinois Rivers 2020 31. If the court turns the regulatory over - ject to improve four sites on the Chicago initiative, clearing the measure for sight to state and local governments, it River to provide habitat enhancement and President Clinton’s signature. “This is a could become harder to enforce the Clean public access. The projects–at Chicago’s tremendous victory for Illinois,” Lt. Water and Endangered Species Acts. Von Steuben and North Side College Governor Corinne Wood said. “The For more information, contact the Preparatory high schools, on Goose Island Illinois Rivers 2020 program is the kind of Sierra Club at (312) 251-1680 or off Weed Street, and on the river’s South comprehensive environmental initiative [email protected] or the Branch at the former Cuneo Press at 18th that will serve as a model for the nation.” Environmental Law and Policy Center at Street–vary in scope and design. They The Illinois River and its watershed (312) 673-6500 or www.elpc.org. include footpaths, a canoe landing, and stretch across 55 counties and affect 90 — Gail Goldberger still lunkers (hiding holes for fish) built percent of the state’s population. More into spots where no natural bank remains. than 900,000 people receive their drinking I IDOT WALLS The high schools will use the enhanced water from the river. Illinois Rivers 2020 As part of a roadway construction pro - riverside as a living learning laboratory. moves beyond studies and begins imple - ject in northern Cook County, the Illinois New plantings will include bur oak, mentation of restoration and prevention Department of Transportation (IDOT) will willow, and linden trees, aquatic plants, throughout the basin. This expanded vol - install an exclusionary wall to protect a wild onion, grasses, cow parsnip, prairie untary, incentive-based program was population of the state-endangered massas - dock, and bee balm. Friends of the developed by Lt. Governor Wood’s Illinois auga rattlesnake ( Sistrurus catenatus ). Chicago River, local government agencies, River Coordinating Council, which Slated for construction in the summer 17th District State Senator Lisa Madigan, worked with members of the Illinois con - of 2002, the wall will be three feet high and 33rd District State Rep. John Fritchey gressional delegation, agricultural, and run approximately 3,000 feet along a assisted in the plan’s development. environmental, and natural resources stretch of roadway adjacent to one of the —Michael Graff agencies. The initiative will develop new last remaining massasauga populations in technologies and innovative approaches to Illinois. During the project planning T MALAMA HAWAI’I improve water quality within the entire process, IDOT collaborated with the U.S. “Malama Hawai’i” is a conservation Illinois River Basin; protect farmland and Fish and Wildlife Service, Illinois partnership on the island of Oahu–inspired open space; restore, enhance, and preserve Department of Natural Resources, Forest by and modeled upon Chicago Wilderness habitat for plants and wildlife; enhance Preserve District of Cook County, and –was launched in June 2000. The the waterway as a vital transportation cor - others. “We gave careful attention to the Memorandum of Understanding that ridor; and provide for land treatment of design of the wall,” said Dr. Christopher describes this effort is poetic and inspiring: storm water and best management prac - Phillips, an ecologist with the Illinois “Our work will integrate the environment, tices for upland areas. Natural History Survey. “The design and health, education, justice, culture and the All 22 members of the Illinois congres - materials were chosen to minimize the economy; and celebrate the strength of sional delegation, more than 65 environ- project’s impact on the habitat, while max - community.” mental, conservation and agricultural imizing the protection for the massasauga.” Pauline Sato, program director of the groups, and more than 350 mayors Studies conducted by the Ohio Division Oahu chapter of The Nature Conservancy, endorsed the initiative. This was the first of Wildlife on mortality factors for the had been watching the development of year Illinois Rivers 2020 was introduced in massasauga cited roadkill as a major cause Chicago Wilderness for several years and Congress. for the decline of that state’s massasauga believed it would be a good conservation population. According to Tom Anton, a strategy on the island of Oahu. That island U BARTLETT BALEFILL CASE consultant and herpetologist hired by has both a dense human population and For 15 years, the Solid Waste Agency of IDOT to study the Chicago Wilderness critically important biodiversity to con - Northern Cook County (SWANCC), a population, the snake’s genetics don’t help serve. Sato brought in Debby Moskovits, consortium of 23 suburban Chicago munici - much either. “Because the body of a mas - director of environmental and conserva - palities, has been trying to build a solid sasauga is short, fat, and stocky they are tion programs for the Field Museum, and waste landfill on a 533-acre site in Bartlett. slower than most snakes,” said Anton. Laurel Ross, area director for The Nature The site contains woods, the remains of a “That makes it much harder for them to Conservancy of Illinois, for the 1999 gravel strip mine, 17.6 acres of wetlands move quickly across a roadway.” Hawaii Conservation Conference to used by migratory birds, and a heron Massasauga rattlesnakes were once describe Chicago Wilderness efforts. A rookery with 192 great blue heron nests. known from 24 widely scattered popula -

34 C HICAGO W ILDERNESS The bones of snowy owls have been found a Neolithic dwelling sites, suggesting they were part of these people’s diet. tions in Illinois, but they are now only Committee is also encouraging building campaign donations, with additional assis - known to occur at six. This decrease managers to establish a “Bird-Friendly tance provided by the Nature Conservancy, prompted the state to list the snake as Building Program” by adding the responsi - Liberty Prairie Conservancy, Lake Forest endangered in 1994. Once common from bility and specifications for reduced Open Lands, Lake Bluff Open Lands, western New York and southern Ontario, lighting to the tenant operations manual Citizens for Conservation, Sierra Club- south to eastern Iowa and eastern Missouri, and incorporating the same into tenants’ the massasauga is now endangered leases. Loop conservationists can be a part throughout most of its range and is a candi - of this ongoing program and help monitor

date for listing as a federally endangered its success by contacting Judy Pollock, Bird P h o species. If the exclusionary wall proves to Conservation Network representative to t o :

S be successful, scientists hope this approach the Mayor’s Wildlife Committee, at jpol - t .

C can be used elsewhere in the state and [email protected] or (847) 965-1150. h a r l e throughout the massasauga’s range. s

— Alison Carney Brown P a r

— Gian Galassi k

D i P s CONSERVATION AND NATIVE t r i c O LIGHTS OUT DOWNTOWN LANDSCAPING AWARDS t This fall, night by night, the skyline On November 11, Chicago Wilderness dimmed in Chicago’s Loop. Thankfully and the U.S. Environmental Protection Woods, and Wetlands Chapter, and others. this meant the survival of many migrating Agency honored the five winners of the birds on their southward journey. For rea - first annual Conservation and Native } NATURE ADDS VALUE sons that are not well understood, Landscaping Awards. The program recog - This past spring the Palos-Orland migratory birds are attracted to lights nizes park districts and municipalities that Conservation Committee (POCC) during their nighttime journeys, and it is make extensive and creative use of natural released a study on “The Economic Impact estimated that thousands hit skyscrapers landscaping to restore and support native of Environmental Resources on the Palos- and die every migration season in Chicago. plants and animals. The winners are: Orland Region.” Conducted by Don L. As part of the Urban Bird Treaty signed Village of Sugar Grove – Sugar Grove Coursey, a professor at the Harris Graduate by Mayor Daley and U.S. Fish and Detention Basin Prairie School at the University of Chicago, and Wildlife Service in late March (CW City of Chicago, Department of Douglas Noonan, a doctoral candidate at Summer 2000), the Mayor’s Wildlife and Environment – North Park Village Nature the Harris School, the study found that if Nature Committee and the City of Center Native Plant Garden population density and traffic increase by Chicago Department of the Environment Roselle Public Works – Central 50 percent in that section of southwestern sent flyers this summer to the Building Avenue Wetland Cook County–a “degradation scenario” Owners and Managers Association encour - City of Crystal Lake – Crystal Cove that has occurred in other suburban aging them to turn out their lights at night Pond Wetland Restoration Chicago communities–then “the total during the spring and fall migrations. In St. Charles Park District – Campton effect on housing values in the region addition to the buildings that observed the Hills Natural Area and Pottawatomie results in a loss of $225,000,000 in total request last spring, many others joined in Native Plant Education Area residential property value. (This represents support this fall, including the Sears a loss of about 6.5 percent of an average Tower, John Hancock, Tribune Tower, Leo { VOTERS HELP PROTECT LAKE home’s value).” Burnett, NBC Towers, R. R. Donnelley, COUNTY Southwest suburban Palos and Orland Stone Container Building, and 55 W. On November 7, Lake County voters Park share seamless borders with large Wacker. resoundingly approved a Forest Preserve tracts of Cook County forest preserves– “Thanks to Linda Day, volunteer chair District ballot issue, with 67 percent voting more than 15,000 contiguous acres in the of the Mayor’s committee, and the for $70 million worth of land preservation Palos/Sag/Tinley areas. Palos Park was Building Owners and Managers and $15 million worth of restoration and developed in the late 1800s as summer Association we’ve had quite a response to improvement projects. These new land homes for Chicagoans, while Orland Park this program,” says Suzanne Malec, the acquisition funds will bring the district became a vibrant farming community. city’s Deputy Commissioner for Natural closer to its goal of preserving 40 acres for Over the past several years, much of the Resources. “I think the most exciting part every 1,000 residents of Lake County. farmland has been developed and Palos’s was looking at the skyline and visibly With 1999 referendum funds, the district: larger properties have been subdivided, seeing the difference that was made and acquired 403-acre Ray Lake Farm near resulting in a significant loss of natural fea - you could imagine the impact it was Wauconda; combined two adjacent pur - tures and the fragmentation of inter- making during migration–potentially chases to create a 356-acre refuge near connected ecosystems. The study shows saving thousands of birds that were silently Antioch; and added 213 acres to the Fox that further development will result in flying above.” River Forest Preserve and 41 acres to Fourth lower residential property values. “Many of these buildings are land - Lake Fen. On October 1, a cluster of citizens’ marks,” says Day who has worked in the Passage of the 2000 ballot issue allows groups including the POCC, Concerned building management profession for 20 the district to continue its acquisition efforts Property Owners in the Greenway, years. “It’s a huge sacrifice to darken their while land is still available and affordable. DesPlaines River Watershed Alliance, and profile. It’s incredible that they’re doing it.” Many Chicago Wilderness members the Sierra Club sponsored a Greenway In addition to establishing a building assisted in the referendum campaign. Joyce Gathering to support completion of the lighting policy that strives for minimal O’Keefe, of the Openlands Project, chaired proposed greenway between Tampier Lake lighting at night during migration seasons, the Friends of the Forest Preserves efforts. and McGinnis Slough. The greenway con - the Mayor’s Wildlife and Nature The Friends of Ryerson Woods made major nection was first proposed 10 years ago and

W INTER 2001 35 News of the wild

the Forest Preserve District of Cook County U.S. Forest Service. “His perspective trans - recycling of waste materials. Members has begun making acquisitions. The citizens lated into support for a large number of create beauty through the artistic use of groups are particularly interested in an urban conservation projects in Chicago plant material in the home and in the undeveloped parcel (No. 12) that includes and around the country.” landscape. The Grand Calumet Task wetlands, a stand of oaks, and splendid “Congressman Yates knew how to work Force is a community environmental orga - views of Tampier Lake. The event included with colleagues on both sides of the aisle nization working cooperatively to improve hayrides, refreshments, and speakers, and and accomplish some truly great things,” the land, air, and water quality of the drew families and public officials from remembers Skokie Mayor George Van Grand Calumet River and the urban around the region including national Dusen, legislative assistant and the ecosystem that surrounds it and to achieve Republican environmental leader (and Lake Congressman’s director of suburban opera - environmental justice for the people of County Commissioner) Martha Marks. tions for 26 years. “In our region, the northwest Indiana. The mission of the Meanwhile, the Village of Palos Park is Chicago lakeshore and the Indiana Dunes Lake County Soil and Water considering adopting an ordinance to National Lakeshore (IDNL) are prime Conservation District is to conserve the ensure responsible construction practices examples of how he worked to protect the biodiversity of Lake County by educating that protect natural features. “This effort great treasures of our country.” Yates spon - the public on natural resource protection. goes beyond a ‘tree ordinance, ’” says sored appropriations that increased the size The Natural Land Institute preserves nat - Planning Commission and POCC member of IDNL and won approval for creating the ural areas and natural diversity through a Dave Kibort. “It treats the greater natural environmental education center there. comprehensive program of land protection, community as an ecosystem that must not According to Stephen Packard of stewardship, research, education and advo - be fragmented.” Numerous citizens and National Audubon, Yates played the key cacy. The Northeast Region of groups, including POCC and the Palos role in Chicago Wilderness obtaining its University of Illinois Extension offers Park Tree Body, have commented at public initial funding from the USDA Forest practical, research-based programs that forums. The planning commission will Service and the USDI Fish and Wildlife help people improve their lives and address have a recommended final draft ordinance Service. critical community issues involving youth, submitted to the village council for Yates was also a renowned supporter of families, economics, health, agriculture approval in January 2001. the arts, humanities, and museums. In and natural resources. The Office of In November, villagers celebrated the 1998, Congress passed a $2 million direct Continuing Education at the University passage of a $20 million bond referendum appropriation to establish the Sidney and of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has estab - by Orland Park to support land acquisition. Addie Yates Exhibition Center at The lished a new division in Chicago to offer Prior to the elections, the POCC sent out Field Museum as a permanent tribute to environmental education to a variety of hundreds of postcards, distributed buttons Congressman Yates when he retired. professional and non-professional audi - and flyers, and wrote letters to the editor in ences using an intensive, modular support of the Orland Park Save Open w TEN NEW MEMBERS curriculum that combines online, face-to- Space Initiative that passed by 57 percent The Chicago Wilderness consortium face, and field-based instruction. The on November 7. “Nine hundred homes has now expanded to 124 members. The mission of the Waukegan Harbor could potentially be built on the 300 acres Butterfly Monitoring Network monitors Citizens’ Advisory Group is to ensure the referendum money could purchase,” said changes in butterfly populations enlisting expeditious development and implementa - the Openlands Fund Commission chair Lou volunteer citizen scientists to collect field tion of a remedial action plan for the Mulé. Referendum supporters estimated data. The Network’s data and analyses are Waukegan Harbor ‘Area of Concern’; to that the resulting 9,000 new vehicle trips made available to land managers and man - foster among the public a sense of respon - and 1,350 new school enrollments could agement agencies. The Chicago sibility for restoring and maintaining the cost the village an estimated $1,800,000 in Herpetological Society enhances the edu - ecological integrity of the Waukegan services annually. Passage of this initiative, cation of members and public through Harbor; and to promote a lakeshore envi - said Mulé, “demonstrates that residents society programs; promotes conservation of ronment for public use. understand that open lands are just as vital all wildlife in general and of herpetofauna as roads and sewers and schools.” in particular, whenever and wherever pos - e AN HONORED ACTIVIST —Alison Carney Brown sible; and works to achieve a closer On October 31, Openlands Project cooperation and understanding between honored Marian Byrnes with its q SIDNEY R. YATES amateur and professional herpetologists. Conservation Leadership Award. Byrnes 1909-2000 The DuPage Birding Club provides has led the Southeast Environmental Task Former U.S. Representative Sidney R. opportunities for people to enjoy the diver - Force in the Calumet region of Chicago Yates of Chicago, 91, champion of sity of bird life in the Chicago area with a since 1989. Under her leadership, the task national parks, forests and waterways and specific focus on DuPage County. The force has become the leading citizen-based an early supporter of the Chicago Region group is active in Bird Conservation organization on the Southeast Side, advo - Biodiversity Council, died on October 5. Network efforts to standardize bird moni - cating relentlessly to stem the Congressman Yates represented Chicago’s toring in the Chicago area, provides small deterioration of both residential neighbor - 9th District, spanning the north lakefront grants for bird research in the Chicago hoods and the natural landscapes of the and north suburbs, for 48 years. As area, offers field trips, and participates in Lake Calumet area. Chairman of the House Subcommittee on monitoring bird populations in DuPage Byrnes has also pursued and supported Interior Appropriations, Congressman County. The Garden Clubs of Illinois environmental justice issues on the Yates brought “a strong interest in the informs and educates members and the Southeast Side. She is one of the key environment and a strong interest in general public about the preservation of leaders of the Calumet Ecological Park serving urban people,” says John Dwyer, the natural resources of our state, the pro - Association (CEPA). Byrnes and CEPA Evanston-based research forester for the tection of endangered species and the are moving closer to achieving National

36 C HICAGO W ILDERNESS Whether they hibernate or not, many animals begin the winter with large reserves of fat. Many humans end the winter that way. Park Service designation of the Calumet area in Illinois and Indiana as a new National Heritage Corridor. Byrnes was also the key neighborhood spokesperson, working with Citizens for a Better Environment, to prod the U.S. EPA into addressing the high toxic concentra - tion at a cluster of abandoned waste facilities at 122nd and Stony Island. Five years ago Byrnes led the initiative to define a series of sustainable develop - ment practices for a 150-acre brownfield site that is slated to be the CenterPoint Supplier Park to Ford Motor Company. The practices she identified remain a model for site design of the industrial park. r THE NATURE OF COMMUNITY establishing prairie and savanna vegeta - gram (26), and ITEP program (51). Would you like to see more natural tion; planting native trees and woody Governor Ryan’s Open Land Trust initia - landscaping in your community? More ini - understory from locally collected seed; tive, the largest land acquisition program in tiatives that protect the watershed? removing invasive nonnative species; con - state history, is providing $160 million over Protecting Nature in Your Community: ducting prescribed burns for prairie and four years for land purchases and improve - A Guidebook for Preserving and savanna areas. Upstart Crow Ad for Chicagoments. Wilderness Enhancing Biodiversity focuses on how Prepared for the Chicago Region Grants awarded in the Chicago local municipalities, counties, and park Biodiversity Council and funded in part by Wilderness region include: districts can play an active role in imple - the USDA Forest Service, Protecting Chicago Park District : $2 million to menting the Chicago Wilderness Nature was sent last spring to a wide acquire five acres along the North Branch of Biodiversity Recovery Plan. The variety of public officials in northeastern the Chicago River to connect Gompers and Guidebook covers topics ranging from land Illinois. Navota and Dreher have since Eugene Field Parks, extend Gompers Park use planning to improved stormwater man - developed a PowerPoint ® presentation and wetland, and fund restoration work. agement to natural landscaping. on-site training. Public officials can review Forest Preserve District of Cook Written by Jason Navota and Dennis the guidebook and follow up with the County : $2 million to acquire 65 acres of W. Dreher of the Northeastern Illinois authors or begin to implement some of the the former Klehm Nursery extending Spring Planning Commission (NIPC), Protecting recommended programs on their own. Lake Preserve to the east and provide addi - Nature includes numerous examples of Often it doesn’t take much. Slight shifts in tional protection for the headwaters of local programs that support the a community’s focus, minimal modifica - Spring Creek. The project will preserve tions of ordinances, and a general existing wetland habitat and allow for the commitment to biodiversity protection can restoration of former wetland areas. achieve critical results. Call Chicago Dundee Township : $1,967,700 to WILDERNESS magazine at (847) 965- acquire 248 acres which includes the former P h o

t 9275 for a complimentary copy of the Elmhurst-Chicago Stone gravel mine and a o :

S guide. Navota and Dreher can be reached portion of the Bright Farm, a critical com - t .

C

h at NIPC: (312) 454-0400. ponent of the Jelkes Creek greenway. a r l e Restoration/recovery activities include the s

P

a reestablishment of natural grades and con - r t

k GRANTS FOR OPEN SPACE

D

i In early November, Governor George H. tours, restoration of the dry gravel prairie s t r i c Ryan announced $76.7 million in projects to vegetation and the establishment of native t protect open space and acquire and develop tallgrass prairie. Guidebook’s recommendations and can new hiking and bicycling trails throughout Geneva Park District : $487,500 to serve as models. For instance, the St. Illinois. The grants are funded through the acquire and enhance a 22-acre addition to Charles Park District owns and manages Open Land Trust (OLT), the Department of Peck Farm, including prairie restoration and approximately 500 acres of fens, marshes, Natural Resources’ Bicycle Path Grant pro - habitat demonstration plots. upland swamps, woodlands, and prairies. In gram, and the Illinois Transportation Kane County Forest Preserve District : 1996, the District identified land acquisi - Enhancement Program (ITEP). $2 million to acquire the 121-acre Carson’s tion as a major goal in its comprehensive “It is no secret that urbanization is con - Slough, home to at least five state threat - master plan to protect wildlife and fragile suming open space, farmland, wildlife ened or endangered bird species, and a ecosystems and provide a variety of recre - habitat, recreational areas and natural land 292-acre portion of the Thornton Farm, an ational uses. faster than we can preserve it,” Ryan said. integral part of the Blackberry Creek water - Olympia Fields Country Club in the “That’s why my administration initiated the shed. Site enhancement at Thornton Farm Village of Olympia Fields has also taken a Illinois Open Land Trust Program–to pre - includes wetland restoration and the re- number of significant actions to provide serve those dwindling resources while there planting of an oak/hickory woods. habitat for plants and animals. These is still time to do so.” The governor Lake County Forest Preserve District : include controlling erosion of streambanks announced a total of 92 projects through the $2 million to acquire a 270-acre site, part of and pond edges with native plantings; re- OLT program (15 projects), Bike Path pro - a larger 403-acre parcel, which will be called

W INTER 2001 37 News of the wild

Ray Lake Farm. The 270 acres contain three erty acquisition projects. For more infor - and bird enthusiasts will canvas the tree wetlands, a large woodlands, and agricultural mation on the Illinois Open Land Trust choices of foraging birds in parks and pre - land that will be restored to prairie. Fund, visit www.state.il.us . serves across the Chicago Wilderness McHenry County Conservation region. Other partners in the project are District : $1,467,500 to acquire two parcels y CITIZEN SCIENCE FOR Openlands Treekeepers, the Field Museum, of land totaling 180 acres of mixed hard - THE MAYOR and the Bird Conservation Network. wood and upland and wetland complex in The city of Chicago plants thousands of Volunteers with basic bird or tree ID the city of Woodstock. Ninety-four acres are trees each year. Millions of migratory birds skills are needed. The more good data col - at the headwaters of the Kishwaukee River, search for food in them. City officials, led lected, the better our trees will be for which contain the longest stretch of top by Mayor Daley, take pride in these trees migrating birds. Attend a one-hour quality stream in the state. Another 86 acres and would like birds to find what they training session to learn the methods. are at McConnell Woods, comprised of oak need there. But what species of trees do Three-hour brush-up sessions on bird and savanna and a wetland fen complex. the birds use? Many spring migrants are tree ID are also available. For details call Northbrook Park District : $2 million to stocking up on protein—a.k.a. bugs—to Audubon at (847) 965-1150. acquire a 14-acre parcel south of Illinois fuel their long and difficult journeys. — Judy Pollock Road. The 14 acres is part of a larger 60-acre Others take the candy bar approach–they EVENTS parcel being acquired by the District. The need nectar. Which trees will provide it? District will renovate existing wetlands and Which will flower just as the birds pass STEWARDSHIP FORUM: RIVERS & a 1.2-acre mesic prairie planting area is through? Which have the most sought- WETLANDS MANAGEMENT planned. after insects? Cool weather along the Rivers, wetlands, and watersheds are Village of Orland Park : $1,950,000 to lakefront means delayed flowering and arguably the most difficult ecosystems to acquire 28 parcels of property totaling 48 leafing out compared to inland; are the manage and restore. They often suffer from acres. The site contains several endangered birds using different tree species in each overuse and high levels of pollution. These bird species and an endangered sedge. The place? The Mayor wants to know, so that systems also represent some of the most Village will restore the existing wetlands, a the right species will be planted in the biologically diverse ecosystems in our area. native oak/hickory savanna and three ponds. right places. Join co-sponsors The Morton Arboretum The Open Land Trust grants are admin - This spring the Chicago Department of and Chicago Wilderness for a day of pre - istered by the Department of Natural the Environment and the National sentations from local experts who are using Resources and provide up to 50 percent Audubon Society will let the birds “vote the most modern management techniques. state funding assistance for approved prop - with their beaks.” Teams of volunteer tree Speakers include, Brook McDonald,

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38 C HICAGO W ILDERNESS Fish slated for restoration to the re-meandered Nippersink: the banded killifish, star-headed top minnow, and the least darter. director, The Conservation Foundation; year’s theme, “2001, A Land Odyssey: An (773) 342-6665 Ed Collins, restoration ecologist, McHenry Exploration of Prairies, Wetlands, County Conservation District; Alice Savannas and Beyond” will be explored in BIRD MONITORS TRAINING Thompson, wetland ecologist; Chris eight concurrent sessions. Renowned envi - Learn to collect information about Molzahn, Ecowatch coordinator; and Kris ronmental writer Stephanie Mills will be native birds in a two-part training session. Bachtell, director of collections and the keynote speaker. Registration materials In the Bird Conservation Network Census grounds, The Morton Arboretum. will be available in early January. training you will learn how to census bird Date and time: January 27, 2001, Date and time: March 10, 2001, 8:00 life in local parks and preserves. In the 9:00 a.m-5:00 p.m. a.m.-4:30 p.m. Tree Preferences of Migratory Birds Study Place: The Morton Arboretum, Lisle Place: College of DuPage, Glen Ellyn training you will learn how to participate Fee: $105 nonmembers; $85 mem - Fee: $35 in the study to determine which trees bers, includes box lunch Information: Natural Sciences Division migratory birds use most. BCN Census Information: (630) 968-0047 or (630) 942-2706 Training will be offered in four other loca - www.mortonarb.org tions. Call for dates and times. Training is WOMEN WHO WRITE sponsored by the National Audubon MASTER CLASS IN DORMANT Stephanie Mills, author of In Service of Society and the Bird Conservation TREE IDENTIFICATION the Wild: Restoring and Reinhabiting Network. Brush up on winter tree ID with experts Damaged Land , will lead this writing Date and time: March 17, 2001, George Ware and Suzanne Malec. Train to workshop for women. 12:30-3:30 p.m. participate in Audubon’s study of trees Date and time: March 11, 2001, Place: Humboldt Park Field House, used by migrating birds. Sponsored by the 10 a.m.-3:30 p.m. Chicago Openlands TreeKeepers and National Place: North Park Village Nature Fee: Free Audubon Society. Dress for the weather. Center, Chicago Information: (847) 965-1150 Choice of two class dates. Fee: $35, includes a light lunch Date and time: : February 3, 2001, Information: (773) 478-2019 or 9:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Place: Horner Park, Chicago Date and time: February 24, 2001, 9:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. The Natural Garden, Inc. Place: Washington Park, Chicago The Nursery Specializing In Native & Ornamental Perennials & Grasses Fee: Free Information: (312) 427-4265 x 232 Grower of native forbs, grasses, sedges, shrubs and vines representing local/regional eco-types. Native NATURAL LANDSCAPING SEMINAR seed sold individually by weight or in mixes. Plants “Living With Nature” is the theme of propagated and seed collected from stock beds on this year’s Natural Landscaping Seminar site at our nursery. Custom growing for the green sponsored by the Wildflower Preservation and Propagation Committee of the industry. McHenry County Defenders, McHenry Call For Our Catalog County College, and the McHenry 38W443 Hwy 64, St. Charles, IL 60175 County Conservation District. Stephen Phone (630)584-0150 / Fax (630)584-0185 Packard, director, National Audubon Society Chicago Area Program, and editor of the Tallgrass Restoration Handbook, will be the featured speaker. Other presen - ters include Connor Shaw, owner of Possibility Place Nursery; Pat Armstrong, 10729 Pine Road owner of Prairie Sun Consultants; and Leland, IL 60531 Janice Steiffel, a regular contributor to Serving the tri-state Wild Ones. E COLC O L OGICALO G I C A L R ESTORAE S T O R ATIONT I O N area and beyond. Date and time: February 24, 2001, 8:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m. Invasive Plant Control Place: McHenry County College, Crystal Lake Truax Drill Seeding Fee: $30, includes lunch Information: McHenry County Controlled Burns Defenders (815) 338-0393 Bioengineered Erosion Control NORTHERN ILLINOIS PRAIRIE Plant Inventory WORKSHOP The 12th annual Northern Illinois Native Landscap e-Design & Installation Prairie Workshop is sponsored by the Consulting College of DuPage, Chicago Wilderness, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Volunteer Stewardship Network. This (815) 495-2300

W INTER 2001 39 Reading pictures

True Progress

he blue water of this who’d done the hard work. To his amazement, 300 people graceful curve of came. TNippersink Creek As the ditch water began draining away, the attendees was not here a few days were invited to wade in, find stranded mussels, and move earlier. them where the creek now flowed once again. Scores of The two hills visible in folks were soon up to their knees in mud and water, saving the background are just some creatures that needed help. Ed returned the next where they were for most morning to see how the place looked. Dozens of people of 12,000 years, since the were back out there in the mud, uninvited, unexpected, glacier left them. But they but very welcome, weren’t there a year ago. finding mussels large . s

The material of those hills and small and trans - s a l

had been used to fill the porting them to their G

l l former channel of the new and very much i B

Nippersink. The water of improved home. y b

this meandering stream had This wetland flood - y t n

been diverted to a straight plain had never been u o C

ditch. the best place for l l It seemed like this wet prairie stream and those dry farming, and it would i W

n

prairie hills were gone forever. The good farmers had have been even less the i

r

needed all the farmland they could flatten and drain, to best place for a subdivi - e v i

feed their families and feed the rest of us as well. But in R

sion. The people who e

recent years, residential communities have been replacing are choosing to live e k a

the farmland of eastern McHenry County. Paradoxically, nearby–and paying the k n a

development can be harnessed for conservation. taxes there–want nature K

With development come resources, planning, and a con - saved. Restoring the e h t

stituency of people who care about nature. The first Nippersink is an n o

canoeists of the restored stream (above) and the lad achievement to cele - s e l

showing us a fat mussel (right) are examples. brate. b b

When the water was cut off from the ditch and redi - u b

rected to its restored ancient channel (see story on page 8), Photos by Pat Wadecki and Laurel Ross. Words by Stephen e c I

the Conservation District held a ribbon-cutting ceremony. Packard. Land and biota acquired and restored thanks to the : E T

There had been little fanfare beforehand. The District’s Ed dedicated folks at the McHenry County Conservation District I S

Collins, who oversees this massive project, expected a few and the wise voters who support their work. O P

dozen people to show up, mostly family of the young people P O

40 C HICAGO W ILDERNESS Rare mussels like the slippershell (threatened) and the rainbow (endangered) are expected to recolonize the newly healthy habitat in the restored Nippersink. CHICAGO WILDERNESS MEMBERS:

Chicago Wilderness Members: Lake Co. Stormwater Management Commission Bird Conservation Network Lake Forest Open Lands Association Brookfield Zoo Lake Michigan Federation Butterfield Creek Steering Committee Liberty Prairie Conservancy The Butterfly Monitoring Network Lincoln Park Zoo Calumet Ecological Park Association Long Grove Park District Calumet Environmental Resource Center Loyola University of Chicago, College of Arts Campaign for Sensible Growth and Sciences Campton Historic Agricultural Lands, Inc. Max McGraw Wildlife Foundation Canal Corridor Association McHenry County Conservation District Cary Park District Metropolitan Water Reclamation Dist of Greater Chgo Center for Neighborhood Technology Morton Arboretum Chicago Academy of Sciences National Audubon Society Chicago Audubon Society Natural Land Institute Chicago Botanic Garden The Nature Conservancy Chicago Herpetological Society NiSource Environmental Challenge Fund Chicago Ornithological Society North Cook County Soil & Water Conservation District Chicago Park District Northbrook Park District Chicagoland Bird Observatory Northeastern Illinois Planning Commission Citizens for Conservation Northeastern Illinois University City of Chicago, Department of Environment Northwest Indiana Forum Foundation, Inc. College of DuPage Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission The Conservation Foundation Northwestern University Environmental Council The Conservation Fund Oakbrook Terrace Park District Conservation Research Institute Openlands Project Crystal Lake Park District Palos-Orland Conservation Committee DePaul University, Environmental Science Program Palos Park Tree Foundation Downers Grove Park District Park District of Highland Park Ducks Unlimited-Great Lakes/Atlantic Regional Office Prairie Woods Audubon Society DuPage Audubon Society Pringle Nature Center DuPage Birding Club River Forest Park District Emily Oaks Nature Center - Skokie Park District Save the Dunes Conservation Fund Environmental Law and Policy Center of the Midwest Save the Prairie Society The Field Museum Schaumburg Park District Forest Preserve District of Cook County John G. Shedd Aquarium Forest Preserve District of DuPage County Shirley Heinze Environmental Fund Forest Preserve District of Kane County Sierra Club, Illinois Chapter Forest Preserve District of Will County St. Charles Park District Fox Valley Land Foundation Sustain, The Environmental Information Group Friends of the Chicago River Thorn Creek Audubon Society Friends of the Parks The Trust for Public Land Friends of Ryerson Woods Town Square Condominium Association Garden Club of Illinois, Inc. University of Illinois Extension, Northeast Region Garfield Park Conservatory Alliance University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Office Geneva Park District of Continuing Studies Glenview Prairie Preservation Project Urban Resources Partnership Grand Calumet Task Force US Army Corps of Engineers, Chicago District The Grove National Historic Landmark US Dept of Energy, Argonne National Laboratory Hammond Environmental Education Center US Dept of Energy, Fermi Natl Accelerator Lab Illinois Audubon Society US Environmental Protection Agency, Region 5 Illinois Audubon Society, Ft Dearborn Chapter US EPA Great Lakes National Program Office Illinois Department of Natural Resources USDA Forest Service Illinois Natural History Survey USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service Illinois Nature Preserves Commission USDI Fish & Wildlife Service Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant College Program USDI National Park Service Indiana Department of Natural Resources Village of Glenview Indiana Dunes Environmental Learning Center Village of Lincolnshire Indiana University Northwest Village of Riverside Irons Oaks Environmental Learning Center Waukegan Harbor Citizens’ Advisory Group Jurica Nature Museum Wayne Park District Kane-DuPage Soil & Water Conservation District The Wetlands Initiative Lake Bluff Open Lands Association Wheaton Park District Lake County Forest Preserves Wild Ones Natural Landscapers, Ltd. Lake County Soil & Water Conservation District

This issue is supported by a grant from the Grand Victoria Foundation. Frosted rosehips by Glenn Jahnke/Root Resources

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