Chicago EXPLORING NATURE & CULTURE

WILDERNESSSPRING 2002 chicagowildernessmag.org

WILD KIDS

WILD YARDS

WELCOME BACK WHOOPERS 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 threatened – than the tropical rain forests.

isCHICAGO an WILDERNESS unprecedented alliance of 143 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 WILDERNESS 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 OPPOSITE:

Prairie smoke from East Main Street Prairie in Cary, Illinois by Pat Wadecki.

CHICAGO WILDERNESS A Regional Nature Reserve

Everyday Heroes

hese days the people universally venerated as Martha hadn’t planned to start a campaign, but she was heroes are the firefighters and policemen who, by alarmed at what she saw and cared enough to do something Tdint of character and training, throw themselves about it. into mortal danger to care for others. Their altruism, Young Jean-Luc Mosley and Cora Thiele (shown here) are duty, and courage are inarguably heroic. heroes in my eyes, along with their compatriots featured on But I find I don’t have to look as far as that for heroes. In pages 6-9 and hundreds more like them throughout Chicago this issue we present people Wilderness. I say heroic be- who, by dint of character cause these kids are cultivat- and spirit, undertook cam- ing the capacity to love other paigns to save small parts creatures, converting natural of the rest of Creation. In wonder to advocacy and care. doing so, perhaps they too A generosity of the heart is a are saving the world. heroism that is accessible to I speak, for instance, of a every one of us. Kane County fellow known Edward O. Wilson, the to his friends as Jim Phillips renowned entomologist, and to thousands more as writes in The Future of Life: “The Fox.” (Our tribute “A conservation ethic is that begins on page 27.) When which aims to pass on to fu- he witnessed the other ture generations the best part creatures of this world being of the nonhuman world. To harmed by the thoughtless know this world is to gain a acts of men, he took it upon proprietary attachment to it. himself to speak out and To know it well is to love and act up. Photo: Kevin Weinsten take responsibility for it.” Before the Clean Water Let us celebrate joy and Act, before the Clean Air wonder. Let us remember Act, Jim Phillips captured that they lead to passion the attention of polluters and love. Without them, we (and the public) by turning are lost. With them, we are his ire into satire and skew- whole. We are human. Hap- ering selfishness with wit. His deeds were legendary but, until py Earth Day, Mother Nature. May our lives deserve you! his death last October at age 70, few knew his name. Martha Carver is another local hero moved to act from indignation. Campaigning from her keyboard, Martha took on the online auction house eBay and won (see pp. 12-13).

Debra Shore

EDITOR

S p r i n g 2 0 0 2

CONTENTS Spring 2002 Volume V Number 3 chicagowildernessmag.org

FEATURES

Kids Wild About Nature by Cindy Mehallow and Shanna M. McGarry...... 6 Bugs, baseball, and cool, cool kids. Q & A with Senator Dick Durbin...... 10 What Illinois’ senior senator has to say about Chicago Wilderness.

Weed Meets Match: Photo: Kevin Weinsten by Debra Shore...... 12 How Martha Carver took on eBay and illegal weeds. Unlock Your Yard 6 by Nancy Shepherdson...... 14 “There is more to life than a weed-free lawn.” departments Letters...... 5 Photo: Dave Jagodzinski Into the Wild...... 17 Our guide to exploring the wild places of Chicago Wilderness. Meet Your Neighbors...... 25 Judy McCarter and hepatica. 14 Remembering The Fox: teacher, friend, and environmental crusader...... 27 by David Weissman Welcome Back, Whoopers!...... 30 In which a grand endangered bird learns once again to migrate. by Karen Fernweger News from Chicago Wilderness...... 32

Reading Pictures...... 40 Photo: Ed Reschke Weeds and Nature.

Cover: In Ryerson 26 Conservation Area, four year- old Troy Kayne of Deerfield looks for bugs under the mighty flowers of cow pars- Photo: Heather Ray – Operation Migration nip. For more on Ryerson, see page 23. Photo by dad, Joe Kayne.

Opposite: Trillium and blue- eyed Marys at Messenger 6 Woods. Photo by Joe Kayne. 30

S p r i n g 2 0 0 2 Chicago Small School. Big Family. WILDERNESS Volume V, Number 3 Early Childhood Education BOARD OF DIRECTORS Human Services, Culinary, Business Information President: Dr. George Rabb Technology, Liberal Arts Hotel/Restaurant Management Vice-President: Dan Griffin Secretary: Laura Gates Treasurer: Barbara Whitney Carr Jerry Adelmann, Laura Hohnhold, Ron Wolk

Acting Publisher: Sharon Sullivan Editor: Debra Shore Senior Editor: Stephen Packard Assistant Editor: Sheryl De Vore News Editor: Alison Carney Brown Art Director: Carol Freeman/Freeman Design Web Master: Jennifer Dees Advertising & Subscriptions Manager: Phyllis Wier

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Chicago WILDERNESS is printed on recycled paper. Chicago WILDERNESS is endorsed by the Chicago Region Biodiversity Council. The opinions expressed in these pages, however, are the authors’ own. © by Chicago Wilderness Magazine, Inc.

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4 C h i c a g o W i l d e r n e s s Letters they love/hate) immensely. Geese live here CLEAN THE POOP squirrel. and some people appreciate that, others To the Editor: In the 1970s, I excavated an archaeolog- don’t. I’m more informed about aspects of I found your article about Canada geese ical site with the Field Museum in Ottawa this issue than before. by Nancy Shepherdson (Winter ‘02, p. 6) Trail Woods at 45th and Harlem Ave. The Also, I’d wondered about freshwater jelly- to have an unbiased approach that is all too area was a pretty open savanna and dozens fish since we found our first exposure to these rare. I count myself among those who like of Franklin’s ground squirrels were our critters locally last summer. I’d never seen or to see Canada geese in urban areas. They neighbors. When I went back there in the heard of them before. They’re quite beautiful provide an element of the wild amid the mid-1980s, I found that the forest preserve and so soft you can’t feel them brush past. condominiums and industrial parks: they had stopped mowing much of the area. It There were LOTS of them gently undulating have a freedom that reminds us that the is now grown up with trees and shrubs. No around us as we swam. So beautiful. It’s nice Chicago suburbs were once undeveloped. more savanna. No more Franklin’s ground to know more about them. I know of several people who have an squirrels. Last, the piece on winter butterflies was irrational hatred of geese, seemingly simply I also liked the mourning cloak article amazing. What remarkable critters we share because they exist. What they forget is that and always looked for early spring holes the world with. people share this planet with many fellow made by the yellow-bellied sapsucker. Sap Thanks for an enlightening issue. animals. Canada geese are out where we can running from these holes attracts mourning see them while other animals are stealthy cloaks and many other insects. Ken Morehead and usually remain hidden from our view. Durham, N.C. To many people, the answer is to kill the Edward Lace geese, so I count the use of humane meth- Wilmette, Ill. SQUIRREL FIND ods of controlling geese as a step forward. To the Editor: I have visited the Chicago Botanic Gar- Correction: Harold Frederickson Two articles in your Winter issue were dens with geese and without geese. I would should have received credit as a founder of great interest to me – Franklin’s ground prefer to see some geese present. When the of Migratory Bird Management in “Wild squirrel and the freshwater jellyfish. geese were allowed to roam, the gardens had & Messy” (Winter ’02). We regret the During the 1930s, I hung out and fished a look more in keeping with nature rather omission. in Sherman Park but never heard of the than a place created as an ornament for jellyfish. At the same time we fished and people. Waterfowl pausing to stop at the gar- swam in Maple Lake near 95th and Wolf dens lent a completed look for me, so I am Road. I heard people claim that they were with the Wheaton Park District and would stung by jellyfish. I thought they were really simply clean up after the geese. stung by water-boatmen, an aquatic insect Friends of whose sting was familiar to me. I was about David A. Wend 11 years old at the time. Buffalo Grove, Ill. Chicago Wilderness Magazine In 1946 I worked at Boy Scout Camp Kiwanis. We swam in Tuma Lake [in the TENTACLES CLEARLY VISIBLE $1,000 Dear Editor: Cook County Forest Preserves], as did the George Rabb kids from Sokol camp. We had jellyfish in I was surprised and delighted to read August of that year. about the fresh water jellyfish (Winter ‘02, $75 – $100 During the 1970s and 80s, I was Director p. 33). Surprised because I never realized Christine B. Armbrecht of the Sand Ridge Nature Center in the Cal- that this experience was so rare and delight- Karen E. Otto umet City/South Holland area. Someone ed that this event happened to my daughter Zink & Martha Sanders brought in a jellyfish he found in one of and me. Some 25 years ago at Lincoln Park Margaret Martling the ponds formed by the strip mining and Zoo we decided to take a paddleboat ride on spoil heaps near Coal City and Braidwood. the lagoon at the well- known spot in front $25 – $50 We kept it in an aquarium for several weeks of the restaurant. During the trip I noticed Charlotte A. Tate & where it looked and acted just like an ocean small jellyfish rising and then descending Diane E. Weinrich species. Suddenly it was gone and we found with tentacles clearly visible. The jellyfish Charlotte Tate David Dempsey no trace in the tank. were a little larger than the diameter of a Ken Gross nickel. Well, if you are fresh water zoologist [Also back in 1946] I rescued a squirrel Rick DiMaio from a grass fire. I thought it was a young enthusiast you don’t have go to some exotic Shirlee Hoffman grey squirrel and was interested because we slough – just rent a paddleboat and hope Suzanne Jackson only had fox squirrels in the woods. A few you’ve hit the optimal time for jellyfish Toni Spears weeks later I took him to the Field Museum viewing. Bob Carroll where I was told, “Wow, this species is not Frank Sadowski found east of the Mississippi.” Well, I took Gerald Firak Wendy Liles him back to camp and released him where I Park Ridge, Ill. William Baurer saw several more in the grassy valley. Today REMARKABLE CRITTERS! Charlotte Codo that grassy valley is covered with trees and Dear Editor: shrubs and no more Franklin’s ground I enjoyed the article on geese (and what

S p r i n g 2 0 0 2 5 Kids about Nature

Nestor Camarillo ild I Want to Teach “A few years ago, I wasn’t doing anything to help nature,” recalls Nestor Camarillo,W a senior at Elgin High School. That began to change during his sophomore year when he participated in a school-wide cleanup of Poplar Creek, which runs through Elgin High School’s 25-acre outdoor classroom and nature trail. “I enjoyed picking up the garbage. I felt good about myself, but it was sad to see what things people throw away,” Nestor recalls. Then Nestor studied soil depletion and erosion in geology class. He was fascinated. “I used to think that soil was just there to hold grass,” he admits. Nestor loved the class, but it didn’t go deep enough. “There were areas I wanted to know more about,” Nestor says, “so I had do research for myself using books here at our school library.” Drawing on this research, he developed a soil station for a special one-day program conducted at Elgin High School for gifted students from Tuft Middle School. “First, we examined soil-forming factors and studied soil profiles, including color, moisture, and texture. Then we used soil probes to gather soil samples from differ- ent areas along the nature trail – wood- lands, hills and waterfront,” explained Nestor. Inspired by his biology and environmental science teacher Deborah Perryman, Nestor competed in Envirothon, an annual environmental competition sponsored by Canon. He created a soil station while his four teammates tackled aquatics, forestry, point source pollution and wildlife. “We met weekly, listened to guest presenters and tested ourselves,” he says, “so we were disappointed to only earn third place.” Today, as a senior, Nestor has gone from student to teacher. Through an independent study program, he conducts Mighty Acorns classes – a hands-on program about ecosystems – for students of all ages. He also helps train teachers who are interested in bringing the curriculum to their schools. Under Nestor’s guidance, Mighty Acorns classes are trained in the River Watch monitoring techniques and learn about migrant bird routes, macro-inver- tebrates, and of course, soil. Nestor’s fascination with soil has provided fertile footing for his personal growth as well. “Serving as an instructor for Mighty Acorns has helped me develop different skills,” Nestor softly explains, acknowledging that teaching students has boosted his self-confi- dence and improved his public speaking skills. “After graduation I want to study aquatics and forestry and then become an agent for the Environmental Protection Agency or perhaps a teacher,” he said. “Most of all, I want to teach minorities. They’re not really aware of the environment and I want to teach them about it.” — ­CM

6 C h i c a g o W i l d e r n e s s about Natureby Cindy Mehallow and Shanna M. McGarry Photography by Kevin Weinstein ild Tegan Campia Earth Keeper W In first grade Tegan Campia recruited classmates to help clean up local roadsides. From modest beginnings, her Clean-Up Club has become an annual tradition. Protected by heavy gloves, boys and girls follow the Campia’s tractor-pulled wooden wagon, gathering debris from along the wooded lanes of their neighborhood. Tegan also rallied friends to join her in planting wildflowers and trees for Earth Day at the Lockhart Family Nature Center, part of the Lake Forest Openlands Association where her father Ken is past president. Wherever she looks, Tegan finds creatures to study and care for. When rains flood her neighbor’s goldfish pond, Tegan pulls on her yellow rubber boots and rushes out to rescue the hapless goldfish stranded in her yard. Noticing that young deer injured their hind legs jumping over barbed-wire-topped cyclone fencing, she and her mother grabbed their wire cutters and removed the barbed wire. They’ve also cut a ground-level opening in the fence for the baby geese that shuttle across their lawn between neighboring ponds. “Once we found a goose egg in the backyard,” recalls Tegan. “I put it in a cage with a heat lamp, but it never hatched.” An- other discovery, a small skull unearthed in an abandoned barn, was carefully studied but never definitively identified. Photo: Art Morris/BIRDS AS ART Tegan and her mother, Karen, have rescued tiny saplings, transplanting them from around their property to a makeshift nursery in their back yard. Marked with bright orange plastic tags, the cottonwood, shagbark hickory, oak and maple seedlings are now safe from the lawn mower’s blades. After all her instinctive nurturing, Tegan became an official “Earth Keeper” upon completing a three-day environmental cur- riculum conducted by Lake Forest Openlands for all Lake Forest fourth graders. “Earth Keeper showed us the food web and we learned how herbicides make their way from our lawns into the water. We saw the connections,” Tegan explains. “Now I respect everything about nature much more.” — ­CM

Cora Thiele Snorkeling Artist Snorkeling in Lake Michigan off the Indiana Dunes, Cora Thiele eagerly approaches the plunge zone – the point at which the lake bottom suddenly drops off and life abounds. She spots freshwater shrimp, and glittering silver minnows dart off as she draws near. This is part of the day’s science class for 13 year-old Cora, who is homeschooled by her mother, Elma, director of the Richardson Wildlife Sanctuary in Chesterton, Indiana. Nestled on three and a half acres of wooded dunes and beaches, the sanctuary offers Cora a hands- on learning laboratory for observing and recording the marvels of nature. “We’re trying to start a mollusk counting program around Lake Michi- gan,” explains Cora. “Nobody has done any research on mollusk populations so the data we collect will be very helpful to people in the future.” Three times a year, Cora, her mother, and other volunteers gather before dawn at Gibson Woods for a bird banding project. “It’s incredibly fun to handle the birds,” Cora declares. Enchanted by the beauty, Cora captures nature’s images through artwork. Her watercolors of North American ducks have garnered prizes each of the three times she’s entered Indiana’s Junior Duck Stamp Contest. Sketches of young caribou, lupine and bald eagles adorned her well-researched, handwrit- ten letter to President Bush that urged him to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. — ­CM

S p r i n g 2 0 0 2 7 Jean-Luc Mosley Creature Collector A shelf on Jean-Luc Mosley’s front porch holds his current collection of creatures: Hisser, a three- inch long Madagascar hissing cockroach; Slick, the neon green barking tree frog; and Scopatwini, the coral-striped corn snake. In the back yard, wild cardinals Cardy and Scarlet dine on the seeds that spill from assorted bird feeders. During the summer, Jean-Luc’s collection outgrows the front porch, buoyed by treasures he has found on family camping trips to Lake Shabbona, hikes in nearby forest preserves and explorations of his own back yard in Oak Park. Frogs and tadpoles go into one tank; ground beetles, rove beetles and larvae into another; and a praying mantis into yet another. “You can’t put the praying mantis in with the beetles,” Jean-Luc notes. He’s also collected chrysalises of monarch butterflies and lunar moths, identifying and releasing them after they emerge and unfold their wings. Whenever he acquires a new creature, he consults his ever-expanding book collection to identify it and learn how to care for it. Fascinated by their activities and appearance, Jean-Luc learns as much as he can about insects, reptiles, amphibians and birds so he can recreate the proper habitat and offer the correct diet. More than once, Jean-Luc’s teachers have invited him to share his pets and knowledge with his ele- mentary school classmates. “The kids didn’t act up,” he recalls, “so I let them pet Hisser.” To the delight of Jean-Luc’s classmates, the slightly annoyed cockroach responded with a high-pitched hiss. Ever the collector, Jean-Luc even found a way to bring home the herons, bitterns, cranes and barred owls he has spotted on various hikes – he records his sightings in a Birders Journal. He even collects birds he’s seen only in books. How? He draws them in his leather-bound sketch book, consulting Lives of North American Birds (his favorite book) for accuracy. “I draw them in their habitat,” notes Jean-Luc. Using colored pencils, he carefully depicts each bird in an action pose and neatly labels each picture. Make room, Slick, Hisser and Scopatwini. Company is on the way. Salamanders and more barking tree frogs are on order from Jean-Luc’s favor- ite mail-order biological supply company. Plus, summer’s just around the corner. — ­CM

Dylan Blanchard Birds and Cubbies Dylan Blanchard is one part baseball and video games – and one part scientist. This 7 year-old from Evanston is an avid bird watcher. Wingspans and bird calls whirl in his head among batting averages and baseball trivia. “This whole birding thing, from a parent’s perspective, is so great,” says Jane Grover, Dylan’s mother. “It ties into learning to read...It’s not loud, it’s exercise, and it’s nature.” “This whole birding thing” began less than two years ago during a family trip to Wisconsin. Dylan began to show an interest in birds, and so his grandfather – himself an ornithologist – gave him binoculars and a bird book. Since then, Dylan has acquired and memorized a stack of bird books and he keeps a life list that includes 69 species. “When you see a bird, you write it down,” Dylan explains, and Jane adds that an adult must confirm the identification. Nevertheless, William Blanchard, Dylan’s father, is amazed by his oldest son’s birding abilities. “We were on our way to North Carolina and we stopped at McDonald’s to eat,” relates Bill. “I said, ‘Dylan, what is that bird on top of the garbage can?’ He says, ‘It’s a mockingbird.’ I ask, ‘Are you sure? I don’t think so.’ ‘Yeah, I’m sure.’ Then he goes back to eating his sandwich. We check the bird book, and he’s right – although he’s never seen one before.” Jane, too, is impressed, but mystified, by Dylan’s precocity. “Sometimes he corrects my father, who’s been doing this for 60 years!” Dylan’s approach to birding is simple. “I hold the binoculars, look at the birds, look what’s around the birds, then I tell my mom and dad what kind of bird it is.” A brown-haired, gray-green-eyed 2nd grader in a Braves tee shirt, preoccupied with a lollipop and fidgeting in his seat, Dylan lights up as he sorts through his bird books, pulls out a collection of binoculars, and models the pere- grine falcon costume his mother made for him last Halloween. In his bedroom, which he shares with five year-old Jack and two year-old Joseph, there are shelves with children’s books and baseball trophies. A stuffed toy bald eagle perches next to a large Cubs poster above his bunk bed, and the far wall is decorated with framed pictures of birds. Dylan says that seeing a red-tailed hawk sitting in a tree was his most exciting bird experience. He looks forward to one day spotting a red-throated loon and becoming a professional baseball player. — SM

8 C h i c a g o W i l d e r n e s s Kane-DuPage Soil and Water Conservation District, who sent staff Geoffrey Petzel to the site and reported 12 violations. The village filed an injunction that shut down work for 10 days. When the development reopened Inspired by The Fox and Geoff returned for a visit, he remembers with soft-spoken amuse- An 18 year-old from Carpentersville, Geoffrey Petzel already has ment, he was escorted off the site. plenty of stories to tell the grandkids. In 2001, Geoff served as president of Citizens’ Advocate Team For instance, there was the time in the spring of 1999 that he (CAT), a local environmental group. “To have discovered a nearby developer had improperly a real impact you have to work locally,” Geoff installed silt fences and was pumping stormwa- says. “Community-based action is the most ter pond sediment into a creek. “I noticed that important thing in terms of mobilizing people the creek went from clear to a muddy reddish and in terms of really changing things.” brown,” explains Geoff, a stocky young man One campaign took five years. As a boy with glasses and a kind face half-hidden by a of 13, Geoff volunteered at Raceway Woods baseball cap. “I like to research before I take restoration workdays and heard a lot of talk action. I found the source, took pictures, took about conservation. He decided to convince water samples. When the water settled in a liter the Dundee Township Board to purchase a bottle, there was about an inch of sediment on parcel of land near his home. He attended his the bottom.” first board meeting in May 1997. During the Geoff called the Environmental Protec- next four years, Geoff missed only one of 53 tion Agency (EPA) and the Army Corps of consecutive board meetings. “I spoke at every Engineers, but in the end it was the Village of single meeting,” he says. “It got to the point Carpentersville that took action. They filed an where, during public comment period, the injunction that closed the site for three days, president of the board would say, ‘Geoff, do you and the developer cleaned up his act. have anything tonight?’” On January 9, 2002, In 2000, Geoff had a similar experience the plan to purchase Geoff’s original pet parcel when he noticed another developer had filled was finalized. in a seasonal creek that ran through the site. Further exploration led Now a freshman at Indiana University, Geoff plans to become him to discover seven more violations. This time, Geoff called the an environmental lawyer. He is a great admirer of the late James village board first, and attended a meeting of the village president, F. Phillips, known for so long only as “The Fox” (see p. 27). Geoff the developer, and lawyers. When it became clear that the developer aspires to follow in his footsteps, but “in a legal, socially acceptable wasn’t going to cooperate despite the photographic evidence he way.” — SM provided, Geoff called the EPA, the Army Corps, and finally the

Grant and Colton Shepard Stream Team In the last 12 years, Grant Shepard has saved gas, bicycling more than 11,500 miles. Grant is 12. “Every mile on a bike prevents one pound of carbon monoxide from going into the air,” Grant says. Doing their part to cut down on pollution, Grant, his 14 year-old brother, Colton, and their father, Drake, bicycle at least 100 days a year. Drake, who homeschools the boys, explains that bicycling is part of a hands-on project that teaches ecology in three areas: water, land, and air. Bicycling helps improve air quality, and the three help the land by working to reclaim an old oak savanna in Thatcher Woods near their home in Oak Park. To learn about water quality, Grant works with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, Ecowatch stream monitoring program, collecting insects each spring in Salt Creek. Colton monitored the stream for three years before he left home last fall to attend the Illinois Math and Science Academy. A young but well-spoken high school sophomore, Colton describes his observations. “I looked at data for all the streams we’ve been monitoring, and they seem to be slowly becoming less polluted,” he says. “However, I haven’t seen any major changes.” The brothers’ activities have earned them national recognition. In spring 2001, they were featured as “Hometown Heroes” in Time for Kids magazine; and recently Grant received the President’s Environmental Youth Award for the Midwest region from the EPA. Colton’s instructional article on stream monitoring was published in the quarterly newsletter of the Young Entomologists Society, which enjoys a circulation of 3,000 copies worldwide. Currently, Colton is working on what he terms “the biggest advocacy yet.” He and two classmates are creating a digital presentation called “Real Science,” which will be distributed on CD-ROM to classrooms around the country. “We want to tell young people in elementary and junior high school that they can make a difference,” Colton says. “I think that’s important. This is the next generation. I’m teaching them.” — SM

S p r i n g 2 0 0 2 9 B r i n g i n g H o m e T h e G r e e n

s the senior U.S. senator from Illinois and the first to serve on the Appropriations Committee in A more than 25 years, Dick Durbin has been enor- mously helpful to Chicago Wilderness. First elected to the Senate in 1996, Durbin filled the seat left vacant by the retirement of Senator Paul Simon. Previously he had represented the 20th District in downstate Illinois in the U.S. House of Representatives since 1982. Durbin, 56, and his wife, Loretta, have three children and one grandchild.

: What in your view is the appropriate role of the : What happened when you introduced support for Q federal government in conservation? Q Chicago Wilderness in the Senate Appropriations Committee? : The federal government can play a variety of roles in A supporting conservation. But the value of an effort : One of my colleagues said, “Senator Durbin of like Chicago Wilderness is that it comes from the A Illinois requests $700,000 for Chicago Wilderness,” grass roots. People living near natural areas evaluate and Senator Ted Stevens interrupted and said, ‘Wait a what needs to be protected and preserved. We rely on minute! Could you repeat that? I never heard those two local counsel, and the federal government can provide words together in my life!’ I turned to my staffer and resources. said, ‘I hope you brought plenty of material because the press will be all over me’ and fortunately we had : What do you see as the threats to quality of life all the material to explain what Chicago Wilderness is Q and a healthy economic and environmental future and about the resources that need to be protected and in this region? restored here. There were no stories in the press about this. We showed them it was worthwhile. : The biggest threat to the region is uncoordinated A development. When villages and townships and coun- : What started you on the road to being a champion ties strike out on their own without examining the Q of conservation? impact of their growth on others, it creates a patch- work quilt. The problems counties face have generally : My education really started with Senator Paul evolved without much forethought. Tom Hynes [for- A Douglas. I worked for him as a college student and I’ll mer Cook County Assessor] said to me years ago that never forget what he said “As a young man, I wanted to it really took people of vision to appreciate the need save the world. As a Senator, I wanted to save America. for forest preserves. By the end of my career, all I wanted to save was the Today we know how valuable they are, not just for eco- Indiana Dunes.” logical reasons, but for recreation. Senator Douglas had a real impact on me because this Each unit of government really needs to think about was a real political battle. He was fighting to preserve a whether they’re showing vision. stretch of the lakeshore, and lined up against him were the entire Indiana delegation and the steel companies. It : What is the source of your inspiration? was a titanic political struggle and it meant the world to Q him. And you know, it was worth the fight, even though : I grew up downstate near the Mississippi River and he had to give in a little. He, more than anyone, has had A I have a fondness for that great river. We visited the an impact on my view of the local scene. parks and forests. In this area I have visited a lot of

10 C h i c a g o W i l d e r n e s s arly this year, Chicago WILDERNESS Editor Debra Shore interviewed Senator Durbin. he discussed his favorite places in Illinois, his view of the prospects for E federal support of conservation initiatives, and his role model, Senator Paul Doug- las. Here are excerpts from their discussion. Photo: Doug Sherman

The government has barely held its ground in the last parks and preserves. Even as our population grows and 20 years in environmental protection and conservation. our economy prospers, we need to protect our natural I have seen countless examples, particularly in the West, heritage because it is vital to the quality of life. where over-exploitation of natural resources has become Many parts of our state have had an impact on me: the norm, not the exception. It’s become a partisan issue, The Galena Territory; Calhoun County, where the and that concerns me. I don’t believe there’s an adequate Illinois and Mississippi Rivers meet (the Great River Road appreciation of the value of these resources to the nation. stretches down to Alton); and the Shawnee National I’m a sponsor of the Utah Wilderness Bill, which is Forest. I’ve spent a lot of time by Lake Michigan. We opposed by both senators from Utah, and, I believe, their should never take that for granted. It’s one natural trea- entire congressional delegation. That portion of America sure. I’ve worked with the mayor on rebuilding the shore- has little economic potential if its natural resources are line of the lake. lost, and vast potential if recreation and tourism are Mayor Daley is full of surprises. Who would ever guess encouraged. But they don’t seem to see that. that this child of Bridgeport would be sensitive to so many things that contribute to the quality of life in this : What would you wish to be your ‘green legacy’? city? My wife is an avid gardener and she marvels at what Q the city has done with greenery. My hat’s off to : I hope we can establish standards of sensible develop- the mayor. A ment, whether in transportation or housing, that cap- ture the vision of the forest preserves and parks. That’s : What do you do yourself to get out and enjoy one thing I would like to do. Q nature? We can do better than we have. Government doesn’t have to be heavy-handed. It can be a “guiding hand” : My grandson lives in the Washington D.C. area. Each that talks about standards and values and that preserves A year we take our family to the Potomac River for vaca- important things. tion. That’s our chance to get outside and do things as We often overlook in our own backyard natural trea- a family for a week. sures that should be protected and preserved. : What are the prospects for federal support of local Q conservation initiatives? : I don’t see in the president’s appointees to the cabinet A or the budget requests any real commitment here. It is less likely we will have the resources we need. I’m con- cerned about what this may mean for our ability to do the job and protect resources.

S p r i n g 2 0 0 2 11 Photo: Carol Freeman

Killer loosestrife Weed Meets Matchby Debra Shore A Tale of Internet Intrigue, Invasives, &

Photo: Pat Wadecki Homeland Heroics Martha Carver

Andrew – he’s a co-steward at Alden Sedge Meadow – live on he sentinels at eBay, overseeing approximately five million 26 acres, which they are restoring. “We have extra seed that we eager entrepreneurs listing items for sale, don’t look kind- harvest,” Martha explained. Some they sell retail, but the excess Tly on someone trying to sell contraband. But, as Martha inventory Martha decided to sell on eBay. Carver of Hebron, Illinois, discovered last summer, the only illegal Like any diligent entrepreneur, she went to check out the com- weed they had heard of was cannabis. Mention purple loosestrife petition, accessing the eBay site, heading to the section on plants and they knew not a thing. Thanks to Martha, now they do. and seeds, and then clicking on “wildflowers.” There, amidst the We’re talking about Martha Carver, kindergarten teacher, wife listings for red monkey flower and wild bergamot, Martha saw an and mother of two. She’s also a recently appointed trustee of the auction for purple loosestrife. “I couldn’t believe it!” she said. McHenry County Conservation District and a budding seller of From her experience as a longtime restoration volunteer, Martha collectibles and native seeds on eBay. knew that purple loosestrife – Lythrum salicaria – is an exotic weed Our story begins last summer, when Martha Carver took a class that is devastating wetlands across the Midwest. If agriculture and to learn how to sell successfully on eBay. Martha and her husband,

12 C h i c a g o W i l d e r n e s s artha figured, at best, she would hear from a handful of natural resource departments had a 10 Most Wanted poster of them. Instead, they all replied with offers to help. The bad actors, loosestrife would be on it. Its sale is prohibited in MNature Conservancy put their invasive species guru onto many states, including Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin. Violators the case. Agency officials e-mailed eBay, which then asked for doc- prosecuted in Illinois could spend one to six months in jail and umentation. pay a $500 fine. An attorney for the Illinois Department of Natural Resources Ever the teacher, Martha first thought, “perhaps the seller sent eBay a letter along with the state statute outlawing sale of doesn’t know what she’s doing.” Indeed, some species of loosestrife purple loosestrife. The USDA said this was a new frontier – they are noninvasive and completely legal. Perhaps, Martha thought, hadn’t yet encountered internet sales of noxious plants. this is a teachable moment. Soon, Martha was cautioned not to attempt to purchase “She had the Latin name listed and even indicated that some anything from the suspect vendor. Several agencies wanted to people find the plant obnoxious,” Martha said, recalling the item attempt a sting operation. By the end of September, the listings of listing, “but the seller also said it has beautiful purple flowers, loosestrife seeds for sale had stopped. “Everybody was doing their does well in wet areas, is very sturdy and hardy and is great for part,” Martha said. landscaping!” So Martha sent the seller an e-mail, inquiring if she At the beginning of November, with no fanfare, eBay changed knew what, in fact, she was selling. “I was very careful not to sound its policy regarding sale of plants and weeds. Now in a list of pro- pushy,” Martha later noted. The seller replied that because she was hibited items, nestled between Mailing Lists and Postage Meters, only selling purple loosestrife seeds, she considered her actions to is Plants and Seeds (http://pages.ebay.com/help/com- be completely above-board. munity/png-plantsandseeds.html). eBay has Martha tried again. “Do you realize the damage posted the relevant laws and advises all this plant can cause?” she e-mailed back. “Do sellers and buyers to review them you know that agencies are spending prior to listing items. Now, if millions of dollars to try to eradicate someone like Martha happens this plant? Do you know that one across a sale of an illegal weed, plant can produce millions of eBay will warn the seller and seeds? Could you please not then boot them on second sell it?” offense. The seller, not entirely civ- “We had just gone il in her response, demurred. through an education pro- So Martha asked Ed gram with the conservation Collins, restoration ecologist district about the beetles with the McHenry County they’re raising and releasing Conservation District, to to try to reduce the loose- step in and use his scientific strife,” Martha recounted. clout to continue the lesson. “That’s what got my ire When Ed received no reply, up – seeing the loosestrife his wife, Denise, sent an spread in areas where we’ve e-mail to the obdurate been working so hard on seller. “Buzz off,” was the restoration.” E. A. Collins Illustration: response, in even less chari- Though Martha has table terms. since crashed her hard drive, she’s still “Martha’s very nice and conducting online patrols. “It was probably one of the she’s a swell lady,” Ed Collins most satisfying things I’ve done in a long time,” she said commented, “but she’s a pre- of her campaign with eBay, “because it involved so many people school teacher, so she doesn’t put up I’ve never met. They jumped at the chance to help and there were with a lot of garbage.” so many people involved because of the internet. Even the federal The teacher contacted customer service at eBay. They, at least, government,” Martha added in amazement. “I only expected them were responsive and nice, but knew nothing about illegal weeds to contact me at tax time!” other than pot. “Get us documentation,” they replied to Martha, Still, Martha warns, eBay relies on buyers and sellers to police “and then maybe we can do something.” themselves. So, in a word, it’s up to us. “That night I couldn’t sleep,” Martha said. “I got on the comput- er and I contacted all the departments of natural resources in the For Martha’s extra seed (all of it legal and sold wholesale), Midwest. I contacted the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) contact Carver’s Native Plants at (815) 648-4060 or mcarv- – they have a group that deals with noxious weeds – and I even [email protected]. contacted Canada!” She wrote to The Nature Conservancy, Sierra Club, Audubon, Ducks Unlimited, Michigan State University, and the Vermont Purple Loosestrife Project.

S p r i n g 2 0 0 2 13 Photo: Jim Flynn/Root Resources Unlock Your yard! Cape May warbler

bees, butterflies and bugs had disappeared. That was then. Now, 10 years after Thill de- cided that there is more to life than a weed-free lawn, she has counted more than 70 species of birds and nearly 20 species of butterflies in her yard. In fact, her whole back yard is a wildlife habitat. But even those with less time – or inclination – for gardening can make their yards a paradise for wild things. “You can even attract wildlife with containers and window boxes,” says Thill, who has advised many people to start habitat gardening. But aren’t the flowers and shrubs already in our yards enough to please the birds and butterflies? Probably not, according to Barbara Ellis, author of Attracting Birds and Butterflies (Houghton Mifflin). “To songbirds, hummingbirds, butterflies and other wildlife, the typical suburban landscape resembles an unfriendly desert. Close-cropped lawns, sheared foundation shrubs, and deadheaded flowers mean no place to nest, no food to eat and nowhere to hide.” The good news is that there’s no real trick to attracting more wildlife to your yard. All you have to do is provide the four basic building blocks of backyard habitat: food, water, a place to nurture young and a place to hide from predators.

Dinner and Drinks Many homeowners have taken the first baby step toward creating a habitat by putting out feeders for birds. But birds, butterflies and bugs from this region will find your yard much more attractive if you put out the food they are genetically programmed to love: the fruits, nectar and seeds of native plants. For songbirds, that generally means planting a variety of nativeThe Bolingbrook yard of Dave and Lorene Jagodzinski has 73 species of prairie plants. shrubs so that fruit is available at different times of the year. Most such shrubs also produce hen Marian Thill moved into her house in flowers that attract the insects so beloved by many birds. A good Morton Grove, it had “the best dandelion patch one to start with is serviceberry (or Juneberry), a tall, easy-to-grow Won the block.” So Thill and her husband mowed, bush. There are also certain species of cherry and elderberry that fertilized, watered and weed-killed it into submission. That are good for starters. (For more suggested plants for wildlife, see took care of the dandelions, and then some: “We had sidebar.) achieved the best lawn on the block,” remembers Thill, “but Most butterflies, on the other hand, look for large masses nothing was living there, nothing was moving.” All the birds,

14 C h i c a g o W i l d e r n e s s yard!by Nancy Shepherdson of flowers that produce nectar. Here, too, native plants are usually superior to horticultural exotics. These “cultivars” have been bred to devote all their energy to showy flowers and may, in fact, be sterile, producing little food for wildlife. Photo: Joe Nowak Photo: Joe Even just a few native plants will Katy Goff, age five, tends her attract butterflies, but if you want natural yard in Flossmoor. to fill your yard with flutter, plant as many as you can. “Plant them in drifts,” advises Jim Steffen, ecologist for the Chicago Botanic Garden, suggesting massed areas with dozens of other flowering plants of varying heights that bloom at varying times. Birds and butterflies also need water and will stick around where it’s provided. Even a birdbath will work, as long as you clean it regularly and keep it filled. But nothing attracts wildlife like running water. Hummingbirds will delight in a spray set up over your birdbath, and you can attract other small birds by placing a rock or stick in the bath to give them a perch. Marian Thill created a moving water feature by simply hanging a plastic container of water in a tree with a pin prick in the bottom and suspending it over a pie tin. “That’s a magnet for birds,” she laughs. Don’t expect butterflies to drink where birds do, though. The best way to offer water to butterflies is with, no kidding, sand. “Butterflies take moisture out of moist sand and are really attracted to it if you mix it with fish emulsion (plant fertilizer),” says Doug Taron, who directs the Butterfly Haven at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum in Chicago. Wild things also need to feel protected, in order to hang around and raise young in your yard. For birds, that simply means providing lots of places to nest and hide. The more trees (even dead ones) and bushes you have, the more the birds will Photo: Dave Jagodzinski like it.

Getting Started So, do you have to take out your whole lawn and replace it with native plants in order to create an effective wildlife

habitat? Hardly. “Start small,” advises Pat Armstrong, owner of Prairie Sun Consultants, a native plant concern based out of her home in Naperville. “Just a little area (planted in native species) can give you a greater chance of seeing wildlife in your yard.” Pat herself, however, believes in doing nothing on a small scale. She has replaced her entire one-third-acre subur- ban lawn with 300 species of native plants. “There are always Caterpillar of black swallowtail Photo: Dave Jagodzinski Photo: Dave

S p r i n g 2 0 0 2 15 Photo: Dave Jagodzinski

chemicals or regular mowing. In fact, coddling native plants with new plants to try...this can be a lifetime adventure.” such gardening techniques can actually weaken them. “Wild Whether or not you aspire to own your own prairie some plants are geared to struggle for life,” notes Jim Steffen. “It can day, begin with one area of your lawn that has always been a actually help them to give them poor soil and water conditions.” trouble spot, says Tom Vanderpoel, a landscaper and restoration Beth Laubach, horticulturalist for The Natural Garden, Inc. in professional in the northwest suburbs. Perhaps it’s a low area St. Charles, recommends planting as soon as possible after April that could be receptive to marshland plants, or maybe a shady 15, or about the time native plants start greening at the top. “But- area where not much grows. “It helps to choose a place where terflies aren’t around until it’s warm, but you want your plants your lawn grass isn’t doing very well,” he says. You’ll then want up and blooming before they to choose native plants that do get there.” Shrub plant-ings for well in the sun-soil environ- birds should go in about the ment that exists at that spot. same time. Then all you have The important thing to to do is have a little patience, remember as you prepare the says Laubach. “These plants are ground for planting is not to so carefree and easy – just pop turn over any soil you strip the them in the ground and wait grass from. That just creates for the show. If you plant the a medium for weeds that will habitat, they will come.” compete with your new native plants. Sowing seeds is the least expensive way to establish your habitat, but also the least imme- Photo: Joe Nowak diately rewarding. Most native plant seeds require one or more over-winterings (freeze and thaw cycles) to germinate. As a result, most of those who work with Black swallowtail on swamp milkdweed native plants recommend that new gardeners plant “plugs” (seedlings) interspersed with seed. Plant the plugs about a foot apart and mark them so you know what to expect to see there. Once established, native plantings have the added advantage of seldom needing water and never needing fertilizer, other

What to Plant? Native Plant Resources hackberry, juniper. wildlife to Chicago With 2,000 The Natural Garden, Inc., Wild Ones, a group dedicated yards. native species of St. Charles, IL (630) 584-0150 to reducing lawns and increasing Butterflies– plants found in the Prairie Moon Nursery. habitat. Four Chicago chapters. Golden Alexander, Songbirds/ Chicago area, it can Downloadable catalog at www. http://www.for-wild.org/ blazing star, sedges, hummingbirds– be hard to decide prairiemoonnursery.com Backyards as habitat: http:// native asters, purple Virburnum, hazel- what’s best to plant. Intrinsic Gardens, www.nwf.org/backyardwildlifeha- coneflower, and any nut, hawthorn, car- Here are some sug- Hebron, IL (815) 648-2488 bitat/ milkweeds. dinal lobelia, native gestions our experts National Audubon Society Facts on green landscaping at phlox, juneberry, give for attracting Field Guide to Wildflowers http://www.epa.gov/greenacres/

16 C h i c a g o W i l d e r n e s s Into the Wild OUR GUIDE TO THE WILD SIDE Photo: Kevin Weinstein

Grant, Drake, and Colton Shepard, see p. 9.

5

3 1 GIBSON WOODS NATURE PRESERVE – Lake County, IN 2 4 1 2 2 LEROY OAKES FOREST PRESERVE – Kane County 4 5 3 13 THE GROVE NATIONAL HISTORIC LANDMARK – Cook County

R MAPLE GROVE FOREST PRESERVE – DuPage County

5 RYERSON CONSERVATION AREA – Lake County, IL

Maps: Lynda Wallis

S p r i n g 2 0 0 2 17 GIBSON WOODS NATURE PRESERVE – Lake County, Indiana D i r e c t i o n s

Gibson Woods is accessible from ibson Woods Nature attract solitary sandpipers and first line through Lake County the Indiana Toll Road (I-90) and Preserve in Lake yellow-crowned night-herons. in 1852. Gibson Woods might I-80/94. Turn south on Cline Ave. GCounty, Indiana, is They also provide habitat for have disappeared beneath in Hammond from I-90 and north a rare and unusual place. yellow lady’s slipper in late asphalt or home sites years on Cline Ave. from I-80\94. Turn Its 131 acres are one of spring. ago if the railroad, like west on 169th St. and then north the largest remnants in the These diverse habitats other major enterprises in the at the light at Parrish Ave., where Great Lakes region of the make the woods a haven for region, had not acquired and a sign points to Gibson Woods. globally rare dune-and-swale such creatures as Franklin’s retained “surplus property” The Environ-mental Awareness topography, a landscape of ground squirrels and Bland- and, most importantly, left it Center is on the right at the end alternating sand ridges and ing’s turtles. Visitors can find alone. of the street. depressions created by the black gum trees as well as Even before the property gradual northward retreat of paper birch. Plans call for re- came on the market in the the glacial Lake Chicago to introducing the endangered late 1970s, Joy Bower, the the boundaries that contain Karner blue butterfly, which park’s outdoor education Lake Michigan today. is found at nearby Tolleston supervisor, knew the woods E v e n t s Here visitors can see a Ridges and a few other sites were a “special place.” An prime example of the topo- in the region. enthusiastic naturalist and Two upcoming events to note: graphic features that charac- Gibson Woods has much birder, she especially looked A geology tour of Lake County terized many thousands of in common with other high forward to late April and begins at the center the end of acres in Northwest Indiana quality natural areas that, May when a procession of March. four millennia ago. The land thanks to happenstance warblers, beginning with has never been farmed, and citizen activism, have early arrivals like the yel- An annual plant sale is sched- grazed, developed or mined survived the industrialization low-rumped and an occa- uled for the end of May. For for sand, though white pines of Indiana’s three lakeside sional pine warbler, followed details, call (219) 844-3188. may have been cut in some counties. To the south, it by the black-throated green, areas early in the last century. nestles against Hammond’s black- burnian Cape May, and The ridges support a rare pleasant Hessville neigh- later by the Connecticut and black oak savanna and many borhood, once the home of mourning visit the woods on tallgrass prairie plants. famed author Jean Shep- their way north. Worried that Columbine, lupine, golden herd. A railroad track marks the woods would be trans- Alexanders, puccoon, both its northern boundary, and formed into an industrial site, red and yellow wood betony, during a winter hike, at least, she joined other citizens in and Indian paintbrush bloom industrial structures are urging local and state officials early in the flowering season. visible beyond the groaning to protect them. “It took a lot The whole panoply of prairie locomotives. of convincing,” she recalls. grasses and flowers reach Indeed, the preserve’s Finally, after a series of their height in August. Gold- history is intertwined with transactions involving the enrod and fringed gentian that of railroads. The woods Penn Central, the Nature bring the summer to a blazing were named for an inn kept Conservancy and the Lake conclusion. The swales, by David Gibson, whose place County Parks Department, which can become temporary doubled as a station when and with the help of federal wetlands, have been known to the Michigan Central built the revenue-sharing funds, Gib- son Woods became a county park and, in 1981, a state Route 90 nature preserve. Restoration efforts, says N Bower, continue year-round. Michigan Street The nature preserve is open daily from 9:00 a.m. Gibson Transfer Road to 5:00 p.m. The Environ- mental Awareness Center, Route 20 6201 Parrish Ave., opens at East 11:00 a.m. and closes at 4:00 161st Street p.m. Interpretive tours are available and walking trails of up to two miles begin at the Entrance center. No wheeled vehicles or dogs are allowed. Picnics are permitted only at tables near the center. Cline Avenue Parrish Avenue Kennedy Avenue East 165th Street — Warren Buckler Hammond, Indiana

18 C h i c a g o W i l d e r n e ss LEROY OAKES FOREST PRESERVE – Kane County D i r e c t i o n s magine enjoying a walnut, maple, red, white, science teacher Bob Horlock spring wildflower walk and bur oaks and several with the help of his stu- Follow I-90 west to Elgin and Iin the woods and a varieties of hickory. Forty dents. Used by the Natural exit at Randall Rd. Follow Randall peaceful visit to a prairie acres of floodplain forest Areas Survey as a template Rd. south to Dean St. Turn west in one outing! Such a “two- north of Ferson Creek (not for evaluating dry prairies on Dean St. LeRoy Oakes is less fer” is guaranteed at LeRoy accessible by trail) contain statewide, Horlock Hill than a mile from the intersection Oakes Forest Preserve. Blue native prickly ash, nine- Prairie is indeed a treasure of Randall Rd. and Dean St., on cohosh, doll’s eyes, carpets bark, a few viburnums and worth exploring. “Horlock both sides of the road. of trout lily and toothwort the only native colony of Hill is one in a handful of adorn the mixed-deciduous speckled alder. With more sites that contain 10 state woodlands, while shoot- than 130 feet of elevation endangered and threatened ing star, blue-eyed grass, difference from crest to plants,” said Drew Ullberg, bird’s foot violet, and hoary creek, the rolling landscape Forest Preserve District of puccoon bedeck Horlock Hill offers some lovely views. Kane County habitat resto- Prairie. Fringed puccoon For the history buff, ration manager. and wood betony thrive in Durant-Peterson house Restoration work contin- re-created areas. offers a wonderful jaunt ues at Horlock Hill Prairie A birder’s paradise, back to 1843 when a as well as other areas of LeRoy Oakes provides the young couple decided to LeRoy Oaks. Contact Shelly ideal habitat for kingbirds, build their home in the Brown, Forest Preserve meadowlarks, bobolinks bountiful Illinois wilds. District of Kane County and various other grassland Locally harvested butternut volunteer coordinator at birds. Woodcocks use Hor- framing and flooring stand (847) 741-9798 for lock Hill Prairie as strutting as sentinels to this bygone workday details. grounds for courtship era. Durant-Peterson house displays around mid-March, is open to the public every — April Anderson from about 15 minutes be- Sunday from 1:00 – 4:00 fore sunset until 30 minutes p.m. June – October and after sunset. every Thursday from 1:00 – Named for St. Charles’ 4:00 p.m. June – August. athlete and civic leader Pioneer Sholes School, a LeRoy Oakes, the 264-acre historic schoolhouse moved preserve – previously a farm to LeRoy Oakes in 1981, Ferson Creek – is an impressive tribute is also open on Sundays to this local hero. Hiking, corresponding with the bicycling and horseback Durant-Peterson house Big Red Barn riding are permitted on schedule. The Preservation designated trails amid the Partners of the Fox Valley Durant 85 acres of woods, 30 acres operate both facilities: Peterson House of wetlands and approxi- (630) 377-6424. mately 30 acres of prairie. The south side of the N A one-mile paved trail, preserve three-mile equestrian trail boasts Sholes and eight-mile mowed path Horlock Hill School provide ample access. Prairie, a Bisected by Dean Street, two-acre, Dean Street the north side of the pre- high-quality serve contains the bulk of xeric (dry) Peck Road LeRoy Oakes’ land. Enter- gravel hill ing the front gate, one is prairie and greeted by tall grass mesic dedicat- Horlock and dry gravel prairie, a ed Illinois Nature Prairie smattering of pine trees, the Preserve. The Great Great

Murray Randall Road ranger’s farmhouse, a house, Western Trail, that Western Prairie a relocated schoolhouse extends 17 miles from Trail and a large red barn. Going St. Charles to Sycamore, deeper into the north side of is adjacent to Horlock Hill the preserve, one sees gen- Prairie. Restoration work = Parking tly rolling hills laden with began 30 years ago, led ironwood, elm, cherry, black by St. Charles High School

S p r i n g 2 0 0 2 19 The Grove National Historic Landmark, Cook County ow a 124-acre National Historic Landmark Redfield Center owned by the Glenview Gazebo N West Lake Street Park District, The Grove is a rare convergence of this West Lake region’s nature and culture – Tipi Street historic homestead of Dr. John Kennicott, inspiration for some Nature of the best nature writing in N Center this region, and lush home to a variety of ecosystems that East Lake remain virtually intact. Street

Kennicott, a physician, Kennicott Back 50 migrated with his wife from New House Natural Area Orleans in 1836. They bypassed the swamps of Chicago to hew Tri-State/294 Schoolhouse a 10-room cabin beneath shady Entrance bur oaks and shagbark hickories Milwaukee/Route 21 clustered on the road to Milwaukee. “The exceeding beauty of these scattered trees, gradually Metra NW RR dotting the verge of the prairie... on the west side of the [Des Plaines] river, where trees are seldom found and the bold outline of ‘heavy timber’ on its eastern shore with the lovely chain of blue islands obscurely visible in the western horizon, rendered the whole landscape of the adder’s-tongue, water-leaf, Notice, too, the bursts of tooth- In front of the Center, follow most truly delicious and was sweet cicely, Solomon’s seal and wort and bloodroot around the the wetland walk across the pond the principal inducement to trillium now carpet the woods parking lot and along the walkway gouged by a retreating glacier my remaining here,” Kennicott so densely in many places that to the nearby Interpretive Center. to search for crisp blue flag iris, wrote. one knows not where to tread,” Before beginning the self-guid- and, perhaps, a scavenging blue Visitors will enjoy exploring wrote Donald Culross Peattie ed tour over more than two miles heron. Or, admire the diverse the Gothic Revival house, espe- (CW, Fall ’00, pp.12-16). In the of colorful trails, pick up a map displays of native fish, ferns, and cially on Sundays from 1-4 p.m. house, visit the nooks where and admire the plethora of native frogs in the wetland greenhouse when volunteers explain its rich school children flock to cook creatures in the center. Visitors beside the Center before moving history. lunch on a wood-burning stove, will see huge catfish, impressive east into the “back 50,” a sweep Dr. Kennicott surrounded dip candles and churn butter, or gar, a tank of turtles, and a of savanna and prairie under the home he built in 1856 with spin and weave cloth like that collection of snakes, including restoration. sweeps of trillium and Jack-in- once worn by Kennicott’s chil- the rare fox snake, specimens of In 1973 a group of deter- the-pulpit much like the blooms dren. Or study at a Gothic style which will be released in outside mined women – the “Frog and visible this spring. “The leaves schoolhouse the doctor designed. dens later this year. A variety of Fern Ladies,” they were called birds are represented, including – began lobbying to save The the threatened red-shouldered Grove from development. They Directions hawk that, like the endangered succeeded, and in 1976 the site Take I-294 to Willow Rd., exit west, go about Cooper’s hawk, may be nesting in was acquired by the Glenview 1/2 mile to Milwaukee Ave. (Rte. 21) south, The Grove. Once outside, visitors Park District. immediately keep to the left before the road splits, may see or hear orioles, indigo In 1999 The Grove began go about 2 miles, pass under the tollway and watch buntings, and red-headed wood- an extensive restoration of 110 for The Grove sign on the left (east). Enter the peckers pecking savanna oaks for acres of wetlands, prairie, and driveway into the property. lunch before migrating further oak woodlands with substantial north. support from the U. S. Fish and

20 C h i c a g o W i l d e r n e ss Wildlife Service and Chicago Call (847) 299-6096 for more the Mitchell Museum of the Wilderness. (Perversely, Dr. information. American Indian, Kendall John Kennicott, a noted horti- College, 2600 Central Park culturalist as well as physician, Reading Ave., Evanston, (847) 475-1030. is thought to have imported A Prairie Grove by Suggested admission is $5.00 European buckthorn to these Donald Culross adults, $2.00 children, maxi- parts as an ornamental hedge Peattie was described, mum of $10.00 per family. plant; it is now the scourge of upon publication in this region’s woods, including 1938, as “the biog- Foraging The Grove.) Director Steve raphy of an American acre.” The Grove is surrounded by he prairie island and Swanson and his staff held And so it is, his fictionalized restaurants catering to its grove are like the numerous meetings with The account of life at The Grove, most tastes, from sushi at “T hammock in the ever- Grove’s neighbors and civic the childhood home of his wife, Ichiban’s on Willow glades, like an atoll in the sea, groups, and taught classes in Louise Redfield Peattie, John at Pfingsten (847) like an oasis upon the desert. It the high school to explain the Kennicott’s great granddaughter, 272-9300, to sweet- is something worth floundering goals and techniques of habitat whose own novel, American sour chicken ($9.50) and sweating for, a spot where restoration. (A brochure titled Acres, was published in 1936. and spicy tofu ($7.95) a man can throw himself down “Restoring the Past...Preserving at Szechwan North (847) and drink the wind and bathe in the Future” describes the 272-0007 at the same location. the shade, where, as the blood project.) As a result, their work Roaming Or try spicy shrimp ($10.95) at stops pounding in his temples, has been wildly successful – River Trail Nature Empire Szechwan at Lake and he can begin to hear the birds both on the ground and in Center lies a mile Euclid (847) 827-7777. Steak singing deeper in the woods.... the community. north of The lovers can feast on their favorites Be sure to view these efforts Grove on Milwaukee Ave., over- at Allgars, 2855 N. Milwaukee “Some people only love a hill; in the “back 50,” where a looking the Des Plaines River. (847) 480-7500, or Prime they like their views prettily hibernaculum is home to natives One of several county forest Minister, 3355 N. Milwaukee framed for them. For such, such as the rare Kirtland’s snake preserves nearby, it offers three (847) 296-4423, where prime rib mountains are excessive, and discovered by Robert Kennicott, miles of trails, a family program is $15.00 - $39.00 for a mam- plains give them agoraphobia. and where bursts of spring flow- every Sunday at 1:30 p.m., and moth two-pound slab. Cy’s, But if I cannot have mountains, ers resemble those described by an exhibit of animals, including down the street at 1615 N. give me a plain where there are the Kennicotts 166 years ago: a must-see American bald eagle. Milwaukee (847) 298-7000, serves a hundred and eighty degrees great white and prairie trillium, On March 17 and 24, River crab and a rib slab with fries and of sky arc. And for my peace, virginia bluebells, green dragon, Trail hosts maple syrup collecting a side dish for $20. For ice cream my habitation, and my heritage, toothwort, and trout lily. “There demonstrations and a pancake head to Homer’s, 1237 Green give me an island grove upon is an incredible richness in The breakfast. The Center is open Bay Rd., in Wilmette, (847) 251- that plain.” Grove’s history,” Lorin Ottlinger, from 9:00 a.m.-5:30 p.m., March 0477. Savor moosetrack, pump- The Grove’s naturalist explained. 1 to October 30 (847) 824-8360. kin, or 33 other flavors of ice — from A Prairie Grove “I love being here because I feel Another prime nature spot is cream at $2 per cone. by Donald Culross Peattie I’m continuing the work that the Chicago Botanic Garden, began so many years ago.” north and east of The Grove at Bedding Down Visit The Grove soon to revel 1000 Lake Cook Rd. Here wild The lack of camp- in spring flora, and return later nature in the form of Mary Mix grounds in the area in the summer to witness the McDonald Woods, the Suzanne is offset by several sweeps of bee balm, goldenrod, Dixon prairie, and 24 cultivated motels on Milwaukee Events purple coneflower, jewel weed, specialty gardens intermingle Ave., including a Budgetel Garden & antique show at and scarce cardinal flower on 385 acres. There’s a narrated (847) 635-8300 at $60 per night, The Grove, May 4 and 5; bursting with color. Visiting tram tour and a café (8:00 a.m.- and The Doubletree Guest $4 admission, $1.00 children hours are 8.00 a.m.-4.30 p.m. 4:00 p.m.), as well as numerous Suites (847) 803-9800, at $120 under 12; (847) 299-6096. Monday through Friday, and seasonal exhibits, courses, and a per night, both plus tax for 9a.m.-5p.m. on weekends. horticulture hotline. Parking is four people. Or try a B&B. The Living history tours & pio- Admission, parking, and $7.75 per car for non-members, Margarita European Inn in neer life demonstrations, access to historical documents $5.75 on Tuesdays for seniors Evanston (847) 869-2273 has June 18- August 18: are free; and picnicking is over age 62; (847) 835-5440. rooms from $75 with shared Tu, Th, Sat, Sun., 11:00 a.m. permitted only at the tables Kids will also enjoy the bath. The Chateau des Fleurs - 3:00 p.m., admission to the north of the Kennicott Kohl Children’s Museum, in Winnetka (847) 256-7272, free. (847) 299-6096 House. Grab lunch at the 165 Greenbay Rd., Wilmette, is more luxe at to $145, both nearby Jewel store on Pfingsten (847) 256-6056; a beehive of plus tax. and Willow Roads to the fun displays and myriad events. northeast of The Grove. Activities hotline: (847) 251- — Barbara Phillips 7781, $6.00 admission; $5.00 seniors. Grownups may prefer

S p r i n g 2 0 0 2 21 MAPLE GROVE FOREST PRESERVE – DuPage County D i r e c t i o n s

From I-294 exit Ogden Ave. his idyllic suburban (without fire, no oaks). bath on the footpath ahead. west. Travel about four miles park with its re- However, it probably burned For thousands of years to Fairview Ave. and turn south Tsplendent wildflow- less frequently than the the Native Americans lived (left) for about another mile and ers is a pocket wilderness, upland oak area. Studies by among the many hundreds turn west (right) on Maple Ave. full of adventure and the Forest Preserve District of acres of the original Ma- Maple Ave. jogs to the right; after drama if you know what to of DuPage County con- ple Grove. The Potawatomi passing Main St. look for the well- look for. ducted decades ago found tapped the maple trees marked entrance to Maple Grove As you hike into the that much of the grove’s here – “presumably they on the right side (north). preserve, keep your eyes richness was threatened by were black maples,” Lampa on the big old trees, and lack of fire. Buck-thorn was says – and legend has it, you’ll soon notice that there beginning to invade, mostly they taught Pierce Downer are two distinctive forest around the edge, but the the art. Downer settled types here. In the southern more serious problem was the grove in 1832; thus the portion, where all the old sugar maple. “It’s now the name Downers Grove. This trees are oaks, you’ll see a commonest understory tree remnant was bought and classic oak woodland. This throughout all parts of the protected in 1920. Now it’s part burned when the prai- grove,” says retired District surrounded by houses, but ries burned for thousands ecologist Wayne Lampa, there are no expressways of years, and the results are “even though there are few nearby. It is surprisingly still visible here today. Here old ones. Its dense shade quiet. you’ll find such wildflowers was eliminating many of the A part of the open oak as rue anemone, spreading other species, before the community was a picnic dogbane, and purple Joe District started to control area from the 1920s until Pye weed. They thrive in the them.” For many years the 1980s, when the district plentiful sunlight that filters now the District has been stopped mowing. A few through the oak leaves. conducting prescribed burns years later, a plant inven- But in the northern por- throughout the woods, elim- tory revealed 100 species tion of the preserve, which inating buckthorn and thin- abounding, including two slopes gradually ning the sugar maples. The orchids. The plants had down toward richness of the wildflowers been there, hanging on St. Joseph has improved, and perhaps around the tree trunks St. Joseph’s Creek, there the balance will swing back where the mowers couldn’t Creek Gilbert Avenue is an unusual to the black maples, oaks, reach them but the sun- Gilbert Park mix of ancient and others. light could. Violets, Jacob’s Downers Grove P.D. trees. Bur, At the north end of the ladder, May apple and trout white and red preserve is St. Joseph’s lily adorn the area in spring; oak are here. Creek. It is spanned by asters, pokeweed and So too are black a lovely wooden bridge woodland goldenrods in the maple, walnut, called “Magic Bridge” by summer. butternut, and birders who flock here Maple Grove is open white ash. during spring warbler daily one hour after sunrise You won’t find season. The creek winds to one hour after sunset.

Lee Avenue rue anemone through woodlands, Leashed dogs and bikes are here, but you making room for a concert permitted on the trails. The will find false of mid-season Virginia preserve’s managers urge N rue anemone, bluebells and a picture-per- visitors to stay on the trail squirrel corn, fect view of birds. Visitors as the grove’s soil erodes and Dutchman’s may see gemlike spring easily if the rich plant life is britches. These warblers; and all year long trampled. Or help the Dis- species can there are downy and hairy trict staff and stewardship make do with a woodpeckers, and northern volunteers who cut brush lot less light. flickers. Great horned owls here on some weekends. The mixed are also regularly seen at oak and maple Maple Grove. Jim Walser, — Alison Carney Brown woods is also a Forest Preserve District fire-dependent ecologist, can’t forget community watching a black-throated blue warbler taking a dust

= Parking Maple Avenue Entrance

22 C h i c a g o W i l d e r n e ss RYERSON CONSERVATION AREA – Lake County, IL D i r e c t i o n s

alk through the Ry- dedication of their descen- workdays to cut buckthorn and Take the Tri-State Tollway (I-94). erson Conser-vation dants and others who care for remove garlic mustard. Exit Rte. 22 west for a half mile to WArea woodlands it today. In the early 1930s, Restoration here has created Riverwoods Rd. Turn south to the along the Des Plaines River Chicagoan Edward L. Ryerson conditions for the state-endan- entrance. Ryerson Woods is open on a spring day...listen!...a purchased what is now Ryerson gered purple-fringed orchid to 6:30 a.m. to sunset daily. wood thrush’s distant float- Woods and built a cabin. He bloom again. A volunteer found ing trills get interrupted by helped establish the Lake Coun- this rare plant growing in large the mournful shrieking Klee- ty Forest Preserve District in the numbers at Ryerson Woods yur of the red-shouldered late 1950s and donated part of several years ago after botanists hawk. Next to your feet are his land to create this preserve. had feared it had disappeared sedges springing from the soil, Today, 279 acres of the woods forever. and spring beauties – pink and are dedicated as an Illinois The Visitors Center serves as delicate – absorbing sunshine. Nature Preserve. The Friends of an important link to Ryerson This 552-acre wildlife sanctu- Ryerson Woods helps to restore Woods’ history. Edward Ryerson ary in Deerfield, owned by the and protect the nine ecosys- and his wife, Nora, built the Lake County Forest Preserves, tems here. One of Ryerson’s Greek Revival style house, which contains one of the state’s descendants, George Ranney, is now listed on the National finest woodlands. Visitors can Jr., serves as vice-chair to the Register of Historical Places. delight in squirrels licking sap Friends of Ryerson Woods. The building is being renovated from maple trees in February, Ryerson Woods also has thanks to voter-approved bonds skunk cabbage blooming in a proud history of ecologi- and private donations – and March, ephemeral ponds teem- cal management. Prescribed there are more improvements in ing with blue-spotted salaman- burning and deer control, once the works. ders and spring peepers in April, controversial, have proven high- Picnicking and pets are not and budding oaks and other ly beneficial to the ecosystem allowed. Bicycling is permitted trees along the river attracting overall. (The deer exclosure on paved roads only. Six miles a plethora of migratory birds, near the Visitor’s Center vividly of flat trails are open for hiking including as many as 30 or demonstrates the need to keep and for cross-country skiing more species of warblers on one populations in check.) In the in winter, weather permitting. May day. Dr. Scott Robinson, absence of fire, sugar maples Public and school programs a leading scientist in songbird were eliminating reproduction abound year-round. In May, the study who works at the Illinois of the ancient oaks. Under a Friends of Ryerson Woods and Natural History Survey, says pre- natural fire regime, there was Lake County Forest Preserves serves like Ryerson Woods “are space at Ryerson for both oaks sponsor the Smith Symposium, priceless for migratory birds.” and maples, but sugar maples a series of workshops and The Des Plaines River has can emerge as seedlings and restoration projects as well as a played an important part in the remain for years until an open- silent auction, dinner, history of the land that is now ing in the canopy allows sun and keynote speaker. Exhibit Riverwoods Road Ryerson Woods. In pre-set- in. Oak seedlings, are adapted April, May, June, Program Cabin tlement days, lightning fires to sunnier conditions and die September, and Cabin Entrance swept westward across Illinois, if enough light isn’t present. A October are prime-time maintaining prairies. The river forest consisting mostly of sug- for birding. Autumn served as a fire break, allowing ar maples provides less food for Fest and Halloween Farm Area the development of a rich mesic wildlife habitat than one that Hikes are in also includes oaks, hickories, October, and Wheelchair forest. Songbirds undoubted- Visitor Center Access Trail ly used the river corridor to and other trees. maple syrup Des Plaines River migrate long before humans set- The Lake County Forest Pre- demonstrations tled here. Ryerson Woods con- serves staff and volunteers are are in March. Ryerson Smith tains 460 species of flowering working to restore that balance. For more Cabin River plants, 16 species of mammals, “During the past few years, information, Cabin nine species of reptiles, seven we have suppressed thousands call (847) 968-3321 species of amphibians, and 300 of maple seedlings at Ryerson or www.ryersonwoods.org species of birds, 64 of which Woods,” says restoration ecol- N Dam breed in summer, including the ogist Ken Klick. He and other — Sheryl De Vore state-threatened red-shouldered staff members and volunteers hawk. are also serving as surrogate Ryerson Woods retains its squirrels, planting acorns to historical majesty because of encourage more oak growth. the foresight of Lake County’s Joan Palinscar, Ryerson Woods’ early residents as well as the volunteer steward, arranges = Parking Deerfield Road

S p r i n g 2 0 0 2 23 Natural Events Here’s what’s debuting on nature’s stage in Chicago Wilderness by Jack MacRae SPRING 2 0 0 2

E a r l y S p r i n g ring to spend their summer food safely underground, the in the cool northern woods. female will excavate a small Fashion Alert chamber and lay 10 to 30 Flat as a Rail Early in the spring, a male M i dd l e S p r i n g eggs, which will hatch in a I like urban legends, espe- hooded merganser in full few days. The larvae will be cially the ones that deal Jack and the Dragon breeding plumage is hot hungry and the parents will with natural science. For a When I was young (well, stuff. His head and breast lovingly regurgitate droplets number of years I had heard 37) I remember attending a are a hip, Euro-chic look of of partly digested food for the tale of the squished late spring nature hike and contrasting bands of black them to feed on. rail, where a rare species of being sorely disappointed and white. The trendy head Of the 31 species of our marsh bird was actually tram- that the “green dragon” the crest suggests a vintage North American burying pled by overly enthusiastic naturalist had promised we punk mohawk of the early beetles, the once widespread bird watchers. Bird Watcher’s would see was “only” a plant. ’80s. Their bills, stylishly slim, American burying beetle Digest lists the story under I had high expectations of have a cool ’50s retro look. (Nicrophorus americanus) the category of bird myths. seeing something ferocious, We’re fortunate to have a has all but vanished. It was Black rails are considered if perhaps cold-blooded. The few families of these diving placed on the federal endan- by many to be perhaps the uncommon green dragon is ducks paddling around this gered species list in 1989 most difficult North American an early wildflower similar summer in our protected and was assigned G1 status bird to see in nature. They in appearance to a Jack-in- marshlands. Hooded mer- by The Nature Conservancy, are tiny sparrow-sized birds the-pulpit, but with a much gansers construct their nests indicating that it is critically that live in the dense veg- longer spadix (the jack) curl- in dead, hollow trees near imperiled worldwide. etation that grows along water. While monogamous, ing out of the spathe (the marsh edges. Like others of the father deserts his mate pulpit). Green dragons grow L a t e S p r i n g their kind, black rails do not early after the eggs are laid, in moist woodlands among flush when approached, but leaving incubation duties sugar maples and red oaks. First Rainbow typically choose to sit tight, entirely up to the female. Ironically, I now work for the Legend has it the first rain- regardless of how close the naturalist who let me down, bow was discovered by Roy threat may be. Sucker and I pull this same stunt on G. Biv. Scientific literature In late May 2000, there Be honest, how many of us unsuspecting children in the tells us the first rainbow dart- was a black rail sighted in first heard of yellow-bellied woods today. er came from the waters of Springbrook Prairie Forest sapsuckers from Yosemite Chicago Wilderness. Rainbow Preserve in Naperville. The Mother’s Day Tribute Sam? Warm spring tempera- darters are small, beautiful, marsh became a magnet for During the wet days of April, tures means rising sap and multi-colored fish that inhab- birders eager to add this elu- a certain group of expectant arriving sapsuckers. it the riffles of clear, swift sive bird to their life list, so mothers will begin looking Sapsuckers use their flowing creeks with a sub- much so that the landowner for a good nursery for their strong beaks to peck a pre- strate of gravel and rubble. was compelled to close the offspring. The ideal loca- cise grid of holes in a tree. They cannot tolerate a silt preserve to enhance the tion will be close to food, The holes need to be deep bottom, and may now be possibility of breeding – and which in their case might enough to reach below the limited to the Kishwaukee perhaps to protect the bird be a decomposing opos- bark, into the phloem layer and Kankakee River systems. from being flattened. through which the sap flows sum. Exhibiting rare insect The females will be laying up the tree. The sap will col- behavior, both male and their eggs when the tem- lect in these wells, providing female burying beetles are perature reaches 62°F, which the sapsucker with a sweet, active parents. After locating usually occurs sometime in This section of Chicago Wilder- high-energy food. Yellow- a corpse with their sense of late May. ness Magazine is now printed on bellied sapsuckers will use smell, burying beetles plow That first rainbow darter, Evolution paper by Rolland, which the fine, hair-like process like a bulldozer through the a female, was found in the is made of 100% post-consumer re- surrounding soil. Eventually cycled fiber and processed chlorine on the tip of their tongues Fox River by Mr. S. C. Clark. It free. By eliminating chlorine from to soak up the seeping sap the carcass will settle into the was identified by Massach- the bleaching process, no harmful through capillary action. loosened ground, becoming usetts ichthyologist David by-products are released into the And they’ll eat some of the buried under several inches Humphreys Storer in 1845, water, soil or air. For more informa- insects this sweet feast also of dirt. To slow decompo- and is now deposited as the tion about the effects of chlorine sition, the diligent parents on the environment and to learn attracts. Most yellow-bel- holotype in the Museum what you can to do help, visit www. lied sapsuckers will migrate will exude an anti-bacterial of Comparative Zoology at chlorinefreeproducts.org. through our region, prefer- anal secretion. With their Harvard University.

24 C h i c a g o W i l d e r n e ss Meetyour neighbors

Judy McCarter: restoring a pocket woodland

n 1987 John and Judy McCarter moment of trepidation. Not surpris- Jack-in-the-pulpit – lots! – and false moved to an older home on ingly, one or two of Judy’s neighbors Solomon’s seal. A few scattered plants Ione and a half wooded acres in were initially alarmed by what they saw now became great waves as light and Northfield. They had first seen the happening. What had taken 30 years to health returned to the understory. property in late April of that year, the grow up and close in had disappeared And partnering in this success was the woods sprinkled with white and red in a day. Village of Northfield, which had begun trillium. “We were drawn to the home “In some ways I wish I had gone culling the deer herd. By the spring because of the woods,” Judy recalled. more slowly,” Judy now says. “If you of 2000, the change was even more “We loved the sense of space and the open something up, you do see things dramatic. As the light filtered into the sense of nature surrounding us.” differently.” But she also realizes that forest, new areas of wildflowers were What Judy didn’t know was popping up everywhere and that her beloved woods, graced the trees were shouting their by towering oaks, were dying the own personalities. slow death of many of this region’s Judy and John then staked woodlands. Over the next 10 years, out a walking path, following as she refined the more formal the contours of the land and areas of her landscape, she watched putting down bark chips as the woods changed – and not along its length. Now, as Judy for the better. The increasing deer walks through her woods, population of the area had greatly her wildflower books in her diminished the profusion of wild hand, she finds a constant flowers she had seen that first source of interest and con- spring. The buckthorn were mul- tentment. “Learning to read tiplying and growing larger, and the landscape,” she says, “to other invasive species such as garlic see these majestic old oaks mustard and gout weed were blan- and understand how they keting the understory. The woods happened to be there in the

seemed dense and impenetrable. Photo: Kathy Richland first place – it just changed Then, in 1996, the Field my perspective.” Members Museum hosted a series of schol- of Judy’s garden club and arly presentations on the ecology neighbors walking the area of this region. John McCarter had also delight in the beauty become president of the muse- of the woods and they have um, and Judy spent the weekend thanked her for her vision attending the Chicago Wilderness sym- taking those first bold steps was an and hard work. posium. Listening to the experts talk essential part of starting the process. It’s an ongoing process and Judy and about the problems of oak woods, Judy “When there’s a buckthorn thicket and John plan to continue their efforts. realized that she was hearing a descrip- the leaves are green so late, you don’t “We want our children (they have tion of what was happening in her own get the texture of the woods. You see a three grown children, two sons and a back yard. forest, but you don’t see the trees.” daughter) and our grandchildren (their Judy called Tom Vanderpoel, In the spring she and John pulled first grandson will be one this spring) an experienced restoration steward smaller, new buckthorns by the roots, to walk through the woods and enjoy and land manager for Citizens for and they became garlic mustard war- knowing what’s here – the chokecher- Conservation. By the winter of 1998, riors. They attacked the gout weed. ries, witch hazels, hop hornbeams, and Judy had a restoration plan. That They had a new sense of resolve to of course, the oaks – and the wildflow- winter, all the large buckthorn were reclaim the woods. In areas where large ers,” Judy says. “We fell in love with the cleared. Down came four or five big spaces had opened up, Judy planted. woods when we bought the house, but cottonwoods. (Cottonwoods are fine In came two bur oaks and two swamp we had no idea what we had.” With trees, she explains, but in this upland white oaks, three redbuds and two nature, as with people, understanding oak woods, they were part of the prob- amalanchiers. Then, she waited and makes love richer. lem.) Next came the Norway maples, watched. 10 or 12 of those. Other small invasive Under the open canopy, cow pars- — Debra Shore trees were removed, too. nip appeared. White and red trillium It was a big step, and as the saws increased, along with May apples and buzzed, Judy had more than one wild geranium, swamp buttercup,

S p r i n g 2 0 0 2 25 Meetyour neighbors

Hepatica: early bloomer

ne of the more delightful finds be fooled. These aren’t sepals; they’re of the human body. Thus, a leaf rem- in the early spring woodlands bracts, specially modified leaves. Each iniscent of the liver was thought to be Oof Chicago Wilderness is the flower tops an extremely hairy stem good for treating liver ailments. More hepatica. This small, attractive wood- that appears silky. The pretty flowers recently, hepatica seems to have fallen land wildflower isn’t really rare, but attract early flying bees and flies, both out of favor as a common liver treat- it’s not that common either. Usually of which aid in pollination. ment. hepaticas are found in high quality Hepatica in bloom is a good sign Following flowering, the previous woodlands with a native herbaceous that spring has arrived, although, like year’s leaves die back and new, bright layer and a good native woody oversto- other plants, they can be fooled by early green leaves appear. Long, pointed, ry. Hepatica is seldom found in degrad- mild weather. I found clumps of hepati- hairy achenes (seeds) develop after ed woodlands where exotics like garlic ca blooming last December 15th! These flowering. These achenes are a favorite mustard and buckthorn are common. clumps were growing on a south-facing food of rodents. Ants also collect the Chicago Wilderness seeds and take them is home to two species back to their nests. or varieties of Hepatica, Hepatica, like many the sharp-lobed hepatica spring wildflowers, (Hepatica acutiloba) and depends upon these the round-lobed hepati- ants for successful dis- ca (Hepatica americana). persal. The ants move Sharp-lobed and round- the seeds to their nest, lobed refer to the shape which proves to be a of the three lobes of the good place for germi- leaves. A unique feature nation. of the hepatica is that This spring, watch their leaves are ever- for this small, beau- green. The leaves seen tiful wildflower in in spring are actually our local woodlands. last year’s leaves; they’ve Look for them peek- lasted all through the ing out from under Photo: Will Fletcher winter. The leaves prob- the oak leaves of the ably photosynthesize woodland litter. The during the winter on round-lobed hepatica warm days, and are is more common in ready to start full-time acidic soils, while the photosynthesis early sharp-lobed is more in the spring before other woodland slope where they received lots of light common in more calcareous soils. In wildflowers are even up. This allows the and warmth and were fooled by the Chicago Wilder-ness, the sharp-lobed hepatica to bloom early and get a head warm weather. I imagine they weren’t hepatica is more common and is found start on other spring wildflowers. ultimately successful because the weath- in many of our mesic woods, usually Hepatica can bloom as early as er turned cold soon afterward, but along ravine slopes. One great place to mid-March, but more often are found perhaps they’ll try to flower again in find the round-lobed hepatica is the blooming around mid-April through the spring. The mild January may have sandy woodlands of the Indiana Dunes. mid-May. The flowers of hepatica are allowed the leaves to replenish some of Occasionally both species can occur usually blue to lavender but can also be the reserves used up in December. in the same woods and they may even white or pink. They have many stamens The word hepatica comes from the hybridize, having characteristics inter- tipped with yellowish anthers. The Greek word hepar, which refers to the mediate between the two types. Watch flowers are small, from 1/2 to 1 inch liver. The shape and color of the leaves for the frequent large clumps of hepati- across. They’re also tricky – not what resemble a liver, indeed. The leaves cas there – a delightful scene indeed! they seem to be. For instance, what have three lobes like a liver, and older appear to be the petals aren’t: hepatica leaves are reddish-purple, similar to — Bill Glass has no petals. The bluish petal-like the color of a liver. Herbalists once structures are actually sepals. There can even used this plant to treat liver ail- be from five to 12 sepals, but it appears ments. They believed in the “Doctrine that six is the most common number. of Signatures,” in which plants were Below the sepals are three structures thought to be marked with a sign to that look like sepals, but again, don’t show how to use them for treatment

26 C h i c a g o W i l d e r n e ss Beneficial insects contribute at least $20 billion per year to the U.S. economy, most of which is related to pollination of plants. Localhero Farewell to

By David Weissman The FoxIllustrations by Bobby Sutton

He was a teacher and friend, environmental crusader and outlaw. He dared to expose polluters when no one else would. He was Robin Hood, Zorro and Batman all rolled into one. And even though Jim Phillips died last fall at age 70, the legend he created as “The Fox” lives on.

“He was a big man, with a kind face that showed strength,” to talk to schoolchildren about the environment and did so said Mike Brock, a retired Oswego high school teacher and often, but only by speakerphone, and in a disguised voice. He lifelong friend. “My students loved to hear stories about him. arranged meetings through third parties, whispered messages They admired his courage.” from behind bushes. And when he did give a name, he called For more than 30 years, the identity of “The Fox” was one himself Ray – short for renard, the French word for “fox.” His of the most closely held secrets in Kane County. He loved real name was known only to a trusted few.

S p r i n g 2 0 0 2 27 Localhero

Jim Phillips grew up on Chicago’s West Side, but it was polluters, exposed them to the public in ways that confused, summers spent at his grandfather’s farm in the Fox River embarrassed and, ultimately, shamed them into changing Valley that shaped his views on the environment. He found their practices. peace in nature and embraced the clarity and solitude of the At an aluminum foundry in Aurora, he plugged the com- outdoors. When he turned 10, Phillips moved to the family pany’s septic tank, capped smokestacks and left a dead skunk farm for good. at the front door. When that didn’t work, he paid a visit to He pursued science in school and earned a biology degree the company’s corporate headquarters in Gary, Indiana. from Northern Illinois University. For the next 10 years “I have a gift for your president from the animals and peo- he taught environmental science at middle schools in Oak ple of the Fox River Valley,” Phillips said. He then dumped Lawn and Hillside. It was there the young science teacher got five gallons of sewage from the company’s own Aurora plant called out by one of his onto the corporate hallway. students. That got the ear of Chi- “Mr. Jim, you say that cago Daily News columnist you don’t try to cause air Mike Royko, who used his pollution, but you drive column to champion the your truck to work every Fox’s cause. day,” the student chal- “The Fox learned about lenged. “What are you the power of the media going to do about it?” early on,” said Brock. “By With no public getting publicity for his transportation available, actions, the Fox spread the Phillips was forced to word far and wide.” drive. So he did the next The Fox’s popularity best thing: he invited soared. He held a mock students to paint their funeral for the Fox River. complaints on his truck. One article became two, By day’s end, students then three, then four. He had transformed the was featured in the pages of truck into a rolling bill- Time, Newsweek and Life board: GM – CLEAN magazines, and a television UP YOUR ACT! special, “Profit the Earth” – n the spring of 1969 all anonymously. He spoke Phillips plugged a via telephone to the U.S. Isewer drain that secretary of state’s Com- flowed into the Fox mittee on Human Environ- River from the Armour- ment, a group preparing Dial soap plant in near- for the United Nations by Montgomery. The Conference on the Human company unplugged Environment. the drain, but he filled In time, The Fox became it again. Two months At night he clogged polluting drain pipes. revered and feared, a passed. Phillips returned modern-day Robin Hood to check on the river, and there, in a scene like the birth of a who befuddled his enemies and befriended all others. His comic book hero, had an epiphany: trademark signature, a small fox drawn as the “o” in Fox, “Before me lay a mini-disaster,” Phillips wrote in his auto- accompanied his notes and signs. Bumper stickers that read, biography, Raising Kane: The Fox Chronicles. “Bank-to-bank “Go Fox – Stop Pollution” were plastered on cars, signs and soap curds filled the water from the dam back to the sewer. office windows of alleged polluters. His identity was leaked Looking into the pool, my heart sank. to a select few, who called themselves the Fox’s “Kindred “Floating upside down, with their orange legs relaxed in Spirits.” death, was the mallard hen and all of her baby ducks. The Phillips’ brand of civil disobedience made so much sense shock of seeing such carnage gave way to sorrow and then even the local cops started helping him out. They tipped him rage. Wading into the glop, I saw one tiny duckling’s foot fee- off to stakeouts and surveillance. They left notes for him in bly kick. Scooping it up and stripping soap waste off its partly the knothole of a nearby tree, and kept him one step ahead fuzzy body, I tried to open its little beak and blow breath into of their own police chief, a man they nicknamed the Sheriff its lungs. The little body went limp in my hand as the final of Nottingham. spark of life flickered out. Everything got blurry as tears of In the summer of 1971, Phillips turned to Mayor Rich- sorrow and anger rolled down my cheeks.” ard J. Daley’s plan to build an airport on an island in Lake In the years that followed, Phillips would harness his Michigan. A friend drew a cartoon depicting an outhouse in anger into a new brand of environmental activism – one that the lake, with Daley standing on the nearby Chicago shore. A applied psychological pressure to achieve results. His meth- U.S. Steel executive standing on the Gary side pointed to the ods were smarter than vandalism. Instead he poked fun at outhouse, and said to Daley, “Feel free to use the lake, Dick

28 C h i c a g o W i l d e r n e ss Butterflies that need oak leaves as food for their caterpillars include the Edwards, banded, northern, and striped hairstreaks. Many other butterfly species depend on wildflower and grass species that thrive best in open oak woods. By day, he talked with reporters... incognito – from behind a bush.

– we always did.” Phillips stuck the poster-sized cartoon on the At Starved Rock, Illinois, on the return journey, Phillips Picasso sculpture in what is now Daley Plaza, in broad daylight. delivered a memorable speech to a room full of high-ranking state And neither the Sheriff of Nottingham, nor anyone else, could officials: catch him. “Three hundred years ago I came down these rivers with the “He never wanted to be in the spotlight,” said Gary Gordon, a rest of these men. But something has happened since the time we longtime friend. “It was his deeds he wanted to speak loud saw the river. The flowers came in such profusion that I cannot and clear.” even describe their beauty. The five feet of topsoil, that was so hillips was no eco-terrorist. He was careful to make sure rich you could turn it under and grow crops to save the starvation no one got hurt. When he dumped sewage at American of the world, how did you lose it? There is not one foot of it left. PReduction’s headquarters, Phillips felt so bad about the What have you done with it? shocked receptionist he sent her a half dozen roses. Another “I have fished in the rivers, and I have taken the pickerel and time, Phillips threw a stink bomb through the front office win- the pike; I’ve seen the walleye and the bass. And now I cannot dow of Cargill, a company that had dumped leaking cans of paint even drink the water. What have you done to it? into the Fox River. Along with his trademark signature, Phillips “I breathed the air that was as clear and as pure as the morning left a money order for $36.48 to replace the glass. breeze, and now my eyes water as I travel past your civilized cities. “The Fox was never about violence,” said Gary Swick, another Why do you do this to yourselves? ... Why don’t you allow your science teacher and one of the Kindred Spirits. “He chose to work children, that you give life to, to grow up with the type of beauty at a grassroots level, to build an ethic of stewardship for the land. that I once saw? There is precious little of it left.” He took action before laws and agencies like the Environmental That kind of childhood logic made Phillips hard to ignore, Protection Agency even existed. That took a lot of guts.” and inspired legions of followers to carry on his most poignant In 1973 Phillips took on another role. He became Pierre Porter- message: this land belongs to all Creation. Cherish and protect it, or et, a member of the Joillet-Marquette expedition that led to the it will die. When Phillips himself died last fall at age 70, his ashes discovery of the key Chicago portage 300 years ago. Phillips and were scattered in his beloved Fox River by the voyageurs from his six other men, dressed in 1673 period costumes, reenacted the expedition canoe. They broke his paddle signifying the end of his journey in two replica birchbark canoes. The group paddled down voyage on Earth. the western shore of Lake Michigan from the Straits of Mackinac “The Fox was larger than life, and his actions spoke to a higher to Green Bay, up the Fox River of Wisconsin to the Wisconsin set of laws,” said Brock. “Setbacks didn’t discourage him. They River, then down the Mississippi to the mouth of the Arkansas. only strengthened his resolve.” On the return journey, they paddled up the Illinois River and Ralph Frese, another lifelong friend, agreed. “In his lifetime, up Lake Michigan to Mackinac. Along the 3,000-mile trip, the The Fox became a legend,” he said. “The legacy he left is the chal- expedition stopped at more than 180 communities along the lenge that we carry on the work he started.” route and Phillips, as the environmentalist, talked about the changes in the land. Copies of The Fox’s manifesto, Raising Kane: The Fox Chronicles, “It was grassroots theater; overt and guerrilla; a show for the are available from The Fox River Conservation Foundation folks in the heartland with a profound and provocative message at P.O. Box 518 its core,” recalled Gordon, then a young reporter who became a Montgomery, IL 60538-0518 member of the shore party. $13 includes shipping and handling.

S p r i n g 2 0 0 2 29 Starting in 1991, the Illinois Native Plant Society held a series of “Thismia Hunts” in the Calumet area to look for the apparently extinct plant, American thismia. No thismia was found, but many other endangered plant species were uncovered. Top photos: Heather Ray – Operation Migration Heather Ray Top photos: Welcome Back, Whoopers

ast fall, lucky birders in northeastern Illinois beheld a spec- The first group of whooper chicks destined for reintroduction tacle not seen in the state for more than a century: a south- came from the captive flock at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Lbound flock of whooping cranes. Through their binoculars, Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Maryland. In coming years, the they also gaped at the unlikely lead bird: a bright yellow, triangular- International Crane Foundation (ICF) in Wisconsin, and the Calgary winged, three-wheeled flying machine piloted by a billowing white Zoo in Alberta, Canada, will also contribute birds to the project. phantom. During their five-month conditioning program, Welcome back to Chicago Wilderness, Grus americana. the birds never saw or heard a human. Everyone The birds were migrating from Wisconsin to Florida, led by who tended or trained the birds wore a head- ultralight aircraft and followed by a ground crew of more than a to-boot baggy white costume that the birds dozen biologists, wildlife officials, veterinarians, mechanics and learned to follow, as they would a parent. As other assistants. The journey marked the beginning of the final hatchlings, the birds were exposed to adult whoopers and look- phase of a long-term U.S./Canadian recovery plan for the species, alike props to instill their “craneness.” Even before they hatched, establishing a new migratory population of the endangered birds the chicks heard a recorded lullaby of a whooper parent’s brood in the whoopers’ historic range. call, ambient wetlands sounds – and an ultralight engine. The Whooping cranes evolved with the North American landscape. ultralight is the other parental figure in the cranes’ lives – the one During the Pleistocene, when glaciers alternately iced and flooded from which they’ll learn the migratory route. At about a week, the the northern half of the continent, whoopers colonized newly chicks learned to trot after the aircraft as Dan Sprague, a biologist created wetlands. Perhaps 15,000 whooping cranes lived in small and their trainer at Patuxent, taxied around their pen, broadcast- populations scattered across what is now the United States and ing a whooper contact call from the plane’s sound system and dis- Canada. In the eastern half of the continent, breeding was concen- pensing mealworms from a life-sized, crane-faced puppet dubbed trated in the prairie marshes of the Midwest. The birds that nested Robo-Crane. in Chicago Wilderness likely followed the eastern migratory route At seven weeks, before they fledged, the birds were moved still used by sandhill cranes. As European settlers moved west, to the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge in central Wisconsin. converting wetlands to farmlands, whooper numbers plummeted. “You have to show them where you want them to nest,” said Joan The last recorded whooper nest in Illinois was in 1880, and Guilfoyle of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), explain- the last documented sighting of local cranes was in 1891. Since ing the critical importance of their imprinting on the refuge land- then, there have been only rare sightings in Illinois of off-course scape from the air. “That’s the land you want them to know in migrants from the surviving wild population that breeds in their heads as their home.” Canada and winters on the Texas coast. Today, whoopers are still Many factors went into selecting a site for the whooper train- the rarest of 15 crane species, with fewer than 400 birds, about ing camp and future nesting grounds. “The recovery team was one-third of them in captive-breeding centers. searching for a place where whoopers used to breed that still has The reintroduction of migratory whooping cranes to Wisconsin’s big wetlands and that is far away from the corridor of the popu- wetlands is the work of the Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership, lation that goes to Texas,” said George Archibald, ICF chairman which includes international, federal, and state wildlife agencies, and a member of the International Whooping Crane Recovery and U.S. and Canadian conservation organizations. The project Team. Biologists do not want the two groups mixing for genetic requires birds, ample wetlands, people, planes and pertinacity. It and health reasons, he explained. But the recovery team did want costs $1.3 million a year, more than half of it raised from private to locate the whoopers within the range of the eastern sandhill donors. crane population, which nests in prairie marshes of Minnesota,

30 C h i c a g o W i l d e r n e ss Thirteen year-old Robert Kennicott found a whooping crane nest near his home in Glenview in the 1830s. The young scientist sent a description to Alexander Wilson, then America’s foremost ornithologist. Wisconsin, and northeastern Illinois, and migrates to Florida. of caught me by surprise.” But Steve readily agreed. The three The whoopers would likely flock with the sandhills on migration, ultralights, along with the Cessna 182 used to fly top cover, were finding security and good roosts, Archibald said. housed conveniently in Steve’s hangar-sized metal shed while the The Necedah area offers 50,000 acres of prime whooper habitat migration team’s campers were parked nearby. on federal and state lands. Equally important, the community Every morning Duff, Lishman and Clark rose at 5:30 to check the enthusiastically supports the project. weather and determine if the birds could make it to the next stop, At the refuge, Sprague was joined by Operation Migration usually 60 to 90 minutes away. “That’s exactly the way the birds do pilots Bill Lishman, Joe Duff and Deke Clark. Lishman and it in the wild,” Duff noted. “They wait until the weather is right and Duff pioneered the technique of leading migratory birds with then they go.” In Kankakee, headwinds from the south kept them slow-flying ultralights. “Whooping cranes are soaring birds,” Duff grounded for six days. But on November 3, the predawn air was explained. “In the wild, they would take off in mid-morning, fly calm. As the sun rose, the planes were rolled out of the shed and with the thermals and climb up to 6,000 feet. They can fly like checked. Around 6:30, the aircraft taxied toward the cranes’ night that for eight hours a day without expending much energy. We pen, concealed in a low area a quarter-mile away. Costumed handlers can’t do that with the ultralights, so these birds learn to fly off the threw open the pen doors as the ultralights taxied by, broadcasting a recorded “keep together” call. The excited birds burst from the pen, jumping and flapping their wings, and followed the lead ultra- light into the air. As the aircraft nosed upward, the birds formed a chevron behind it. The strange flock, joined by Clark and Lishman, headed southeast toward Indiana. With a slight tailwind, the birds Welcome Back, Whoopersby Karen Furnweger flew a record 2 hours and 9 minutes, covering 91.4 miles before landing in Boone County, Indiana. The migration, which continued through Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia and Florida, took 48 days – 23 of them spent on the ground waiting out poor flying conditions. Six birds swooped into Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge on Florida’s Gulf coast, on

Photo: Joseph Duff – Operation Migration December 3. (The seventh bird arrived by van.) At 1,224 miles, this was the longest ultralight-led migration with an endangered species. Biologists from ICF and USFWS are monitoring the birds all winter as they acclimate to life in the wild. If all goes well, in April the cranes will get the ancient urge – called migratory restlessness – to head north on their own. Biologists will be able to track their movements using radio and satellite transmitters attached on leg bands. Archibald estimates it will take the birds a week to 10 days to reach central Wisconsin. Riding the thermals that hindered the ultralights, the birds can coast north on the prevailing winds. wake created by the aircraft.” But that only works when the air is Doug Stotz, a conservation biologist and ornithologist at the calm and the ultralight is steady. If the air becomes turbulent, the Field Museum, predicted that the whoopers will link up with birds have to flap fly, which tires them quickly. To avoid that, they northbound sandhills, which stop at Jasper-Pulaski State Park in flew early in the morning ­­– or tried to. Indiana, then swing west of Chicago and head into Wisconsin. he migration started October 17 as the ultralights led eight The whoopers could land in any of the wetlands in the western birds out of the refuge. Headwinds and storms slowed suburbs, he said, “but it’s likely, if they’re going to be seen, they’ll Ttheir progress through Wisconsin. On October 24, a fierce be seen flying overhead. In spring, on a day when you’ve got good storm in the middle of the night tipped the cranes’ pen, and one southerly winds, there are thousands of cranes in the air. Look for bird flew off. It was found dead the next morning under a power some white ones!” line, the most common cause of death for cranes. Another bird The likelihood of spotting whoopers among the gray sand- wouldn’t follow the plane and rode in a van for the rest of the hills will get better with time. The Whooping Crane Eastern migration. The birds finally left Wisconsin and rode a tailwind 98 Partnership will introduce birds for four more years by ultra- miles to DeKalb County, Ill., on October 27. Two days later, they light-led migration or, possibly, by placing young ones with made the leg to Kankakee County. experienced flocks. The long-term recovery goal is to have a Nearly all of the arranged stops were on private lands, mostly self-sustaining migratory flock of 125 birds, including 25 breed- farms, that had concealed areas for the birds and grass landing ing pairs, in Wisconsin by 2020. “If we can pull this off,” said strips for the ultralights. The locations of the properties were Guilfoyle of USFWS, “we’ll really have accomplished something.” kept secret and landowners were identified by first name only. Steve, a soybean farmer and pilot himself, was recruited in 2001, For crane updates and an account of the migration, go to when Lishman landed, solo, on the farm runway. “He asked if it www.operationmigration.org. For a map tracking the birds’ would be okay to land some birds here,” the farmer said. “It kind spring migration, go to www.bringbackthecranes.org.

S p r i n g 2 0 0 2 31 Newsof the wild Q Route 53 Plan Shelved? not enough money. We’re hoping money Chicago Wilderness’s existing Butter- The 80-acre Almond Marsh Nature will be put into our local roads instead, fly Monitoring Network. Taron and Preserve lies directly in the path of the pro- where the focus should have been all colleagues will identify two butterfly posed 25-mile Route 53 Tollway in Lake along,” she said. species for reintroduction to appropriate County, Illinois. The preserve’s wetland According to the Environmental Law natural sites. BP employees will join other and sedge-meadow complex is home to the & Policy Center (ELPC), the draft Envi- volunteers participating in the program to state-endangered yellow-headed blackbird, ronmental Impact Statement indicates gather field data. the black-crowned night-heron and the that local improvements would provide “One important result of the project,” threatened pied-billed grebe. “There is the best solution to help alleviate traffic Taron explained, “will be the estab- also a heron rookery, which is a breeding congestion in Lake County more quickly, lishment of two new butterfly colonies ground for the sandhill crane, that would with less damage to the environment, accompanied by a comparative study of be destroyed,” says Betsy Dietel, executive less pressure for sprawl, and less drain on the molecular diversity of both donor and director of the Liberty Prairie Conservancy. state coffers than the Route 53 Tollway. recipient populations. This is believed to The road proposal, long opposed by To view a map of the proposed route, be the very first instance in which a but- conservationists, may have finally bitten go to www.elpc.org/trans/toll/toll15.htm. terfly translocation will be coupled with the dust. The Illinois State Toll Highway For information on “Crossroads: Smart molecular analysis of the population.” Authority has admitted that it does not Transportation Options for Lake County,” Eventually, this process could lead to have the money to build the Route 53 a 1997 ELPC study, go to www.elpc.org. To the restoration of hundreds of species of Tollway. At $1.8 billion, the tollway pro- download the “Citizens’ Plan for Trans- butterflies and other invertebrates into posal would further worsen the financial portation Improvements in Lake County, this region’s prairies, woodlands, and plight of the Toll Authority, which is Illinois,” prepared by Lane Kendig of Lane wetlands. “We are proud that, through already struggling to muster the funds Kendig, Inc., visit www.elpc.org/ trans/toll/ our financial contribution and employee necessary to maintain its existing system. lakectycitizensplan.doc. involvement, we are able to help expand “I’m one of the thousands of people However, conservationists are con- the reach of leading organizations such who have been opposed to the road all cerned that construction may still be as the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum,” along,” said Lake County Board Member approved. “The situation is urgent,” said said Doris Salomón, BP director of com- Martha Marks. “The promised funding for Susan Zingle, executive director of the munity affairs. the tollway was never nearly enough, and Lake County Conservation Alliance. “The For more information about the now the state is finally saying that there’s governor will make a decision on whether Butterfly Monitoring Network, call the to continue the proposed study Chicago Wilderness Habitat Project at during the current legislative (847) 965-9239. session. The time to act is now,” she added. Visit http://www. E Goose Lake Prairie illinoisactionproject.org to send Increases In Size Governor Ryan a message, or The Illinois Department of Natural contact him at (312) 814-2121. Resources finalized a purchase from Com- 1 — Amy Reavis Sinn monwealth Edison of 345 acres last fall. This tract is located adjacent to Goose W BP Awards Big Lake Prairie State Natural Area and con- 4 6 Grant For Butterfly tains 245 acres of prairie and wetlands,

o Research some of which was recognized by the

F 3 D

e s On December 7, BP award- Illinois Natural Areas Inventory as high P

l a i n ed a $100,000 Leader Award quality prairie. Goose Lake Prairie State e s to the Peggy Notebaert Nature Natural Area contains Goose Lake Prairie, 4 4 5 Museum to help launch the which has over 1,700 acres of a prairie/ 17 4 2 innovative Butterfly Resto- wetland complex along with approximate- 8 14 ration Project. Led by Nature ly 800 acres of reconstructed prairie. This 19 4 x 28 Museum biologist Doug Taron, latest purchase adds to the 315 acres of 4 10 the project is an extension of former crop field, old field and prairie 18 that the state purchased several years 18 LAKE 7 MICHIGAN ago from Commonwealth Edison. With 27 18 e proper management, the new prairie tract g 13 a 26 30 P u 18 should provide additional habitat for the 20 21 D 4 4 Little Calumet grassland birds that are common at Goose 19 4 23 Lake Prairie. This tract, one of the largest 17 11 remaining parcels of unprotected prairie 17 9 17 24 9 21 left in the state, adds significantly to 12 Goose Lake Prairie, the largest prairie east 13 17 17 21 6 29 12 of the Mississippi River. Those wishing 25 7 N to visit the new tract should contact the site superintendent at Goose Lake Prairie K 0510 a nk State Natural Area, (815) 942-2899. Miles ak ee — Bill Glass

32 C h i c a g o W i l d e r n e ss At five feet, whooping cranes are the tallest of North America’s birds. Their wingspan is a whopping 7 feet. The whooper’s haunting, bugle-like calls resonate from a five-foot trachea, or windpipe, that coils within the bird’s body. R Chicago Wilderness Welcomes New Members Chicago Wilderness recently welcomed eight new members to the coalition, bring- ing the total membership to 143. The Barrington Area Council of Gov- ernments is a collaboration among munic- ipalities within four counties involved in encouraging protection of natural areas, environmentally sensitive development, landscaping and water management, public education and conservation efforts. The Batavia Plain Dirt Gardeners support the Batavia River-walk Wildflower Sanc- tuary and other community projects. The Clarendon Hills Park District promotes sound environmental practices including wise use and protection of air, water, soil and wildlife, wise use of energy resources, the protection and restoration of native communities, and open space planning. Friends of the Forest Preserves (Cook County) is a volunteer organization that seeks to assist the Forest Preserve District of Cook County in fulfilling its mission of acquiring, protecting and restoring nat- ural lands and educating the public about this outstanding resource. The Portage Park and Recreation Department aims to acquire and conserve natural open spaces, restore oak savanna and sand prairie habitats and convert abandoned railroads into multi-use recreational trails. habitat for more than 300 species of about the plant and animal species we’re The Village of Itasca’s Spring Brook migratory birds. seeing on this increasingly high quality Nature Center works to restore, manage, Montrose Point is a legendary birding beach fragment,” says Leslie Borns, bird preserve and interpret its unique resourc- hotspot. A 150-yard stretch of trees and conservationist and POC monitor. “The es for the public good and for fostering bushes left behind by the Army in 1970, new signs give people a framework for environmental stewardship. Taltree the famous Magic Hedge (CW, Spring ’98) understanding that there is something Arboretum and Gardens is a public arbo- harbors waves of migratory birds including different, of conservation significance, retum and garden in northwest Indiana the fox sparrow, hermit thrush, gold- going on here.” that has been involved in prairie conserva- en-crowned and ruby-crowned kinglet, the Other recent improvements include tion and restoration, wetlands restoration, rarer Connecticut warbler and LeConte’s a stone birdbath that releases a constant reforestation, a survey of ground nesting sparrow. trickle of water and attracts migratory birds, eradication of invasives and native The new trees, planted last fall, birds, stone stair access to the beach and plant propagation. The Village of Homer are grouped around the perimeter of revetment work. The district will continue Glen in Will County is committed to pre- Montrose’s central meadow. Visitors can to improve the bird sanctuary habitat serving, protecting, and enhancing quality meander along mown grass paths and a through habitat restoration and monitor- of life through responsible residential and series of smaller paths. Perennials such ing. (A proposed plan will be available for economic development and sound fiscal as milkweed, black-eyed Susan, little blue management (CW, Summer ’01). The stem, and side oat gamma have been Village strives to maintain open space, planted. preserve its unique rural character, and The natural dunes now forming on safeguard its natural resources. Montrose Beach (CW, Fall ’00), where rare plants have begun to colonize, are T Montrose Point Improves now a Chicago Wilderness Plants of Accommodations Concern (POC) study site. Last summer, On April 13, the Chicago Park District in recognition of how sensitive this area will unveil its $465,000 Montrose Point is, the Chicago Park District installed two enhancement project. With input from bilingual (Spanish/English) dune habitat Chicago-area birders, the park district has protection signs to educate beachgoers planted numerous bur oaks, jack pines, and regulate activity in the vegetated plum and hawthorn trees to enhance portion of the beach. “We are very excited Photo: Chicago Park District Photo: Chicago

S p r i n g 2 0 0 2 33 Newsof the wild

public comment sometime in March.) increasing the size of a 3.2 acre wetland to In a little more than a year and a half, approximately 10 acres. As groundwater the Chicago Park District has significantly returns to the area, native wetland species improved four migratory stopping points will be added, and adjacent upland areas along Lake Michigan: Lincoln Park Bird will be planted with prairie and savanna Sanctuary, South Shore Cultural Center species. The restored wetland will be an (CW, Fall ’01), Wooded Island in Jackson important part of a larger natural area Park (CW, Fall ’01) and Montrose Point. that includes oak woodland and prairie “This accomplishment is a nice tribute to communities. Mayor Daley’s influence on the priorities Argonne, one of the U.S. Depart-ment of bird conservation and green space of Energy’s largest multi-program science preservation,” notes Mary Van Haaften, laboratories, is operated by the University natural areas manager with the Chicago of Chicago. Much of the 1,500-acre site Park District. was farmland in the late 1940s when the — Alison Carney Brown government acquired it. The Argonne site contains approximately 550 acres of open Y Lake County Acquires land. 133 Acres On February 15, The Lake County Forest Preserves, working with the City of Highland Park and the Park District

of Highland Park, permanently preserved Photo: Robert Van Lonkhuyzen/

133.7 acres of woodlands and wetlands Argonne National laboratory in a unique intergovernmental agreement that will provide future greenway connec- tions between several forest preserves and parks. The property, located at the southeast corner of Half Day Road (Route 22) and U.S. Route 41, contains a mix of wood- lands, wetlands and a golf course. The Lake County Forest Preserves will receive I New Plants Pop Up three conservation easements from the Four conservative plant species new City of Highland Park and pay up to $1 to DuPage County were documented in million toward the cost of preserving the restoration areas in 2001. land. The Park District of Highland Park A strange parasitic plant called, will restore and manage the preserved one-flowered broom rape was found in land. a managed woodland savanna. Flat- “The voters of southeastern Lake stemmed pond weed, a gangling wetland County were great supporters of our plant, appeared in an area that has been successful 1999 and 2000 forest preserve undergoing restoration work for a decade. referenda to buy new lands,” said Al Water could have brought it into the area, Westerman, Lake County Forest Preserve or an animal may have obligingly left the president. “It’s great to be able to help seeds behind. them preserve some of the last unpro- Another wetland species, dwarf bur- tected open space left in their landlocked reed, was spotted in a high-quality creek communities.” in a preserve just south of another park where it also resides. The new find is in U Wetland Restoration At a well-managed area that has developed Argonne into an excellent wetland. But how did it Argonne National Laboratory in arrive? Perhaps the seeds floated down the DuPage County will begin work on a creek, or they could have lain in the soil, wetland restoration project this spring. waiting for optimum conditions. Argonne expects to increase the biodi- Slender lady’s tresses were sighted versity of wetlands and their watersheds, last year in a somewhat restored agricul- improve surface water and groundwater tural area that had been burned. They quality, and maintain or increase the total may have been in DuPage for a while. wetland area on the Argonne site. Although a confirmed sighting was made Argonne’s restoration program also in 2001, in the early 1970s the orchid will benefit a wetland that was previously authority Charles Sheviak reported a drained for agricultural use. The area DuPage County occurrence of a hybrid contains approximately 6,000 feet of between this species and the Great Plains agricultural drain tiles that will be re- lady’s tresses. Evidently these two species moved to restore groundwater to the area, had cozied up and produced some seed.

34 C h i c a g o W i l d e r n e ss Healthy soil may have approximately 250,000 mites per square yard. Mites look like tiny insects but they’re more closely related to spiders. Lady’s tresses are lovely plants whose flow- ers spiral gracefully down the stalk. Slender lady’s tresses grow best in open areas where they will not be crowd- Head Out toTryon Farm! ed. Though rare, this plant thrives in The farm is 170 acres of restored prairie, dunes, meadows and woods, one hour from Chicago in LaPorte County, Indiana. The houses are clustered in settlements so that 120 acres will be left open disturbed areas. “Plant populations fluctu- to be enjoyed by birds and critters and human creatures who live there. ate with weather and other variables, and many species are not evident (or accu- The houses are simple and handsome with long views, fireplaces, screened porches and enclosed pri- rately identifiable) unless they are in the vate courtyards. Enthusiastically described in a recent New York Times article, Tryon Farms is near proper stage,” noted Scott Kobal, plant Lake Michigan beaches, harbors and Dunes National Lakeshore. ecologist for the forest preserve district. Tryon is sustainable, accessible, comfortable, and affordable. “Many species do show up after manage- Come on the South Shore railroad and we’ll meet your train. ment has begun because environmental conditions are now more favorable for them.” — Elizabeth Riotto O Clean Air Counts While many people know that Open House Sundays 1-4 PM gound-level ozone can harm humans, fewer may be aware that it also damages trees, 800.779.6433 plants and animals. Scientists have linked www.tryonfarm.com this “greenhouse” gas to global warming, which can radically alter plant and animal habitat. Ozone also interferes with a plant’s ability to produce and store food, compro- mising its growth and reproduction. By promoting natural landscaping and biota preservation, Chicago Wilderness supports the Clean Air Counts Campaign in its aim to improve air quality in the Chicago metropolitan region. Mowing large lawns with gas-powered mowers is a major source of pollution, and the campaign recommends landscaping with native plants on corporate campuses. Despite the smoke of prescribed burns, the overall impact of natural landscaping is a substantial contribution to clean air. Tips on how to reduce ozone are now available on the Clean Air Households web site at www.cleanaircounts.org by clicking on Households. P Re-Wilding The Des Plaines The Hofmann Dam River Rats recently received $26,800 to put nature back into the Des Plaines River. Because this stretch of the river near Hodgkins was “tamed” more than 100 years ago, it lacks the riffles, mayfly will benefit. Larger aquatic species { Grassland Restoration Will pools, and gravel bars that normally com- like game fish will have key spawning Benefit Birds prise healthy river habitat. habitat once gravel bars begin to form Drive past Bartel Grassland Forest The Rock Jetty Project will use 400 naturally at the ends of the jetties. Preserve at Vollmer and Central Roads tons of rock to create six 25-foot-long “It is a pilot project, but we thought in southern Cook County and you’ll structures staggered every 250 feet on we’d start small and learn from there,” now see an almost mile-wide expanse of opposite sides of the bank for 1,500 feet. said Mike Lofton, the River Rats project grassland. An ecological restoration firm The structure will allow for the collec- coordinator. A 17-mile stretch of the Des has removed nine miles of fencerow trees tion of sediment downstream, creating a Plaines River was re-channeled to the west that once dissected the grassland into substrate for vegetation like water willow in 1898 to accommodate the construction nine pieces. Not only does this expansive and lizard tail, important beginning links of the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. view please humans, it also attracts grass- in the river’s food chain. From there, — Jayne Bohner land creatures such as the endangered macro-invertebrates like the caddis fly and Henslow’s sparrow and the bobolink. In

S p r i n g 2 0 0 2 35 Photo: Anthony Mercieca/Root Resources

Newsof the wild Field Notes The Winter of 2002: Frog Tracks in Snow! in the Evanston/NorthShore Christmas Bird It was a beautiful, sunny 55°F on January 22, 2002. Naturalist Renae Count this year. The day after the main Frigo and I were exploring a fen in our park district’s larg- count was the first time we saw it – pick- est natural area, Campton Hills Park, when we saw some ing through leaves in the bonfire area. It’s tracks in the rapidly melting snow. We both enjoy tracking come twice more – one time in Somme Woods and twice in Somme and were surprised to see tracks that we didn’t recognize. Prairie Grove where it was joined by two yellow-rumped warblers and In fact, these tracks looked completely different than any four Eastern bluebirds. we had ever seen before. Suddenly we realized that they These are Big Woods. Why does this bird show up at the bonfires? formed the shape of a frog and sure enough they hopped, Just chance? Because they generate so much heat, and the bird likes hopped, hopped for 10 or more feet. The tracks then dis- to be near it for the same reason we do? Because the fire stirs up bugs appeared into a sedge clump. The frog was medium-sized, for it to eat? Because all the dragging of buckthorn, raking through the not a peeper or chorus frog. leaves, uncovers stuff for it to eat? Because it’s a messenger, thanking In checking the temperature records, I found that from us for restoring good habitat? Who knows? (Probably not that last January 4th through January 16th all but one day was one.) But it’s a fine companion, and we marvel and rejoice over it above freezing. The maximum temperatures were in the every time. 20’s on the 17th through the 19th and then back above — Steve Packard, volunteer steward for Somme Prairie Grove, Cook freezing on the 20th, 21st and 22nd. The next day the snow was gone. County Fortunately a photographer friend, Chuck Peterson of River Valley Photographic Resources Ltd., was able to rush out before dark and get In the early part of last year – The Winter of the Deep Snows – we a photo. noticed flocks of robins (10-15 birds) gathering around our MacArthur — Mary Ochsenschlager, St. Charles Park District Woods bonfires. The birds seemed to radiate around the edges of the hot coals like a covey of quail. The robins spent much of the day near Birds Around the Bonfire the warmth, apparently just staying warm. They became quite tame For the last three restoration work days in early winter, a hermit and approachable and were favored companions while we ate our thrush has joined us around the brush pile bonfire in the quiet time lunches around the same warmth. Many birds whispered their spring after most people have gone. song, further warming those that heard it. This bird is so rare in the winter that this one was the only one seen — Ken Klick, ecologist, Lake County Forest Preserves Plant Naturally Native Restorations Taylor Creek Restoration Nurseries can provide all the seed and plants you need to complete your native restoration plan. Taylor Creek has: • Over 500 species of native grass and wildflower seeds and plants • Consultation, design and installation of prairie and wetland restorations • Nationally recognized ecologist staff Native Landscapes by AES uses • A solid foundation in good Call for a free nursery catalog or bro- beautiful native plant species and ecological science chure on consultation services. natural landscape design principles • Ethical philosophies of to create ecologically healthy spaces Aldo Leopold and Jens Jensen for living and working. AES design and construction professionals are • Eco-sensitive construction dedicated to: practices

Contact John Gishnock at Applied Ecological Services to schedule a site visit: tel: 608/897-8641 email: [email protected] a division of Applied Ecological Services, Inc. tel: 608/897-8641 • fax: 608/897-8486 a division of Applied Ecological Services, Inc. email: [email protected]

36 C h i c a g o W i l d e r n e ss Insects produce commercial products - honey, beeswax, dyes and shellac, and silk - valued at about $300 million a year in the U.S. this unfragmented space, it is harder for go, the state of Illinois and CorLands. of Lake Michigan, it is thought that birds predators to find the nests and young of The Van Vlissingen Prairie will are killed at dawn as they fly in looking these ground-nesting species. become a valuable educational resource for cover and crash into windows. Plans are underway this spring to for the surrounding community. “It’s a Field Museum scientists Doug Stotz restore the original hydrology by disabling wonderful thing for the Calumet area,” and Dave Willard have studied bird kills drain tiles, and to begin to restore native said Marian Byrnes of the Southeast at McCormick Place for years, and they prairie plants. A newly-formed steward- Environmental Task Force. “The wetlands also have some data about bird kills at ship group is busy gathering seed, plan- and uplands are a very important part of the Hancock Center. Stotz reports that ning work days and monitoring wildlife. our heritage.” mortality of May and September migrants, This project, and a similar project being — Meghan Murphy particularly warblers, is highest at the planned at nearby Orland Grassland, is Hancock Center (and presumably other funded by CorLands and the U.S. Army w “Lights Out” Saves Birds tall buildings), while McCormick Place Corps of Engineers through a settlement For several years, the City of Chicago takes a higher toll on the colder-season with Material Services Corporation for and bird conservationists have worked migrants (April and October), particularly destruction of a local wetland. with building managers to lessen the risk the many species of native sparrows. Large projects such as these represent a the city’s skyline poses to migratory birds Over the course of the study, an aver- new generation of prairie restoration: sites (CW, Winter ’01). age of 1,500 birds were killed each year by large enough for wildlife. To become in- This year, the program will distinguish flying into McCormick Place’s windows. volved with either project, call Audubon between two different types of buildings. According to Stotz, that number was – Chicago Region at (847) 965-1150. The bright exterior lights of Chicago’s reduced by about 80 percent when indoor — Judy Pollock tall buildings confuse nocturnal migrants lights were turned off – proof that the that fly too close to them, causing them Lights Out program can save thousands } The Honorable Midewin to fly directly into the tall buildings. In of birds every year. Firefighting Team contrast, at buildings right along the edge — Ken Wysocki The Eastern Regional Forester recently awarded a Regional Honor Award to the U.S. Forest Service team that recruited, organized, and deployed the new Midewin Hotshots national wildland firefighting crew. Jeff Martina, assistant fire manage- ment officer for Midewin, was among the nine Forest Service employees honored at the ceremony. The Midewin Hotshots are one of 12 elite new national firefighting crews established to implement the goals of the National Fire Plan, and the first such crew in the Midwest. The National Fire Plan, published in August 2001, is a 10-year comprehensive approach to the management of wild- land fire, hazardous fuels, and ecosystem restoration and rehabilitation. It focuses on federal and adjacent state, tribal, and private forest and range lands. q Van Vlissingen Prairie Saved In August, the Belt Railway Company donated the 117-acre Van Vlissingen Prairie to CorLands, marking the end of A r t & L i n d a ’ s W i l d f l o w e r s a 23-year quest to save a local gem in the 4,000-acre Calumet Open Space Reserve • Beautiful native plants & grasses on the south side of Chicago. Home to 165 different plant species, • Wildflower garden design, installation, Van Vlissingen Prairie provides habitat consultation and stewardship. for the endangered garber sedge, a rare • Gardens for the sacred places in your heart & umbrella sedge, and beautiful native flora home. Special places – for meditation, reflection, like lady’s tresses and Carolina rose. The celebration, remembrance or worship. area also contains several different natural communities including wetland, prairie 708.785.2943 and disturbed wooded edge. The acquisition and restoration of the land is a joint effort by the City of Chica- w ww.artandlindaswildflowers.com

S p r i n g 2 0 0 2 37 Newsof the wild e Army Corps Raises Standards Activists are urging citizens to contact including such conservative species as One of this region’s most staunchly their elected officials in support of lead plant, prairie milkweed, stiff aster environmental agencies is, surprisingly to purchasing this parcel so that it can once and white prairie clover. some, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers again serve our needs. The Chicago Department of Planning (USACE). That reputation was tested by and Development’s “Calumet Area Land recent Bush Administra-tion actions. t Illinois Growth Task Force Use Plan” is good news for the preser- On January 14, the administration Issues Recommendations vation of important habitats. Areas like revoked some Clean Water Act requirements, On February 4, the Illinois Growth Big Marsh, Deadstick Pond, Hegewisch causing concern among local conservation- Task Force, a bipartisan legislative group Marsh, Heron Pond, and Indian Ridge ists. The action overturns environmental studying growth and development in Marsh are all slated for Open Space Pres- standards that have protected thousands of the state for the past two years, released ervation (“land to be preserved primarily acres of wetlands and miles of streams. But its final report. Task Force recommen- for habitat”). In addition, Suzanne Malec fortunately, the Chicago District (USACE) dations include support for open space of the Chicago Department of Environ- was one step ahead. and agricultural land preservation, ment has indicated that studies for a The Clean Water Act allows the coordination of state capital spending and Calumet area hydrologic master plan are USACE to issue nationwide permits for programs with local and regional plans, under way. projects that might be found harmful, if and compilation of a full inventory of An Illinois Natural History Survey examined on a case-by-case basis. In the zoning and building codes. The report study, slated to begin in April, will exam- past these permits have required no public also recommends state capital spending ine the nesting ecology and contaminant notice or comment and had rather flexible and programs consistent with principles exposure of Calumet area black-crowned standards of review. But, in March 2000, of balanced growth, including reducing night-herons. Conducted by Jeff Le- the Clinton administration issued new traffic congestion, preserving open space, vengood, this research will include a permits that ensured better environmental promoting reinvestment and redevelop- population survey of the night-heron protection. ment, increasing the quality of life and colony, monitoring of selected nests, and The new January 14 permits, however, supporting local government partnerships. collection of fish and other night-heron waive many of the environmental condi- Specific recommendations are posted prey species for contaminant analysis. tions adopted in March 2000 that helped on the Campaign for Sensible Growth — Walter Marcisz protect floodplains and environmentally Web site, www.growingsensibly.org. sensitive waters generally. April is Earth Month. The good news is, the Clean Water y Calumet Winds Of Change For a listing of spring Act regulations also allow districts to issue The Forest Preserve District of Cook events, and Earth Month regional permits specific to their needs. County recently acquired approximately activities, visit – According to local sources, the Chicago 150 acres of prime wetland, prairie and chicagowildernessmag.org/calendar/. District USACE will continue to issue re- bur oak savanna habitat in Burnham Prai- gional permits that supercede nationwide rie. The Burnham Greenway corridor has permits. The Chicago district emphasizes the highest concentration of natural areas the use of best management practices and that survive in Cook County. Burnham other environmentally sensitive approach- Prairie harbors over 230 native species es for all projects requiring a clean water permit. Thus, any changes the Bush Admin- istration makes to the Clean Water Act permit process are unlikely to affect the P.O. Box 748 six county Chicago area. St. Charles, IL 60174 — Alison Carney Brown 847-742-1790 FAX 847-742-2655 r One Day Park Sale The last, great, perfect place to park is www.midwestgroundcovers.com for sale, one day only, this April. Infested Nurseries Located on Route 25 with Kirtland’s snakes and overgrown with North of St. Charles prairie white-fringed orchids, the 16,234- acre parcel is in presettlement condition, but would require minimum restoration Native Plants-Groundcovers of the Future prior to laying asphalt. Ironically, the acreage was practically a Propagators and Growers of Groundcovers, Perennials, parking lot about 13,000 years ago after Shrubs, Evergreens and Natives glaciers pretty much leveled the land. Inexplicably, over time, prairie plants and animals homesteaded the land, rendering the parcel untidy and less suitable for human development.

38 C h i c a g o W i l d e r n e ss Harmful insects cause about $5 billion of damage annually, with $3 billion due to plant injury. MarketPlace Your source for enjoying life naturally

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S p r i n g 2 0 0 2 39 Readingpictures

Weeds and Nature

re we looking at the richness of nature? Or just a work here. But what will happen to this plot? If this patch of patch of weeds? ground is part of a forest preserve where restoration is under A Yellow dandelions, of course, are way, then rich savanna and woodland will slowly emerge. classic yard weeds. And they’re not even the weediest plants Some of the violets and the cherries would have a permanent in this picture. The fuzzy dried grass home. So would the fritillaries and hundreds plume lying across a slab of fallen bark of other rare species. is the seed head of foxtail grass. An But many studies have shown that the alien annual, foxtail pops up only where oak savannas and oak-hickory forests of recent disturbance has left a patch of Chicago Wilderness are fading out. The bare soil in bright sun. If this spot is left keystone trees are being replaced by invasives alone, the perennial dandelions and vio- like European buckthorn, wild cherry, and lets will soon crowd out the foxtail. maples. Oak forests are open sunny scenes, Some folks treasure violets in their full of beauty and wildlife. Conservation lawns. Others poison them or dig them agencies conduct prescribed burns and thin out. Fritillary caterpillars eat only violet some species of invader leaves. If you find a fritillary chrysalis in trees to save ancient natural forests that have your violet-filled lawn (as I did), it means become rich with rare nature over the mil- that a butterfly thought your yard looked lennia. like nature to her, and If this patch is just left alone, the growing honored it with an egg. cherry trees will probably shade out the vio- The common blue violet is something lets (and the fritillaries). In time, buckthorn of a “native weed.” It grows in savannas and maple will then probably shade out the and woods, but it’s most cherry. But no one really knows, since these common in disturbed areas. A strong invader forests are a new phenomenon. competitor, it should long outlast the dandelions here – and There is much to appreciate in treasured wild yards and perhaps rear some fritillaries. in untended forests of invasive trees. But these days, rare The only other plants in this photo are young cherry trees. nature requires good stewardship. Saving the full richness Both the cherries and the bark fragments suggest that there of creation, especially the parts that need our help, is what are branches overhead. Cherries disperse their seeds mostly Chicago Wilderness is all about. in the bellies of birds, which thoughtfully deposit them by Carol Freeman. Photograph Jack-in-the-pulpit. beneath comfortable tree perches. Flower photo by Willard Clay. Chrysalis of the variegated Thus, apparently, the forces of weedy nature are hard at fritillary by Ron Nelson. Words by Stephen Packard. OPPOSITE:

40 C h i c a g o W i l d e r n e ss According to one recent study, the most common large trees in a sample of 87 forest preserves were oaks – white, red, bur, and black oak. The most common small trees were oak forest invasives: European buckthorn, wild cherry, sugar maple, box elder, and green ash. CHICAGO WILDERNESS MEMBERS

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

This issue is supported by a grant from the Grand Victoria Foundation At Cook County’s Little Red Schoolhouse Nature Center, naturalist Pete Dring demonstrates bird banding – and shows birders the fine points of identifying a flycatcher. Photo by Jim Nachel. Chicago WILDERNESS Chicago Wilderness Magazine, Inc. P. O. Box 5054 Skokie, Illinois 60076-5054

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