Chicago EXPLORING NATURE & CULTURE

WILDERNESSWINTER 1999

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CITIZEN SCIENTISTS • THE FOREST PRESERVES’ ROCKY START What is Chicago Wilderness?

Chicago Wilderness is some of the finest and most significant nature in the temperate world, with 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.

CHICAGO WILDERNESS is an unprece - dented alliance of 76 public and private organizations working together to study and restore, protect and manage the precious natural resources of the Chicago region for the benefit of the public.

Chicago WILDERNES S is a quarterly magazine that cele - brates the rich biodiversity of this region and tells the inspiring stories of the people and organizations work - ing to heal and protect local nature. CHICAGO WILDERNESS A Regional Nature Reserve

Friends of Nature

he stirring and a cautionary tale of the battle to estab - wildflowers were disappearing from sites, not because they Tlish the Forest Preserve District of Cook County begins were being plucked but because their habitat was suffering. on page 4. When Dwight Perkins and Jens Jensen set about Once open areas, pleasant for strolling, picnicking or pro - saving “natural park lands” for the benefit of people, they viding respite for the eye, were gradually becoming choked did not know these holdings with invasive brush. would become refugia for rare and Yet ours is a continuing history endangered species, harboring bio - of civic pride and action on diversity of global conservation behalf of nature. Soon all the significance. region’s counties would have pre - They were establishing culture. serve districts of various kinds. Along with their friend and col - The spirit of Perkins, Jensen, May league Jane Addams, they were Watts, and others lives on in the concerned for the health and wel - efforts to restore natural areas and fare of urban residents—the wage in the collaborative conservation earners, as they put it—who initiatives of Chicago Wilderness. deserved, in their view, pleasant Today, I suspect, we hallow natural areas to enjoy, find inspi - nature no less than Perkins, ration, and cultivate a bond with Jensen, and Watts, but, perhaps, the natural heritage of the region. we respect nature more. We have

At the time, they thought pro - L learned what a challenge it is not a n t e r

tecting and preserving nature n only to protect tracts of land, but

s l i d

meant simply saving land from e also to preserve healthy com - :

F o r development. Everyone did. e plexes of species—the whole s t

P r The new Forest Preserve Dis - e communities called marshes, s e r v e

trict purchased its first land, 500 prairies, savannas and woods— D i s t r i

acres of Deer Grove, on June 25, c that constitute our native t

o f

1916. They called it a “preserve,” C landscape. o o k

C

campaigned in sometimes charm - o Those among us today who u n t ing ways to protect its nature, put y have the fortitude, vision, and out fires, and essentially left the persistence of the forest preserve lands alone. (The young lady appearing on the back cover of founders will be the conservation heroes generations hence. this issue was part of an early campaign to educate visitors These are the people of Chicago Wilderness, the citizen O

P not to pick the wildflowers.) scientists profiled in this issue, the leaders of organizations P O

S But these quaint values were not enough. Many of the large and small (such as Charlotte and Herbert Read and I T

E places Perkins fought so hard to preserve became less attrac - Dr. George Rabb, pp. 21-23), and not least of all, you, our : R o tive over the years, to both nature and people. Woodland readers. Bless you—and keep the faith. b

C u r t i s / T h Debra Shore e

E a EDITOR r l y

B i r d e r

W INTER 1999

P h o t o :

F o r e s t

P r

CONTENTS e s e r v e

D i s t r i c t

o f

C

FEATURES o o k

C o

4 u n t y TO PRESERVE AND PROTECT: The Origins of the Forest Preserves by Stephen F. Christy, Jr...... 4 The noble and little-known history of the nation’s first forest preserve district.

THE AMATEUR AND THE PRO: Science at the Grass Roots by Sheryl DeVore ...... 9 P

Citizen scientists—noodling around in nature and making a real h o t o :

contribution. K a t h y

R i c h l a

9 n d D E PA RTMENTS

Into the Wild...... 13 Where to go. What to do. How to help. P h o t

Natural Events Calendar. o :

M o r t o

Meet Your Neighbors ...... 22 n

A r b

Meet the sleek elusive mink. Meet Charlotte and Herb Read, o r e t u

savers of the dunes. Meet Dr. George Rabb, conservation m

A r 24 c ambassador from the Brookfield Zoo. h i v e s Local Heroes: Remembering May Watts ...... 24 She signed her poems “Face the Wind.” She inspired legions of nature lovers. Get to know a local hero. Chicago News from Chicago Wilderness ...... 26 WILDERNES S Volume II, Number 2 BOARD OF DIRECTORS: Return of a Native: Whooping Big Bird Story ...... 28 President : Dr. George Rabb Vice-President : Dan Griffin Reading Pictures ...... 32 Secretary : Laura Gates The Unseen. Treasurer : Barbara Whitney Carr Jerry Adelmann, Laura Hohnhold, John Rogner, Ron Wolk EDITOR ...... Debra Shore SENIOR EDITOR ...... Stephen Packard ASSISTANT EDITORS ...... Sheryl De Vore ...... Chris Howes

NEWS EDITOR ...... Elizabeth Sanders ART DIRECTOR ...... Liita Forsyth ASSISTANT DESIGNER ...... Terri Wymore EDITORIAL CONSULTANT ...... Bill Aldrich

Chicago WILDERNESS is published quarterly. Subscriptions are $12/yr. Please address all subscription correspondence to Chicago WILDERNESS , P.O. Box 268, Downers Grove, IL 60515-0268. Please direct editorial inquiries and correspondence to Editor, Chicago WILDER - NESS , 9232 Avers Ave, Evanston, IL 60203. (847) 677- 2470. e-mail: [email protected] Unsolicited manuscripts cannot be returned without a self-addressed stamped enve - lope. Chicago WILDERNESS is printed on recycled paper and should be passed around from friend to friend. Chicago ABOVE AND COVER: Old squaw ducks can be seen, sometimes by the hundreds, from the bluffs WILDERNESS is endorsed by the Chicago Region Biodi - overlooking Lake Michigan. Before they return to the Arctic to enjoy breeding, their black and white versity Council. The opinions expressed in these pages, pattern changes dramatically, nearly reversing intelf (see cover). Photo above by Jim Flynn/Root however, are the authors’ own. © by Chicago Wilderness Resources. Cover photo by Art Morris/Birds as Art. Magazine , Inc. OPPOSITE: Bur oak presides over snowy savanna along Flint Creek near Barrington, Illinois. ISSN 1097-8917. Postmaster, address service requested to Photo by Donna Lee. Chicago WILDERNESS , PO Box 268, Downers Grove, IL 60515-0268.

W INTER 1999 All rights reserved. 3 To Preserve and Protect… by Stephen F. Christy, Jr. Do Forest Preserves face challenges today? Just look at what they overcame to get started.

ur northeastern Illinois forest preserves total more magnificent civic accomplishment came about largely than 100,000 acres and represent the largest tract through the determined efforts of two great Chicagoans: Oof locally-owned public conservation land in the the architect Dwight Perkins (1867-1941), best remem - nation. Their benefits for our environment, recreation and bered today for his visionary designs of many of Chicago’s education are incalculable, and they preserve much of public schools, and the landscape architect Jens Jensen Chicago’s natural charm which, without their existence, (1860-1951), nationally known for his park designs in would certainly have been lost to the area’s growth. Chicago and other cities and a life-long champion of con - Of the millions of users of our Forest Preserves today few serving America’s landscape. Perkins was level-headed, would believe it took more than 20 years for the dream of thorough, and methodical, while Jensen was an outspoken, the preservation of these lands to become a reality. This emotional, and charismatic leader. Together they made a

4 C HICAGO W ILDERNESS good team for the long work ahead. As early as 1894 Jensen, from his frequent local wander - PERKINS: ings, had sketched a map of lands then far-distant from level-headed, Chicago that he felt should be preserved for future genera - tions. Perkins himself was constantly urging people to look thorough, ahead on Chicago’s growth, astounding people in 1902 by and methodical; claiming: “Chicago will be a city of 10,000,000 inhabitants within the next 50 years, and when we are planning for the city’s future we must take pains not to be so short-sighted as to overlook it. We have a right to dream — if we are wide awake when we do it.” JENSEN: In 1899 a civic group known as the Municipal Science outspoken, emotional, Club, of which Jensen and Perkins were members, began a study of Chicago’s current parks and playgrounds. The and charismatic… Club’s report led to the Chicago City Council establishing in 1901 a Special Park Commission having a membership of Jensen, Perkins, and other civic leaders as well as aldermen and park commissioners. The report they prepared said, “In the rapid growth of Chicago north, west, and south, thickly … a good team for the work ahead. settled communities are approaching natural park territory and other extensive open areas which are suitable park sites and could be improved without a great expenditure of money…before the rapid march of commercial interests and outer parks. These efforts culminated in 1904 with Fore - before suburban settlements efface the beauties of nature man’s publication of The Outer Belt of Forest Preserves and and destroy the usefulness of these spaces for parks.” Parkways for Chicago and Cook County. This publication, As with most novel ideas, this statement had precedent edited by Perkins and having a lengthy section by Jensen to lend it strength. The Boston landscape architect, describing the proposed lands, stands today as the culmina - Charles Eliot, had convinced that city to set aside 10,000 tion of a decade of diligent groundwork by these two men as well as a classic document from Chicago’s great age of civic improvement. Contributing to it also were other well- “In the rapid growth of Chicago north, known civic figures, such as Foreman; landscape architect west, and south, thickly settled commu - Ossian Simonds, designer of Graceland Cemetery; meat packer Oscar Mayer; and University of Chicago sociologist nities are approaching natural park Charles Zueblin. territory and other extensive open areas Perkins first dealt with the lack of open space in Chicago, concluding that past city growth revealed largely which are suitable park sites…” an “enormous waste of treasure, time, and human life due to the lack of forethought and confidence in the city when it was originally planned.” acres of outer parks during the 1890s, providing Boston The Commission’s report went on to advocate in detail with a total open space system then unsurpassed in the the preservation of those lands which, for many years, had nation. Perkins’ wife Lucy, a writer and artist, visited been recognized as “naturally beautiful”: a crescent sur - Boston and found this system “…so arranged that parks rounding Chicago, starting at the north in the Skokie and are accessible from all parts of the city, and it is difficult North Branch valleys, passing west of the city along the to think of any Boston child as shut away from the beau - Des Plaines River, and turning east along the Sag valley to ties of nature.” Lake Calumet after embracing the highlands of the Palos. So well-received were the Special Park Commission’s The second half of the report, written by Jensen, dealt in recommendations that in 1903 Cook County Board Chair - greater detail with, as he called it, “the movement for man Henry Foreman formed the Outer Belt Park acquisition of large forest park areas.” He reiterated three Commission and charged it with “the creation of an outer great reasons for this enterprise: belt of parks and boulevards encircling Chicago.” At the • preserve for present and future generations lands of nat - same time the Special Park Commission, seeing that its ural scenic beauty situated within easy reach of the concerns for playgrounds and inner-city parks were well on multitudes that have access to no other grounds for the way to solution, turned to the larger question of the recreation or summer outings;

W INTER 1999 5 Forest Preserve founders were struck by the open structure of oak forests, calling them “natural parks.”

• preserve spots having relation to the early settlements of Commission decided a bill to protect these lands must pass Chicago which are therefore of historical importance; at once, noting how rapidly land values were rising. An and, Act was thus hastily rammed through the state legislature, • preserve flora in its primeval state for the sake of the one viewed by many supporters as favoring certain political beauty of the forest and for the benefit of those desiring interests at the expense of the overall plan. Incidentally, knowledge of the plants indigenous there. the term “forest preserve” first appeared in this bill coined not so much to emphasize protecting woods but to avoid “…the woodlands should be brought accusations of double taxation with existing park districts. within easy reach of all people, especially the wage earners.”

Jensen then followed with a detailed account of the his - tory of Chicago’s native landscape and the special significance of each recommended area. The report was a masterpiece of landscape planning. Based on the then-current beliefs best articulated by land - scape architect and planner Frederick Law Olmsted that “rural life has the effect of countering a certain impression of town life,” bolstered by exhaustive study of other cities’ progress, and steeped in a thorough knowledge of Chicago’s native landscape and a passionate hope for the city’s future, it opened many eyes. The 3,000 original copies were dis - tributed in a matter of months, yet 12 years would pass before the first acre of land was set aside. Jensen and Perkins led wildland tours to teach city folk about The trouble began in 1905. Foreman’s Special Park nature and to build constituency.

6 C HICAGO W ILDERNESS The Special Park Commission and other civic groups League Club, the City Club and the Chicago Association opposed this bill, arguing that it would place the adminis - of Commerce to form a new and more powerful lobby tration of the forest preserves in state hands and that there called the Forest Preserve District Association. This associ - were no provisions for connecting the forest preserves as ation greatly increased grass roots support and enlisted the original plans had called for. Daniel Burnham’s aid in his now-famous 1909 Plan for Nevertheless, Illinois Governor Deneen signed the bill, Chicago, in which he noted that next in importance to and it was presented to referendum in November of 1905 lakefront preservation, “the woodlands should be brought where a public favorable to the general idea but unaware of within easy reach of all people, especially the wage earn - the political machinations behind the bill, passed it. Dis - ers.” All these efforts worked, and a new bill satisfactory to mayed, Perkins and his followers prepared to go to court on the grounds that a true majority of voters had not favored It was an odd spectacle. Perkins’ suit the bill. Sensing trouble, Governor Deneen declared the Act inoperative on the advice of his attorney general and refused charged that his own creation was to appoint the five commissioners required by the Act. By 1907 the Special Park Commission had prepared its unconstitutional. own bill, but this failed to pass due to political infighting. Accordingly in 1909 both houses appointed a “Forest Pre - everyone easily passed through the legislature and subse - serve District and Outer Belt Commission of Illinois” to quent referendum. To Perkins, Jensen, and their friends, investigate the entire issue. Perkins and Jensen began their victory seemed near at hand. quickly famous “Saturday Afternoon Walking Trips” in Again, however, politics intervened. Cook County Board which they took this commission, other public leaders, and Chairman William Busse appointed the five new commis - interested individuals on tours of the proposed system. sioners—two Democrats and three Republicans— The Special Park Commission joined with the Union complying with the law that no more than three could come from one party. But Busse and his Republican admin - istration had lost the recent elections and the Democrats regarded these new appointments as rightfully theirs. The Democrats sued to block Busse’s action and, although the Circuit Court of Cook County turned back their efforts, the attorney general (aided by lawyers from the Democratic Party) found the forest preserve legislation unconstitu - tional. In 1911 the Illinois Supreme Court agreed, noting that only those living in incorporated Chicago and Cicero had been able to vote in the referendum. With that, the forest preserve movement nearly col - lapsed. The Forest Preserve District Association disbanded, and the Special Park Commission dropped the issue after seeing more than a decade of precious time, and precious lands, slip away. It remained for Perkins alone and a few hardy followers to press the fight. This he did, and in 1914 Above: Forest preserves were new legislation had again received approval from downstate designed for wholesome out - and the voters. Perkins immediately challenged the bill door family relaxation and himself to test its constitutionality, raising more than recreation. $2,000 to take the issue before the Circuit and Supreme Left: From the beginning, Courts in 1915 and 1916. supporters advocated conser - It was an odd spectacle. Perkins’ suit charged that his vation, and had fun doing it. own creation was unconstitutional, simply in order to get that fight out of the way quickly. The court ruled “against” The vintage photos in this him, confirming the legality of the forest preserves statute. issue are by Dwight Perkins At that time the native landscape was the focus of a and others. Now in the newly-emerging concept: the science of ecology. Its birth - archives of the Forest Preserve place was the University of Chicago and its founder the District of Cook County, some botany professor Henry Chandler Cowles. Cowles’ pioneer - of these “lantern slides” were ing work over several decades established the concept that hand-tinted long before color a native landscape is really a highly-diverse group of plant photography. communities, the “residents” of each community adapted to

W INTER 1999 7 one another and the community as a whole requiring spe - Chicago landscape for what it is: a uniquely Midwestern cific physical factors—water, light, drainage, fire—to part of America, as precious as Chicago’s social fabric that survive and thrive. Cowles’ work also revealed what has had taken root in the same ground. Their goal was clear, been confirmed ever since: that the Chicago region is one and presaged the homogenization of America by a century: of the most biologically rich areas in America. to preserve for future generations the original native land - Not since the initial settlement of America some 250 scape of Chicago, which even then was rapidly years before had a major urban Society been so close to an disappearing, because it gave strength to a local culture. original, untouched landscape. By Perkins’ time an appreci - These founders firmly believed that this landscape was cru - ation of regional cial to the spiritual growth of landscapes had flowered in this great Midwestern town, America. This appreciation and was an integral part of was spawned by the emerg - what makes Chicago a special ing fields of city planning place to live, work, and play. and landscape architecture Within the first few years, (best exemplified by Olm - millions of visitors came to sted’s monumental creation the new forest preserves, of Central Park in New where the public was allowed York in 1856); the growing to drive or roam at will. Peo - recognition of the natural ple camped in the preserves wonders discovered in the for months at a time, in some opening of the American cases making these lands their West; and most ominously permanent summer homes. by the accelerating ability A police force and regula - of industrial technology to tions were established in 1917. alter and destroy the land - Sadly, ecology and land scape through mechanized management as understood means. Perkins planned for the grandchildren—and their grandchildren. today were in their infancy at What Jensen, Perkins, the time. Fire in the land - and other supporters saw around them was an original scape was feared, and its role in ecology did not become native landscape still largely untouched since its creation clear until the 1940s through professor John Curtis’ pio - by the last glaciers some 12,000 years before. This was a neering land restoration efforts at the University of landscape of prairies, marshes, woodlands, and savannas, Wisconsin. Exotic plant species like buckthorn had yet to shaped by Midwestern climate and the regenerating fires arrive, and prolific native trees such as green ash and box periodically started by lightning or Native Americans. elder had yet to expand from their river bottom habitats. In 1916, the newly formed Forest Preserve District of Thus few people noticed the savannas and prairies slowly Cook County floated a $1,000,000 bond issue and in Sep - filling with brush. Few prairies had even been saved to start tember of that year purchased its first lands—Deer Grove with. Late in his life, Jensen was asked why this was so. His Forest Preserve. By 1922 the District had purchased 21,500 poignant answer was simple, and harked back decades to acres, and was well on its way to exceeding Perkins’ origi - when native prairie, like the buffalo, was limitless: “We nal goal of 37,000 acres. never thought it would all disappear.” The forest preserve founders clearly sought land for pub - World War II and the ensuing development boom lic enjoyment through the many activities we find in the around Chicago left our forest preserves largely forgotten in forest preserves today: hiking, cycling, field games, picnics an era of “hands off” land management. For a time the pre - and other pursuits not-then dreamed of. But they sought to serves were even fair game for tollways and other provide these activities in an overall landscape preserved as “improvements” of the post-war era. Yet with the arrival of it then existed, and had so for thousands of years. Jensen’s Earth Day and the environmental movement of the 1970s, vision was perhaps the clearest when he urged the saving of it was inevitable that a new generation would focus its these lands in their “primeval state...for the benefit of those attention on these landscapes. desiring knowledge of the plants indigenous there.” Chicago Wilderness is the natural next step in the con - This vision can be seen in the enabling legislation itself servation of a noble heritage. which, with words unique in American landscape preserva - tion law, requires the Forest Preserve District to “restore, restock, protect and preserve” these lands “as nearly as may Stephen F. Christy, Jr., a Chicago resident since 1976, has been the be, in their natural state and condition.” Executive Director of the Lake Forest Open Lands Association Perkins, Jensen, and others were the first to see the since 1985.

8 C HICAGO W ILDERNESS The Amateur and the Pro: Science at the Grass Roots by Sheryl De Vore Dennis, 51, and his wife, Leslie, founded the Chicagoland Bird Obser - Photos by Kathy Richland vatory. Bird banding is used worldwide to Citizen – a native member of study the movement, survival, and a nation, an inhabitant of behavior of birds. Banders capture wild birds, then place uniquely numbered city or town. metal or plastic bands on their legs. Banders record where and when each bird is banded, how old it is, its sex, Scientist – an expert in the and other information, which then study of the systematic gets sent to a central site. When knowledge of the world. banded birds are later captured, released alive, and reported from some - DENNIS DECOURCEY: Taking where else, scientists can reconstruct rom the biologist with a doc - Flight—From Mentor to Mentor an individual bird’s movement. For toral degree to the 16-year- n one of his earliest photos, Dennis instance, banding has shown scientists Fold girl who is learning to IDeCourcey is wearing diapers and that some species go south by one band her first bird, a growing num - feeding a baby mule. He now directs pathway and return north by another. ber of us are playing large and small the Chicagoland Bird Observatory, Last spring, Dennis worked at Goose roles in the development of conser - where he still cares for young animals, Lake Prairie in Grundy County, IL, vation science. but in another way. banding Henslow’s sparrows, a declin - In an unchained sense of the word, Dennis and the volunteers he trains ing grassland species. This research all humans are “scientists,” gathering are banding birds and gathering data will help scientists understand what facts and performing experiments on to help determine how to stop the happens to Henslow's sparrow popula - the Earth. And in the young, tender decline of certain populations of birds. tions when grasslands are burned. world of ecosystem restoration, “This is where I can make the most The Observatory, based in Brook - opportunities abound for new ideas. effective contribution to the natural field, IL, is one of some 300 stations Indeed, some of yesterday’s amateur world,” says Dennis. “I can also train worldwide participating in a program scientists inspired some of the tech - people who can make contributions called MAPS, Monitoring Avian Pro - niques used today to restore our later on.” ductivity and Survivorship. “With this native ecosystems. When Dennis was 11 years old, he program, as small as a 2 percent Citizen scientists collect data that met his first bird banding teacher, change in population can be recog - professional and volunteer stewards Zella Schultz, who led a bird walk he nized,” says Dennis. can use to help make good decisions attended. “She took me under her His youngest volunteer, Nellie Carl - about the managment of conservation wing for the next five years,” says the son, began banding birds at the lands. Citizen science also offers us a Brookfield resident. Observatory when she was 11 years chance to return to our human-ness In high school, Dennis worked on old. “When you have a little tiny crea - as we immerse ourselves in prairies, conservation issues with the local ture in your hand and can find out all woodlands and wetlands — counting Audubon Society. He also played oboe this information, it’s amazing,” says Baltimore checkerspots, red-headed in the band. After graduation, he Nellie, now a 16-year-old high school woodpeckers, blue-spotted salaman - joined the US Navy where he played sophomore who wants to study zool - ders, and adder’s tongue ferns. oboe for nearly five years. ogy. “Banding birds helps us know What follows are profiles of six But the call of the wild was too about nature and how it’s changing.” Chicago Wilderness citizen scientists, strong, and soon Dennis was working For more information or to get each exploring, contributing, and as a zookeeper and later as curator of involved, call (708) 387-9265 or having a wild time. birds at the Brookfield Zoo. In 1990, e-mail [email protected] F

W INTER 1999 9 “These orchids need human help,” scientists and volunteers so that the says June, a 54-year-old former physi - endangered plant can eventually be cal therapist from Dundee, IL, who “delisted.” cares not only for humans but also for “The plan involves protecting sites wild plants. Most of the populations of and expanding the existing popula - this federally threatened plant are too tions by restoring habitat,” says June small to attract the hawk moths that who coordinates volunteers on the pollinate this species. “Through the project. “Like many prairie plants, the federal orchid recovery project, we orchid needs sunny, open areas. So we hope to expand the existing popula - are clearing brush and burning.” tions as well as create new ones,” June June works with 60 loyal volunteers, says. “To do that, we need a consistent many active for at least five years. census of where the orchids are and a Every summer they pollinate the small consistent seed source. And we need popu lations of these plants, and every volunteers to do the many hours of fall they collect and disperse a portion field work required to make this pro - of the seed to carefully selected possi - gram work.” ble new sites. They also census JUNE KEIBLER: Fifteen years ago, in between work - populations and this year began the Caretaker of Plants and People ing and caring for her children, June exacting task of collecting demographic nside a blooming eastern prairie began volunteering to cut brush and information, including plant heights Ifringed orchid June Keibler finds collect seeds at workdays in McHenry and numbers of blooms per plant. what looks like a tiny, yellow, chicken and Kane counties. “This project requires a team drumstick. It is a pollinium, the She then learned about a draft approach and every individual is pollen-bearing structure of this frilly recovery plan for the orchid written important,” says June. “If this works, it flower, which she removes with a by Marlin Bowles of the Morton has great potential for demonstrating toothpick to transfer to another orchid Arboretum for the US Fish & Wildlife how we can save other endangered in a process called hand-pollination. Service. The plan lists projects for species.” F

esting mushroom they could what types of trees are growing with not identify. The lamp in their the fungus. Trees and certain types of hotel room became a makeshift fungus depend on each other for some mushroom drying machine. of their nourishment. “Mushrooms are cool. They Evidence exists that the mushroom come in so many shapes and population in Europe is declining.The sizes and colors, and they have same could be happening in North seasons. There are little tiny America. “But we have no baseline ones and great big ones. You data,” says Chris, “so that’s what we’re can cut them in half and they gathering.” change colors.” Her daughter, Anna, may be one That’s Mom talking! of the scientists who repeats this Chris, 42, the volunteer study 10 or 20 years from now. “I just steward at Green Lake Savanna like to go out and play in the woods, near her house in Homewood, but Anna is really hooked, even on IL, is working with Field the toxicology aspect of fungus,” says Museum botany curator Dr. Chris. Greg Mueller to catalogue Chris has also taken her knowledge northern Illinois fungi. to James Hart Junior High School in “We photograph them, col - Homewood, where she works as a sec - CHRIS KUEHL: lect samples, take measurements, retary. “I take students on a kind of Family Values Mushroom make a spore print, dry them, box 3-D Where’s Waldo excursion to find n a recent family trip, Chris and them up, and bring them to the Field mushrooms,” she says. “We need to OKen Kuehl and their 13-year-old Museum,” says Chris. She also collects start them young. If they appreciate it, daughter, Anna, discovered an inter - environmental information such as they’ll want to save it.” F

10 C HICAGO W ILDERNESS KEN MIERZWA: Building a Con - stituency of Volunteers en Mierzwa listened to a scientist Kat a recent biology conference DOUG TARON: golden alexander and rattlesnake mas - complaining that volunteers couldn’t Butterfly Network ter,” native prairie species. always be trusted to provide good oug Taron stood in a New Eng - “That information was gathered by research data. Dland cranberry bog 20 years ago, our volunteer butterfly monitors,” says Ken rose to speak. watching hundreds of bog copper Doug, whose interest in butterflies Volunteers, in fact, had collected butterflies flitting in the rare habitat. began when he was six years old. But seven years of useful data on amphib - “That changed the way I thought while earning his PhD in biochemistry, ians and reptiles in the Chicago about butterflies,” says Doug, who Doug had little time for his hobby. Wilderness region, Ken said. “Once leads the Butterfly Monitoring Pro - When Doug moved to Chicago, he volunteers understand how to identify ject of the Volunteer Stewardship expected “there would be no nature the flora and fauna and how the sam - Network. “All butterflies are not cre - here, just buildings, suburbs, and agri - ple protocols work,” he said, “they can ated equal. Some are tied to specific culture.” do a fantastic job.” habitats.” Near his home in Elgin, however, Indeed, though Ken is now a 43- That knowledge is important as he discovered Bluff Spring Fen, and at year-old senior ecologist and associate land managers restore natural areas. the Fen he discovered the Baltimore at TAMS Consultants, Inc. in “Recently we’ve had a challenge in checkerspot, a butterfly he hadn’t seen Chicago, for many years, he did sci - Cook County to some of the tech - since childhood. Doug began collect - ence solely as a volunteer, collecting niques of habitat restoration,” says ing data, and before long he was influential data on amphibians and Doug. “People wondered how animals leading a first-of-its-kind butterfly reptiles in northern Illinois. were being affected by prescribed monitoring program. Ken learned about local flora and burns and removal of invasive plant Recently Doug left his job as a bio - fauna when a neighbor biologist species. They specifically worried chemist at Amoco Corporation to taught him how to identify frogs and about butterflies.” become the curator of biology at the salamanders. He then went on to oper - For example, the question was Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum of ate a printing business, but he never posed: if we weed out wild carrot, the Chicago Academy of Sciences. forgot the joy of finding tiger salaman - a non-native species that is eaten by There he will make butterfly monitor - ders and spring peepers in vernal native black swallowtail butterflies, ing data available to scientists ponds. will we lose the swallowtails? “The worldwide for research. One dreary winter, Ken decided he butterfly monitoring network has “Volunteer butterfly monitors have needed some “green space.” He went shown that if you remove wild carrot, gathered a huge and remarkably sound to Ryerson Woods in Lake County you’re not removing black swallowtail,” body of data,” says Doug, “and that where he found a blue-spotted sala - says Doug. “Black swallowtails use can make a positive contribution.” F mander beneath a log. He mentioned

W INTER 1999 11 his find to the staff, and within a few hours he had become a volunteer. Ken immersed himself in the world of amateur herpetology, surveying pop - ulations at various preserves in Will, Lake, DuPage, and Cook Counties. “At some point, I realized this was more fun than what I was doing Mon - day through Friday,” he says. So in 1990, he began working at TAMS, an engineering and design firm that, among other things, prepares environ - mental impact statements and assesses, develops, and oversees wetland mitiga - tion projects. “One of the reasons I chose this route was because I can help see that development is done in an intelligent and responsible way,” says Ken. TAMS recently helped clinch the acquisition of the Clark and Pine East Nature Pre - RICH HYERCZYK: Science and Erigenia , the journal of the serve west of the Indiana Dunes In the Company of Lichens Illinois Native Plant Society. He’s also National Lakeshore. This 200-acre, ich Hyerczyk was wandering nearly halfway done with the major state-dedicated nature preserve sup - Rthrough a forest preserve 14 years task of cataloging the lichens of the ports 18 species of amphibians and ago when a friend asked him, half jok - Cook County forest preserves. reptiles, a high number compared with ingly, if he went to the woods to find “You can go on a hike in the woods other sites in the region. himself. and spend your whole day finding Ken, also a serious nature photogra - Rich has found himself—hanging interesting things in one square pher and marathon runner, continues out with some half plant/half fungus meter,” says Rich. to work with volunteers, collecting types. These days, when Rich is not Like many volunteer scientists, data on reptiles, amphibians, and working as a draftsman, he’s usually Rich often works with volunteer stew - mammals. With a current focus on if hunched over some tree with a hand ards as they assess restoration needs on and why amphibian populations are lens identifying lichens. conservation lands. declining, Ken leads two teams of Rich says that, while he was con - “Jerry (Wilhelm) really encouraged amateur herpetologists and doctoral tent working as a draftsman, he also us in the botany class,” Rich says. “He candidates in amassing distributional felt drawn to something intangible, said there’s not enough time and and abundance data. One team studies the Earth perhaps. At age 32, he resources for the professional to do Spears Woods in Cook County forest enrolled in a botany program at the this, but with their help, citizen scien - preserves; the other gathers data in a Morton Arboretum where his first tists can do it. If I can do it, anyone remote 6,000-acre area of the Missouri course was on lichens. can do it.” Ozarks. “I didn’t even know what a lichen Wilhelm concurs, and goes a few In addition to other published was,” recalls the Chicago resident. steps further. “Yes, the data are valu - works, Ken’s findings have been “And I figured botanists knew every - able in their own right,” he says, “but reported in the two chapters he wrote thing there was to know about these extraordinary, gentle people are for the recent book, Status and Conser - lichens.” even more valuable. Some of the most vation of Midwestern Amphibians His teacher, Dr. Gerould Wilhelm, important conservation scientists (University of Iowa Press, 1998). convinced him the opposite was true among us, both professional and vol - These teams of professionals and about this curious organism in which unteer, are the field people who have amateurs will be vital to the conserva - fungus and algae live together, meet - come to know the faces of the living tion of Midwestern amphibians. “From ing each other’s basic needs. things, who understand plant and ani - a practical standpoint,” Ken says, “the Since then, Rich has taught several mal responses to our behavior, and resources aren’t there to gather the courses on lichen identification, and who help land managers make good data we need to protect open space. has written papers on lichens that judgments, day by day, and site by site. The only way to do that is to build a have been published in the Transac - They are helping us become native constituency of volunteers.” F tions of the Illinois State Academy of parts of our native landscape.” F

12 C HICAGO W ILDERNESS Into the Wild OUR GUIDE TO THE WILD SIDE Bring field guides and binoculars—or just your senses and spirit. These lands are among our best and brightest gems of ancient nature. P h o t o :

3 J a c k

S h o u b a

1 1 DEER GROVE— Cook County

2 DANADA FOREST PRESERVE— DuPage County 2 3 VAN PATTEN WOODS— Lake County, IL 5 4 GOODENOW GROVE FOREST PRESERVE— Will County 4 5 INDIANA DUNES STATE PARK— Porter County, IN

Maps: Lynda Wallis

W INTER 1999 13 DEER GROVE PRESERVE — Cook County

n June 25, 1916 cross-country ski. Its 3.9- hilly and forested terrain Othe Cook County miles of paved asphalt bicy - on specially designated Forest Preserve cle trail, and 8.3 miles of trails. District acquired its first unpaved multi-use trails, Unfortunately, due to land for use as a nature lace together the area’s heavy off-trail use by bicy - preserve—a 500-acre com - diverse habitats, ranging clists and equestrians, the ponent of what is now from undulating meadows natural plant and animal known as Deer Grove, near and hilltops, to wild wood - communities in the ravine Barrington in northwest lands and deep ravines, to areas of Deer Grove have Cook County . District offi - water-filled, picturesque been damaged. Trampling cials inscribed the following creeks, which meander of ground cover plants and on a stone marker by the through the site feeding the resulting soil erosion have side of the preserve’s main marshes and two lakes undermined forest trees trail: located within the preserve. and shrubs and polluted “The Forest Preserve Dis - The bike trail links with local bodies of water. trict organized February 11, the 4.8-mile Palatine Bicy - Cyclists and equestrians Wild Bergamot 1915 is the heritage of far- cle Trail at Quentin and have since been restricted seeing men of Cook County Dundee Roads, offering from riding off trail or from and Illinois, who by legisla - extended cycling opportuni - using non-designated tive act, seek to perpetuate ties. Hikers can enjoy trails; they are asked to use the forest and streams, hills observing jewelweed (a only the trails specially and vales, prairies and fields favorite of hummingbirds) designated and maintained for another generation than along steep ravines or for them. (District police this…To the athletically strolling underneath the have recently stepped up inclined there are outdoor leafy canopies of oak and their intermittent practice sports—to the fisherman maple forests in the sum - of ticketing violators.) By well-stocked streams—to mer. A few acres near the imposing these restrictions, the horticulturist the wild - center of the preserve have the District hopes to pre - flowers—to the tourist been restored to the open vent further ecological comfort—to the infirmed oak woodland conditions damage and allow the nat - hope—to the future the that predominated in the ural ecosystem to be untrammeled, unmolested grove during most of its restored. virgin fields and forests— prehistory. Here unusual Day-trippers will find pic - our tribute to future genera - species of wildflowers, but - nic areas, along with tions…Anton J. Cermak, terflies, and birds are found. tables, water pumps, rest President” During the winter, cross- rooms and shelters for their Deer Grove Preserve now country skiers will find the convenience. The preserve, comprises 1,800 acres of preserve’s meandering is open sunrise to sunset. prime Chicago area wilder - curves and sinuous slopes For further information, call ness, and is considered to challenging. And during any (800) 870-3666, (773) 261- be one of Cook County’s season horseback riders can 8400, or (708) 366-9420. best places to hike, bike or enjoy cantering Deer Grove’s DIRECTIONS: Take I-90 or I-290 Lake Cook Road N to Rte. 53 north. Exit at either Rte. 14 d d R a a an o o d (Northwest Highway) R R

R o a n

l a i d and head northwest E t n

e to Dundee Rd., or u Hillside Road Q exit Rte. 14 at Dundee Rd and head

d west. Entrances are a o off Dundee between R

s

k Hicks Rd. and North - c i

H west Hwy., or off h t d Quentin Rd. between i N a o W m

S R Dundee and Lake

C & Cook Rd. N W e Road Paved Trails R Dunde —Eugene Bender .R . H ig Unpaved Bike Trails hw ay

14 C HICAGO W ILDERNESS DANADA FOREST PRESERVE AND EQUESTRIAN CENTER—DuPage County

anada (pronounced Common wildflowers offer a holistic approach to DDuh-nay-duh) . include trout lily, blood - caring for horses as well as Somewhere on this root, and wild geranium. teaching basic skills in rid - 783-acre preserve you can Over the years volunteers ing. The District offers study nature, hike, jog, have helped to restore a horse-drawn hay rides bike, fish, tour a farm, 35-acre area into a healthy through wood and dale in learn the equestrian arts, native prairie. Visitors to the summer, or sleigh rides take hay rides, go for sleigh the open woodlands can during the winter (provided rides in the snow, cross- walk beneath the craggy there’s at least six inches country ski, and hold formal twisting limbs of large of snow-pack) from 9 a.m. receptions, meetings, bridal spreading bur oaks and to 5 p.m. Public rides cost showers, parties or other through plush carpets of $3 per adult, $1 for chil - catered affairs in a 19-room woodland satin grass and dren between five and 12, mansion. There is even a golden seal. and are free to children week-long equestrian sum - Danada also contains a under five. Private group mer camp for 10-to-14 yr. 1,350-acre working farm rides are also available. Call old children where they can which yields apples, wheat, (630) 668-6012 for further learn about horses from the and corn. The 19-room information. Danada is hooves up. And by the Danada House, originally open from sun-up to sun- spring of 2000, Danada will the private estate of Daniel down. become the new headquar - and Ada L. Rice from 1930 Small-flowered leafcup ters of the DuPage Forest to the 1970’s, can accom - DIRECTIONS: thrives in moist, shady Preserve District. District modate gatherings of up to From I-88 take Rte. 53 places officials are planning a new 150 people. north to Butterfield Rd., building designed in the The Danada Equestrian then west to Naperville prairie style which will be Center, a legacy of the Rd., then turn south. The located across the street Rices’ interest in race entrance is on Naperville from the Equestrian Center. horses, has provided first- Rd., .6 mile south of Danada’s nearly three rate educational and recre - Butterfield Rd. miles of multi-purpose trails ational programs for —Eugene Bender traverse wooded savannas, DuPage County residents wetlands, wildflower mead - since 1983. These programs ows, marshes, lakes, and domesticated fields and farmland. Its Butterfield Road two-mile Regional Trail leads to the

e adjacent 767-acre n a Herrick Lake Forest L ke d as Preserve. Herrick a Le o R

Lake provides habi - e l l i tat for 300 species v r e p of native plants, a 13 fish species, N 108 species of birds, 19 mammal species, and many Herrick Lake N Forest Preserve reptiles and ise amphibians. erc Ex ck Within Danada’s Tra borders you will find a variety of wildlife, from grassland birds 11-1-99 such as meadow New larks and bob-o- District Offices links, to waterfowl, herons, deer, foxes, ...... Nature Trail and even an occa - ______Multi-Use Trail sional wily coyote.

W INTER 1999 15 VAN PATTEN WOODS — Lake County, IL

an Patten Woods ling Lake is encircled by gently sloping, the grass - Vin northern Lake foot trails that stretch lands and restored prairies County encompass - approximately two miles. In and meadows are dotted by es 972 acres of prairie, the eastern half of Van Pat - pine groves and natural native oak woodlands, and ten Woods lies a one-mile oak-dominated woodlands. sedge meadows. The Des loop dedicated for hikers Can you spot the largest Plaines River meanders the and cross-country skiers and oak tree in the county? entire length of the pre - a two-mile crushed gravel (Hint…it stands very close serve, and the beautiful loop for cross country hik - to the road running through 74-acre Sterling Lake lies ers, horses, and bicycles. the preserve). at the southern end of the Anyone out on the trails The District plans to park. may see white-tailed deer, restore the sedge meadow Just north of Sterling catch a glimpse of a coyote, and wetland community Lake lies the northern trail - look up to see some of the that run along the Des head for the Des Plaines many raptors (red-tailed Plaines River. These commu - River Trail, a crushed gravel hawk, Cooper’s hawk, sharp- nities are separated by lin - trail which extends south shinned hawk) or you may ear oak woodlands that run for 12 miles with a 33-mile be very lucky and see some along the eastern bank of link-up planned for the near of the wild turkeys that the river. Prairie restoration future. This trail is open to have been spotted lately. has started west of Sterling horses, snowmobiles, bicy - Sterling Lake is the hub Lake and there are active cles, as well as hikers and of activity for the park. volunteer groups planting runners. In addition, Ster - Originally a gravel pit trees and conducting con - that had filled with trolled burns of woodland WISCONSIN water, the lake was and prairie. ILLINOIS once a dangerous Extensively remodeled eyesore with treach - just seven years ago, shel - erous drop-offs. In ters, bathroom facilities, 1989 and 1993 major trails and picnic areas are restoration took place all in new, clean condition. resulting in a safe and You really get a sense of Russell Road beautiful lake where fish - open country when you visit ing, canoeing, row boat - this preserve and it is large Des Plaines ing and paddle boating enough and far from highly River Trail Head are enjoyed. On the fish - populated areas to get a ing scene panfish, bass, feeling of quiet and calm. and northern pike are This is not an overcrowded, often caught while overused park by any I-94 muskies, channel catfish, stretch! and walleye are stocked For information about regularly. Bait, tackle, and rentals, programs, fishing, boat rentals are available contact Lake County Forest

e at Chandler’s Boat and Preserves at (847) 367- k a L Bait on the lake’s shore. 6640. For information on N There is also a canoe conservation and restoration launch for the Des Plaines projects, contact volunteer River. coordinator Tom Smith at Winter recreation (847) 948-7750. g n i l includes ice skating, hik - Van Patten Woods is open r e t S ing, snowshoeing, ice 365 days a year from 6:30

fishing, (provided ice is a.m. until sundown.

1 4

4.5 inches thick), cross- e

t DIRECTIONS:

u country skiing, and snow - o R mobiling. Van Patten Woods is located The paramount natural in northeastern Lake County feature of the area is the near Wadsworth, IL. The Route 173 MAIN ENTRANCE Des Plaines River. Its main entrance is on Rte. flood plain provides refuge 173 one mile east of the for many native plants and I-94 tollway and 1/4 mile animals. Primarily flat to east of Rte. 41. —Jim Kostohrys

16 C HICAGO W ILDERNESS GOODENOW GROVE NATURE PRESERVE AND PLUM CREEK NATURE CENTER — Will County

oodenow Grove young children can make Nature Center is open Tues - GNature Preserve in their own spider web and day through Saturday from far eastern Will play with animal puppets, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sun - County offers its greatest such as the tadpole that day from noon to 4 p.m. If recreational bounty after turns into a frog or the there is enough snow for Old Man Winter graces moth that changes into a sledding, the nature center Chicago Wilderness with butterfly. A microscope is open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. his presence. Opportunities table is set up for examin - daily. Call (708) 946-2216 abound for cross-country ing snake skins and such. for more information. skiing, ice-skating, sledding, They can also use the bal - and winter hiking. ance table to see how many DIRECTIONS: More than four miles of rocks equal feathers. From the north, take cross-country ski trails tra - The Earth Care Center is I-94 east to I-394 south. verse the diverse terrain of adult-oriented offering dis - Exit at Goodenow Rd. Turn Goodenow’s 689-acres of plays on acid rain and land - east (left) for about 2 oak-hickory forest inter - fill dilemmas. Many miles. Turn left on Dutton spersed with hills and open brochures are on hand for Rd.; follow to parking area. Bladdernut trees form grasslands. A wide and the taking, Theil said. — Benjamin Cox a low canopy in moist steep hill near the pre - A hike through the woods woodlands serve’s Plum Creek Nature offers the opportunity to Center is ideal for sledding spot deer, or at least their when there is enough snow. tracks, and birds as common Visitors can borrow truck as chickadees and cardinals inner tubes to use on the to downy woodpeckers. One hill for the day merely by might be able to spot a placing a driver’s license on great horned owl nesting file (the license is returned high in the tallest of trees

B after the tube is turned in). in January, Theil said. e m “It’s a lot of fun. You can Barred and screech owls e s

94 R fit three kids on one tube,” also call Goodenow home. -3 o I a said Emily Theil, interpretive “Winter is the best time d naturalist with the Forest here because you can Preserve District of Will see through the County, noting that as many bushes and

k as 1,000 people come to find all e e r C the hill on busy weekend kinds m u days. “When they get to the l bottom, the kids roll off and P tumble in the snow.” Staff on hand supervise the hill and stand ready to of things that help in case something hap - you can’t see any Nature Center pens, Theil said. The Nature other time of the Center doubles as a warming year,” Theil said. station where the staff “You can see the offers free coffee, hot water, deer tracks and N Trail of and cups for making hot their trails. You Thoughts chocolate. Don’t forget your can see where own cocoa powder. they laid for the An ice-skating pond is night. You can be Entrance also nearby, but all Black - the first one on hawk wannabes are advised the trail and have to call in advance. Skating your tracks be the

is allowed only when the ice first ones in the

d a

is at least 4 inches thick. snow.” o

R

The Nature Center is also All preserves in n

o

t t

home to the Discovery Den Will County are u and Earth Care Center, good open from 8 a.m. D options for winter’s coldest to 5 p.m. daily. days. In the Discovery Den, The Plum Creek Goodenow Road

W INTER 1999 17 INDIANA DUNES STATE PARK—Porter County, IN

arl Sandburg once builder plants like marram wilderness of the dunes. Csaid, “The dunes grass, sand reed grass, sand Jack pines are isolated are to the Midwest cherry, and willow shrub. relics of earlier arctic con - what the Grand Canyon is Next comes the Cottonwood ditions, when glaciers were to Arizona…They consti - Association, young dune still active in the area. tute a signature of time species like cottonwood, Normally found only 60 and eternity.” Wrought by milkweed, and hoary puc - miles north of the dunes, the incessant work of wave coon. The Pine Dune Associ - this tree species migrated and wind over the millen - ation, consists of, among south when the climate nia, the Indiana Dunes offer others, arctic bearberry, jack here resembled that of a trip forward or backward pine, white pine, juniper, more northern regions. through geologic time. and cedar. Continuing on When the climate warmed, Here Dr. Henry Chandler your walk through time the jack pines managed to Cowles, the University of you’ll encounter the Black survive in the dunes’ Chicago botanist known by Oak Association where oak, exposed conditions. many as the father of North hickory, ash, maple, and The Dunes are part American ecology, con - other plants thrive that are National Lakeshore and part ducted his landmark studies not tolerant to the earlier State Park. At the latter, 10 in plant ecology at the turn shifting topography, trails totaling 16.5 miles of the century. Here he dis - extremes of climate, or poor pass over nearly 200-foot covered the orderly and pre - soil conditions. Lastly, in a tall drifting mounds of dictable sequence of change few areas that were pro - sand, across three miles of in plant communities at a tected from fire, the Beech lakeshore beachfront, along given location—what he Maple Association can be marshes, and through 1,800 called ‘succession’—as land - found further inland. acres of woods. Winter visi - scape and climate condi - Also here you can tors can cross-country ski or tions change over time. No observe blowouts, huge snowshoe along the 9.2- wonder Dr. Cowles dubbed amphitheater bowls of mile Calumet Trail. It tra - this living botanical labora - scoured-out areas hidden verses varied and unusual tory a “floral melting pot.” among the high dunes. Or topography, from interior Indiana Dunes rolls over look for the tree grave - blowouts to exposed fore - thousands of acres of yards: standing dead dunes. Indiana Dunes lakeshore wilderness. Visitors groves of relic trees buried National Lakeshore sur - can observe the diversity of by the advancing dunes, rounds the state park on flora and fauna that flourish then disinterred by their three sides. The park is in its many habitats. Start - retreat. One unusual plant open from 7 a.m. to 11 ing at the lakeshore, you’ll for this region is the p.m. every day of the year. see the Beach Association, prickly-pear cactus, a or first plant colonizers of plant more used to the the area, consisting of flora desert regions of the N like seaside spurge and sea Southwest, but also found rocket. Strolling along from here in the sandy the lake towards the interior, Porter Beach you’ll encounter the Fore - dune Association: dune- INDIANA DUNES NAL STATE PARK igan TIO Mich NA Lake

Dune Park West Beach NES DU R RR Station Visitor Center d R Port of Indiana en Park Headquarters B & INDIANA Ogden Dunes dre un RR Station Chicago S.S Porter U.S. Steel Rt. 12 0 Bailly-Chellberg Burns . 2 Rt Visitor Center 9 Harbor

4

2 9

R 4 ou 1 te 20 Paul H. Douglas Center for Environmental Eduation Port of Indiana

18 C HICAGO W ILDERNESS W ORK P ARTIES

For more infor mation, call COOK COUNTY: Powderhorn Marsh: Hickory Creek Barrens: (219) 926-1952. Deer Grove: Feb 6, Mar 13, 9 a.m. Jan 30, 9 a.m. As you walk, listen for 1st Saturday and 3rd Sunday of From I-94. East on 130th St. Raccoon Grove Nature the singing of the sands, a each month, to Brainard Ave. Southeast on Preserve: high, clear, musical ringing 9 a.m. Contact Dale Shields: Brainard. Parking lot on left tone, similar to that of a Feb 20, 9 a.m. (847) 634-0824. just past Burnham Ave. Meet tuning fork, which you will at back end of lot. Contact Joe Lockport Prairie Nature create just by walking on Ashburn Prairie: Nowak: (708) 333-3642. Preserve: the wet sand and producing Feb 28, 9 a.m. Somme Woods: Mar 20, 9 a.m. friction. This harmonizes Park on Redfield just north of Jan 31, Feb 14, 9 a.m. with the quartz crystals, 71st and Kedzie, walk north. KANE COUNTY: moisture and pressure; you Contact Joe Neumann: (773) On the north side of Dundee will, in effect, be strumming 434-1415 or Palos Restoration road, 2 miles west of the Edens Fabyan Shelf Prairie: the earth with your toes. website:http//:members.xoom. (I-94), one block east of Feb 13, Mar 13, 9 a.m. Waukegan road. Contact North com/palosrestor/ Freeman Kame: DIRECTIONS: Branch Restoration Project Hidden Pond: hotline: (773) 878-3877. Feb 16, 9 a.m.–noon. From Chicago, take I-90 Feb 13, 20, Mar 13, 20, 9 a.m. Contact Grace Koehler, Kane Thatcher Woods: south, then east, into Indi - Meet at north side of parking County Forest Preserve District: ana. Exit at Rte. 49 north for lot at 94th and Kean Ave. Con - Feb 6, Mar 6, 9 a.m. (847) 741-9798. 2.6 miles until you reach the Located at Thatcher Ave. tact Roger Keller: (708) 598- Ferson Creek Fen: entrance to the state park. 2234 or Palos Restoration web - & Washington. Contact Jean National Lakeshore entrances & Victor Guarino: (708) 848- 4th Saturday every month, site:http// :members.xoom.com 9 a.m. are shown on the map. /palosrestor/ 7175. —Eugene Bender East side on Rte. 31, north Harms Woods: of St. Charles. Contact Mary Jan 24, Feb 21, 9 a.m. Ochsenschlager: (630) 513- Meet at Forest Preserve Grove 3338. parking lot on the west side of Harms Rd., just south of Glen - LAKE COUNTY: view Rd. Contact North Branch Central Restoration Project hotline: Grant Woods Forest Preserve: Beach (773) 878-3877. Feb 20, Mar 20, 9 a.m.–noon. Entrance on Monaville Rd. just RE ldy O Ba DUPAGE COUNTY: SH t. east of Rte. 59. Meet in first KE M LA lot. Contact Joyce Proper: s Fern Meadows Marsh: Kemil Beach ore (847) 356-8138. Sh rly Mar 13, 9 a.m. ve Liberty Prairie Reserve: Be Take Rt. 59 to Smith Rd. West on Smith to Munger Rd. Park Jan 23, Feb 27, Mar 27, on Munger Rd. 8 a.m.–11 a.m. Fischer Woods: Oak Openings: Feb 6, 9 a.m. Feb 6, Mar 13, 8 a.m.-11 a.m. Park on Arthur Ct., 1 block Contact Julie Roszkowiak, north of Grand Ave. & Church Liberty Prairie Conservancy: (847) 548-5989. Dorothy Buell Memorial Rd. intersection. Visitor Center Waterfall Glen: MCHENRY COUNTY: Mar 6, Apr 10, 9 a.m. Alden Sedge Meadow: Argonne National Laboratory, 1st Saturday every month south of Darien. Contact (except summer), 9 a.m. DuPage County Forest Preserve Contact Dan Wilson: (815) District: (630) 876-5929. 648-2389. WILL COUNTY: Hickory Grove: 3rd Sunday every month, Contact Bruce Hodgdon, Public 9 a.m. May apples Information Office, Will County Main entrance of preserve on Rich spring woodland Forest Preserve District: (815) Hickory Nut Rd. Contact Jack 727-8700. Kaskel: (815) 459-5813.

W INTER 1999 19 Natural Events CALENDAR Here’s what’s debuting on nature’s stage in Chicago Wilderness by Jack MacRae

W INTER INTO E ARLY S PRING

Great Fecundity daily energy requirement from a in Will County provides many of concrete rubble will be suit - A warm blanket of snow feeder, picking up the rest from acres of suitable habitat, as able. They’ll den almost any - sounds oxymoronic. But to the their foraging trips through the does the Midewin National Tall - where, especially when the local meadow voles in my backyard, a woods and fields. Feeders DO grass Prairie. vole population is booming. six-inch layer of snow is cause help birds survive when temper - In downtown Naperville, a for a terrific increase in comfort atures dip below 0˚F, when the Woodpeckers couple of blocks from the Cock level. Not only does the air energy requirements for our Winter is a great time to Robin Restaurant, lives a red temperature rarely fall below feathered friends increase by 50 observe our resident woodpeck - fox. The neighbors see her 30˚F under the snow, the white percent over their normal winter ers. They are colorful and con - scamper through the backyards covering allows direct, yet con - intake. spicuous as they dash among and across the school play - cealed, passage from my lilacs the trees. They’re also loud. This ground. You can track her to the compost heap. Voles are FebruaFry EBRUARY is the time of year when wood - through the snow by following warmer and safer under the peckers drum, where they bang her straight line of foot prints. snow than on the bare ground. Animal Holiday their heads against trees to She used to live in a small tan - Two species of voles are There are plenty of similari - attract a mate and announce gled plot of box elder, until it found in the Chicago Wilder - ties between groundhogs and their territory. I had a room - was recently cut down for the ness, the meadow vole and the badgers. They both live in holes mate at Southern Illinois Uni - new River Walk expansion. superficially similar but more in the ground. They’re roughly versity who did the same thing. rare prairie vole. Both are the same size and shape. There are several different March M ARCH known for their amazing fecun - Groundhogs have a holiday species of woodpeckers found dity and reproductive abilities. named in their honor; badgers within Chicago Wilderness habi - Wood Ducks Voles breed throughout the are the mascot for the premier tats. The elegant looking red- I’d like to propose a toast to year, with litters of up to eight party school in the country. But headed woodpecker is found in Mr. A.C. White of Connecticut. young born every six to eight that’s where the similarities our open oak woodlands. Pilcher In the early years of this centu - weeks. The young females are end. Their behavior, habits, and Park in Joliet is a terrific place ry, it was feared wood ducks sexually mature at the age of habitats are entirely different. to spot red-heads as well as the had become extinct in the wild. one month. Explosive, cyclical Groundhogs abound in our closely related red-bellied Their habitat had been devas - population booms may raise the area. Originally an animal of woodpecker. The pileated wood - tated through development and vole density to over 400 indi - savannas and forest edges, they pecker—the largest of our local forestry practices, and they viduals per acre every few years, have adjusted well to life to in woodpeckers—is uncommon in were a favorite target of market thus making them an important our parks, yards and roadsides. our region. They require large hunters. In 1914 there were source of energy in a grassland Their food of choice (emerging tracts of timber. There are a few certainly fewer wood ducks in food web. Thank goodness for grasses, flowers, bok choy from pileateds that reside in Warren the wild than in captivity. Mr. predators. my garden) is found everywhere. Woods in Indiana, and one used White came to the rescue. He Meadow voles are found Groundhogs—like most members to live along Hickory Creek in set up a captive, breeding almost anywhere there is long of the squirrel family—are Will County, but has not been colony of wood ducks and, for grass. You can locate their intri - active during daylight hours. seen for several years. Hairy 17 consecutive years, raised and cate maze of runways by parting Badgers are rare in our area, woodpeckers, and the similar in released thousands of ducks the thick grass in a vacant lot. though they turn up regularly. appearance (but smaller) downy into the wilds of North America. Originally an animal of sand woodpecker, also live in our for - Thanks A.C. Feeding Wild Animals prairies, they have been unable est preserves and older neigh - Many wood ducks return to I know some people who to adapt to the innumerable borhoods. They can be attracted the Chicago Wilderness to nest think if you start feeding birds changes in the Chicago Wilder - to feeding stations with suet in the early spring. All along in the winter, you had better ness landscape. Badgers are feeders. the Des Plaines River and its continue or the birds will excellent hunters, preying tributaries you can find these starve. Not necessarily true. extensively on mice, voles, Downtown Foxes beautiful birds, who exhibit During most winters, the sur - groundhogs, ground squirrels, Fox couples throughout sub - their most colorful plumage at vival rate of birds does not drop and rabbits. They are basically urbia are currently busy check - this time of year. In the early when feeders are neglected. The nocturnal. ing out real estate. They will morning hours at Fullersburg feeding stations generously pro - Due to the progressive use several shelters during the Woods in DuPage County, vided by humans are usually restoration and management course of the spring as they there’s a pair of wood ducks used only to supplement a practices in our area’s prairies, move their family frequently. who sit on a low branch of an bird’s diet. A study in Wisconsin the future for our badger popu - Their ideal home is under the oak, watching me prepare the found that chickadees obtain lations may be promising. The root of an overturned tree, but kettle of maple sap for boiling only 20-25 percent of their Braidwood Dunes and Savanna they’re not too choosey. A pile over a fire.

20 C HICAGO W ILDERNESS Meet your neighbors Charlotte and Herbert Read: Saving the Dunes

The difference at the Indiana Dunes is the people lobbying for the park’s protection. Founded by Dorothy Buell in 1952, the Save the Dunes Council is a grass-roots effort Herb and Charlotte joined because they feel per - sonally connected to the region. Unlike the larger parks in the West that gained national attention with outsider champions such as John Muir, the Indiana Dunes need the support of the local community to survive. The Reads have made this a family crusade. “The Dunes are personally special to me because I grew up in P h o t o

: Chicago near Jackson Park,” Charlotte

S t e v

e says. “I always had a park in my back - n

H i g yard. I thought everybody had that g s opportunity, and I think that created t the base of Mount Baldy, a sign assembly of politicians, private prop - an awareness and sensitivity in me Ainvokes the dilemma of defining erty owners, and the National Park early on, that open spaces and places the Indiana Dunes National Service. The Council’s goal is to go are a part of growing up.” Herb’s Lakeshore. “Predator or Prey?” reads enabling a park marked by political family also lived in south Chicago and the sign. Predator because the dunes boundaries to be defined instead by its made frequent trips to the Dunes are continually moving, obliterating own ecology, a contiguous 25-mile when he was young. Now, given their forest as they go. Prey because stretch of lakeshore and inland vegeta - full schedules working at the Council’s humankind’s penchant for develop - tion, interspersed with bogs, pannes, office in Michigan City and occa - ment can move so much faster than and more than 1,400 vascular plant sional lobbying trips to Washington, the dunes’ geologic pace. The evi - species. Among national parks, D.C., the two don’t get to visit the dence is as clear as a day at the beach, Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore Dunes as much as they would like. which along Indiana’s lakeshore ranks seventh in native plant diversity, But, then, the Reads live in the includes equal parts sand, water, and far greater than preserves many times park. Their current house, tucked in majestic views of industry. Puffing steel its size. Right now, however, the park the woods of the National Lakeshore, mills are as accepted by the millions of map looks like a child’s drawing, with is on leaseback until 2010, when it beach-goers as is the heat of summer. some park land outside the lines and becomes property of the federal gov - Those millions, however, do not some holes in the center. ernment. Many of the residents who include Herb Read, one of the few not “That’s park. That’s not,” Herb says, settled before the Dunes became part properly dressed for a day at West pointing first to the right, then to the of the park system also have their Beach. Milling around him are young left, indicating which land they have homes on leaseback. women with tanned bodies wrapped in won for preservation as he drives Herb joined the Council in 1952 as bikinis and kids scuffling along in along Indiana State Highway 12. chair of the engineering committee, Tevas behind parents toting huge This natural-versus-political and after their five children got older, rubber rafts, coolers, and towels. boundary debate is played out in most Charlotte became the Council’s first Dressed in a white shirt, blue jeans, national parks, whether Yellowstone or employee in 1974. The Council now and walking shoes, with a camera the Indiana Dunes. “Our struggles are has 1,000 members, an office, a small slung around his neck, Herb’s here to to do what we can to improve the eco - staff, and a gift shop run by volun - teach me. logical boundaries,” says Charlotte, teers. And support from outside the For the past 46 years, Herb and his who is wearing a Save the Dunes tee Council is growing. Other regional wife Charlotte have been active mem - shirt. “Scientists have realized it all groups, such as the Friends of the bers in the Save the Dunes Council, a along. It’s a balance between the needs Dunes and the Shirley Heinze preservation coalition that has con - of the resource and the political reali - Environmental Fund, have joined the tended with big industry and an ties of getting the resource protected.” effort to preserve the Dunes.

W INTER 1999 21 Meet your neighbors

“While the Dunes Council was the for the protection of endangered front of my grandparents’ house in leader in all of the Dunes legislation, species such as the Karner blue but - Lumberton, North Carolina. I used to we were never there alone,” Charlotte terfly. stick my ear down and imagine I could says. “In 1992, we had a coalition of The next step most likely will be hear them. Their conversation was 22 groups in Indiana convincing our getting more support from the people about where to get the best food and federal legislators that the Dunes area who use the park. With progress in all that jazz.” Rabb conducted experi - needed to be larger.” education, especially at the new ments of his own making, transporting Since Congress first authorized the Indiana Center for Learning at Camp some of the ants and bringing them creation of an 8,000-acre Indiana Goodfellow and the Paul H. Douglas back. He reveled in the nature abun - Dunes National Lakeshore in 1966, the Center for Environmental Education dant in his hometown of Charleston, Council has lobbied in Washington at Miller Woods, younger kids are South Carolina. Wood storks, bald dozens of times, expanding the national starting to recognize the importance of eagles, all manner of snakes—these and state park’s boundaries to approxi - open spaces and preservation. And were his sought-after companions. mately 16,000 acres (see p.18). Many this education touches more than just Rabb became a “museum kid,” of the Dunes bills were small victo - the immediate neighbors of the park. steered into a professional student ries— 13 acres here, another plot “You start with the kids,” Charlotte track at the Charleston Museum, there—but slowly the culture is adds with enthusiasm. “The next gen - and trained to collect and prepare changing. The steel industry, the eration will be more sensitive to the ornithological specimens. More than Council’s biggest opponent in the environment and ecological bound - anything, he loved herps (professional 1960s and mid-70s, has morphed into aries of the park.” shorthand for herptiles, known to us a quasi-ally, even donating park land —Eva Dienel as reptiles and amphibians). Fortunate in finding mentors and helpful friends, Rabb as a high school student spent time at an Emory University Field Station in south - western Georgia chatting up the graduate students in ecology (cheeki - ness and confidence are also Rabb traits), collecting mosquitoes—for sci - ence!—and sampling birds, reptiles, and mammals to determine if they were carriers of malaria. At College of Charleston he majored in biology, then earned a PhD in zoology from the University of Michigan. In 1956, he came to the Brookfield Zoo as research zoologist, with an office in P h o

t the Zoo’s animal hospital. In 1976, o :

B r

o Rabb was chosen to become Director o k f i e

l of Brookfield Zoo and President of the d

Z o

o Chicago Zoological Society. Gradually he rose through the ranks of world conservation to serve as chair Dr. George Rabb: Statesman of Nature of the World Conservation Union’s Species Survival Commission, a net - ere’s what most people don’t Here’s what many people do know: work of 7,000 scientists, field Hknow about Dr. George Rabb, he’s a bit shy; he is a host of surpassing researchers, government officials and director of the Brookfield Zoo: he has graciousness (an expression of his conservation leaders in 180 countries. one of the longest tenures (22 years) southern roots, no doubt); he loves He has received the Silver Medal of of any zoo director in the country; he amphibians. the Royal Zoological Society in has a hot collection of classical CD’s; First, to the ants. “Very early on, London, the Marlin Perkins Award he is a gourmet cook (taught by his when I was four or five,” Rabb says, “I from the American Zoo and Aquarium mother) and wine connoisseur; his got into watching the carpenter ants Association, and the Society for career of international conservation on their trails to this enormous live Conservation Biology Service Award, prominence began with ants. oak that extended into the street in among others.

22 C HICAGO W ILDERNESS Mink tracks in snow are easily recognized. As this long, sinuous animal bounds ahead, its back feet land in the same spot as its front feet, leaving pairs of tracks widely spaced… : : : : As a newly-elected vice chair of the Chicago Region Biodiversity Council, Rabb in his far-flung travels is a com - pelling ambassador of Chicago Wilderness. “I see this consortium of conservation organizations, and their attention to preserving the biological resources of the region, as a way to show the rest of the world how to do P h

it,” he says. “It’s a potential model for o t o : preserving nature in metropolitan M c H e n areas around the world.” r y

C o u

Rabb is fascinated by the idea that n t y

C the greater Chicago metropolitan area o n s e r v might become the world’s first urban a t i o n

biosphere reserve. “Unlike traditional D i s t r i national parks and other protected c t areas, the intent of biospheres is to secure the biological riches of such areas in the context of the local Real Mink human interests,” he explains. “Basically, the concept envisions he mink ( Musela vison ) is more not so thrilled to pick apart scat, but establishing a core area where the bio - Tfamiliar to some people in the we were fascinated by the story it told.” logical riches will be left intact—an form of a stole or coat than as a Robert Kennicott, a founder of the entire national park, for instance— wilderness neighbor. But Brad Semel, a Chicago Academy of Sciences in and allowing degrees of intrusion and biologist with the Illinois Department 1856 and among the first to document use of surrounding areas.” Thus the of Natural Resources, says these sleek, Illinois fauna, saw mink often: “In the core, in a standard biosphere reserve, reddish-to-chocolate brown predators prairie sloughs it devours at times con - is pristine nature. “can be found near many perennially siderable quantities of cray-fish, Chicago Wilderness turns this con - wet natural areas, even the densely tadpoles, and frogs; and when the cept inside out: the core is the highly developed ones where natural corri - smaller of these places becomes nearly developed part and the rich biological dors surround waterways.” Although dry from evaporation, and are quite resources surround the developed core. they do not spend as much time in the alive with tadpoles, and occasionally “An urban biosphere reserve would water as their otter cousins, mink are with mud-fish and sticklebacks…it ally conservationists with people con - well adapted to aquatic habitats, with clears these muddy pools entirely of cerned about our cities,” Rabb adds. their webbed toes and dense fur. their unfortunate inhabitants, which “The idea of a metropolitan biosphere Though common and widespread, have no way of escape.” would be to bring diverse interests mink are rarely seen because they’re According to Dick Bautz of the together to determine the best out - principally nocturnal. Semel notes that Wisconsin Department of Natural come for the community in all its if you want to spot one, your best bet is Resources, mink have poor vision. “If ecological and social dimensions— in winter. “Males travel longer dis - you stand really still, one might run by from water and air quality, to equality tances and more often in daylight you as close as six feet away and not in provision of basic education and between January and March, because notice you,” he says. They have few social services, to appropriate restraints this is breeding season. If you go to a predators beside the great-horned owl. on land and water usage and, perhaps, stream or wetland, especially on a People used to trap them, but today population growth.” snowy winter day, you might catch most people would rather watch one These days, as an ambassador for sight of one. Even if you don’t,” Semel through binoculars. “Often I see them Chicago Wilderness, he tells the adds, “you are almost sure to see their while I am up on a ladder checking people of Prague and Paris of ants and tracks in the snow, or their distinctive wood duck boxes,” Semel notes. “They frogs and air quality, and social ser - scat, full of feathers, fur, and bones. explore every wood stump and burrow, vices, and how the future of nature is This fall, my young son spotted a mink ever alert and quick, beautiful animals. intertwined with the future of the scat on the boardwalk at Moraine Hills This daily drama of the hunt and birth world’s people, in metropolis. State Park [in Lake County, IL]. Closer and death occurs all around us.” curious investigation revealed cotton - —Greg Melaik and —Debra Shore tail and muskrat fur. Some people are Elizabeth Sanders

W INTER 1999 23 Local heroes

Remembering May Watts The shoes, sensible. Her walk, lighthearted and determined. by Lori Rotenberk

hat’s one thing those who studied and worked with hair in a red bandanna, may be most warmly remembered TMay Theilgaard Watts—oh, and there were many— as staff naturalist at the Morton Arboretum, from which recall. The sound of her swift footsteps leading them she retired in 1961. A few years later she spearheaded suc - through the canopy of trees, bogs and marshes, trails and cessful efforts to establish the Illinois Prairie Path, a sand dunes, searching for the clues that would teach them 40-mile treasure of a hiking and recreation trail on the how nature has evolved. former right of way of the Chicago, Aurora & Elgin They double-stepped to keep up with her enthusiasm and Railroad in DuPage County. quick humor. Ahead of her time in so many ways, Watts, When May Watts died at age 82 on August 20, 1975, she once a one-room schoolteacher her - left behind a legacy through her writ - self, blossomed, graduating in 1918 ings and in the spirits of her hundreds from the University of Chicago Phi of students; many who knew her carry Beta Kappa in botany and ecology on her work and spirit today. under the renowned naturalist, Dr. She was boisterous and sensitive. Henry Cowles. May Watts, her friends recall, was Stargazer, artist, poet and naturalist, advocate for the heavens, the birds, Watts’ interests were many. It shows the insects, the prairie plants, the in her 1957 Reading the Landscape , a pines and oaks, the gritty dunes. An beautifully written book used for avid reader of mystery novels, Watts decades by educators, which explains took that same approach to her just how glaciers, climate change and reading of the landscape—forever farming altered our landscape. Watts seeking clues and evidence on how later penned Reading the Landscape of things began and where they might Europe and, besides scientific papers, next be found. also wrote guides still in use today on Come early morning on the days tree and flower identification. Watts she taught at the Morton, a gaggle of also wrote “Nature Afoot,” a popular nature column for the her students would depart from Chicago on the Burlington Chicago Tribune , and had her own educational horticulture train and walk the mile to the Arboretum from the station, program on public television. recalls Carol Doty, a former friend and student of Watts This tall, lovely woman, who often secured her braided who has just retired as the Arboretum historian. “Then, Lisle was a sleepy little crossroads and May had people of all ages coming out to take her unusual classes,” Doty said. Through ditties, and handmade, giant flowers that unzipped to reveal stamens, stomas, filaments, anthers and sepals, Watts taught bits of taxonomy and botany. Her landscape sketches and poems were a constant in the classroom, and tools by which students became adept at identification.

May Watts (left) teaches prairie, among the tall grasses. Photos courtesy of Morton Arboretum Archives.

24 C HICAGO W ILDERNESS May Watts cited the Chicago region’s “first attempt at actual farming” along Salt Creek in 1834. Mason Smith and Hezekiah Duncklee stacked “a few tons” of hay. They made a fire break “to protect their hay from the annual fires set by the Indians.” On Improving the Property

They laid the trilliums low, and where drifted anemones and wild sweet phlox were wont to follow April’s hepaticas —they planted grass.

There was a corner that held a tangled copse of hawthorn and young wild crabs, bridal in May above yellow violets, Bloodroot purple-twigged in November. They needed the place for Lombardy poplars—and grass.

Last June the elderberry was fragrant here, and in October the viburnum poured its wine beneath the moon-yellow wisps of the witch-hazel blossoms. They piled them in the alley and made a burnt offering—to grass.

There was a slope that a wild grapevine had captured long ago. At its brink a colony of mandrakes held green umbrellas close, like a crowd along the path of a parade. Hepatica This job almost baffled them: showers washed off the seed and made gullies in the naked clay. They gritted their teeth—and planted grass.

At the base of the slope there was a hollow so lush with hundreds of years of fallen leaves that maiden-hair swirled above the trout-lilies, and even a few blood-roots lifted frosty blossoms there. Clay from the ravaged slope washed down and filled the hollow with a yellow hump. They noticed the hump—and planted grass.

There was a linden that the bees loved. Trout lily A smug catalpa has taken its place, but the wood ashes were used to fertilize the grass.

People pass by and say: “Just look at that grass — not a weed in it. It’s like velvet!” (One could say as much for any other grave.)

— May Theilgaard Watts

Mrs. Watts wrote this ironic poem during her residence in Ravinia. She and fellow Sweet phlox Ravinia resident Jens Jensen sought to preserve some examples of the unique character of Ravinia’s then-wild landscape. For information about ordering books in the finder series of pocket guides, or the forthcom - ing reprint edition of Reading the Landscape of America , available in March 1999, a revised and expanded edition of Reading the Landscape , write or call Nature Study Guild Publishers, P.O. Box 10489, Rochester, NY 14610, (800) 954-2984.

May Watts meandering along the Illinois Prairie Path.

Rose Oplatka of Berwyn, now in her mid-80s, recalls, “I ecosystem restoration, says of Watts: “I idolized her. She was teaching seventh grade, and had signed up for Mrs. was one of the most charismatic people I’ve ever known. Watts’ first course. During that time you would have to Maybe the most. She had this strong and admirable char - come to the Arboretum and stay overnight in cabins that acter and personality. And she could teach in the most were near the Thornhill building. I earned several certifi - unusual ways, which I think came from her background cates from her.” teaching in a one-room schoolhouse.” “May was a remarkable person,” Oplatka continues. “Some of the people my mother taught at the arboretum “Personally I thought she was like a Viking princess, became life-long friends,” says her daughter Erica, now 72. looking like a queen even as an elderly lady. She was most “But her best students were myself and my brother and compassionate, a very kind person.” sister. She used to keep us busy. She would tell us to go out As a slightly mischievous young woman, Watts grew up and find a maple leaf and bring it back. So out we would in Chicago’s Ravenswood neighborhood, where her rush to see who would be the first. Then we would return Danish-born father, a landscape designer, first introduced and she’d say, “Go find an ash leaf” and so it would go. her to plants. Often she would camp with her sister She would come home from teaching and tell us wonderful overnight on the lakeshore, where the old Edgewater Beach stories. Once someone had found in the winter a snowy Hotel now stands. There began her penchant for sleeping owl which had run into the building and had broken a in the bosom of the earth, deciphering the night sky. wing. She had tried to set the wing on the snowy owl, but An adventurer in every respect, she along with her hus - the bird gave one heave and took off. The things she got band or students trekked the mountains and forests of both to see!” Europe and the United States studying ecosystems and Years after her death, during a campaign to make her plant life. Along the way, Watts, who also attended the Naperville home an historic landmark in that town, was School of the Art Institute of Chicago, documented the found a poignant memento. Drawn in pencil on the white terrain in colorful sketches that are now kept in archives at clapboards of that house were the various stages of an the Morton’s Sterling Library. Among her favorite pastimes eclipse that occurred in 1963, traced from the shadow cast besides art and poetry was picking flowers that graced by an instructive little cardboard box. tables in her Naperville home. Testimony to what everyone who ever knew May Watts Early in their marriage, the Wattses lived in Ravinia and had seen in her: a passionate interest in all aspects of there May joined noted landscape architect Jens Jensen, nature, from the smallest wildflower to the eternal heavens. urging residents in that community to save the wild prairie that yet remained there in a 1936 booklet titled “Ravinia: Lori Rotenberk is a reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times. After Her Charms and Destiny.” researching this story, she says, “I’ll never see prairies and dunes Ray Schulenberg, former Curator of Woody Plants at the ever again in the same way. I can read them now because of Arboretum and one of the Midwest’s major figures in what she taught me.”

26 C HICAGO W ILDERNESS The Chicago region’s 10 native hawthorn species today grow in former cow pastures. The long thorns of these small, sun-loving trees once protected them from mammoths, mastodons, and giant ground sloths. Mullein is felt-covered How the Hawthorn Got 1. tender tips Its Shape: A May Watts Lesson Thistle is prickly

“ f buffalo had not grazed out there in the Iprairie beyond these woods; if Indians had not hunted the buffalo with prairie fires; if 2. pruning the prairie fires had not beaten against the edge of the forest; if the bur oak had not Vervain worn a corky bark that kept it from being is bitter eliminated along with the thinner-barked trees; if a farmer who came after the Indians had not turned his cows into this oak opening to graze; and if hawthorns had not worn stout thorns that kept them from being 3. slow growth in spite of pruning grazed by the cows, then we should not have been lunching in a parklike area such as this, and listening to a brown thrasher singing in a hawthorn tree.” —Illustrations and text from Reading the Landscape by May Theilgaard Watts © 1957, 1985 by estate of May Theilgaard Watts, used by permission.

4. top shoots inaccessible

5. hour-glass shape 6. spreading branches

W INTER 1999 27 Return of a native very unusual occurrence so we should not be surprised to see wildlife react in an unpredictable manner,” he says. In five to ten years, whooping cranes might start visiting Illinois a little more often. That’s because the Whooping Crane Recovery Team is concerned that as long as these cranes use only one breeding area and one wintering area, this species could be lost in the wild. Work is underway to establish additional populations. The beginning of a non-migratory flock has been established in central Florida. The recovery team has recommended Wisconsin as the next site for the restoration of whooping cranes, pending a habitat analysis, says Dietzman. “These birds would be Photo by Robert Hughes at Illinois Beach State Park. taught to migrate to a wintering area in Florida. Their migratory path will probably take them through Illinois,” Whooping Big Bird Story and the Chicago Wilderness region. Reintroductions could begin within the next four-to-five years. idwesterners wanting to see the Illinois River and more thinly settled A combination of habitat loss and Mfederally endangered whooping portions of the state. Whoopers origi - human disturbance of breeding areas crane plan trips to the Aransas nally bred in prairie marshes from probably caused the decline of the National Wildlife Refuge in south central Illinois northwestward to whooping crane population. In addi - Texas where the world’s nearly 200 North Dakota and into Canada. They tion, humans shot birds for their remaining wild birds spend their win - still bred in Glenview, IL in the mid- feathers, and collectors took their eggs. ters after breeding in Canada. 1800s, when young naturalist Robert These threats, plus the fact that the Experienced birders Robert Hughes Kennicott found a nest. whooping crane has a low reproductive and Bob Erickson of Chicago, how - Today, only one breeding population rate, resulted in a rapid decline of the ever, had to go no farther than of whooping cranes exists in the wild. species earlier this century. In 1937, Illinois Beach State Park in Zion to “The current migration path runs on only 35 wild whooping cranes see this spectacular bird. Standing a fairly straight line from Wood Buffalo remained. along the Lake Michigan shoreline National Park (its breeding range in Robert Hughes and Bob Erickson on Nov. 11, 1998, Bob Hughes Canada) to the Aransas National were lucky enough to be there when panned the sky with his camera as a Wildlife Refuge (its wintering grounds one whooping crane flew off course. flock of sandhill cranes flew by. Just on the Texas Gulf Coast),” says They saw a chance windblown native above, he noticed a white crane with Gordon Dietzman, Manager of the that one day may return for good. black primary feathers and black legs. Education Program and Resources at —Sheryl De Vore “It’s a whooping crane,” he shouted, the International Crane Foundation in clicking photographs. Erickson, with Baraboo, Wisconsin. binoculars poised, also saw the bird. “The migratory route of this popula - The last verified sighting of a tion is fairly constricted on a long i - whooping crane in Illinois occurred in tudinal basis. They don’t seem to 1958 when an adult was seen and pho - deviate from this path by more than P h o t

tographed in Pike County. The bird 100 miles or so,” he says. “This route o :

R o

fed in a cornfield near a slough from is about 600 to 700 miles west of b

C u r t

October 16 to November 5, according Illinois.” i s / T h e

to H. David Bohlen’s book, The Birds Dietzman speculates that hurricane E a r l y

of Illinois . force winds found over much of the B i r d e

In the late 1800s, the whooping Midwest a few days before the sighting r crane was considered common in may have driven whooping cranes Whooping crane (foreground) mingles Illinois during migration along the toward Illinois. “These winds were a with sandhill cranes in migration.

28 C HICAGO W ILDERNESS Standing 50 inches high, the whooping crane is North America’s tallest bird. Wing spread —7.5 feet. Adults and young normally migrate and remain together throughout the young cranes’ first winter. News of the wild

1 NATURAL LANDSCAPING serving natural resources. The Kane- finally voted to delay action on the pro - FROM THE GROUND UP DuPage Soil and Water Conservation posed acquisition. The next day, Town & Learn how to bring the wild back to your District provides technical information to Country Homes began cutting down trees, patch of Chicago Wilderness at the 1999 the public on methods of soil and water clearing the site for a two-story corporate Natural Landscaping Seminar sponsored conservation and participates in natural office to house its headquarters. by the Wildflower Preservation and resource inventories, streambank stabiliza - Commissioners voted on October 20 to Propagation Committee of the McHenry tion, wetland restoration, and other condemn and then purchase the property. County Defenders. Learn about native activities promoting sustainable use of nat - Once inventoried with 166 mature trees, flowers and trees, landscape genealogy, ural resources. The National Audubon the parcel still had approximately 45 attracting birds with plants. Speakers Society—Chicago Wilderness Program , standing trees when it became part of include Ed Collins from the McHenry an initiative set up by the national organi - Lyman Woods Forest Preserve on County Conservation District. zation with seven chapters in the Chicago December 1. The loss included as many as Date: Saturday, February 27 region, seeks to conserve and restore nat - 80 two-hundred-year-old oaks. Citizen Location: Conference Center of McHenry ural ecosystems for the benefit of birds, advocate Gordon Goodman said, “It’s County College, Crystal Lake, IL wildlife, and humanity. Northwest unfortunate that it took so long to acquire Cost: Includes lunch. In advance $25, at Indiana Forum Foundation works for a this parcel,” but he’s glad it’s finally added door $35 sustainable northwest Indiana by stimu - to the preserve. According to Forest Information: (815) 338-0393 lating private-sector economic growth and Preserve officials, “We did not stop the supporting many collaborative environ - bulldozer, but fortunately the soil structure, 2 SEVEN NEW MEMBERS mental and natural resource efforts. which is a vital component to the life zone On December 2, Chicago Wilderness wel - Information about Chicago Wilderness at Lyman Woods, remained intact.” The comed seven new members. Chicago organizations is available from the property will be revegetated and possibly Audubon Society , with more than 5,000 Chicagoland Environmental Network developed for an environmental interpre - members, focuses on the protection of the (708) 485-0263 x 369. tive center. environment, especially birds and their habitat. The Division of Nature 3 LYMAN WOODS: LESS, 4 NAVIGATING NOVEMBER Preserves of the Indiana Department of AND MORE “Birds often stay along a usual migration Natural Resources identifies, protects, For many years the Pierce Downers path, but this past November you could and manages nature preserves to maintain Heritage Alliance has encouraged the look up and see them anywhere,” said viable examples of all Indiana natural DuPage County Forest Preserve District as Richard Biss, manager of the Chicago communities and endangered, threatened, they have gradually acquired 128 acres of Audubon Society’s Rare Bird Alert. Jim and rare species. The Illinois Audubon Lyman Woods, a high quality oak wood - Landing, conservation representative of Society , with five chapters in the Chicago land in Downers Grove. In August 1997, the Illinois Audubon Society’s Fort area, protects natural areas, birds, other Town & Country Homes offered to sell a Dearborn Chapter, did just that on wildlife, and their habitat. Iron Oaks 4.7 acre parcel of forest adjacent to the November 12 and saw more than 700 Environmental Learning Center in preserve. Consensus to buy the property sandhill cranes passing over his home in Olympia Fields, IL, manages and restores could not be reached before a “no-cut” Chicago’s Wicker Park neighborhood. “My natural areas and provides education and agreement expired on August 30, 1998. groceries dropped and I gawked, probably recreation programs that focus on con - Two days later, county commissioners making all the neighbors start toward their P h o t o s :

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On a chilly day last October Dave Genc, left, and Jim Bland collected several species of fish whose populations are threatened or endangered and re-introduced them in ponds at Prairie Crossing, a conservation community in Grayslake, IL. Checking the net for blacknose shiners, top right, are Greg Zink, Dave Genc, Kirby Wolf, and John Janssen. They are helping to establish the first fish refuge of its sort in Illinois.

W INTER 1999 29 News of the wild

phones,” he said. “Although I have fre - arrival of passerines (perching birds) set Indiana Dunes Environmental Learning quently seen sandhills migrating, I have all-time records in northeast Illinois.” And Center. never seen them just above my home the endangered whooping crane made a For information, e-mail Tina Bentz at roof.” Biss notes that more sandhill cranes surprise visit too (see page 28). [email protected], or call (312) 922-9410 than usual—12,000 total—were reported West winds and cold fronts may also x 550. Special discounts are available for migrating past Chicago this fall. have contributed to last fall’s prolonged Chicago Wilderness staff, volunteer This region usually sees a good fall migration. “We had a lot of cold fronts we stewards, and students. migration, but day after day of strong west didn’t have in the spring,” said Jim —Eugene Bender winds caused a spectacular movement this Landing. “As birders say, birds follow past fall. November 10th saw 50 mph fronts. Three or four good cold front pas - 6 REBENDING THE winds with gusts up to 80 mph. On sages in a two-month migration season NIPPERSINK November 11, 6,000 ducks (190 flocks) certainly increases the number of birds in Better fishing for smallmouth and large - flew over Lake Villa, IL— a place which our area.” mouth bass and northern pike. Better Biss is quick to note is “an inland location, —Alison Carney Brown canoeing along a natural meandering not a migration point.” On November 11, stream instead of in a ditch. Healthier Eric Walters of the Illinois Ornithological 5 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF streamside wetlands and wildlife habitat. Society and teenage birder Josh Engel SUCCESS(ION) Clear pools for silt-intolerant fish and watched as 7,000 water birds flew over Mark your calendars. The Field Museum’s mussel species, some of them a state list of Northwestern University’s Evanston, IL, spring symposium, Ecology and the threatened species. Reduced erosion and campus. Walters described seeing 877 Chicago Region: From Cowles to better flood control. These are some of the snow geese, 1,660 northern shovelers, Chicago Wilderness , will commemorate advantages of restoring the Nippersink 269 Franklin’s gulls, 3-5 peregrine falcons the 100-year anniversary of Henry Creek canal to its natural streambed, as (one seen snaring a red-winged blackbird, Chandler Cowles’ revolutionary disserta - described by Dr. Wayne Schennum, another chasing off a harrier, another tion “An Ecological Study of the Sand Natural Resources Manager for McHenry harassing an owl); “and 2 very cold Homo Dune Flora of Northern Indiana.” This County Conservation District. sapiens .” Walters believes the snow goose paper introduced the concept of ecological The Nippersink Creek Dechanneliza- and northern shoveler numbers set lake - succession and launched the career of tion Project will restore 1.6 miles of front records. America’s first professional ecologist. The streambed within Glacial Park Walters also notes that “the early Indiana Dunes Environmental Learning Conservation Area, a Chicago Wilderness Center and Chicago Wilderness are site noted for its spectacular landforms, co-sponsoring this celebratory sym - extensive wetlands, and large concentra - posium on April 9 and 10, 1999. tions of waterfowl. The US Army Corps of Peter Vitousek, scholar of bios - Engineers is currently conducting hydro - phere dynamics and soil logical modeling and engineering to 6 development, will give the keynote determine the extent of work required to address on Friday, April 9. On restore this valuable waterway. Saturday morning, international and —Gerald D. Tang regional ecologists and conserva - tionists will discuss the impact and 7 RARE BIRDS, RARE MEN 1 ramifications of Cowles’ work today. In the afternoon, attendees can x o

F D choose one of seven field trips led by

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a 5 e P s u D Little Calumet N Would you believe 240 species of birds on one small island in a city park? In Chicago’s Jackson Park, in the Paul 0510 Douglas Sanctuary, “the best place within Miles 100 miles of Chicago to see the largest variety of birds in one small area,” Doug Anderson will launch his 25th season of

K bird walks in honor of conservationist and a nk akee former Senator Paul Douglas. Rare birds

30 C HICAGO W ILDERNESS Chicago region species that have gone extinct: passenger pigeon, Carolina parakeet, and apparently the tiny plant, American thismia. Species that had been locally extirpated but have been restored: beaver, peregrine falcon, rattlesnake master moth, and the Meads milkweed. here have included last fall’s sighting of September that taught approximately 40 more information and to order a free copy “the Virginia’s warbler (see photo), never volunteers how to identify signs of infesta - of “Canada Geese in DuPage County: A before seen in Illinois,” said Anderson, tion. Twenty of these folk have “adopted” Natural Approach to Goose Mitigation,” known among birders as “the conscience parks that lie within Chicago’s quarantined call (630) 682-7285. of Jackson Park.” To join this historic bird zone, which is nearly 19 square miles, or —Andrea Friederici Ross walk, meet at 8 a.m., March 26th (the five percent of Chicago’s total area. The Senator’s birthday), on the Clarence other volunteers are serving at-large. { BUTTERFLY MONITORING Darrow bridge behind the Museum of By the second workshop, the value of WORKSHOP Science and Industry. those extra eyes in the field was clear. The Butterfly Monitoring Network is — Gregg Baker David Wachtel, an ecologist and birder, recruiting monitors for sites throughout spotted beetle exit holes in an ash tree, a the Chicago area. Don’t know your butter - 8 TRACKING NATURAL HISTO - tree species not previously suspected to be flies? Never monitored before? Great! The RY ON THE HERITAGE TRAIL a host for the pest. This revelation means Spring Indoor Workshop will hold a begin - On September 20, 1998, the Heritage that fully 70 percent of urban street trees ners’ session working with mounted Trail opened at The Morton Arboretum. that are planted on a routine basis are specimens to learn identification. This new trail introduces travelers to the potential hosts for the beetle. Date: Saturday, March 20 site’s historical occupants: glaciers, The Cook County Forest Preserve Time: 9 a.m. Potawatomi Indians, early settlers and District has a plan to inspect and monitor Location: Elgin, IL farmers, and finally us. At each of nine over 95 sites, according to Chief Forester Information: Mel Manner (847) 464-4426. stations along the trail, visitors can stop to Richard Newhard. “Currently, though, we “read” the natural and cultural history of have no reported case of the beetle— } “FROGGY WENT A each place from the landforms, vegetation, thank God.” ’COURTIN” and wildlife present. Slightly more than a Fact sheets are available from The earliest spring arrivals are not just mile in length, the trail leads visitors Openlands at (312) 427-4256 or via e-mail birds. Some frogs, toads, and salamanders through a white oak woodland, a marsh at at [email protected] and Cook County too, come out of their winter lairs in the woodland’s edge, a valley or floodplain Forest Preserve District at (708) 771-1180. March. Some sing, some don’t, but they all savanna, over a gravel hill or kame (now A grant of $550,000 from the USDA head for the nearest water to begin their occupied by a bur oak), across an old Forest Service will help replace hundreds yearly courting rituals. Instructor Ken sawmill road, through a future prairie, and of damaged trees that will be removed this Mierzwa is one of the top experts on finally up to Big Rock, an erratic boulder winter to fight the infestation in Chicago’s amphibians and reptiles in northeastern deposited by the last glacier. For addi - Ravenswood community, along with Illinois (see p.11). The Conservation tional information, contact Visitor infested trees in southwest suburban Research Institute, together with St. Services at (630) 719-2465. Summit and unincorporated DuPage Charles Park District and Kane County County. Urban Forester Gina Childs says —Eugene Bender Forest Preserve District, is offering a class replacement varieties such as oak, bass - with Mierzwa. He’ll share his slides and 9 THE BEETLES! wood and hackberry will be less popular vast knowledge of the habits of these with the polka-dotted beetles. often-secretive but fascinating animals. —Julie Schuster Date: Sunday, March 7 Time: 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. 0 GOOSE GOSSIP Location: Tekawitha Nature Center in What’s with all these Canada Geese? Back St. Charles, IL in the days when prairies and woodlands Registration: $8 were dominant features of the region, the Information: (630) 513-3338 P h o

t geese weren’t much of a factor. But now, o :

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d favorite northern Canada habitat—short d e

n “CREATIVE CLEANUP” (Fall ‘98, pp. s green grass and few predators—these geese / C h

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the company reached a surprising—and B greater numbers. Too much of anything is o t a

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a the United States Environmental

r clear indicator of an environmental imbal - d e n ance. As wild predation is unlikely due to Protection Agency (EPA).” The public is Ever since the first Asian longhorned the large human population nearby, the now welcome to visit, hike, birdwatch, and beetle sighting in the Chicagoland area answer to restoring the ecological balance enjoy 80 acres of rare dune-and-swale in July 1998, controlling the spread of seems to lie with us. In mid-November, habitat, which was added to Indiana the tree-killing insect has been a top pri - the DuPage Environmental Commission Dunes National Lakeshore as part of this ority for both government officials and and the Office of the County Board Chair settlement. regular folk. held a Canada Goose Habitat Control The Openlands Project, working with Conference to discuss ways to make the Chicago’s Bureau of Forestry, the US landscape less attractive to geese. The following deserve thanks for their help Department of Agriculture, and the Suggestions included breaking up open with this issue’s news: John Cieciel, David B. Chicago Park District, sponsored three vol - lawn with trees and shrubs and planting Johnson, Richard O’Hara, Donna Peterson, unteer training sessions since last tall grasses around detention ponds. For Judy Pollock, Mark Sheehy.

W INTER 1999 31 Reading pictures

The Unseen snowdrift tells the story of recent winds. This drift sits Chicago’s frigid windswept Montrose Beach, a peregrine Aatop the longer history of a Lake Michigan dune. falcon was dive bombing its fellow raptor. Unseen here, just Dune cottonwoods may have many feet of buried trunks outside the frame. below shifting sand. Under the snow, meadow voles tunnel The concealed present and past include people too. We through the grasses that will hold owe our contact with today’s wild - the sand once a grassland turf has ness to the activists and neighbors, formed. and civic leaders who protected it. In the shape of the snowdrift we And to the ecologists and grade can almost see the currents of past school teachers, and all those who winds. In the dune that rose grain by taught us to sense more than we can grain, we sense decades and centuries. see. Unseen friends enrich our expe - And in the unseen evolutionary rience. forces that designed the tawny little In winter landscapes of death and bluestem to stabilize this dune, and promise, and rest, and peace—we the snowy owl to eat the voles that feel the rich starkness of life and eat the grass—the past we perceive is nature. In the presence of the millennia, and eons. unseen. To be in touch with the strange intensity of the owl in this photograph, we need to be told Indiana Dunes photo by Ronald W. Kurowski. Snowy owl by the photographer that, as she snapped the shutter, on photo by Kanae Hirayabashi. Words by Stephen Packard.

32 C HICAGO W ILDERNESS Snowy owls spend their summers on the arctic tundra, north of Hudson Bay. In winter they often come to the Midwest, where they’re at home in prairies, dunes and airports. CHICAGO WILDERNESS MEMBERS:

Photo: Casey Galvin

Brookfield Zoo Hammond Environmental Education Center Northeastern Illinois Planning Commission Butterfield Creek Steering Committee Illinois Audubon Society Northwest Indiana Forum Foundation, Inc. Calumet Ecological Park Association Illinois Department of Natural Resources Openlands Project Campton Historic Agricultural Lands, Inc. Illinois Natural History Survey Prairie Woods Audubon Society Canal Corridor Association Illinois Nature Preserves Commission Save the Dunes Conservation Fund Center for Neighborhood Technology Indiana Department of Natural Resources Save the Prairie Society Chicago Academy of Sciences Indiana University Northwest Schaumburg Park District Chicago Audubon Society Iron Oaks Environmental Learning Center John G. Shedd Aquarium Chicago Botanic Garden Jurica Nature Museum Shirley Heinze Environmental Fund Chicago Ornithological Society Kane-DuPage Soil & Water Conservation Sierra Club, Illinois Chapter Chicago Park District District St. Charles Park District Citizens for Conservation Lake County Forest Preserves Sustain, The Environmental Information City of Chicago, Department of Environment Lake County Stormwater Management Group Commission Crystal Lake Park District Thorn Creek Audubon Society Lake Michigan Federation The Conservation Foundation Urban Resources Partnership Lake View Nature Center Conservation Research Institute US Army Corps of Engineers, Chicago District Liberty Prairie Conservancy DuPage Audubon Society US Dept. of Energy, Argonne National Lincoln Park Zoo Laboratory The Field Museum Long Grove Park District US Dept. of Energy, Fermi National Forest Preserve District of Cook County Max McGraw Wildlife Foundation Accelerator Laboratory Forest Preserve District of DuPage County McHenry County Conservation District US Environmental Protection Agency, Region 5 Forest Preserve District of Kane County Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of US EPA Great Lakes National Program Office Forest Preserve District of Will County Greater Chicago USDA Forest Service Fort Dearborn Chapter, Illinois Audubon Morton Arboretum USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service Society National Audubon Society USDI Fish & Wildlife Service Friends of the Chicago River The Nature Conservancy USDI National Park Service Friends of the Parks North Cook County Soil & Water Conservation The Wetlands Initiative Friends of Ryerson Woods District Wild Ones Natural Landscapers, Ltd. The Grove National Historic Landmark

This issue is supported by a grant from the Grand Victoria Foundation. P h o t o :

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C o u n t y No flowers were harmed in the taking of this photograph. More lantern slides from the courageous and quaint history of the forest preserves starting on page 4.

BULK RATE Chicago U.S. POSTAGE PAID WILDERNES S Permit No. 16 P. O. Box 268 New Richmond , WI 54017 Downers Grove, Illinois 60515-0268