I’ve never been one to make New Year’s resolutions. But this year, to celebrate the publication of the George Fell biography in April, I resolve to visit at least 50 Illinois Nature Preserves in 2017.
Today, on the first day of the new year, Susan and I take a mid-winter walk at Thornton-Lansing Road Nature Preserve. A lot of folks think that nature is something far away. But Thornton-Lansing is only 15 minutes from where we live on the south side of Chicago. Way back in 1965, two years after George Fell successfully advocated for the passage of the Illinois Nature Preserves Act, it was the 12th area to be dedicated as an Illinois Nature Preserve. Today there are nearly 400 Illinois Nature Preserves, each of which has virtually iron-clad permanent protection thanks to George Fell.
Even longer ago, between 11,000 and 13,000 years, Thornton-Lansing and much of the south suburban region was under the waters of Lake Chicago, the glacial-era ancestor of Lake Michigan. As the ancient lake waters receded, they left in their wake a flat lake bed with a succession of beach ridges, sand dunes, spits and bluffs. By the time people started settling the area in earnest, the site boasted prairies, fens and marshes, alternating with scrub-oak forests on sandy ridges.
Most of this kind of habitat was filled, timbered, plowed or paved over in the steady march of the Chicago region growing into the third largest metropolitan region in the United States. However, soon after its establishment in 1914, the Forest Preserve District of Cook County began buying land along Thorn Creek, a 21-mile Tributary of the Little Calumet River. Eventually, Thorn Creek Forest Preserve–comprised of several different units–grew to nearly 6,000 acres, of which 440 acres was dedicated as the Thornton-Lansing Road Nature Preserve.
Some may think that winter is a bleak time to visit nature preserves, but not so, as George Fell well knew: “Everywhere we look in the natural world we perceive beauty in form and color, whether in magnificent scenery or in the subtle patterns formed by bare branches against the winter sky…”
Bare branches afford other delights as well, such as this bird’s nest–a kind of solitary ornament atop a spindly, Charlie Brown Christmas tree of a sapling.
The absence of leaves makes it much easier to spy winter birds, such as blue jays, white-breasted nuthatches, downy woodpeckers, and red-bellied woodpeckers. But they remained too high up in the branches to get a good picture.
On the ground, however, the lack of greenery reveals the burn scars on trees–evidence of the stewardship necessary to maintain the health of this rare sand savanna ecosystem, a fire-dependent natural community that requires periodic burning.
Some of the trees also bear numbers, spray painted in bright orange, evidence of the effort underway to open up the tree canopy to help encourage healthy populations of rare woodland flowers. In fact, so important is Thornton-Lansing Nature Preserve that the Forest Preserve District has identified it as its #2 priority restoration site.
Next time out, we’ll be sure to visit Jurgensen Woods North Nature Preserve, a 120-acre sister site, located just across the road within the same forest preserve. But, for now, both Susan and I are perfectly content to soak up the last rays of the late afternoon sun before heading home to a New Year’s Day Dinner of Hoppin’ John.