Spring 2001

North Branch Restoration Project volunteers have been working to restore the open savanna, bringing back an abundance of native wildflowers

Cook County, Illinois

As the bike path winds along the bluff above the North Branch of the Chicago River, it takes the rider or hiker through the Forest Preserve known as Bunker Hill/Edgebrook Flatwoods. Bounded by a parking lot on the north, Caldwell Avenue on the east, the North Branch on the west, and Devon Avenue on the south, the site is approximately 100 acres and lies primarily within the Chicago city limits. It encompasses a mosaic of open savanna, oak woodland, and flatwoods.

Flatwoods are unusual communities that have an underlying stratum of clay, causing them to hold water for long periods of time in the wet season. The presence of this rather rare community earned the site its designation as an Illinois Natural Areas Inventory site. Soil cores show a 12-inch layer of beautiful white sand under the clay: this area was once covered by glacial Lake Chicago.

This tract was part of the lands granted to Native American Billy Caldwell, who was also called Sauganash. Its history includes both logging and grazing activity. The land was acquired by the Forest Preserve District in five separate purchases between 1916 and 1931.

Early maps and aerial photos show that the area now recognized as open savanna was maintained as open ground — apparently by regular mowing — for as long as the District has held the property. In 1977, after gaining the approval of the Forest Preserve District, a small group of volunteers began to remove encroaching brush and restore the native grasses and wildflowers. Known today as the North Branch Restoration Project, this group of citizens has been assisting the Forest Preserve District in restoring health to natural areas for the last 20 years. The work started at a time when scientists and land managers had just begun to recognize that salvaging remnants of native ecosystems was terribly important.

NBRP is a community organization made up of teachers, office workers, students, doctors, truck drivers, writers, musicians, young and old and mostly in between. The common denominator among these citizens is an abiding concern for the health and continued existence of these rare places.

In the spring, a visitor to the open savanna at dusk may be privileged to enjoy the mating displays of woodcocks spiraling into the air and singing their queer "peenting" song. In the woodland just south of the savanna, hepatica, toothwort, and bloodroot announce the beginning of the new season, rushing to grab the sunlight before the trees leaf out. Later, phlox, geranium, and golden Alexanders will brighten the woodland floor. By late May, balsam ragwort and mountain blue-eyed grass will begin to flower.

When restoration work began here, most native savanna plants were just hanging on. The return of fire in 1984 began the road back to good health. Since then, there have been a total of 17 prescribed burns of various parts of the site.

The area now abounds with native wildflowers such as blazing star, obedient plant, mountain mint, prairie sundrops; native grasses such as big bluestem, northern dropseed, Indian grass; and a healthy population of the state-endangered mountain blue-eyed grass. Many young pin oaks and swamp white oaks now dot the opening. Song sparrows sing from the tops of bushes. American painted lady and swallowtail butterflies nectar on the wide variety of wildflowers, while purple maniac and great golden digger wasps hover among the blossoms. An unusual dragonfly, one of the rainpool gliders, was sighted for the first time just last summer, cruising in large numbers over the open savanna.

While it has been inspiring to many to watch the land respond to management over the last 20 years, this site was one of two that were caught up in politics that resulted in a moratorium on management activities. Under a moratorium imposed in spring of 1996, changes have begun to occur that foretell trouble for the site. In the absence of fire, brush is increasing rapidly throughout the open savanna and, if unchecked, will eventually shade out the sun-loving plants and all the animals that depend on them. These fragile islands of nature, embedded as they are in a populous urban area, require good stewardship to prosper. Some would say that we humans also need the presence of these places to prosper ourselves. — Jane Balaban