Purplish Copper
Burlington Prairie may be the only site in Illinois with a large (therefore sustainable) population of a striking little butterfly called the purplish copper. The caterpillar eats swamp smartweed and the adult sips nectar from the same plant. But last year all three stands of swamp smartweed burned to the ground. Lepidopterists feared that the orange, gray and purple butterfly may have been harmed or even destroyed. Instead, the little flitters had a banner year. "You couldn't walk without getting pelted by these rare butterflies," said butterfly monitor Melanie Manner. "There were easily thousands. The marsh almost shimmered with them." One year's freak results? Or does this butterfly have adaptations to the fires that once raged across this region?

Corporate Prairie
The 20,000 acres of Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie is just a start, according to Rick Randolph of Amoco Chemical's Wildlife Enhancement Restoration Committee. The Committee is helping to restore prairie that is part of the 160,000-acre Prairie Parklands conservation planning area, which includes Goose Lake Prairie, Midewin, and much more corporate and farm land. Illinois DNR recently granted $10,500 in Conservation 2000 funds to help the Amoco project. Said Midewin's Larry Stritch, "If we are truly going to restore the biodiversity of the region, it will not be on government land only. With this grant, Amoco and its Joliet plant employees have stepped up to the plate. This kind of partnership is what Chicago Wilderness is all about."

Nice Place to Live
Dundee Township is getting greener and greener. "But it was no slam dunk," says conservation advocate June Keibler. In 1988, she and others worked to place a referendum on the ballot that would have established a Township Open Space District. It was defeated by 25 votes. After more work, in November of 1996, a similar referendum passed handily. Dundee is the second township in the state to pass an open space district referendum; Libertyville was the first. The noble and forward-thinking citizenry of Dundee Township not only established the District, they also voted to increase their property taxes to raise $18,000,000 (2.5% of the assessed valuation of the township) to buy conservation land. "People want nature to survive in our midst," June said. Currently, the township is in the process of negotiating for three parcels, amounting to 200 acres, all adjoining protected sites (Helms Woods, Binney Woods, and Raceway Woods).

Languid Grass Triumphs
The Illinois-endangered languid bluegrass (Poa languida) was known to survive only in Lake County when volunteer steward Dennis Nyberg found it in Cook County's Cranberry Slough Nature Preserve in 1992. Nyberg, a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, thought the tiny population needed help. So five years ago, coordinating with the Illinois Endangered Species Protection Board, Nyberg germinated several of the wild seeds and grew the plants in a greenhouse for two seasons — long enough for them to produce a great many more seeds. Sown back in the wild, these seeds have raised the population of Poa languida approximately 10-fold in only three years.

Black Rail and More
"At first it seemed like just open space," says Lake County (IN) Park District director Bob Nickovich. The District wisely bought 700 acres of old truck farms and brushland before it got developed. Nickovich planted 130 acres with a few species of native grasses, broke the drainage tiles, and burned. A decade later, researchers found scores of rare prairie species had restored themselves, the likely source being the adjacent railroad right-of way. Sandy O'Brien and others organized Friends of Oak Ridge Prairie. "We encouraged the District to do ecological inventories and manage the site accordingly," says O'Brien. Nickovich is glad they did. Volunteer and professional researchers have to date found 11 imperiled animal species and 20 plants. What's more, the brushland — after burning — began to blossom with small yellow ladyslipper, Bicknel's geranium and other rarities of savanna and open woodland. Nine species of orchids have been found. A breeding bird survey in '95-96 turned up Henslow's sparrow, American bittern, sedge wren and 67 other species. The extremely rare and elusive black rail was caught in a turtle trap by a herpetologist. It was released unharmed.

River Runs Cleaner
Maps call it the Skokie Ditch. But it's becoming more like the prairie stream it once was. Last October, researchers from the Chicago Botanic Garden and Illinois Department of Natural Resources found the blackside darter where in-stream plantings had been installed during 1993-1996. This species prefers clean water and vegetated pools. The area had been sampled since 1976; no blackside darters had been seen — until now.

War Zone?
This past December, Ferson Creek Fen looked like a battle scene from World War I. Deep trenches riddled the nature preserve, cutting through upland buffer and degraded parts of the wetland. But this was actually a scene of healing. In four days, the St. Charles Park District removed 4,420 feet of agricultural tile (much more than expected), which had unnaturally drained water from this wetland area. "It was major surgery," said the District's Manager of Natural Resources and Interpretation Mary Ochsenschlager, "but we expect a speedy recovery and a much healthier preserve."

Wet Badge of Honor
Countless wet lives were saved on Mark Landmeir's way to becoming an Eagle scout. Last July, Mark and a dozen friends in Troop 13 salvaged hundreds of clumps of wetland plants (including all the little oozy creatures that live in the muck around their roots). The donor site was a future subdivision road through a spring-fed wetland in Carpentersville. The restoration site was a once-landfilled, now cleaned-out spring-fed wetland in Campton Hills Park (St. Charles Park District). In all, 25 people, two dump trucks and a lot of plastic shopping bags saved hundreds of clumps, featuring such species as swamp agrimony, Dudley's rush, and the twayblade orchid. Mark and friends, the ecosystem thanks you.

Friends of the Nippersink
McHenry County Defenders is helping the fledgling Friends of the Nippersink Creek organize people from both sides of the Wisconsin/Illinois border to protect this rich watershed. The Nippersink travels over 30 miles, through several rare savanna/woodland remnants before it joins the Fox River. Home to two endangered and one threatened species of mussel, the creek is one of the highest quality streams in the region. Twenty-one animal and 30 plant species found in the watershed are listed as endangered or threatened in Illinois. These include Iowa darter, king rail, black tern, hooded ladies' tresses, and Hill's thistle. The Friends look forward to several activities, such as a spring "mussel shuffle" (mussel identification workshop), clean up, and canoe tour.

Powis Power
Until last year, only three-to-five shooting stars had been seen blooming in this 1/2-mile long and 100-foot wide tract of prairie sandwiched between two railroad tracks. But the ailing prairie was burned three times ('94, '95, '96) and this past season — Voila! — 200-300 blossoms! Same with the Michigan lilies (less than 10 in recent years; in '97 more than 50). "These plants were not seeded into Powis Prairie; they came back solely due to return of fire," according to volunteer steward Bill Gunderson.

A Fen Indeed
Stopta Fen is just one of many sites that the Southeastern WI Regional Planning Commission recently recommended for protection. Following an exhaustive study of the seven counties, Stopta Fen was determined to be of statewide significance for its high quality plant and animal communities.

Currently owned by Wilmot Ski Hills, the report expresses concern that the rare species of the nine-acre site may be threatened by ski-hill operations. Among the unusual plant species present are beaked spike-rush and false asphodel.

Saw What?
In the category of side benefits of restoration: On December 3rd, volunteers clearing buckthorn at North Park Village in Chicago spied a saw-whet owl only a few feet away. As is often true with saw-whets, it wasn't at all skittish. The volunteers were working right up to the trunk of its tree. On a branch of that tree, about seven feet off the ground, sat the bird, watching them.

Glenview Airfield Prairie
The Village of Glenview has agreed to protect 14 acres of the prairie on the 1,120 acres of decommissioned airfield it is receiving from the Navy. But 14 acres may not be enough to save either the site's endangered plants or any of the breeding prairie birds. Village officials indicate that perhaps more land could be saved if complex finances could be worked out. An advocacy group, Glenview Prairie Preservation Project, is trying to help find solutions. "Glenview Trustees did vote to set aside 215 acres for a private, tournament-quality golf course and a par three course. Like the existing public course in Glenview, these lands will be of no value to prairie birds," said member Sandy Hausman. When the Village earlier polled Glenview residents, hundreds said "Save the Prairie." A few said, "We don't need any more greenspace," according to one official, "but they were just a handful."

Birds, Yes! Buckthorn, No!
The 480 acres of Spears Woods in Cook County is now 80% clear of mature buckthorn. (Some stands were intentionally left standing because they deter damage to erodable slopes by the destructive small minority of law-breaking, off-trail-riding mountain bikers and equestrians.) "Zapping this buckthorn represents over 8,000 hours of work on the site," says steward Steve Bubulka. Beginning in 1990, more than 100 volunteers cut down at least 20,000 buckthorn trees, ranging from 1 to 6" in diameter. According to bird monitor Conrad Fialkowski, the woods at Spears are a great place to see great-crested flycatcher, tufted titmouse and rose-breasted grosbeak. The grassy and shrubby savannas support goldfinch, catbird and eastern kingbird. Four new species have returned to breed since the restoration began: eastern bluebird, orchard oriole, yellow-throated vireo, and blue-winged warbler.

Santa Fe Prairie
After more than a decade of often apparently hopeless negotiations, the Santa Fe-Burlington Railroad "virtually donated" this land to Illinois and Michigan Canal National Heritage Corridor Civic Center Authority in August, 1997. When volunteers were first recruited to adopt the site, off-road-vehicles had destroyed nearly half of it. Signs, police, and barriers of piled buckthorn gradually secured this rare mesic gravel prairie. The Railroad has also donated a caboose to convert into a visitor center. In the end, the railroad was true to its name, "saintly." But the biggest halos hover over the heads of Stan Johnson, Karen Stasky, Greg Starr and others, who have effectively and angelically fought for the prairie all these years.

Americorps in Calumet
Last fall 15 teenagers from around the U.S. spent six weeks of hard work at the Clark and Pine East preserve in Gary and along the Kankakee River. "They cut more buckthorn than we'd hoped to cut in 10 years," says The Nature Conservancy's Paul Labus who supervised. The effort was deeply collaborative: the Americorps jobs program supplied the labor and Northern Indiana Power Company (NIPSCo) paid for their food. "NIPSCo has been a great partner in regional environmental initiatives," says Labus. The kids gain experience in natural resource management, earn tuition money, and feel good about hard, important work.

Volunteer Goes Pro
While a Ph.D. biochemist for Amoco, Doug Taron was "just a volunteer" in Chicago Wilderness. As co-steward at Bluff Spring Fen, Doug was one of the first to realize that stewards needed to pay attention to invertebrate animals. Beginning in 1987, Doug did the patient, generous work of organizing the nation's first Butterfly Monitoring Network (45 trained monitors consistently monitoring 30 to 35 sites per year). "Every winter when I enter the data, I am amazed by its high quality," he says. Already, many stewards are adjusting management plans to conserve invertebrate animals as a response, direct and indirect, to this work. In July, 1997, Doug Taron became exhibit coordinator at the Chicago Academy of Sciences, in charge of developing "The Butterfly Haven," a two-part butterfly museum (a greenhouse with free-flying butterflies and an interpretive area with exhibits on butterfly biology and ecology). Now there's a new institutional home for the network. Nice work, Doug, if you can get it, and you did!

Pro Goes Volunteer
Wayne Lampa is one of the most highly respected ecologists in the region, a pioneer in the restoration and monitoring of ecosystems of all types. So it came as a shock that he accepted early retirement from the DuPage County Forest Preserve District on January 1, 1996. But not to worry! He immediately signed up as volunteer steward of Green Valley Forest Preserve, a site that he had once overseen as a professional. "I worked as hard this year as before I retired," says Lampa. He enjoys having more freedom to choose which projects to work on and to speak on conservation issues. He does miss helping to plan and steer the direction of the FPD, where he worked more than 25 years, but he's confident that it is in good hands. Lampa also works part-time consulting with the Conservation Research Institute in Elmhurst.