Following The Conservation Foundation annual luncheon, I headed out to visit three Nature Preserves in DuPage County. My first stop was Truitt Hoff, located in West Chicago Prairie Forest Preserve. My second stop was Churchill Prairie, a part of Churchill Woods Forest Preserve.
One of the questions asked at the annual luncheon was what is the difference between forest preserves and dedicated Nature Preserves? The nation’s first county forest preserve district was formed in Illinois. The Forest Preserve District of Cook County was established in 1914. Several other northeastern Illinois counties followed suit, including DuPage County, which established its forest preserve district in 1915.
Our region’s forest preserve districts contain many exquisite natural area gems — areas of exceptional beauty and biodiversity. However, early in his career, George Fell observed that there was nothing in the enabling legislation that prohibited county forest preserves — or state parks, park districts, etc. — from developing even the most sensitive ecological areas for recreational or other purposes.
This sparked George’s life long crusade to permanently protect our highest value natural areas, on private lands as well as within publicly-owned lands. In fact, among the first nature preserves dedicated following the passage of the Illinois Natural Areas Preservation Act in 1963, were 11 within the Forest Preserve District of Cook County — the finest gems, if you will, within the county’s emerald necklace of greenspace.
Churchill Prairie was dedicated as a Nature Preserve in 1993, the year before George Fell passed away at the age of 77. His legacy lives on, however, in the beauty of this and now more than 400 other dedicated Nature Preserves.
The 65-acre Churchill Prairie Nature Preserve actually consists of a “complex patchwork” of different kinds of natural area community types, including a couple different kinds of prairie, sedge meadow, mesic upland forest, dry mesic upland forest and savanna.
The Forest Preserve District of DuPage County has been conducting some extensive restoration of the site, and it shows. The savanna — known as Babcock Grove — has been cleared of invasive brush, which restores its transitional state between prairie and forest. Ecologically speaking, this is an ecotone — where two natural communities meet and support a particularly rich array of plants and animals.
Earlier in the day, at Truitt Hoff, I was blown away by the diversity of dragonflies patrolling the site. At Churchill Prairie, it was all about birds. Adult bluebirds and Baltimore orioles — flashing blue and bright orange against the green canopy of the savanna — were far too busy gathering insects to feed their nestlings for me to get a good picture. But a downy woodpecker was a little more cooperative.
If there is one thing George Fell may not have appreciated about the site, it is the wide, crushed stone path. As mentioned in the blog post about Truitt Hoff, George preferred “Indian trails,” as he called them — narrow footpaths that maximized the amount of nature. Most Illinois Nature Preserves Commissioners — in George’s day and today — prefer trails that invite the public to enjoy the best remaining natural areas in the state. Sorry, George, but the Regional Trail that runs through Churchill Prairie does just that. I could have walked it back and forth for hours, but I had one more Nature Preserve to visit…on to Belmont Prairie.