{"id":1039,"date":"2017-05-08T15:16:41","date_gmt":"2017-05-08T19:16:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/restorationnewsmidwest.wordpress.com\/?p=1039"},"modified":"2018-02-01T16:49:29","modified_gmt":"2018-02-01T21:49:29","slug":"restoration-and-the-season-of-migrations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chapter.ser.org\/midwestgreatlakes\/2017\/05\/08\/restoration-and-the-season-of-migrations\/","title":{"rendered":"Restoration and the Season of Migrations&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Over the weekend we celebrated <a href=\"http:\/\/www.birdday.org\/\">International Migratory Bird Day<\/a>\u00a0with a hike around one of the Cook County forest preserves, <a href=\"http:\/\/fpdcc.com\/nature-centers\/crabtree-nature-center\/\">Crabtree Nature Center<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0 It was gratifying to see the ongoing restoration progress at this site &#8211; which seems to be getting better year by year. \u00a0 One of our favorite trails goes out into open grasslands &#8211; which has gotten recent attention over the past winter via the clearing of some dead ash trees and other secondary and invasive species:<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1036\" src=\"https:\/\/restorationnewsmidwest.files.wordpress.com\/2017\/05\/img_4899.jpg\" alt=\"IMG_4899\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1536\" \/><\/p>\n<p>While the sight of this wood pile might be off putting to some, it&#8217;s worth reminding visitors what&#8217;s at stake here: the expansion and improvement of grassland habitat, which currently makes up a tiny fraction of the Illinois landscape. \u00a0 I was happy to see a (deer-nibbled!) Jack-in-the-Pulpit bravely emerging from the newly cleared ground plane:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1037\" src=\"https:\/\/chapter.ser.org\/midwestgreatlakes\/files\/2017\/05\/img_4901-1.jpg\" alt=\"IMG_4901\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1536\" srcset=\"https:\/\/chapter.ser.org\/midwestgreatlakes\/files\/2017\/05\/img_4901-1.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/chapter.ser.org\/midwestgreatlakes\/files\/2017\/05\/img_4901-1-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/chapter.ser.org\/midwestgreatlakes\/files\/2017\/05\/img_4901-1-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/chapter.ser.org\/midwestgreatlakes\/files\/2017\/05\/img_4901-1-1024x768.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Looking in a different direction, one can see where controlled burns have also been employed:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1038\" src=\"https:\/\/chapter.ser.org\/midwestgreatlakes\/files\/2017\/05\/img_4904.jpg\" alt=\"IMG_4904\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1536\" srcset=\"https:\/\/chapter.ser.org\/midwestgreatlakes\/files\/2017\/05\/img_4904.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/chapter.ser.org\/midwestgreatlakes\/files\/2017\/05\/img_4904-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/chapter.ser.org\/midwestgreatlakes\/files\/2017\/05\/img_4904-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/chapter.ser.org\/midwestgreatlakes\/files\/2017\/05\/img_4904-1024x768.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>These open fields descend gradually into adjacent wetlands. \u00a0What&#8217;s the payoff? \u00a0In just this section of the trail we were treated to distant view of two Sandhill cranes that have apparently nested here this year, as well as the sound of a Sora calling from the wet areas nearby:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1056\" src=\"https:\/\/chapter.ser.org\/midwestgreatlakes\/files\/2017\/05\/img_4897.jpg\" alt=\"IMG_4897\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1536\" srcset=\"https:\/\/chapter.ser.org\/midwestgreatlakes\/files\/2017\/05\/img_4897.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/chapter.ser.org\/midwestgreatlakes\/files\/2017\/05\/img_4897-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/chapter.ser.org\/midwestgreatlakes\/files\/2017\/05\/img_4897-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/chapter.ser.org\/midwestgreatlakes\/files\/2017\/05\/img_4897-1024x768.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Elsewhere in the vicinity we caught glimpses of a possible osprey, and migrating American white pelicans. \u00a0Such restoration efforts help provide habitat for these amazing birds. \u00a0 Keep looking up!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Over the weekend we celebrated International Migratory Bird Day\u00a0with a hike around one of the Cook County forest preserves, Crabtree Nature Center.\u00a0\u00a0 It was gratifying to see the ongoing restoration [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[16,77,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-practitioner-posts","category-restorationnewsmidwest","category-restoration-research"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chapter.ser.org\/midwestgreatlakes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chapter.ser.org\/midwestgreatlakes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chapter.ser.org\/midwestgreatlakes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chapter.ser.org\/midwestgreatlakes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chapter.ser.org\/midwestgreatlakes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chapter.ser.org\/midwestgreatlakes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1039\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chapter.ser.org\/midwestgreatlakes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chapter.ser.org\/midwestgreatlakes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chapter.ser.org\/midwestgreatlakes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}