First draft 2009-09-01 - 7 March 2011 revision

Introduction

This is the beginning of the second Ten Year Management Plan for the Sanctuary. The original one was written in 1999, so it's time to put another on to "paper". This is a work in progress, and sections are being published in no particular order. Please feel free to make suggestions by adding your comments to this piece.

The overall vision is summarized by the "mission statement" that appears on the home page. The Sanctuary is NOT a habitat restoration project. Sometimes it's a habitat enhancement project, but largely a habitat creation project. We started with what we found, which was a woodland comprised of (mostly) native tree species, many of which were planted 80 years ago. There was a ring of interesting native wildflowers, mostly spring ephemerals, along the old fence line. Several native species of wildflowers managed to establish themselves in parts of the interior, including areas of Wild Ginger, Mayapple, Starry False Solomon's Seal, and Wild Onion, with a sprinkling of Tall Bellflower. Two native shrub species were doing nicely, Chokecherry and Wild Black Currant, and Prickly Ash had established itself in a nice sized clump just northwest of the marsh..

However, most of the ground was taken over by non-native species, both those deliberately planted and others obviously adventive. Garlic mustard covered much of the central upland area, bordered by daylilies in one of the large swales. Three 15 - 20 foot tall European buckthorns were growing in a clump directly outside the northwest corner of the fence, obviously planted many years ago as landscape elements. Thousands of young buckthorns (and some not so young) were growing in the interior, especially in the northwest corner. Lilies of the valley were found in a couple of different spots, and the pretty blue early spring flowers of scilla covered large areas on the east side - as they do to this day.

Much of the land is fill, and probably virtually all the topsoil is. It would be interesting to know what's under the layer of topsoil that we're working with, but that's probably not too important. We know it's soil that was deposited here, undoubtedly before 1923. We've know it's been a bird and wildflower sanctuary for almost all of its history, and we know that some of the plants were put here by the Park District, some undoubtedly by Lincoln Park Zoo, and some by Bill Jarvis and his ad hoc group of volunteers.

What's become more apparent to me recently, as we've started discussing managing larger areas outside the fenced core, is that we need to have a vision that looks well past 10 years, which of course is a blink of the eye in landscape terms. What could this nature area look like in 50 or 100 years? What should it look like?

You might ask, why think about a time when many of the current volunteers will no longer be around? It really only makes sense when you look at the fact that much of Carl Poppe's original landscape design is what we're looking at today. He obviously was thinking long-term. It's brought home by seeing and counting the 80+ rings that those downed honey locust logs have, telling us they were planted right at the beginning of the Sanctuary's existence. It necessary when we think about the structure of this habitat, and how we change it by planting shrubs and trees, many of which will outlive us.

It also has to do with the current and future use of this area. One thing we don't see changing much is that the woodland canopy along this stretch of lakefront is used by migratory birds, and that's a very important use. So let's start with the idea that this area will need to remain a woodland, not a prairie nor an athletic field. What kind of woodland? If this were a sandy environment, like the original lakefront, we'd be thinking black oaks, but it's not. It's mostly mesic to wet soil. It's also an area that will have a native understory, so it will regularly need to be burned.

This leads us to think in terms of an oak woodland, interspersed with other species with some fire tolerance. We currently find 4 types of oaks that are mature and were undoubtedly among the original plantings. We've since planted a few trees of 2 more species of oak. What this means in terms of planning is that we need to plant trees to further this vision, and think about those trees in 50 years, and how they will influence the rest of the habitat then. It will also influence how decisions are made about removing trees that are there now. There have been only about 7 mature trees that have been removed to this point; we've lost more in storms over the last 10 years, including some like the hickory on the west edge of the marsh that really saddened us. About 3 were removed in 2001 because of the excavation to increase the size of the ponds and marsh, and to remove retaining walls that were collapsing or no longer desired. Concrete is not much of an "edge" for a nature area.

We can see that in future more trees will need to be removed for various reasons, one of which will be to give us space - and light - to allow planting oaks and hickories. If given proper care and put in the right environment, many of these trees can live for 100 - 200 or more years. That's why we need to think beyond a 10 year plan when making one.

Focus

The focus of the second 10 year plan for the Sanctuary needs to change from the first 10 year plan. The original looked mostly at what needed to be done inside the fence. None of them was completely finished, and most never really will be - weeds will need to be controlled for the foreseeable future, for example. Many others are still works in progress. A few items have barely been addressed. So a certain part of this plan is really a continuation of the first plan, which we'll discuss later in more detail. The biggest change is that we're now looking at managing extensive areas outside the fence, and they need to be thought about somewhat differently from the area inside the fence. The core area can be managed really without much regard to use by people, while the rest needs to be thought of more like most of the rest of the Chicago Park District's natural areas, which is to say that people will have a major impact.

Currently, all the areas that we're managing outside the fence are surrounded by low fencing to keep most people and dogs out. Of course there have been some incursions, but for the most part this hasn't been much of an issue. We've done this because these areas were generally bare ground that was seeded, and we needed to give the plants a chance to germinate, grow, and not be trampled. In the case of the Oak Savanna, the main reason was to stop use of the path that cuts through the center, which we wanted to seed. A question for the future will be whether we want to maintain these low fences in all these areas. On possibility is that we move the fence from the edge to the center, so that instead of surrounding the area we just have a fence to block pathways through the area. Then again we may try completely removing some of them in certain areas that have become well established. In that case, we would need to think about the fact that people will make their own paths through these plantings to the main Sanctuary fence, and plan accordingly.

For the Barry Burton Grove, the next area that we'll be planting, we'll need to use low fencing for several years, at least  while the plants become established. As this is a large area, it will take quite a bit of fencing to surround it - over 1000 feet How we accomplish this transition from turf grass parkland to publicly accessible nature area will give us a model for doing this kind of work elsewhere.

Some successes to celebrate

Removal of garlic mustard, bittersweet nightshade, buckthorn, European highbush cranberry, and white mulberry continue, but the amount we remove each season seems to be getting smaller. This is certainly the case with garlic mustard. Our first season record of over a ton of GM removed will not be surpassed. All the large European highbush cranberry has been cut, and good progress has been on much of the remainder. Buckthorn is mostly young plants with the occasional resprout. I think we finally have all the large white mulberry cut, although there are always seedlings, especially along the fences. We need to do a survey this year to confirm this.

Although never explicitly planned, the work we've been doing at the Sanctuary, changing the structure from a very closed canopy with an understory of European highbush cranberry, white mulberry, and European buckthorn to a more open woodland, has attracted new species of birds to nest there. When we started, the only nesters were House Sparrows, Starlings, Downy Woodpeckers, Northern Cardinals, American Robins, Common Grackles, and Mourning Doves - typical "yard" birds. Northern Flickers would try to nest but usually would be evicted by starlings. During the summer of 2007 we started having successful nesting of Great-crested Flycatchers and in 2009 Ruby-throated Hummingbirds! For the second season, we've had Black-billed Cuckoos (a pair was observed copulating in 2008, but no young were ever seen) and have observed an Eastern Wood Pewee singing all summer for the past several years. White-breasted Nuthatches are also seen and heard regularly, and a Hairy Woodpecker seems to have taken up residence.

Buttonbush (Cephalanthus occidentals) has become established on the edge of the marsh and the small pond, and 7 years after planting, in 2009 American white water lilies (Nymphaea odorata) made an appearance! By collecting seeds from the original 2 plants and spreading them around, we're starting to see more bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis), and we've been even more successful with jack-in-the-pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum).The area that was formerly a gravel road, on the east side, now supports fine populations of Brown-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia triloba), Purple Giant Hyssop (Agastache nepetoides), Cow Parsnip (Heracleum maximum), Calico Aster (Symphyotrichum lateriflorum) and Wingstem (Verbesina alternifolia).

Although this is something we can't take credit for, an exciting discovery occurred during the summer of 2010. While herbiciding the extensive stands of Yellow Flag Iris (Iris pseudacorus) in the marsh, we found a nice stand of Arrowhead (Sagittaria lafifolia) growing hidden among the much taller leaves of the iris. One plant of Pickerel Weed (Pontederia cordata) was also discovered in the same area. We never knew these plants were there, because we hadn't spent much time wading in the marsh.

Disappointments

Even after moving the wood duck nest box from the pond to the side of a snag, and "girdling" the snag with sheet metal to protect the box from raccoons, we never did have any wood ducks nesting there. They did nest at least twice there during the first ten years, but never used the nest box. A couple of years ago the snag was blown down in a storm and the box was demolished. It's an open question as to whether it would be worthwhile to try this again.

Spicebush (Lindera benzoin) was another failure. We planted about ten of them, at two different times, and none have survived. In hindsight, I'm sure the reason was that they were planted in an area that was a little too dry. We may try these yet again, but in a different and much wetter spot.

The biggest disappointments were losing a few species entirely. One was Nodding Trillium (Trillium flexipes). While there were only a few plants to begin with, they seem to have disappeared entirely in the last several years. We also lost all the Leiberg's Panic Grass (Dichanthelium leibergii) and Little Bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium) we planted at the south edge back in 2002. A drought the following summer seems to have been the cause of the demise of hundreds of these plugs. Interestingly, the Tall Meadow Rue Thalictrum dasycarpum) plugs that were planted at the same time, in the same area, survived and now form a large stand of healthy, tall plants.

One new project that we were hoping we wouldn't have is the removal of
yet another invasive species. In 2009 we discovered Japanese Hedge
Parsley (Torilis japonica) growing along and inside the
south fence. We'll remove what we can immediately; we hope we can get
most of the seed before it drops, as this plant is an annual. It's one
we'll need to get to know when it's small so that we can pull it before
it gets to the seed bearing stage.

Continuing...

The management goals outlined in the first ten year plan are still the same:

• Enhancement of existing natural communities: forest, marsh, and wooded pond ecosystems
• Removal of invasive alien plant species
• Replacement of select non-native plants with native species
• Increasing biodiversity of site by introducing appropriate native plant and animal species
• Enhancement of habitat to provide food and shelter for migratory birds
• Long-term monitoring of habitat

To these we will add "savanna ecosystem", as we have now started to actively manange the area under the oaks at the southwest corner of the Sanctuary outside the main fence. We'll also lose the word "select" as our goal over the next ten years will be replacement of virtually all non-native plants. One exception will be that we won't remove the one ginkgo tree that we have just inside the north fence. There are a few other species that are native to just south of the Chicago area that we may keep, guessing that their ranges will move north over the coming years as the average temperature increases. These will include black locust, which will will still need to control because of it's propensity to become very weedy.

Plans for introducing herps are proceeding, and we look to bring in,
initially, American toads and bullfrogs. More work on the marsh needs to
be completed, but we are targeting spring of 2012 for the first
introductions.

Future - New ideas and opportunites

Water is an essential part of this Sanctuary. It's used by birds and animals all year, and it's habitat in its own right. A buffalo box that started spouting water after some adjustments were made to the flow of water into the 2 main ponds has formed another very shallow pond at the central eastern area of the "Black Currant Swale." This has now become the main "bird bath", as it's in the middle of the woodland, there is good cover on all sides, and the pond's less-than-an-inch-to-inches-shallow depth is ideal for small birds wanting to "bathe".

Another leaking buffalo box west of the "grotto" area, in the central part of the 4th swale, was in a low spot that seemed to have always been an ephemeral pond, getting larger in the spring and turning into a muddy spot in the drier parts of summer. This pond tested highest for chlorine is the testing done for us by the Shedd Aquarium, probably because the sample was taken very near the buffalo box, which is somewhat hidden by fallen tree limb.

However, this also presents us with the opportunity to create another pond which will drain in to the marsh. A large stand of daylillies grew just west of this pond, and blocked drainage to the marsh. That, and the level of the pond itself was never high enough to sustain the flow of even a very small stream. Some of the daylillies there have since been herbicided, and the spot that they grew in seems like it would support a small stream with banks of plants that grow in very wet, somewhat shady situation, like lizard's tail and water horehound. This is what we will attempt to establish over the next several years in this area.