Into the Wild

Waubonsee Community College

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Kane County, IL

PREPARATIONS FOR GRADUATION are only some of the signs of spring on the campus of Waubonsee Community College in west suburban Sugar Grove, Illinois. The other is the arrival of a pair of breeding sandhill cranes in the wet meadow on the campus’ east side. The cranes first set up housekeeping in the spring of 2003 and have returned each year since.

They, along with a host of other birds — wood ducks, bobolinks, green herons, and Baltimore orioles — are drawn by the return of attractive habitat. Wetlands, woodlands, and a small prairie now occupy roughly 87 acres of Waubonsee’s 243-acre campus, most of it concentrated on the campus’ southeast corner. For about ten years, volunteers at the college, including students, faculty, staff, and interested neighbors, have worked to return some of the campus’ open space to its natural state. In the process, they hope to increase biodiversity and provide educational opportunities for students and the public.

The soggy 70-acre marsh, part of it owned by the Forest Preserve District of Kane County, was once a sea of invasive reed canary grass. Now it reveals cup plants, jewelweed, and blue vervain. In 2001, a wetland survey turned up 56 native species; in 2005, the survey found 79. Virgil Gilman Trail follows Blackberry Creek and bisects the marsh before terminating on the Waubonsee campus, having come some 11 miles from Montgomery to the east. Right off the trail, four monitoring wells around the marsh measure water levels, which are influenced by runoff from the college. Trail users are invited to record measurements at one of the wells.

In the once-dense woods across from the administration building, thick invasive buckthorn and garlic mustard have given ground to sun-loving Jack-in-the-pulpit and wild geranium. Out on the small three-acre prairie near the south entrance, weedy thistle has taken a backseat to shooting stars and rosinweed. But there’s much more work to do. The property has been a farm, a gravel pit, and a riding academy. The mining operations left mounds of gravel and a gravel quarry, now a small pond. Work to heal the inattention of the past includes planting native trees such as redbud, bitternut hickory, and oak in the savanna on the west side. Plenty of buckthorn awaits work crews in the north-side woodland. And the college will continue to burn and scatter seed in its prairie. Volunteers actually grow some of the seed in a nursery near the wetland, where they tend plants such as ironweed, cup plant, blazing star, and Michigan lily. In past years, deer decimated donated Michigan lilies the night after planting, so staff have been fencing any new lilies before planting is even finished.

The college holds workdays twice each semester (general public welcome). To help out this spring, call (630) 466-2454. Site steward and chemistry instructor Barbara Gore usually springs for pizza.

—LeAnn Spencer