I got all giddy last night after work because I decided to finally explore the Somme Prairie Grove in Northbrook IL. It’s about 90 acres of savanna, prairie, woodland, and ephemeral ponds which is bordered by two four lane roads, a major interstate, and some very busy train tracks. So it’s quite an unlikely location for what is actually an astounding preserve.
After about two hours of walking around the preserve I saw an amazing amount of wildlife. I have an untrained eye mind you, but I saw all kinds of birds including but not limited to Orioles, Woodpeckers, Thrashers, Cardinals, I think a Blue Jay, a Hawk (swooping down for a kill), and the highlight was an Owl pellet.
I’ve been studying Owls the last couple days and the main focus of my hike was to look for evidence of Owls and sure enough I found it! The pellet itself was fairly large and it had what looked to be some teeth and a bone in the middle of the fur ball. My best guess is that it was from a Great Horned Owl. I plan on spending quite a bit of time in Somme Prairie in hopes to catch a glimpse of an Owl.
Check this Owl out, he’s all like “say whaaaaaaa?”
Anywho, while I was walking through the savanna, prairie, and woodlands I got this overwhelming sense of disappointment. Not from the beauty around me, but from the lack of preserves of this caliber in the state of Illinois. Less than 17% of prairies in Illinois are larger than 10 acres leaving the rest to be small isolated patches in local parks and preserves. Illinois proudly proclaims itself to be the “prairie state” yet it contains such precious little prairie. All that’s left of what used to be prairie, savanna, and woodland as far as the eye can see is urban and suburban sprawl and a ton of monoculture corporate farmland. That makes places like Somme incredibly valuable as a stronghold of an ecosystem that once was.
I also got this sense that most people have completely lost their connection to the native ecosystem they live in. Probably because nobody really lives in a “native ecosystem” unless you consider a sea of pavement, Wal-Marts, manicured lawns, and cell phone towers to be a native ecosystem (there’s an argument there.) But for the most part we go through our daily lives with little or no regard to our natural environment. Even things so tangible and natural such as the weather are barely noticed, save for the BS small talk. How can there be any hope for a grassland ecosystem and the flora and fauna there in, when the people who live amongst it don’t even know it?
There is hope because biophillia is strong. In all of us resides a very real and strong connection to nature. It’s just deeper and harder to thaw out for some. But It only takes a little time and reflection in a place as beautiful as Somme to rekindle that connection in a person. This is why we need to fight like hell to protect and preserve places like Somme and work towards their expansion as well as development of new conservation projects where possible. We all need to do our part to help this cause. I for one plan on volunteering at Somme this summer, but for others it can be difficult to find a place to start. I suggest starting by talking a walk through a local prairie preserve.
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