[BCNnet] New Montrose Beach Dunes interpretive signage * * No Sightings * *

[Leslie Borns]

Hello BCNnet,

Montrose Beach Dunes got a facelift this spring.  The Chicago Park District has just installed three lovely interpretive signs.  The large, 4/color signs were the last phase of a several years' effort to improve and enhance the dunes under a state grant called the Conservation 2000.

The signs are:  1. Welcome & History (two-sided); 2. Birds (panoramic); and 3. The Dune Landscape (panoramic).  Almost all of the featured photos were taken and donated by dune birders and volunteers, many of whom you know, saving the Park District many $$ and giving an authentic and intimate feel to the displays.  Please join us in thanking and honoring Emil Martinec, Mike Green, Nolan Lameka, Steve Spitzer, Brian Kala, Mike Naylor, and Carol Freeman for their breathtaking images that help eloquently tell the story of the dunes.

Montrose Beach Dunes is an 11-acre foredune restoration on Chicago's lakefront containing many rare native plants and animals, and a globally imperiled wetland type called a panne.The site was placed on the Illinois Natural Areas Inventory in 2005 because it features important elements of Illinois' natural heritage and is unique in occurring in a large urban area.  No one could have imagined in the early '90's that a few sprouts of vegetation on Chicago's largest public beach would evolve into the high quality habitat we have today.  The Montrose "experiment," as one Illinois Department of Natural Resources biologist has called it, taught everyone how quickly our precious Great Lakes ecosystems can heal and regenerate with proper protection and invasives control.

So here's to another season of beauty and discovery, and good spring birding to all!

Leslie Borns
cakile at att.net
Chicago/Cook
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