Summer 2003

The subtle roll of prairie landscape interspersed with cattail marsh... muskrat tracks and needle spike rush line the mudbanks of the creek

Will County, Illinois

For training one's eyes to appreciate the subtle roll of prairie landscape, there are few better vistas than Rock Run Preserve, a 178-acre wetland and prairie just west of Joliet. Seen from the preserve's northern footbridge, Rock Run Creek etches the lightest of lines in a southwesterly curve of cattail marsh and sedge meadow, backed by a low ridge that would hardly be called contour in a rougher landscape. Nothing breaks the soft, nearly mile-long progression from grasses to reeds and back to grasses.

In the border marsh along the stream, cattails rule an empire of touch-me-nots, tall meadow rue, and blue vervain, a pretty summer flower. A colony of wild rice, unusual in the area, rustles in one of the creek's pools. Muskrat prints line the mud banks, where the grass-like needle spike rush grows. This plant profits from the cycle of floods and low water that drowns or dries out competitors. Beavers, lacking solid timber, have woven a dam of cattail reeds and a few strands of willow beneath a short footbridge, creating a fishpond around which red-winged blackbirds sing conk-a-ree and marsh wrens perch in the reeds.

Restoration is in its infancy at Rock Run Preserve, much of which the district assembled after voters approved more than $50 million for land purchases in a 1999 bond referendum. "The thing about Rock Run Preserve is not only the wetland, but the fact that there's so much prairie around it," says district ecologist Floyd Catchpole. "One of our restoration goals was to back the trees away from the stream and open up the landscape," he explains. "If perching birds don't have a high place to sit and hawk' from, it helps butterflies like the wetland skippers and prairie insects that fly in straight lines."

Now that the few outlying trees and shrubs have been removed, the Rock Run visitor can experience an unimpeded view from stream and marsh to higher elevations. First, cattail gives way to a meadow band of tussock sedge and unusual glade mallow. A strip of wet prairie takes over next, where great blue lobelia and the white flowers of turtlehead blossom in midsummer amid cord grass. The prairie merges into a drier belt where taller big bluestem grass grows above golden Alexander. Each plant community draws a subtle stripe across the contours of the land. Buckthorn once crowded out the highest, driest strip — the upland prairie — but brush-cutting workdays and a recent burn have replenished the grasses and given a patch of rare slender scurfy pea space to spread.

Early each summer, Blanding's turtles amble out of the marsh to scrape out nests in the upland gravel. Hatchlings of this endangered species have been found near the edge of a shallow pond — a former quarry — so the restoration aims to protect habitat for each phase of the turtle's life cycle.

The improved upland habitat should also provide nesting spots for eastern meadowlarks, seeds for song sparrows and goldfinches, and glide paths for northern harriers flying in low arcs to flush out voles, according to Catchpole. He's crossing his fingers that bobolinks might establish residence by moving over from nearby Midewin grasslands.

The preserve offers picnic shelters by permit, restrooms, and three miles of trails with links to the seven-mile Rock Run Greenway bike trail. For additional information and maps of Rock Run Preserve and the bike trail, call (815) 727-8700.

— Ryan Chew