Backyard biodiversity

Beautify your landscape while supporting wildlife with native plants

Early in the 20th century, Jens Jensen, the landscape designer of Springfield’s Lincoln Memorial Garden, and groups such as the Friends of Our Native Landscape and The Prairie Club, began extoll

Return to Emiquon

A grand reawakening for the Illinois River wetland wildlife preserve

In 2000, The Nature Conservancy purchased 7,100 acres of farmland approximately 55 miles northwest of Springfield near Havana and Lewistown, Ill., with the intent of returning it to a semblance of its

Consider the possibility

Dr. Sandra Steingraber imagines an Illinois that stops poisoning its people with cancer-causing chemicals.

Untitled Document Did you find your jeans, Sandy?” Feet are scurrying about upstairs. A faint “Yes” floats down the stairwell. Kay St

Pedal Power

Why aren't more of us commuting on two wheels?

Untitled Document A number of videos on YouTube and a recent article in the Wall Street Journal have featured a subject that obviously captivates everyone, from the hip to t

Battered but beautiful

Life goes on at a troubled oxbow lake of the Illinois River

"Populations” and “communities” are ecological terms describing scientific premises, but the large groups of waterfowl resting on Lake DePue, chattering among themselves, s

A day at Bison Beach

Archaeologists uncover the first evidence of an aboriginal bison kill in Illinois

The e-mailed invitation from Alan Harn, archaeologist at the Dickson Mounds Museum, is succinct and inviting: “Temperature and weather tomorrow look good for a day of bison snooping on

Bird's-eye view

Sunrise over the Merwin Preserve at Spunky Bottoms wetland is breathtaking. The water is aglow and alive with vegetation rising from its shallow depths. Great numbers of waterfowl are here a

The reawakening

"There can be no purpose more inspiriting than to begin the age of restoration, reweaving the wondrous diversity of life that still surrounds us." Ñ Edward O. Wilson, The Diversity of

The song of Jens Jensen

He believed nature is art, and left Lincoln Memorial Garden as his legacy

I arrived at the Lincoln Memorial Garden with the intention of finding music in the trees. In the past I have spent the Illinois winters tucked resolutely indoors, delving into literature and jazz in