The pursuit of birds often takes you to outstanding natural areas. Sometimes these areas are unlikely places and increasingly, they have been restored from previous, less than pristine conditions. All of this was true of the North Unit of Illinois Beach State Park.
What brought me and my good friend Bill Drucker here was a quest for a grassland bird species that had eluded me for years: the Dickcissel. When we discovered that this species had been seen recently at Illinois Beach State Park, we decided to make the one hour trip north of Chicago and try our luck. We had no idea what awaited us there.
Not only did we find a Dickcissel relatively soon, but we found at least a dozen of them singing and perching atop Cattails. In addition, we discovered an ecological wonderland near Zion, Illinois, close to the Wisconsin/Illinois border. The “North Unit of Camp Logan” should perhaps be renamed to “North Prairie Wonderland” or “Prairie/Dunes Extravaganza.” It is an impressively restored natural area.
Upon entering the North Unit, or former Camp Logan, which sounded drab, institutional and distinctly un-natural, we were amazed to find instead a 243-acre native prairie. This is a big deal in Illinois aka “The Prairie State.” Despite its lovely moniker, according to the Illinois Natural History survey, only .01% of the state’s original prairies remain intact. To put this into perspective, just 2,300 acres of high-quality prairie are left in a state that once had 22 million acres of prairie in 1820. We were walking through 243 acres of it, which was roughly .001% of Illinois’ original prairies.
Realizing this made the experience more remarkable. The birds seemed to recognize how special this place was too. Even on a cool, foggy June morning where we only had a few hours to spare, we saw 30+ species of birds here, including Dickcissels, Bobolinks and a Yellow-billed Cuckoo.
The prairie landscape itself, a gorgeous composite of cattail, Bluejoint Grass, Prairie cordgrass, Reed Grass, Big Bluestem, Sedges and abundant wildflowers at this time of year, was bordered by deciduous trees, and a rare sand dune ridge which divided the prairie from the Lake Michigan beach. Altogether this is an extensive natural area.
It did not always look this way. In fact, during the first half of the 19th century, Camp Logan was a shooting range operated by the Illinois National Guard. The prairie was mowed down, some of the sand dunes leveled, and buildings were constructed at the site. Since its closure in 1974, the buildings have been razed, native prairie vegetation planted, and invasive species removed. The new shooters are photographers.
It is worth noting that this transition took more than half a century and was instigated by visionary people, in this case a nurseryman, Robert Douglas, and a landscape architect and conservationist, Jens Jensen. They called for the creation of a regional park here in the early 1900s. Not until the 1940s did this translate to land acquisition and park designation and expansion, which continued until 1982. Currently Illinois Dune State Park encompasses 4,160 acres with 6.5 miles of Lake Michigan sand beach, including the only remaining sand ridge shoreline left in Illinois and boasts 650 species of plants.
