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Field Notes: early March birds, blooms & ballads

While spring has not yet officially sprung, the preserves are already increasingly active. Spring wildflowers are beginning to bloom and wildlife is returning. As hikers do the same, they’re capturing images and video of the hullabaloo. Enjoy these sights and sounds of early March from ACRES preserves across our region. In video: March 7, 2016 | ...

  • 03/08/2017
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To bird or not to bird? This is your question – and your invitation.

You’re invited to participate in the ACRES Bird Blitz! What’s a Bird Blitz and how can you join? You can help count birds, either as an individual or on a team, on ACRES preserves If you participate, you’ll be invited to a celebratory wrap-up party at the end of the count day Registered participants will receive a ...

  • 03/01/2017
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Photo Album: Heinzerling Family Five Points Nature Preserve

ACRES members gathered with three generations of the Heinzerling family to celebrate the Heinzerling Family Five Points Nature Preserve, south of Garrett, with a hike on Sunday, February 19. Thank you, Heinzerling Family, for protecting your land with ACRES. Thank you, ACRES members, for making it possible.

  • 02/22/2017
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Kokiwanee, 1941 farmland to nature preserve

In my recent Letter from the Executive Director, I write about how land can produce a wide variety of products. I make the claim that when compared to nature; we are unimaginative when it comes to deciding what land should produce. To illustrate this point, let’s explore the recent history of Kokiwanee – a 140-acre nature ...

  • 02/22/2017
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Letter from the Executive Director

Dear Friends, Land can produce a seemingly unlimited diversity of plants. Consider a small garden plot. On the same piece of land, sweet corn, green beans, tomatoes, turnips, peppers, radishes, eggplant, and a host of other vegetables or flowers can be grown. Whatever the gardener’s whims, the land accommodates. What seems to me even more ...

  • 02/22/2017
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Cedar Creek Corridor gains new ACRES preserve

Joan Garman honors husband, donates 84 acres of forest, wetlands and farm ground Terry Garman always knew the 84 acres of vibrant woods, wetland and farmland his parents, Ray and Dorothy Garman, purchased in the Cedar Creek Corridor in the ’40s and ’50s was special and worth preserving. Through the years, he made careful farming ...

  • 02/21/2017
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Photo Album: Winter Creek Stomp

Ahoy! We’re all back on dry land now, but on Saturday, February 11, 2017, more than 70 Creek Stompers had a wet and wild adventure at Hathaway Preserve at Ross Run! More than a few folks stayed high and (fairly) dry on the muddy preserve trail, 75 feet above the creek and gorge. In all, ...

  • 02/11/2017
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What kind of year for winter finches? What’s a winter finch?

By Fred Wooley Early September, I saw my first-of-the-season Red-breasted Nuthatch, one of my favorite birds.  Diminutive compared to our more common year-round White-breasted Nuthatch, the Red-breasted is also set apart by its rusty-red chest and distinctive eye stripe and the fact that it spends a bit more time on branches than the trunk-clinging White-breasted. As fall moves ...

  • 02/10/2017
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Winter Creek Stomp offers rare view of spectacular gorge

It’s time to stomp the creek! Join our second Winter Creek Stomp event this Saturday, February 11, from 2-4 pm, at Hathaway Preserve at Ross Run located at 1866 E. Baumbauer Road, Wabash. The forever-protected preserve features a spectacular gorge with waterfalls, reef fossils, exposed bedrock and vertical cliffs as high as 75 feet. “Last year, we ...

  • 02/08/2017
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My Woods

By Kim Bowers In “Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening,” Robert Frost stops to watch someone’s “woods fill up with snow.” He stands there for a long time but must leave because his obligations to society pull him back and because the woods do not really belong to him. With a shake of ...

  • 02/07/2017
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