​SPRINGFIELD, IL.  The Illinois Audubon Society has purchased 60 acres to expand the Green River Lowlands Preserve (Lee County.) This latest acquisition will expand the preserve to more than 1,000 acres of sand dunes, wetlands, savanna, prairie, sedge meadow and woodlands.

The parcel lies adjacent to the 130-acre Queen of the Prairie tract (purchased in 2022) where volunteer stewards are currently restoring a 40-acre former agricultural field to grassland habitat. Deb Carey, Illinois Audubon Society Board of Directors and Chair of Illinois Audubon Society’s Land Protection and Stewardship Committee reports, “Nesting Lark Sparrows, Eastern Meadowlarks and more have already found it to their liking. This work would not happen without the efforts of dedicated volunteers.”

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The latest purchase will also be targeted for grassland restoration; volunteer stewards have already reported finding New Jersey tea and prairie drop seed on the property.

According to Carey, “Southern Lee County’s sand ridges and marshes hold a multitude of amazing life forms: glass lizards, poppy mallow, cream indigo, and blue racers, just to name a few. Now, with the majority of the county in row crop agriculture, many of the native plants and animals no longer thrive due to a lack of sustainable habitat.It is the goal of the Illinois Audubon Society to protect representative examples of intact native ecosystems and unique natural features that persist and provide habitat for native plants and animals.”

Green River Lowlands is a river of sand, eolian sands, sand dunes and sand ridges because the landscape was once covered over by outwash from the receding of the Wisconsin glaciation. Subsequent post-glacial winds had used the most portable component of this outwash, sand, to shape the dune and swale topography seen today.

Studies of the substance, structure and orientation of sand deposits in the area, indicate that winds from west to northwest had largely completed this work by about 17,000 years ago.

The late botanist Henry Allan Gleason referred to the vegetation of the Green River Lowlands in his extensive study of Illinois sand deposits. Gleason studied a site near Amboy on August 21,1910. He noted: “This name – the Amboy area – is given to the irregular complex of sand ridges and marshes along the Green River in Lee County, well-illustrated in the vicinity of Amboy. The drainage of the whole valley is poor, and two large marsh areas, known as the Inlet Swamp and the Winnebago Swamp, are, as yet, not entirely reclaimed”.

Both the Inlet and Winnebago “swamps” were eventually drained and converted to row crop agriculture by the very early 1900s and Gleason witnessed the final bloodletting of the swamp. But the sand remains.
“Oh, what a delight it would have been to walk with him as he investigated the remains of the great swamps,” added Carey.

As the late, great naturalist and author Aldo Leopold reminded us “the first rule of intelligent tinkering is to keep all the pieces”.

This newest tract is one of those vital pieces.

The mission of the Illinois Audubon Society is to promote the perpetuation and appreciation of native plants and animals and the habitats that support them. The Society is an independent, statewide, member supported, not-for-profit organization. Founded in 1897, the Society is Illinois’ oldest private conservation organization with 2,000 members, 16 chapters and 19 affiliate groups. The Illinois Audubon Society has protected 7,330 acres by investing nearly $20 million to protect land and water throughout Illinois.