Good Natured in St. Charles: Pam Otto’s penultimate column shares future step

Well, folks, for once in my life, I’m going to get right to the point.

I’m retiring.

After 25 years of living the dream as a naturalist, I’m stepping away from full-time employment to chase after a few other dreams and goals I’ve set for this next chapter. But before we officially cut those ties, I thought it might be kinda fun to take a look back at what this past quarter century has held in terms of Major Nature News – things I never imagined would happen in my lifetime, as well as a few things I’d never even heard of before embarking on this career journey.

Longtime Good Natured readers might recall that I spent about 15 years in the fields of food and food-trade publishing before jumping with both feet into nature education. Part of that transition involved volunteering with the Forest Preserve District of Kane County at the nature center at Tekakwitha Woods. I quickly became the little helper who wouldn’t leave, offering to set out and take in the bird feeders, interact with visitors, vacuum the bison mounts – really anything that would allow me to stay at the center (a former dance pavilion turned chapel) that quickly became my home away from home.

It was there I got to see many wonders, not the least of which was to observe a green frog – Rana (Lithobates) clamitans – shed its skin. To be honest, the day I saw it sitting in its enclosure, all puffed up, I thought I’d killed it. As it swiped at its back, I thought it was writhing in pain, and wondered if I should call someone. But instead, I watched in a combination of horror and fascination as it then, in a move much like we use when taking off a sweatshirt, pulled the loosened skin over its head and *gulp* swallowed the slimy mass. Whaaaat?

Though not a major event in the grand scheme of things, that little frog and its skin taught me that even common things hold great secrets. To learn from them, all we have to do is sit and observe.

Also during this introductory phase, I was lucky enough to meet and learn from two absolute legends in conservation, Floyd Swink and Dick Young. Both men were walking, talking encyclopedias of our area’s natural areas. Dr. Swink, who always said, “Call me Floyd,” authored with Dr. Jerry Wilhelm “Plants of the Chicago Region,” a book so important restoration ecologists refer to it as their bible. Meanwhile, Dick Young, a Marine who survived Iwo Jima, fought to preserve natural areas in both Kane and Kendall counties. He authored the enduring “Kane County Wild Plants & Natural Areas,” and has not one but two local forest preserves named in his honor. As anyone who knew them will tell you, learning at their side made for some truly incomparable encounters.

As luck would have it, my time at Tek provided just enough experience by August 2000 to land me a full-time job at Red Oak Nature Center in North Aurora, where the wondrous occasions continued.

It was there, on April 1, 2001, that we received a phone call from another area legend, Jon Duerr, that white pelicans were at Nelson Lake Marsh (now Dick Young Forest Preserve). Newbie that I was, I first thought Jon was pulling an April Fool’s Day prank. But, nope! The magnificent birds were indeed there, and actually ended up staying several days.

Only a year or two after that came reports that sandhill cranes – which were at the time still endangered in Illinois – were nesting near Nelson Lake. And then I believe it was around 2004 or so that I got to see a bald eagle nest on the lower Fox River. Bald eagles were still federally endangered at that point, so that nest was a big deal indeed! But bigger things were to come.

In 2006-07, the crumbling dam at Glenwood Park Forest Preserve was removed and, lo and behold, who should show up a couple of years later but the now-famous Mooseheart bald eagles. They first nested on the western edge of that property in 2009, and then, when that tree blew down in 2012, moved to the east side of the property into a pine tree in the football stadium parking lot. That nest was built to last, but the tree wasn’t, and was cut down in October 2022. Within days though, the pair (which consist of the same mama eagle, but a different papa after the first was killed in an accident in 2019) were rebuilding again in yet another pine tree on the Mooseheart property.

Bald eagles officially were delisted in 2007, and sandhill cranes were taken off our state list in 2009. During that time span, I moved, too, from Red Oak to the St. Charles Park District. There the nature news good and bad continued:

• The emerald ash borer, discovered in Lily Lake in 2006, devastated the ash tree population throughout Kane County and beyond.

• Between 2010 and 2015, some herpetofauna thought to be extirpated, or gone, from our area were rediscovered. Welcome back, cricket frogs, queen snakes and musk turtles!

• The Blanding’s Turtle Recovery Program, founded in DuPage County, made its way to Kane County.

• The federally endangered leafy prairie clover, Dalea foliosa, is making a comeback in a nearby ecological restoration site.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that the residents of St. Charles passed a referendum in 2008 that provided funds for our Hickory Knolls Discovery Center. Following its opening in 2011, we since have seen thousands of visitors and led programs for thousands more students, Scouts and members of the general public.

Ah, but now we’re out of time and space – for now.

Next week: The Long Goodbye continues with a look at what the future holds.

• Pam Otto is a naturalist and the outreach ambassador for the St. Charles Park District. She can be reached at potto@stcparks.org.