Spring Creek Stewards win Miller Conservation Award

The William H. Miller Conservation Award is given for outstanding contributions to conservation in the Barrington area.

Citizens for Conservation has been successful in establishing native plants on its own preserves - so successful that its restorations are now the best source of seed in the Barrington area.

The winner of the 2012 award, the Spring Creek Stewards are using seed collected at CFC's plant-rich Grigsby Prairie and Flint Creek Savanna in collaboration with CFC to undertake ecological restoration on a scale far larger than that allowed by CFC's preserves.

Cook County's Spring Creek Forest Preserve is almost 4,000 acres. To restore the full palette of Illinois' ecosystems, it is essential that conservationists create habitat in the thousands of acres because there are many living things that cannot thrive in small preserves.

In 2003, Audubon Chicago Region convinced the Forest Preserve District of Cook County to authorize a volunteer group to do ecological restoration at Spring Creek. The Spring Creek Stewards were formed and they started collecting seed at the CFC preserves in 2004.

The Stewards almost immediately succeeded in increasing the population of grassland birds at Spring Creek by cutting the fence line brush and opening up and connecting the old fields of the forest preserve.

Now the Stewards are sowing seed mixes into some of the cleared fields and woods and are beginning to see good results at Galloping Hill Prairie, The 160, and around the remnant fen.

CFC recognizes these environmental accomplishments and presented the Wiliam H. Miller Conservation Award to the Spring Creek Stewards. Jim Voris, active member of the Stewards, quipped that the Stewards have no formal leadership and are proud of it. They are noted for their good food and good fellowship.