Author Archives: friendsofthesands

By Alyssa Nyberg Twenty-five years ago, Kankakee Sands wasn’t. It wasn’t a prairie, it wasn’t a home for a herd of 100+ bison, it wasn’t managed with fire and it wasn’t visited by families and friends. It simply wasn’t. But today, it is! This very December marks the 25th year that the Indiana Chapter ofContinue reading “Cheers to Twenty-five!”

By Alyssa Nyberg Imagine driving a tractor trailer from Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota to Kankakee Sands—that’s a whopping 1056 miles–with 10 bison on board. What a long, white-knuckle, 17-hour drive that would be! On Thursday, October 21, ten bison did indeed make that long trip from South Dakota to Kankakee Sands. AContinue reading “10 Bison, 1056 Miles, 3 Good Reasons Why”

By Alyssa Nyberg Let’s face it, we’d all much rather read an article about our beautiful Indiana prairie wildflowers, butterflies and birds than a depressing article on non-native, invasive plants. Yet as gloomy a subject as it is, invasive plants are actually wildly fascinating and very important to learn about. If we don’t understand theContinue reading “Because No One Wants to Read an Article on Non-Native, Invasive Plants”

By Alyssa Nyberg, The Nature Conservancy Without a doubt, September is the month of the monarch. I am loving all the monarch photos that people are posting to social media and sending to me via text and email. The photos of the brightly colored, seemingly perfect monarchs are stunning. With their bold and bright, orangeContinue reading “If Wings Could Talk”

By: Alyssa Nyberg, The Nature Conservancy In third grade, my teacher Mrs. Curran introduced all 27 of her students to the scientific method. It felt so hard to remember all those steps to the scientific method, and in the right order, but the first one was easy to remember and easy to do: observation. AllContinue reading “Stem Research”

By: Alyssa Nyberg, The Nature Conservancy I overlook things all the time – but insects don’t. I walk, bike and drive the roadsides of Kankakee Sands every day, nearly oblivious to the thousands of hoary vervain (Verbena stricta) that I am passing. But the insects are keyed in–they know that this plant is a treasure.Continue reading “A Crowd Pleaser”

By: Jeanette Jaskula, President, Friends of the Sands Thank you to everyone who supported our Native Plant Sale this year. We raised $3,706 to support conservation work in Newton County! This was the best sale we have ever had! This sale is one of my favorite FOS events. I enjoy handing people their boxes fullContinue reading “2021 Native Plant Sale a Huge Success!”

By: Barb Lucas, Kankakee Sands Birder June is a great month to see and/or hear the breeding bird species at Kankakee Sands. Two species easy to spot are the Eastern Meadowlark and Dickcissel. If you join us for a birding field trip on Saturday, June 19, you should get to enjoy both. We’ll also attemptContinue reading “Birding at Kankakee Sands”

By: Alyssa Nyberg, The Nature Conservancy It’s that exciting time of the year when the bison calves are born! At the close of 2020, we had 93 bison in our in our Kankakee Sands herd. As I pen this article, twenty-one calves have already been documented in the bison pasture, which means that for theContinue reading “Bison, by the Numbers”