Category Archives: Nature

By Alyssa Nyberg, Restoration Ecologist at The Nature Conservancy’s Kankakee Sands On this chilly May morning, I’m bundling up for a pre-dawn excursion. With binoculars round my neck and bird book in hand, I meet up with other Kankakee Sands staff and volunteers for our annual Kankakee Sands Bird Survey in the bison pasture.  WeContinue reading “Thunder-pumper”

By Alyssa Nyberg, Restoration Ecologist at The Nature Conservancy’s Kankakee Sands There’s something about having your feet in water that is a thrill. As a kid, I jumped and splashed in puddles and ponds just to see how big an impact I could have.  Now, as adult, I enjoy watching kids jump and splash, butContinue reading “Springtime Wetlands”

By: Alyssa Nyberg While the March prairies are still sleeping and the woodlands are just beginning to break bud, our Indiana wetlands are waking up.   Wetlands are critical habitat for so many plant and animal species. One of our first Indiana wetland residents to begin filling the spring air with its call is theContinue reading “Calling Spring”

By: Alyssa Nyberg Well, shucks, try as I might, I have not yet been successful in seeing a northern shrike at Kankakee Sands. Even though more than 450 beautiful bird species have been documented in Indiana over the years, this winter I had my sights set on just one – the clever northern shrike. ClassifiedContinue reading “Shucks, No Shrikes”

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”