Monday, May 23, 2011
Volunteer conservators and students came out early Saturday to give Mother Nature an assist with a local wetland.
- VOLUNTEERS IN THE NEWS
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Monday, May 23, 2011
On Saturday, conservators invited Southland residents out for a "Wild Neighbors Party' with the flora and fauna of the Bartel Grassland, a 585-acre prairie and wetland project in the Southland now slowly being restored to its natural glory. The area is a hidden gem, designated as an "Important Bird Area" by the Audobon Society, said site steward Dick Riner.
41.588
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167th St & Ridgeland Ave, Tinley Park, IL
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Sunday, May 22, 2011
Bartel Grassland conservators passed their skills to the next generation this past weekend, teaching students from Tinley, Oak Forest and Marian Catholic about wildlife.
When Forest Preserve presenter Rebecca Moss got out the 6-foot-bullsnake, all eyes turned to 16-year-old Marian Catholic High School student Chante Coleman. The teen had showed up early to volunteer at the Bartel Grassland Saturday, but there had already been a few challenges. She exchanged her shoes for a pair of wading boots, left the paved parking lot for knee-deep wetland swamp mud, and had let out a yell when she saw a tiny garter snake. So the student and adult volunteers were curious how she'd handle an adult bullsnake. "At first, I started out scared, but I conquered my fears," said Coleman. "I was planting plants." The Bartel Grassland, part of the Tinley Creek Wetland Preserve, is a powerful extension to the classroom, said Oak …
41.588
-87.775
167th St & Ridgeland Ave, Tinley Park, IL
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/locations/4405745
Friday, May 20, 2011
Southland residents invited to show up Saturday to munch cookies and save the planet.
Volunteer conservators at the Bartel Grassland are inviting all Southland residents to come to their seventh annual "Wild Neighbors Party" to plant indigenous plants, munch on cookies and help restore an Illinois wetland, organizers said. Guests are expected to flock from Chicago Heights, Tinley Park, Homewood-Flossmoor, Orland Park, and elsewhere to the site near Flossmoor Road and Central Avenue. However, say organizers, no human guest will travel as far as the preserve's feathered celebrity, the rare bobolink. "They fly up here from Argentina to nest, and one of the last good nesting places for the bobolink and Henslow's sparrow," said Bartel site steward Dick Riner. The bobolink, which sports a 'surfer dude' type hairdo of bright-…
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Flossmoor Rd & Ridgeland Ave, Tinley Park, IL
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