Hickory Creek Barrens

Description

Hickory Creek Barrens is a large mosaic complex of prairie-forest transition that includes prairie and savanna, and a silt-loam barrens community, remnants of which were formerly not known to occur in northern Illinois. This complex affords an unprecedented management and restoration opportunity to reconstruct a dynamic, large-scale prairie-forest continuum. The site provides habitat for the largest Illinois population of a state threatened plant, and an experimental re-introduction of the federally threatenedplant. The nature preserve provides habitat for area-sensitive avifauna that includes numerous neotropical migrant, summer resident and winter resident bird species. The preserve includes nearly two and one-half miles of a medium gradient perennial creek associated with a large complex of upland and floodplain forest, with inclusions of unique aquatic features such as relict meander or channel cut-off pool wetlands, or forested floodplain spring/fen wetlands.