ccccccccccccc ccccccccccccc ccccccccccccc with Native Plants L ANDSC APING
Imagine a Lake County landscape where you cannot tell where a forest preserve ends and a backyard begins. A tiny veery (Catharus fuscescens, above), exhausted by its flight from South American wintering grounds, searches for suitable habitat to raise its babies. Now, its search ends quickly because the bird doesn’t notice that there are boundaries at all. In early May, it finds its summer home in your backyard. You can simply open your kitchen window to hear its ethereal, cascading song at dawn and dusk. In June, if you sit quietly in the early morning, you can spy mama and her brood moving in long hops through soft clumps of native grasses at the edge of your garden.
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Part of our 100-year Vision for Lake County is to conserve nature at a landscape scale. We actively seek and facilitate projects with partners
Benefits of healthy ecosystems continue to become more apparent and important. The wetlands that store floodwaters and the trees that
to enhance the surrounding living landscape, beyond forest preserve boundaries, in order to improve the ecosystem functions and diversity
deliver clean air and absorb excess carbon from our atmosphere provide vital protection to our
of native plant and animal life throughout Lake County. Lake County residents are our most important partners in this effort.
communities. As development and urbanization expands, it is more important than ever to connect people to nature and our backyards to open spaces.
LAK E COUNTY FOR E ST PRE S E RVES
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