Severson Dells

What do buffalo and bats have in common?

News stories featuring Severson Dells Nature Center.

On Friday, June 1, Rockford Register Star reporter Mike Wiser wrote about our most recent rain garden planting at Wesley Willows.

“Dozens of students from Montessori elementary school pounded the soil underneath their feet just like the herd of bison they were told to imitate.

But the kids were doing more than pretending to be animals. They were doing the work that herds of wild bison used to do across the Midwest prairie: pushing grass seed into soil so the seeds will one day germinate and grow.

The seeding — the students had spread seeds just moments before — and the stomping were part of a project to create a two-acre rain garden in an otherwise unusable section of the Wesley Willows retirement community property off of Rockton Road.”

Read more: willowsgarden.pdf

Our friends at Bird Freak Birding Blog also posted about the rain garden project. Thanks, Eddie!

On Saturday, June 2, Register Star reporter Rob Baxter spoke with Kathy Martinez about mosquito control.

There are larvicides that can be dropped into areas of standing water which kill the insects at various stages. Sprays, meanwhile, can be used by communities to treat larger areas. More natural controls are used at places like Severson Dells Forest Preserve.

“We have two bat houses and lots of natural habitat for bats,” said Kathy Martinez, educator at Severson Dells. “Bats are pretty adaptable. They can hide in any little crevice, under the bark in trees, in old bird nests.”

What’s significant about each little brown bat, Martinez said, is not always apparent to everyone. The creatures can eat up to 800 mosquitoes an hour.

Read more: bats.pdf