Favorite Haunts: North Park Village Nature Center

North Park Village Nature Center's wetlands area on a foggy spring day

North Park Village Nature Center is a little gem within the city. It's a tiny preserve of 40 acres, run by the Chicago Park District, located in North Park Village, a senior living community. It's bordered by busy streets on three sides (Peterson, Pulaski, and Bryn Mawr) and Peterson Park on the other, so you never are in deep woods. But its a pocket of nature amid asphalt and concrete, and that pocket acts as an island for all sorts of wildlife.

North Park Village itself is a nice area with lots of green space and small stands of trees dotting throughout. North Park is also home to the Jens Jensons Rock Garden, a lovely fountain and pool that mimics a forested stream and series of waterfalls. The fountain is a good place to see waterfowl, especially geese and ducks. Seniors living in the village have a tendency to throw old bread to the geese and ducks, so they aren't exactly people shy.

Jens Jensen Rock Garden

Rock Garden Waterfall

The Nature Center grounds is divided up into different areas, a woodlands, a wetlands, a savanna. The wetlands consists of a large pond with a large shallows on one end. This is a great environment amphibians and turtles. If you're lucky in the spring you might happened to visit on a day when the toads have descended into the shallows from the woodlands to breed. This is an amazing spectacle, with the sound of vocalizing toads filling your ears and splashing toads everywhere you look.

A vocalizing toad

A male Wood Duck in the wetlands pond

The wetlands also draws a good amount of waterfowl. Canada Geese and Mallards are especially common, but more rare visitors like Pie-billed Grebes, Blue-winged Teals, or Wood Ducks also visit. Last spring I even saw a pair of Buffleheads taking a respite from their migration in the wetlands pond. I've never personally seen Herons there, but I know people who have. Much to my surprise, I ever spotted a Kingfisher moving in the trees around the pond on one occassion. Ducks and Geese both nest along this pond, so in spring it's a good spot to look for momma ducks with their ducklings and geese guarding their goslings.

Cooper's Hawk Feeding Chick

The woodlands are mainly comprised of mixed deciduous trees, with a few conifers mixed in here and there. It's an excellent habitat for all sorts of animals and birds: Raccoons, Possums, Deer, Squirrels, Hawks, and Owls all make use of this woodlands for food and shelter. Red-tailed Hawks are somewhat common in the winter and early spring, hunting mice and squirrels. In late spring a pair of Cooper's Hawks arrive to their nest at the top of a tall tree in the woodlands. The two return every year to raise a brood in the same nest.

Cooper's Hawk Chicks

Deer are everywhere in both the nature center and the grounds of North Park Village. There's a good mix of does, bucks, and yearlings. In the spring there are often several fawns. The deer can be seen at any part of the preserve, and pretty much any part of the grounds any time of the year.





All and all, its a beautiful place and one of my favorite places. It would be nice if it was a little larger and more secluded, without the hum of the traffic on the streets beyond the fences, but really that might fundamentally change what makes it such a good place to shoot wildlife. The small size increases your chance encounter with some sort of critter, and many animals are fairly used to people. You can get much closer to deer here than in some of the forest preserves I like to haunt.

Some parting shots to leave you with...

Crawdad

Sunning Painted Turtle

Fawn

Squirrel and Red-tailed Hawk