My survey of the breeding birds of Somme Woods Forest Preserve is drawing to a close. The birds that will nest there this year are already sitting on eggs or feeding young. For some species, the young are out of the nest and the parent birds are preparing to nest again.
By the time the Cook County Forest Preserve District began to acquire the land in the 30s, farming and grazing had destroyed most of the native vegetation. A small patch of virgin prairie remained west of the river. East of the river, a few giant oaks, trees that began their lives when the Pottawatomi still lived around Chicago, had survived.
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After the Forest Preserve took over the land, shrubs–especially the invasive alien called European buckthorn–and pioneering trees like ashes and box elders began to expand their presence. Eurasian grasses and wildflowers took over most of the old fields.
I also saw a single redheaded woodpecker on June 8, but I have no evidence of breeding for the species. Redheaded woodpeckers are opportunists. They move into areas where something has killed off large numbers of trees, and they stay until the trees fall and take away their feeding and nesting sites. Somme should be a prime nesting ground for this species, so I will be keeping an eye out for them in the future.
If the meadowlarks are indeed nesting, they would be the first prairie species to invade the restored prairie on the west side of the preserve and perhaps the first sign of a shift in the bird life created by the restoration efforts.
Brightly colored birds are a feature of savanna bird life, and Somme supports cardinals, goldfinches, and indigo buntings. If the bluebirds definitely move in, we will have the whole complement.
