One day in the late 1990s, local birder Leslie Borns visited Montrose Beach, as she often did, and noticed lakeshore rush, a grassy plant that hadn’t been seen in Chicago in more than 50 years. Excited by what this could mean, Borns contacted the park district to suggest they stop pulling the plants from the sand on the eastern edge of the beach and let whatever pops up continue growing. Twenty years later, the Montrose Beach Dunes is the highest quality natural area in the city of Chicago. Of the nearly 100 natural areas that the park district oversees, it’s the only place in the city that has a state-level designation as a protected area.
Local birders and conservationists can’t talk about the success at Montrose without crediting Borns. “When she first started, this was just a barren strip of sand,” says Brad Semel, natural heritage biologist at the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. “She had the foresight to understand that wherever you could protect from disturbance, these rare plants would take a toehold and start to reestablish.”
To the delight of Borns, as well as the many volunteers and local residents who observed the birds last summer, Monty and Rose reappeared this year in early May to again nest at Montrose. According to Itani, while Monty and Rose spend winters apart, they both arrived in Chicago within 48 hours of each other. Once abundant, today there are only about 70 pairs of piping plovers nesting in the Great Lakes—and for the past two summers, one pair in Chicago.
She says it’s been amazing to watch the area grow and change, and she’s grateful for the support from volunteers and the park district, but it hasn’t been without challenges.
For Borns, protecting natural places is about more than protecting endangered species. “I realize how important it is not only to me but to other people,” she says. “I’ve had people tell me they don’t know what they’d do here, living in Chicago, if they didn’t have a place like this to go to. And it really means a lot to me.” v
