Nature Areas
Lincoln Park North Pond
Directions: The North Pond can be found in Lincoln Park behind the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum.
(click here for map)
Description:
Originally, the site of North Pond was a dune, filled with scrub oak and other shore vegetation before it was converted from a dumping ground, into a healthy park pond. Today, North Pond is an important wildlife area. It is a lakefront flyway area for about 160 species of birds, and is the site where Mayor Daley and the US Fish and Wildlife Service signed an Urban Conservation Treaty for Migratory Birds.
In addition to migratory birds, the ten acres of habitat at North Pond is also home to many ducks, squirrels, turtles, rabbits, opossums, and insects such as butterflies and dragonflies. Thoughtful upkeep by volunteers and the park district ensure North Pond has high water quality and minimum erosion. Recently, patches of turf grass around the North Pond were replaced with native aquatic and upland prairie plants. The plant list includes native species such as little bluestem, sky-blue aster, nodding wild onion, side-oats grama, butterfly weed, purple prairie clover, rough blazing star, wild quinine, prairie phlox, coneflowers, false dragonhead, northern prairie dropseed, showy goldenrod, rattlesnake master, shooting star, and wild bergamot.
Chicago Park District
Department of Natural Resources
February 2002