Gremel Wildlife Sanctuary

We walked the entire preserve; about 4 miles.
It was a half day experience. The hike is not too difficult; plenty of indigenous flora and fauna to see. Russ Gremel was and old friend and mentor to many. He did a good thing.

I am overlooking a prairie that is turning green after a prescribed burn. A thicket of trees show the earliest signs of bursting into leaf. I am sitting on my campaign chair, dressed warmly enough in my Carhartt. Enough breeze reaches me to cause me to shiver a little. The trees provide a updraft upon which eight raptors glide. I noticed a few raptors fleeing as lesser birds, lesser birds in size that is, mobbed the raptors. The raptors have now glided towards the north, where another thicket provides an updraft.

I took a short walk along the fire break which wound around the shoreline of North Iris pond. I saw a flotilla of ducks swimming in the water, but I couldn't tell from the sizes if a few were recent hatchlings.

Nice sanctuary, great story

Pull off parking to view prairie and wooded land.

Its literally just a gravel parking lot with a fence around it looking into a field and the pond is just across the road. I guess if you wanted you could take some pretty pictures here but it's nothing super big. Just a small little observing platform. If I wanted to see most of the animals you'd see here I would just step out my back door lol.

It's only a short path till you hit private property. Pointless place, go to Amboy Marsh instead.