Welcome:
This website is one of the many efforts of Hickory Hills Chapter of the
Illinois Audubon Society to invite you to visit our home, Bremer Sanctuary,
just north of Hillsboro, Illinois.
We welcome
you to join us at our meetings and encourage you to take part in one of
our many chapter activities.
Welcome to H & B Bremer Sanctuary!
(For a musical welcome, click here!
Located
just a mile north of Hillsboro, Illinois, the 203-acre wildlife, bird
and nature sanctuary is located on land that is a transition between the
flat farmland to the north, which was formerly tall grass prairie, and
the rolling hills of the Southern Till Plain. There are a variety of habitats
within the sanctuary, including oak-hickory uplands, wooded ravines, transitional
fields grasslands and wetlands. Several large white and bur oaks, as well
as hickories, serve as valuable mast trees providing food for wildlife.
Many species of wild
flowers, shurbs, and vines add to the plant diversity. Volunteer sewards
are working to restore the savanna habitat which was lost over the years
to agriculture. Sixty acres of grasses provide nesting areas for the state-endangered
Henslow's sparrow. Current restoration efforts at the sanctuary also include
the construction of a wetland in the Cress Creek bottom, and improving
the bottomland forest with additional planting of native trees.
Wildlife
is abundant at the sanctuary, and is fully protected in accordance with
the Bremer sisters' wishes. White-tail deer, raccoons, opossums, rabbits,
and many smaller mammals are common.
There is also a good population of wild turkey, and the birds are often
seen by visitors at the edges where the grassland and woods converge.
Many species of song birds also reside at the sanctuary, and it is an
important resting and feeding area for many neotropical migrants during
spring and fall migrations.
Ponds serve
as habitat for amphibians, turtles, and a large variety of aquatic insect.
In summer, dragonflies and damselflies hawk for insects over the water.
Volunteers
from the Hickory Hills chapter of the Illinois Audubon Society maintain
and monitor a 45-box bluebird trail. The boxes are checked weekly, between
April 1 and August 15, and the results are tabulated and sent to the Illinois
Bluebird Project and the North American Bluebird Society.
These efforts
are important in helping to increase the numbers of Eastern bluebirds,
which must compete with the European starlings and other cavity-nesting
birds for home sites. The nest boxes supplement available housing in dead
snags and fenceposts on the sanctuary grounds.
Members
of the Hickory Hills Chapter also maintain the trails, the education center,
and the nearby Bremer Memorial Area. The Chapter hosts several meetings
and public events at the sanctuary each year. School and youth groups
from Hillsboro and other nearby communities are encouraged to visit the
sanctuary and use it as a natural science learning laboratory. Parking
and restroom facilities are available at the site.
Click here for a copy of the trail
map at Bremer Sanctuary. You'll need Acrobat Reader.
The H & B Bremer Sanctuary is located at Hillsboro, about 50 miles south of Springfield, in Montgomery County. It was given to the Illinois Audubon Society in 1977 by Helen and Betty Bremer, who wished to preserve the farm which had been in their family since 1857. The wanted to be sure it would not be sub-divided or developed, and that it would be managed as a wildlife sanctuary.