Tuesday, March 10, 2026
6:30 PM
Lost Valley Visitor Center
Glacial Park
6310 Harts Rd.
Ringwood, IL
The Illinois Butterfly Monitoring Network
We welcome Doug Taron, Chief Curator Emeritus for the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, and Cindi Jablonski, Wildlife Ecologist for McHenry County Conservation District, as featured guest speakers for our Spring Gathering.
Cindi will give us a brief talk about the MCCD planting of turtlehead, and the project to increase the population of the Baltimore checkerspot butterfly.
Doug will talk about the Butterfly Monitoring program, which began in 1987. Since that time, volunteers have been collecting quantitative data on butterfly populations across the state. We will discover:
• methods used for data collection
• growth of the program
• adoption of the IL program as a model for 14 other states
We hope that you will attend to learn more about the status of our butterflies, and how outcomes can be affected by management practices.