Standing in the middle of her backyard-turned-prairie, June Keibler surveys about 20 or so birds fluttering by. Her welcoming yard, about an acre and a third in size, is just the right environment for bluebirds, robins, sparrows and just about any other type of bird to nest.
It was birds that first caught the attention of Keibler, a Dundee Township resident who has devoted the last 12 years to wildlife, land restoration and environmental studies.
“I grew up wandering around in the woods, never really getting involved in learning any specific areas,” she says. “When I moved here (in the ’70s), I got very involved in birds and, coincidentally, I got involved in wildflowers about the same time, too.”
A former physical therapist, the 49-year-old mother of two started out as a volunteer, clearing weeds from natural areas. For the last 4 1/2 years, she has volunteered as regional administrator for the Kane County Natural Area Volunteers, which is part of The Nature Conservancy. The Chicago-based Conservancy hones in on sites like forest preserves, park district land and private properties in need of restoration.
Most of the time, Keibler can be found with a telephone receiver next to her ear, networking and organizing. It’s a year-round morning ritual to prepare for the work day that lies ahead.
“Today, I’m actually meeting with the park district,” she says, seated in a comfortable rocking chair in a living room filled with more than 20 wood carvings of birds perched on pedestals. “We’re going to discuss a walk for the Raceway Woods and how to introduce the area to the public.”
Parcels of land such as Raceway Woods near Carpentersville, a 92-acre wooded site formerly used by the Meadowdale International Raceway, are especially dear to Keibler, who takes on the challenge of convincing officials to preserve and not develop land.
“These areas serve as a wonderful relief from the monotony of the development that’s going on, and I think that’s a very important quality-of-life issue,” she says. “It’s going to take community involvement if our woods are going to be saved.”
Raceway Woods, which was purchased by the Dundee Township Park District, is now a private getaway for Keibler. She has spent a good deal of time identifying birds that have made the woods their home. So far, she has seen about 20 different species of warblers, five species of woodpeckers, and varieties of wood ducks and cuckoos, she says.
“I often relate birds in natural areas to a treasure hunt,” she says, as a smile spreads across her face. “They’re such a surprise. Each one of them is a miracle in itself with their ability to adapt and their incredible colors.”
As a volunteer steward for areas like the Freeman Kame, a glacial deposit of gravel in northern Kane County, Keibler works along with a group of volunteers who nurture fragile environments by removing choking brush and planting the right combination of natural prairie seeds.
“Freeman Kame is a non-developed site, but it’s owned by the forest preserve, and June has really made a lot of progress there in terms of restoration,” says Grace Koehler, volunteer coordinator for the Kane County Forest Preserve District, based in Geneva. “If it wasn’t for June, I don’t think things would be the way they are right now. She was really instrumental in getting the whole volunteer program going in Kane County.”
To date, there are about 30 sites in Kane County being managed by more than 400 people listed with The Nature Conservancy Volunteer Stewardship Network. Many of the volunteers have worked with Keibler from the network’s inception 12 years ago. At that time, 25 people volunteered to clear brush from a handful of sites.
“There are a lot of people who have worked to get this going, but as far as the No. 1 volunteer who coordinated this, that would be June,” says volunteer Mary Zaander of Geneva. “She was really our focal person.”
The volunteers cut away such invasive weeds and brush as buckthorn and honeysuckle, which shade out native trees and plants, stifling their growth. When time allows, Keibler takes a break to educate the volunteers about plantings, wildflowers and birds.
“I’ve learned a lot about the natural world from June,” says Zaander. “She is very knowledgeable as far as plants and animals, general ecology, how things fit in and how everything we do affects the natural world. She’s a wonderful teacher, and her knowledge is very wide-based.”
On a coffee table in her home, Keibler has books on native orchids, tallgrass prairies and birds. She says she is constantly learning more and more about the environment.
“One of the common threads for all of us is learning about what’s out there,” she says. “I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve gone to a familiar place and found something that was completely new to me.”
She recalls encountering a family of screech owls recently when she and another volunteer were finishing some work at a site at the northwestern border of Kane County.
“We were just walking to our cars and all of a sudden we looked up and they were three feet in front of us,” she says. “I’ve never been that close to an owl before.”
Keibler has her hands full coming up with stewards for each site and divvying up responsibilities. She even had an extra phone line installed in her home to handle the large number of calls she receives from interested volunteers.
“The recruiting process is ongoing,” she says. “We have 30 sites being worked on border to border (in Kane County) and it’s still continuing to grow.”
The challenge these days is coordinating the volunteers for the growing needs that exist at each Kane County site. But others say it’s something Keibler has been able to do without fail.
“She has been one of the most effective and influential leaders in the volunteer network that we’ve ever had,” says Laurel Ross, northern Illinois field representative for The Nature Conservancy. “We rely on her tremendously, particularly in the Kane County area, but all of Illinois has really benefited from her hard work.”
One of the things that impresses many people about Keibler is her constant thirst for knowledge about the environment.
“She is continually taking courses and seeking out subjects to make herself more and more of a highly trained, skilled ecologist and natural areas manager,” says Ross.
Some of Keibler’s areas of concern are the nation’s land-use policy and how suburban sprawl will affect the future of the pristine sites she is trying to save. In her own neighborhood, an open-space referendum meant to save 1,500 acres in Dundee Township lost by 25 votes a couple of years ago.
“We tried to put that issue in front of people to let them know we have to save these areas,” she says. “That was a very big setback, and most of that land is now being developed.”
Her dream is to see a reversal in the damages that have been done, especially in natural areas.
“The number of birds is plummeting,” she says. “Many are down 40 to 60 percent and it’s a continuing downward slide. If I could see reversals on this massive destruction, I’d like to see a report come out that says our bird species are increasing in numbers.”
One of her jobs now includes working part time for the State of Illinois on the recovery of the eastern prairie fringed orchid, a federally threatened orchid. The position, which involves writing proposals to the Nature Preserves Commission, is one of the few for which she draws a paycheck.
Keibler says the rewards for her volunteer efforts have far outweighed the actual work involved in restoration.
Keibler has been juggling a number of responsibilities lately, including serving on the Dundee Township Park District Board, collecting seeds from roadsides for restoration sites, acting as co-steward of the Lake in the Hills Fen, and working with the Nature Conservancy Volunteer Stewardship Network.
Her work at home trying to establish her own yard as a prairie recently earned her the Garden of the Month award from the Backyard Garden Club, based in Dundee Township.
Keibler says making the switch from a hectic job as a physical therapist to a volunteer environmentalist has truly been a blessing for her.
“Really what I did was go into another job full time without pay,” she says laughing. “But this isn’t just a vocation. It’s a lifestyle. And it’s helped me to enjoy everything I do.”
Now things like watching birds, going for a walk in the woods and planting seeds are part of that lifestyle.
“For me, the fascination is really endless,” she says. “It makes every season that much more exciting.”
