If you’ve been a follower of the Facebook page for Chicago Living Corridors (CLC), you may have seen the recent posting of the new map showing native habitat locations on private property (posted on January 16). The recently-updated map has a great many more dots than before (2,669), and sites affiliated with nine organizations (instead of four) that promote native habitat on private property. It is also possible now to see the organizational dots in juxtaposition with a layer showing the protected lands (as shown on the I-View map.) If you haven’t seen the map yet, we invite you to explore the map here
This new map demonstrates a significant expansion of the locations we had included previously, and we are very excited to be able to share this with you. Chicago Living Corridors will be continuing to reach out to additional organizations, and to our founding partners – to add to their native habitat footprint in the Chicagoland area. Our founding organizations were:
Citizens for Conservation, Northern Kane Wild Ones, The Conservation Foundation, West Cook Wild Ones, and The Wildflower Preservation and Propagation Committee. Added are: Barrington Area Conservation Trust, C@H in co-operation with the Forest Preserve District of Cook County, Natural Land Institute, Openlands, and The Land Conservancy of McHenry County. The Conservation Foundation’s C@H program shows a greatly expanded presence on the map.
We are currently involved in efforts to add more organizations that have habitat improvement programs, with efforts to engage garden clubs, and an Audubon program already preparing for inclusion.
Following are explanations of a number of the icons that appear above the map. They will enhance the view and utilization of the Interactive Chicago Living Corridors map..
In the black bar on the upper right, there are three icons:
The stacked horizontal lines with dots provide a legend or directory of the organizations included on the map and the colors that represent them.
The icon that looks like three layers of paper gives you access to a listing where you can turn on or off any combination of organizations, and includes a layer for Protected Lands, as shown of the I-View map. This last option allows the viewer to see the CALCA dots in juxtaposition to the protected lands (either one organization, several, or all participating organizations.
The print icon is self explanatory.
The key icon on the left-hand side is the box containing the four squares. You can access a dozen different backgrounds. You may find that selecting the black background will actually enhance the view of some of the dot patterns. The other options will provide different types of detail or views.
There is a ruler icon for measuring distances, and a palette icon to enable the drawing of boundaries.
Of course, the + or – symbols will enlarge or reduce the map view.
We encourage you to visit the map, and explore our website https://chicagolivingcorridors.org, It contains many helpful resources. Additionally, please check our Facebook page, Chicago Living Corridors, “like” us, and invite your friends to visit as well.
(Note – Chicago Area Living Corridor Alliance [CALCA] and Chicago Living Corridors [CLC] are both referring to the same organization. CALCA was our founding name, which we shortened to CLC for use on the internet, and with social media.)
MyTree Benefits
has proven that if you build the habitat, the monarchs will come! Last year, thanks to a generous donation, the library built the beautiful Donna E. Wade Butterfly Garden right outside the windows in the children’s area. The garden is planted with a variety of perennials and annuals that serve as nectar plants. Surrounding the library there is a sea of purple coneflowers, black-eyed susans, and most importantly, milkweed, and behind the library you’ll find a diversity of native plants lining the creek. Victoria Wittig, the library’s Outreach Specialist, added an herb garden last year and a pollinator garden this year, qualifying the library as an official monarch waystation with 
