ABOUT US

The Mission of the Clark Street Beach Bird Sanctuary is to provide a habitat for migratory birds. 

Enhance and maintain habitat through native plant installation and removal of invasive vegetation.

Monitor bird activity seasonally to assess usage of habitat by migratory and resident birds and insects, to inform future plantings and habitat maintenance needs.

Involve the broader community in this effort through outreach and education.

See our twice-a-year newsletter for updates on what's happening at the Clark Street Beach Bird Sanctuary.

The sanctuary is a protected area of two acres and represents an ecotone, a transitional area between Lake Michigan and a groomed sand beach to the east, and city parkland with its mature trees on the west. Several micro environments make up the sanctuary. Open and ungroomed sand areas with grasses grow beside low shrubs and broadleaved plants. Sandy areas near the beach are planted with Marram Grass to hold the sand. Wooded areas dominated by Cottonwoods and Box Elder remain from the original wild area. 

In 2012 Northwestern University announced that it would be building a Visitors Center adjacent to its southern border along the Evanston lakefront.  This project would doom a wild patch of land where cottonwood, hackberry, and box elder trees along with shrubby sand bar willows had grown up after Northwestern constructed its lakefill campus in the 1960s. This scrubby patch of unattended land had become a bird sanctuary, attracting many migrating warblers, vireos and thrushes. It brought nesting Eastern Kingbirds,  Baltimore orioles and more, as well as dragonflies and, of course, birdwatchers.

Under Evanston’s city ordinance, Northwestern was required to pay Evanston for every tree it removed. The amount totaled $173,850, and Evanston North Shore Bird Club (ENSBC) member Libby Hill requested that the money be invested in a replacement sanctuary. She and Judy Pollock worked with city staff, facilitated by Paul D'Agostino, to determine the location. The city chose to take advantage of a remnant area of the original sanctuary and expand it onto Clark Street Beach, making a total of 2 acres. 

The city selected the Evanston landscape firm of Kettlekamp and Kettlekamp to design a sanctuary.  During public hearings  participants enthusiastically supported the idea. Initial planting took place during September and October 2015, just three years after the idea was first proposed.  The Evanston North Shore Bird Club agreed to become the bird sanctuary's non-profit fiscal agent.