Putnam County Conservation District

This conservation district is composed of 5 parcels of wild-land each offering something different for bird watchers. The “home site” is a 270-acre tract called the Natural Lands Area, which also houses the district’s headquarters and offers primitive camping, picnic shelters, hiking and equestrian trails, and cross country skiing through oak-hickory forests and restored tallgrass prairie. Be on the lookout for coyotes, wild turkeys, and white-tailed deer, all of which are commonly observed there. The district’s other holdings include the 430-acre Lake Senachwine Area, located on 3,000+ acre Lake Senachwine, a backwater lake of the Illinois River often blanketed with hundreds of white pelicans and dotted with Great Blue Herons. The 260-acre Fox Run Area, which specializes in equestrian riding through wooded ravines in the area’s upper section. The Putnam County Conservation District is also the custodian of two state-recognized nature preserves. The larger of the two is the 80-acre George S. Park Memorial Woods. The preserve is a high quality remnant of the oak forests that once dominated ravines along the Illinois River Valley and is stop-over for spring and fall migrants.