Catching Nature

Nancy Allured has been a DuPage Forest Preserve District volunteer since 2003, first at the native plant nursery at Blackwell Forest Preserve, then bird monitoring at Timber Ridge and then at West Chicago Prairie. She also reports bird data for several other preserves, including Greene Valley Forest Preserve, where she helps migrating hawks in the fall as part of the Hawkwatch program on the scenic overlook.

Stephanie Scurtu lives in DuPage County with her husband, Brian, their corn snakes Jimmy and Timmy, and their rats Teddy and Phoebe.

When Lazaro Lara is struggling with something — be it his physical, emotional, psychological health or even social well-being, working with the Danada horses as a volunteer is his happy place. His face beams with joy as he brushes and cares for the horses.

Brian and Joyce Ostberg are interested in all things history — natural history, pre-history, and general history. In autumn 2020, they started a YouTube channel, dubbed BeHistoric, where they share some of their history and pre-history interests.

Growing up, Nick Papineau got well-acquainted with nature thanks to his parents, who took him hiking, camping and hunting. The COVID-19 pandemic last year prompted Papineau to start doing the same with his two children, Zander, 4, and Talia, 2.

Throughout the years, nature and DuPage forest preserves have played an important role in Debby and Tom Gerhardstein’s lives as they raised their family and pursued careers.

John Opila and his wife Gail enjoy exploring DuPage forest preserves on foot or by bicycle. They’re also into native plant landscaping and gardening.

Susan Nix has always had the nature bug. She has wonderful memories of taking her kids for nature walks through the woods.

Denis Kania graduated from college with a degree in computer science and worked in applications development for more than 20 years. By then, he had grown tired of the corporate world and was ready for something different.

Jill Spealman recently retired from 33 years of corporate IT training and 4 years of public school teaching. But she’s not done teaching yet!