HOBART | Shirley Heinze Land Trust will sponsor free guided hikes at Bur Oak Woods Nature Preserve between 10 a.m. and noon Saturday.

The trust invites neighborhood residents and interested members of the community to view the results of its restoration efforts at the site. Children are welcome and encouraged to attend. Light refreshments will be served.

To reach the site, take Ridge Road (37th Avenue) in Hobart, travel south on Liverpool Road about 1.3 miles. The woods are south of the railroad tracks and just north of Crabapple Lane. Street parking is available on Crabapple Lane and Briarwood Lane.

Bur Oak Woods is an example of a bur oak savanna, a natural community considered very rare in Indiana. The 85-acre property was acquired by Shirley Heinze Land Trust in 1998-99 with funding made available through grants from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service under the North American Wetlands Conservation Act.

The property features huge, centuries-old bur oak trees, some as large as four feet in diameter, and woodland ponds that provide good habitat for amphibians. With the assistance of numerous partners, including the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, the NiSource Environmental Challenge Fund, and the Chicago Wilderness consortium, the rust has undertaken a major restoration project at the preserve.

Shirley Heinze Land Trust has been protecting natural land in the southern Lake Michigan watershed since 1981. It owns 880 acres outright, holds conservation easements on 138 acres, and has transferred some 30 additional acres to Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore and the Indiana Department of Natural Resources.

Five of its properties - Cressmoor Prairie, Seidner Dune & Swale, John Merle Coulter Preserve, Barker Woods, and Ambler Flatwoods - have been dedicated to the people of Indiana as state nature preserves. Included in the Heinze Trust's holdings are examples of the entire spectrum of natural communities in this area: tallgrass prairie, high dune, oak savanna, boreal flatwoods, dune-and-swale, woodlands, marshes, swamps, ponds, fens, and riparian habitat. The Heinze Trust has also made contributions toward the purchase of natural areas owned by other entities, including the Indiana DNR, The Nature Conservancy and the LaPorte, Lake County and the Portage parks departments.

For more information on the work and programs of the trust, call (219) 879-4725, or visit www.heinzetrust.org.

- For The Times