Just a foot or so off State Road 97, nature is taking back what was once lost. Drivers can’t miss the sprawling wetlands, sunken floodplain and “narrow shoulder” signs, as the road winds across empty lands.

The Emiquon Preserve, about an hour and a half northwest of Springfield, stretches 7,100 acres along the Illinois River. The preserve, on land owned by The Nature Conservancy, was once one of the most ecologically and economically important river systems in North America.

After almost 80 years of abuse – levees, draining and conversion to farmland – the Conservancy in 2007 began to transform Emiquon back to a floodplain. The project is the second largest in the country, after the Everglades in Florida.

As the restoration continues, the preserve is again a popular stopover for waterfowl during migration.

Wading into murky water, digging several feet below frozen ground and carefully searching through grassy prairies are wildlife technicians Danielle DeVito and Curt Kleist.

They’re in search of mallard ducks, but you won’t find any rifles or ammunition among their belongings.

While some might have mistaken them for hunters last October, as they set out on foot, boats and four-wheelers, DeVito and Kleist had another mission entirely.

Using nets, decoys and traps, DeVito and Kleist captured the mallards, fit them with radio transmitting devices (called “backpacks” because they fit between the ducks’ wings) and sent them back into the preserve.

The technicians could now track the ducks, as they moved from the river’s marshes and wetlands to nearby fields and towns.

Both technicians are part of the Illinois Natural History Survey of the Forbes Biological Station in Havana, Ill. Their mallard research, based at the Therkildsen Field Station (a teaching and research facility owned by the University of Illinois at Springfield), is part of a larger effort to transform Emiquon from farmlands to floodplain.

DeVito and Kleist are part of a team that has spent the last four months studying how mallards use the Illinois River Valley during fall migration.

Dr. Joshua Stafford, director of the Forbes Biological Station, said he hopes his team’s research will provide information about the mallards’ movements on the preserve. The purpose of the study is to track duck migration, so researchers and conservationists will know how the mallards use their habitats at Emiquon.

“One of the big questions is: how do ducks allocate their time?” Stafford says. “What types of wetlands do they use? Where do they go? A lot of people think they spend most of their time on the crop fields. A lot of people think they only sit on the refuge. It’s going to take a while to look at all the numbers and see what patterns emerge.”