Overview
Several regionally rare plants grow at Goodrich Woods, such as yellow trout lily, pagoda dogwood and toad trillium. A variety of birds forage and nest here, too, including state or regionally rare red-headed woodpeckers, yellow-billed cuckoos, broad-winged hawks and wood thrushes. Ecologists have recorded mourning cloak butterflies, ebony jewelwing damselflies and 17-year cicadas among the site’s hundreds of invertebrates. It features trails and interpretive signs and is near the West Branch DuPage River Regional Trail, which parallels Washington Street. It has two wooden footbridges that cross the stream and a gravel parking lot.
A 0.5-mile wood-chip loop takes you through 14 acres of woodlands and over two wooden footbridges, which cross the meandering creek that cuts the preserve in half. Remnants of the original homesite are at the trailhead.