yesterday was a beautiful day to explore dunes and swales in Gary, IN: one of my favorite hobbies! #WildCalumet #UrbanNature

so many babes in the woods today! I hung out with the fawn for a few minutes while it was waiting for its mama. it was so well camouflaged and then perfectly quiet and frozen. #WildCalumet #urbannature #bambiinthecity

Recently, I got to talk about urban ecology, meeting the landscape where it is, and the Calumet slag barrens with Nance Klehm on the #FeralCitizen radio show! www.mixcloud.com/.../mdw-fera... We started out at Chicago Park District’s Indian Ridge Marsh and ended up in the Lumpen Radio studio.

I first saw the heretical combination of the subheading of "ECOLOGY" and title, "The beauty of slag," and I swooned. Check out this terrific and fun story in UChicago Magazine about the novel ecosystem/slag research we're working on locally! #WildCalumet mag.uchicago.edu/science-medi...

palate cleanser: read about curious nerds, slow science, and the Chicago slag barrens among gorgeous photos in the golden hour at #MarianByrnesPark. #WildCalumet #GreatNearby mag.uchicago.edu/science-medi...

"Linnaeus classified lichens as plants — a notion no one questioned until Peter Rabbit creator Beatrix Potter undertook her little-known scientific studies and made the revolutionary discovery that lichens are part algae and part fungus, with a sprinkling a bacteria" (via @Maria Popova)

nerdiest thing I've done so far today: suggesting a correction to Google Maps so that what was "Barstow Trailhead" in Whiting IN is now, correctly, "Bairstow Trailhead". you're welcome. calumetregionadventure.org/2022/08/12/b...

Glad to see another connoisseur of urban, and other under-appreciated, ecosystems at my favorite local slice of slag heaven! #CrimePaysButBotanyDoesn't @joeysantore.bsky.social #WildCalumet #urbannature

can't wait til we get sponge parks in Chicago!

🆕 The first stunning images from our groundbreaking #Biomass satellite mission have been released – they mark a major leap forward in our ability to understand how Earth’s forests are changing and exactly how they contribute to the global carbon cycle 🌳🌍 www.esa.int/Applications...

Is there a killdeer cam at the Minneapolis airport? If not there should be. urban ecology, soft fascination, bird behavior - a mesmerizing tableau. #MSP #gateh12

Ancient Native American farming practices news!!! I can't wait for more to be uncovered at this site, and for the Menominee tribe to weigh in regarding their history of the region. www.npr.org/2025/06/06/n...

Maddie McLeester & colleagues use LIDAR & ground truthing to show evidence of the foodways of Little Ice Age Menominee in MI’s Upper Peninsula - would you believe it includes maize? Another example of the Menominee as incomparable natural resource managers. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

articulating the critical importance of basic science and particularly model organisms, like my favorite little buddy A. thaliana, for a new generation! Friesner, et al. 2025, In defense of funding foundational plant science. The Plant Cell. Volume 37: Issue 5, doi.org/10.1093/plce...

I'm looking forward to getting deep into this paper and the implications of "dark diversity" in urban landscapes #biodiversity

Op-ed: Instead of build, build, build we should reduce, reuse, repair, refurbish, repurpose, recycle, recover ✒️ Ramboll associate, circular economy Ricardo Weigend Rodriguez Read on:

“A tree is a little bit of the future.” Wangari Maathai, born on this day in 1940, became the first African woman awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, for planting trees as resistance and empowerment. Her remarkable story, illustrated:

had a joyful morning Saturday at Cowles Bog in Indiana Dunes. Sound on! “pulsing chanting from the tree tops sending forth their booming boisterous joyful noise!” -Paul Fleischman, Joyful Noise (about cicadas, but still lovely)

 #GreatNearby #WildCalumet #CowlesBog #SandhillCranes

R just showed me his secret eagle spot, pre dusk, on a sunny day. We saw THIRTEEN BALD EAGLES (flying and roosting; juveniles and adults) and a nest. In the city of Chicago. 10 blocks from where I live. #WildCalumet #urbannature #GreatNearby

relevant to your #slag interests! I had no idea this was possible - bt spontaneous ecosystems and carbon sequestration, slag may be an amazing conservation & sustainability tool! www.marketplace.org/2025/01/21/c...

*Extirpated species alert!* Led by botanist Nathanael Pilla, we found a plant species on the Southeast Side of Chicago last cataloged in the 1800s! The Calumet slag barrens are amazing sites of diversity. Check it out (link in reply): The Rediscovery of Eleocharis geniculata