Podcast

Thismia, Thismia, Wherefore Art Thou, Thismia?

August 3, 2019August 9, 2019 Mike Nowak Audubon Great Lakes, Calumet region, Chicago Park District, environment, gardening, hemi-marsh wetland, Illinois Soybean Association, Indian Ridge Marsh, Peggy Malecki, restoration ecology, The Mike Nowak Show, The Wetlands Initiative, Thismia americana

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(August 4, 2019) If you’re not hunting for Thismia americana on this fine Sunday in August, you must be getting married or have tickets to the Super Bowl or something. Half of the City of Chicago is expected turn out in the Lake Calumet area to search for a plant that hasn’t been seen in more than a hundred years.

Okay, that last sentence might be a bit of an exaggeration. Let’s just say that some botanists and a few volunteers will be combing the grounds of Indian Ridge Marsh in the hope of striking gold…er, Thismia. But it’s also a chance to have fun on a beautiful day, learn about nature, and support efforts to restore rare hemi-marsh habitat in the area. The event is called Thismia Hunt! A Calumet Celebration Day.

Peggy and I learned about Thismia americana in April of this year when Paul Botts and Teri Valenzuela visited our show. Paul is President & Executive Director of The Wetlands Initiative, which is “dedicated to restoring the wetland resources of the Midwest to improve water quality, increase wildlife habitat and biodiversity, and reduce flood damage.” Teri is Stewardship Program Associate at Audubon Great Lakes. Both organizations, along with the Chicago Park District and the Illinois Soybean Association, are sponsors of the event.

When Paul and Teri joined us then, they told us about efforts to re-establish the hemi-marsh wetland type that’s crucial to supporting many wetland-dependent bird species. But that doesn’t happen unless people get involved. So they talked about Community Stewardship Days scheduled all year long for Indian Ridge Marsh. The Thismia Hunt is just one of many events. Before they had even left the building that day, Peggy and I were on board with the broadcast. There will be prizes, snacks (tamales for lunch!) and, of course, The Mike Nowak Show with Peggy Malecki.

There’s a parking lot at Indian Ridge Marsh at 11740 South Torrence Avenue in Chicago. (Don’t get fooled by the street at 116th.) However, you can also take a bus from Bridgeport Coffee in Hyde Park, the Pullman Visitor Center, and the East Side and Hegewisch libraries. Learn more about bus pickup and drop off times here. The organizers recommend bringing water, sturdy shoes, and a rain jacket just in case…though it looks as though it’s going to be a perfect day for a Thismia Hunt.

Here’s a brief rundown of our guests.

It wouldn’t be a Thismia hunt without Thismia Americana, so we’ll learn a little about this elusive plant from Linda Masters. Linda is a restoration specialist with Openlands. Linda has been a well-known plant ecologist in the Chicago region since before there even was such a thing as “Chicago Wilderness” (or for that matter the Wetlands Initiative or Audubon Great Lakes). She’s worked with Gerould Wilhelm, knows all the senior people at places like the Chicago Botanic Garden, etc. Linda has been part of hunting for Thismia since the late 1980s, so she’s a real veteran of the hunt.

Trevor Edmonson joined us when we broadcast the show from Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie last September. He is a restoration ecologist with the Wetlands Initiative who oversees TWI’s restoration work at Indian Ridge Marsh. Trevor also represents a new generation of ecologists who have caught the Thismia bug. He helped organize and lead the Thismia hunt in 2016 that got covered by the Wall Street Journal. Trevor also has some other experience with rare plants found only in odd places.

Matt Freer and Joel Springsteen are from the Chicago Park District. They will talk about the agency’s strategy and activities as owner of these Lake Calumet-area sites. One of the big questions is why? Why did that agency take ownership about ten years ago. Another question: How is CPD balancing the agency’s traditional recreation mission with natural-areas restoration? What other all does the specific current restoration effort at Indian Ridge Marsh consist of?

As I mentioned earlier, Teri Valenzuela was with us in April and is Stewardship Program Associate at Audubon Great Lakes. Iza Redlinski is Conservation Ecologist at the Field Museum where her focus is the bi-state Calumet Region. The Field Museum is working to increase community engagement in what has been a long-neglected area. They will talk about that push in Calumet, specifically at Indian Ridge Marsh. By the way, if you want to track down Thismia americana yourself, the Field Museum has a guide just for that purpose, complete with drawings and photos. It’s called Find Thismia and you can click on that link to see it.

Believe it or not, Thismia is not the only mystery of this area. Daniel Suarez and Vera Leopold will join us to talk about “secretive” marsh birds. Marsh birds are the charismatic fauna of a place like IRM and are also the overall design indicator of new science and restoration work underway across the whole bi-state Calumet region. As for the “secretive” part, that mostly applies to the rareness of some birds.

Daniel Suarez is the Stewardship Program Manager at Audubon Great Lakes. Vera Leopold is a member of the development staff at the Wetlands Initiative. However, she has a lot of birding experience and Indian Ridge Marsh is one of the specific sites that she monitors. We’re counting on her to fire up her birding app so we can hear the calls of some of these rare birds.

That’s what I call a four-star event! See you there!