Lauren Umek, PhD

Happy alvar birthday!

Science friends, life is difficult now, but please still try to peer review papers if you can.

I'm the editor handling a paper that just had it's 43rd person decline to review. We may have to reject it because no one is willing to review it, which sucks for the authors.

Damn conscious. Had to take a few hours off my vacation to discover the local bird rescue folks in an attempt to get this little guy healthy and back out in the world or meeting a peaceful end instead of on the sidewalk in front of a parking garage.

I’m SUPER interested in this stretch along the river. The little loop with 122nd or the big loop with IRM and Big March would be AMAZING!

I like your off street connections too! Just a couple of tricky spots to make it work.

The recommendations.

You’re on to something! bigmarsh.org/wp-content/u...

Prob goes without saying, but it should also be free. Kinda bogus to have free sugar for hot drinks, but pay for it for cold.

A duck once laid eggs is my neighbor’s empty flower pot in the 3rd floor. When one hatched, it fell/jumped but was fine. I was scared and carried it back up to the pot. It jumped right back down again and the duckling and mom just wandered off. They’re so light I guess they mostly float down?

As someone who has 100% of SVU and 99.9% of all L&O shows that were ever produced, I am clutching my pearls and gasping right now.

Alright I have a question for *all of you*, esp for those of you who are not into environment stuff.

When you think about planting native plants in the area you control, what *prevents* you from taking that action? These could be emotional, financial, practical, anything.

RTs appreciated here.

Overheard at Big Marsh today

“I realized I don’t need to go to all the way to Montrose [Point Bird Sanctuary] to see cool birds!”

❤️ doing our best to make awesome birding and nature spots near everyone in Chicago ❤️

Yay! I’m pretty sure we planted some last year, but they’re usually slow to show up. Will check the records, but yaaayyy! One of my favorites!

Just a spring beauty appreciation post. Imagine this mixed within your lawn….

Today’s class started with a Canada goose walking out of a restaurant, then hissing at and chasing me away, then proceeded on the Wild Mile where a student told some fish-related dad jokes and another had custom fish nail art.
A+ day

I made art! With soil!
Very cool “painting with soils” workshop at Society for Ecological Restoration meeting.

Shout out to one of my favorite spring flowers-Pennsylvania Sedge. Spreading like a beauty in my urban clay & construction debris “soil”.

I had a shattered heel from a car accident and a friend who was a lactation consultant put some slightly crunched cabbage leaves on my foot to help with swelling and I think it did!

A Place for the Nitty-Gritty of Tree Science | The Morton Arboretum Behind the scenes at The Morton Arboretum, trees and plants grow as research experiments to improve the future for trees and people.

Nice shots here of the experimental grounds on The Morton Arboretum's west side, including our bur oak reciprocal transplant experiment (ACE, conceived by @cavenderg9.bsky.social and executed in collaboration with her group at UMN and Heather McCarthy at U of OK).

mortonarb.org/blog/a-place...

These geese rudely demonstrating how good the sod looks in our experiment comparing lawns to different native plant installations (post burn and some installation bumps in the road)

Would they not eat a toad? That seems like a sketchy bucket for the one with legs.

Morning coworker

@inaturalist.bsky.social

Love this!!

Was she actually super tall? (Not that it matters, except maybe to get a better look at high leaves, but wow)

I gotta give it to the USGS. This is a really good timelapse of the beginning of the eruption at Kilauea today.

If you’re all ok with some violence. Ready or Not has an eccentric family theme that could be fun.