🌾 Dr. Liz Anna Kozik 🌾

a rusty-patch flying at a blooming grass that appears to be reed canary grass

a bombus affinis chowing down on some grass flowers of reed canary grass

shout out to our national treasure, the federally endangered rusty patch bumblebee....... dining on reed canary grass

TRASH BEE
www.inaturalist.org/observations...

an inat identification screen with a bazillion gray species buttons overlaid

i cannot be called upon to learn new species except apparently bog labrador tea

my main problem is that a wide species variation means my screen is 1/3 covered tiny buttons, IE:

damn state borders not respecting ecological nor colloquial political boundaries!! what's the point of them!

the species and phenology of southern IL and southern IN are screwing all sorts of things up, but i suppose same goes for the super north end of mn/wi/mi

a map of MN IA WI IL IN MI

Ok so like... the midwest. Does this need Ohio and/or Missouri?

I've IDed plants in over 6,500 pollinator observations in March, April, May in the red areas. If pressed, I could expand, but I'm waffling.

Description:
Seeking interdisciplinary approaches, climate mitigation, adaptation, & resilience. Topics like food security and biodiversity, soil organic matter, carbon sequestration, sustainable soil management, multifunctional landscapes and ecosystem services, and agroforestry.

$100k - $94k

Job Posting - University of Illinois
Assistant/Associate Professor in Agroecology

"[...W]ill serve as Director of the Agroecology and Sustainable Agriculture Program (ASAP). ASAP aims to promote sustainable food systems while conserving biodiversity."

illinois.csod.com/ux/ats/caree...

The area that I could see the rusty patch bumblebee daily is now totally bereft of any bumblebees

Every other day I’ve been walking different areas, cursing honeybees and lowly singing “where have all the cowboys gone?”

White arm with tattoos holding a camera while in the distance is a bald man also photographing prairie

Mental health recovery success:
Going photographing in prairie remnants with a friend and watching bees climb into gentians with equal excitement

a very fuzzy bee just coated in pollen, sitting on a sunflower

hello from a megachile friend I made today, deeply lost in the sauce at Marquette Park

A screenshot of inaturalist observations around Chicagoland, primarily focused on the western suburbs

Slowly but surely, I am filling in gaps of my iNaturalist observations. I WILL make a giant square over Chicagoland, so help me.

Prairie evening sounds

Rethinking Lawns Exploring lawn alternatives for biodiversity support, climate change resilience, and infrastructure improvements

This is SUCH A COOL PROJECT omg. I'm working through your papers and reports now and sharing with my team over at www.rethinkinglawns.com

I say with no judgement as someone with four unpublished papers in various states: do you anticipate any more papers coming out from this project?

Finally, to take up the title of Jeffrey Herff’s book “Reactionary Modernism”, Jensen makes it very clear in his publications that his own ideas about regional garden design and the “prairie spirit” need to be classified as belonging to “reac- tionary modernism”, at least in their tendency. That racism was an important motive in his plea for native plants is also shown by his article “Die ‘Lichtung’” (The ‘Clearing’) published in the magazine “Die Gartenkunst” in 1937: The gardens that I created myself shall [. . .] be in harmony with their landscape environ- ment and the racial characteristics of its inhabitants. They shall express the spirit of America and therefore shall be free of foreign character as far as possible [. . .] The Latin and the Oriental crept and creeps more and more over our land, coming from the South, which is settled by Latin people, and also from other centers of mixed masses of immigrants. The Germanic character of our race, of our cities and settlements was overgrown by foreign character. Latin spirit has spoiled a lot and still spoils things every day (Jensen 1937: 177).

*incidentally, a nazi. Kept regular correspondence with members of the nazi party and considered racial purity a key part of his landscape philosophy.

I'll let him speak for himself:

the table of trees and shrubs planted at union park, including ailianthus and rhamnus cathartica

a clearly-phone-camera shot of the union park plans held at the Morton Arboretum. Currently, the plans are not available online

prairie fact of the day:
the first prairie garden made post-settlement was Jens Jensen's* American Garden at Union Park. He harvested plants from roadsides outside the city & planted them in flowerbeds...... among tree-of-heaven & buckthorn. You might those now as major invasive species of Chicago!

We placed our dependence mainly on two classes of these: first, willows, chiefly of the shrubby short, but in large variety; second, herbacious, bog, and waterside plants, prinicply such as are commonly known to us as flags, cat-tails, rushes, irises, and pond-lilies. Some of these were propagated on the Fair grounds, a few were bought from nursery-men and florists, much the larger part was obtained by parties organized and sent out for the purpose to various localities on the shores of lakes, rivers, and swamps in Illinois and Wisconsin

a shot of the original plans of Jackson Park, a portion of the Chicago Columbian Exposition

Early "native gardens" and "restorations" tended to just be "we drove around, dug up some plants, and put them all together"

Here's Olmsted in 1893, talking about the lagoon edges at Jackson & Washington parks in Chicago, which took 75 rail-car loads of wild plants from all over

Ted Sperry et al trawl south wisconsin for prairie remnants in 1930, making stacks of sod in a truck to haul back to the uw arboretum

Jens jensen recounts some flowers that are good for taking and putting in your garden, and then a few decades later, reflects on how he did exactly that

Here's similar stories from Jens Jensen about The First Prairie Garden Ever™️ at Union Park & from Ted Sperry (1936) about The First Prairie Restoration Ever™️ at
UW Arboretum

Imagine there being so many bottle gentians in Chicago city limits that you could just grab some nbd

oh i'm cheering on the melisodes FOR SURE

honeybees are dicks, its all true

I have no interest at all in filming 24/7 to catch these guys, but also, people keep putting honeybee hives in natural areas, and we dont have a strong enough literature to prove how damaging that is for wild bees.

It's going to be MEGA contentious if I can collect enough documentation to publish.

honeybee lands on bombus impatiens and pushes it off a cirsium

ok but actually, I need a bodycam to capture all the honeybee-on-bumblebee assholery I see when I'm out. We've especially had issues with honeybees bullying the rusty-patch bumblebees, but haven't been quick enough to document any of it!

Next year, I'm determined to put honeybees on blast

Happy bee butt season everyone

Video: a bombus impatiens wiggles out of a white gentian

a screenshot of inaturalist observations on a grid over a map of Chicagoland. the south-west suburbs are full, the north-west suburbs are half full, north burbs have a few spots, and the city is one big blur

I am determined to turn my @inaturalist.bsky.social obs into a square over Chicagoland. Starting next on northwest burbs.

Unfortunately, most of the time I spend in the center-northeast is on the highway. You can see my commute on Dundee Road VERY clearly, but there's no evidence of I-290 or I-294

Fat blonde tan woman with tattoos grimacing manically with a white gentian

Big news if true:
It’s gentian season

Plants of Concern

Plants of Concern volunteers had only seen smaller bees visiting low bindweed until Gretel’s observation this year. Knowing who is pollinating our rare native plants can help us better understand how to protect them. Learn more: plantsofconcern.org

🐝 Bumble bee self-care: groom… nectar… groom…

Gretel Kiefer, manager of the Plants of Concern program, found this half-black bumble bee (Bombus vagans) visiting low bindweed (Calystegia spithamaea), a rare Illinois native plant. 🧪

VAGANS WHAT

ICYMI: I found a prairie remnant actively in the process of being destroyed. There's not much left, but if anyone is on the hunt for some dry-friendly plants, you might as well go pick some of these up before they're all killed.

1040 Marquis St, Montgomery, IL
www.inaturalist.org/observations...

Bouteloua in front of a construction truck

Plants at site:
Asclepias verticillata, tuberosa, syriaca
Physalis, Rudbeckias, tiny monarda
Little blue, big blue, bouteloua curtipendula
Some very mowed silphiums

1040 Marquis St, Montgomery, IL
Get em if you want them, they will be gone soon!

A fleet of yellow CAT trucks with a thin line of grasses and forbs by a curb

Had a guess there was some remnant over here and finding the last of it literally in front of a fleet of construction trucks is TOO ON THE NOSE

Reality is so tacky