Biodiversity in the News: the Practice of Biology in Modern Times

Daniel Molloy working in Sleepy Hollow Lake, Athens NY (photo: L. Mann/APO)
Daniel Molloy working in Sleepy Hollow Lake, Athens NY (photo: L. Mann/APO)

This past week I’ve come across two fascinating and instructive news articles about biologists in NY and IL doing important research in different contexts, with instructive lessons for how we conserve biodiversity in the face of urbanization and invasive species. Today’s NY Times‘ Science Times section features this piece on Daniel P. Molloy, a biologist at the New York State Museum who has spent his career studying and developing environmentally-safe biological controls for invasive species, such as the notorious zebra and quagga mussels that plague the Great Lakes ecosystem.

David Bohlen in his office (photo: Tom Handy, IL Times)
David Bohlen in his office (photo: Tom Handy, IL Times)

The other story, from my own state of Illinois, appeared on Feb. 6th in Illinois Times (Springfield) — a long feature article on the work of H. David Bohlen, who has studied the bird populations of Sangamon County in Central IL for a continuous 40-year period and just released a massive two-volume report on his research. Bohlen is a biologist with the Illinois State Museum in Springfield. His 2013 report, “A Study of the Birds of Sangamon County, Illinois, 1970-2010,” can be found here as pdfs (Volume 1 and Volume 2).

The valuable work of these two scientists illustrates several points about the impact of biological research in conserving biodiversity and making ecosystems more sustainable. Molloy’s research strives to find and implement natural biological controls (such as a species of bacteria) for invasive species, not just to effectively mitigate their impacts on the food chain but also to avoid using chemical toxins and further polluting freshwater aquatic systems as a means of “saving” them. His work also demonstrates the increasing prominence of microbiology in sustainability science, which is also a key starting point for developing biofuels (itself a really hot topic!).

Bohlen’s field-based research method, by contrast, is a throwback to the organismal field studies of natural history that were common in the 19th century but have largely fallen out of favor with the biological mainstream’s emphasis on cellular- and molecular-level work. Yet Bohlen’s phenomenal 40-year record of avian biodiversity in a representative Midwestern farm county shows how the land use changes resulting from decades of urbanization and industrial agriculture have negatively impacted the diversity and abundance of bird species in the Illinois landscape. It also illustrates what you can accomplish by walking around, observing, and recording systematic phenological data over a long-term timeframe.

Reviewing “The Cambridge Introduction to Literature and the Environment,” by Timothy Clark

Cambridge Intro to Lit and EnvPart of an extensive series by this venerable university press, The Cambridge Introduction to Literature and the Environment is a detailed and comprehensive overview of the many relations among literature, criticism, and the natural environment. Author Timothy Clark of Durham University has produced an ambitious, nuanced, and critically adept introduction to the heterogeneous field of ecocriticism that has emerged as an important current of cultural studies over the past two decades. Explicitly pitched to professors as a pedagogical resource but also valuable as a survey of a rapidly maturing academic field, this slim but substantive book is immensely useful for students and professional scholars alike. Clark effectively models the praxis of textual interpretation and intellectual engagement in his writing, which is unfailingly smart and stylistically lucid.

While several good overviews of ecocriticism have been published previously, some are more than 15 years old while others are edited volumes containing a diverse array of essays written by different scholars. Clark’s book is therefore both a much-needed update on as well as coherent assessment of the present state of ecocriticism, which he defines as the “study of the relationship between literature and the physical environment, usually considered from out of the current global environmental crisis and its revisionist challenge to given modes of thought and practice” (xiii). While Clark sees ecocriticism as “a provocative misfit in literary and cultural debate” (3) since it is a relatively young and unapologetically interdisciplinary field of inquiry, he convincingly documents its contemporary relevance as a means of bringing the humanities to bear on matters of ecological and political import.

Clark provides a 30,000-foot-high perspective on a sprawling and still-evolving critical movement that includes not just the study of Anglo-American nature writing (its historic core concern), but also embraces ecofeminism, critical theory, postcolonial studies, evolutionary biology, environmental justice, animal studies, and other interdisciplinary modes of humanistic inquiry. At the same time, Clark frequently descends from this high-altitude viewpoint to systematically inspect the surface, by which I refer to his frequent close readings of particular texts, authors, genres, or philosophical issues. In doing so, he models for students how ecocritics do their work of interrogating texts, unpacking words and concepts, making connections among disparate themes or ideas, etc. This effortless interplay between comprehensive critical overview and concrete interpretative engagement makes the text useful both for classroom use with advanced undergraduate or graduate students as well as the seasoned scholar seeking insights into ecocritical topics and methods.

The book includes an introduction and 20 chapters, which in turn are grouped into four main sections, the titles of which are more poetically suggestive than transparently informative: “Romantic and Anti-Romantic,” “The Boundaries of the Political,” “Science and the Struggle for Intellectual Authority,” and “The Animal Mirror.” Interspersed throughout are 13 concise “quandaries,” passages in which Clark poses “open invitations to further thought” (xiii). These are enclosed within grey boxes on the page, which along with numerous illustrations provide an arresting visual aesthetic as well as opportunities for stimulating dialogue within the college classroom.

In terms of scope, Clark covers tremendous ground in his elucidation of the connections among literature, criticism, and the natural environment — from Romanticism to questions of genre to current debates about posthumanism; from ecofeminism to science studies to nature writing to environmental justice; from ethics to animal studies to climate change. Two particular chapters highlight Clark’s success in weaving together and making sense of this wide array of subjects as well as his skills in parsing the meaning and relevance of particular texts.

Sand County AlmanacIn Chapter 7, “Thinking like a Mountain” (also the famous title of an oft-cited essay by the American conservationist, ecologist, and writer, Aldo Leopold), Clark identifies an important tension within environmentalism between radical theory and reformist practice. In his words, environmental advocates “must speak in terms accepted within existing structures of governance and economics, the very things they may consider ultimately responsible for environmental degradation in the first place” (77). Next follows a detailed reading of two foundational texts of 20th century American environmental writing — Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac; and, Sketches Here and There (1949) and Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962) — in which Clark traces the aforementioned quandary between radicalism and pragmatism in the rhetoric of Leopold and Carson. While I feel his interpretation downplays the paradigm-challenging environmental ethic espoused by Leopold as well as the explicit critique of the industrial-chemical-military-agricultural complex that is at the heart of Carson’s Silent Spring, I nonetheless greatly admire Clark’s astute and eloquent explication of the form and rhetoric of Sand County Almanac (78-9) that seems tailor-made for introducing students to the deceptively simple yet well-wrought structure of this landmark work.

Similarly engaging is Chapter 13, “Questions of Scale,” in which Clark addresses the interlinked topics of bioregionalism, climate change, global versus local environmental activism, environmental sloganeering, and (lest you think he’s forgotten about literature) ecopoetry. One excellent feature of this chapter is Clark’s penchant for moving beyond Anglo-American literary borders, as he does in his commentary here on Derek Walcott and Édouard Glissant (132-135). Then there’s his especially insightful riff on climate change and the now-clichéd dictum of the Sierra Club, “Think globally, act locally.”

Think Globally Act Locally

While this phrase “says, in effect: try to understand ecological systems on the largest possible scale and then take action locally in accordance with that understanding,” Clark reveals how the urgent ecological crisis of climate change demonstrates an essential paradox — “one cannot only act locally, [because] . . . any action affects the whole world, however, minutely” (136, emphasis added). Clark correctly notes that the global/local tension as well as climate change are examples of critically important environmental issues that up to now have received scant attention from most ecocritics. What such engagement might entail is illustrated by a reading of Gary Snyder’s bioregional ecopoetry in the final pages of the chapter, work which “use[s] multiple scales of space and time to form a critique of the destructive, one-dimensional and ultimately fragile sphere of the modern neoliberal state” (138).

Two last points about the book, which is beautifully produced by Cambridge University Press (and thus inspired me to newly peruse the titles of this expansive series of “Introduction to” volumes). First, I greatly appreciate the “Further Reading” bibliography at the end, which lists well-chosen sources according to the text’s table of contents, rather than merely (and far less usefully) alphabetically. For those planning an advanced undergraduate course or graduate seminar on, say, “Environmental Literature” or “Ecocriticism or Nature in Literature” or “Art, Humanities, and the Environment,” etc., this bibliography is a must-read, as it provides both seminal background references as well as a cornucopia of potential syllabus readings.

On a less enthusiastic note, the conspicuous omission (for me, at least) of cities, sustainability, and urbanization from the book’s index reveal one lacuna in Clark’s otherwise catholic coverage of contemporary environmental concerns. In a world of accelerating climate change, ongoing pollution, feeble environmental regulation, habitat loss, poverty, and persistent socioeconomic inequity, the global movement toward urbanization that has paralleled the human population explosion (as of 2008, over half the world’s population now resides in urban areas) is something that ecocriticism has finally begun to acknowledge in productive ways, as urban-focused studies published in the field’s foremost scholarly journal, ISLE, testify. Clark’s otherwise valuable and instructive chapter on environmental justice (87-95), for example, misses an opportunity to connect this political movement to its urban origins and, somewhat curiously, features an extended reading of a prototypically male wilderness narrative set in the American West (Norman Maclean’s 1976 novella, A River Runs Through It).

That is, however, a decidedly minor quibble about a skillfully written, eminently readable, and immensely useful book. Far from a pedestrian college textbook, Clark’s Introduction to Literature and the Environment is an erudite survey of ecocriticsm accessible to both scholar and student, as well as a practical tool for demonstrating literature’s representation of and engagement with environmental issues of all kinds. As Clark writes in his concise and hard-hitting final chapter, “The limitations as well as the excitement of ecocritical work to date may reflect the fact that environmental questions are not just a matter of aesthetics, politics, poetics or ethics, but can affect certain ground rules as to what these things mean” (202). In other words, ecocriticism — and by extension, literature and the humanities — matters greatly, for it must join (and provide constructive critiques of) science and policy in engaging the pressing environmental issues of our time. With that bold claim in mind, I can think of no better intellectual map of ecocriticism’s present state or future prospects than this book.

Timothy Clark. The Cambridge Introduction to Literature and the Environment. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Pp. vii+254.

Note: This is a modified version of a review that will appear in a forthcoming issue of the journal Modern Philology.

Environmental Studies at Roanoke College

Roanoke College campusThis week I had the opportunity to visit the Environmental Studies Program at Roanoke College in Salem, VA, and give two guest lectures.

Tuesday, Jan. 14th:
“Writing the Urban Landscape: Literature, Environmental Studies, and the Sustainable Future of Cities” (ppt and pdf of slideshow)

Wednesday, Jan. 15th:
“Exploring the Chicago River: Science, Policy, Ethics, and Sustainability” (ppt and pdf of slideshow)

New Book on Rachel Carson by Robert Musil

Rachel Carson and her Sisters coverThis looks to be an excellent new book on Rachel Carson and many other women scientist/writers/activists who have profoundly shaped environmental discourse and policy in the US. Notably included here is Sandra Steingraber, who recently spoke at Roosevelt University during the Great Lakes Bioneers conference on Nov. 1st. As the book’s website from Rutgers University Press notes:

In Rachel Carson and Her Sisters, Robert K. Musil redefines the achievements and legacy of environmental pioneer and scientist Rachel Carson, linking her work to a wide network of American women activists and writers and introducing her to a new, contemporary audience. Rachel Carson was the first American to combine two longstanding, but separate strands of American environmentalism—the love of nature and a concern for human health. Widely known for her 1962 best-seller, Silent Spring, Carson is today often perceived as a solitary “great woman,” whose work single-handedly launched a modern environmental movement. But as Musil demonstrates, Carson’s life’s work drew upon and was supported by already existing movements, many led by women, in conservation and public health.

On the fiftieth anniversary of her death, this book helps underscore Carson’s enduring environmental legacy and brings to life the achievements of women writers and advocates, such as Ellen Swallow Richards, Dr. Alice Hamilton, Terry Tempest Williams, Sandra Steingraber, Devra Davis, and Theo Colborn, all of whom overcame obstacles to build and lead the modern American environmental movement.

Contents:

1 Have You Seen the Robins? Rachel Carson’s Mother and the Tradition of Women Naturalists

2 Don’t Harm the People: Ellen Swallow Richards, Dr. Alice Hamilton, and Their Heirs Take On Polluting Industries

3 Rachel and Her Sisters: Rachel Carson Did Not Act Alone

4 Rachel Carson, Terry Tempest Williams, and Ecological Empathy

5 The Environment Around Us and Inside Us: Ellen Swallow Richards, Silent Spring, and Sandra Steingraber

6 Rachel Carson, Devra Davis, Pollution, and Public Policy

7 Rachel Carson and Theo Colborn: Endocrine Disruption and Public Policy

Epilogue

Presenting at SLSA 2013: Water & the Postnatural City

UND in fallYesterday I arrived at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana — my first visit to this storied campus — to participate in the annual meeting of the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts. This year the conference theme is “Postnatural.”

My talk yesterday afternoon was part of a panel entitled “Water and the City,” and included stimulating presentations by Christine Skolnik of DePaul University (“Imagined Eco-Futures” Restoring the Current” [of the LA River]) and Peter Hobbs of York University in Toronto (“What Does Lead Do? Toxic Entanglements, Exposures, and Cosmo-Chemo-Politics”).

Below is the introduction to my talk, which was an extemporaneous exposition of this slideshow (pdf, 10MB file).

Water and the Postnatural City: Reversals, Invasions, and Prospects for Sustainability

It is hard to think of a natural substance more vital to life than water. Yet, “the natural” is difficult to locate amidst the bewildering complex of intakes, filters, screens, pumps, chemical treatment chambers, distribution mains, pipes of all sizes, gutters, storm drains, sinks, sewers, settling tanks, combined sewage overflows, canals, locks, oxygenating waterfalls, electric fish barriers, and myriad other technological accouterments that allow us to convey, control, imbibe, and dispense with freshwater/wastewater in our cities and suburbs.

One of the tunnels within the Deep Tunnel / TARP system (photo: Chicago Tribune)
One of the tunnels within the Deep Tunnel / TARP system (photo: Chicago Tribune)

Despite the utter domination of water’s movement by what environmental engineers call the “hard path” of water resource management, however, the capacity of even highly degraded urban river corridors to support surprising levels of biodiversity — not to mention the tendency of urbanized landscapes to flood — demonstrates that Nature in the form of wild (read: violent) water frequently reasserts its power over us.

This presentation takes a deep dive into the water resources and management systems of the Chicago Region to ask:

  • What does it mean for the aptly named Chicago Area Waterway System to be “postnatural,” and why has it been such for so many decades?
  • How does a dredged, straightened, polluted, reversed, flushed, rerouted, industrialized, and biologically invaded since the mid-19th century urban river become a locus of urban sustainability and ecological restoration in the 21st century?
  • In what ways are Chicago’s rivers and canals connected to its other vital water resources and systems: fresh water supply (intake) and wastewater (outflow)?
  • Finally, what might the salient tropes of various Water and the City narratives teach us about our capacity to explore and apprehend an urbanized but still wild (read: unpredictable) nature in a postnatural age?

Teaching Sustainability 101

Last fall I attended the annual AASHE conference/expo, held in Los Angeles, and it was a great time. I contributed to a faculty roundtable presentation on teaching introductory sustainability courses to undergraduates. Our session was really productive, substance-wise, and extremely well-attended; so the panelists, led by chair Prof. Tom Schrand of Philadelphia University, revised the edited transcript of our conversation into a journal article.

Sustainability journal cover 2013AugI’m not able to attend 2013’s AASHE conference in Nashville, unfortunately. But it’s good to see that our article has appeared this month in the August 2013 issue of Sustainability: The Journal of Record, one of the leading journal publications for sustainability in higher education.

Read the article here in pdf format: “Teaching Sustainability 101: How Do We Structure an Introductory Course?” Note that the SUST student website/blog Schaumburg’s Sustainable Future gets a mention in both the text and the article’s bibliography. Quite likely I’ll be re-reading it as I work on my SUST 210 Sustainable Future syllabus for this Fall 2013 semester at Roosevelt!

Action Research at the Chicago Lights Urban Farm

Turning the soil in the Farm's west planting beds, 24 April 2013
Turning the soil in the Farm’s west planting beds, 24 April 2013

Many of the writing and research assignments I give my students at RU are fairly straightforward and prescriptive. I give them a lot of concrete guidelines and freedom to choose a topic; they crank out the work; and then I grade it and give it back with feedback. That’s how it works for the most part in academia.

But the past two springs I’ve had the privilege of teaching a service-learning course held on-site at the Chicago Lights Urban Farm, at the south end of the Cabrini-Green neighborhood on Chicago’s Near North Side — and that class is anything but ordinary.

Buidling new planting beds for the community garden, 1May 2013
Buidling new planting beds for the community garden, 1May 2013

SUST 350 Service & Sustainability has been supported these last two years by a “transformational service learning” grant from Roosevelt’s Mansfield Institute of Social Justice and Transformation, funding which has enabled my students and me to support the farm’s mission, purchase supplies for construction projects, and take area youth on educational field trips within and beyond Chicago.

This spring semester, in addition to their weekly work on the farm watering plants, building compost bins, turning over soil, constructing greenhouse grow tables, etc., my 15 undergrad students were tasked with a collaborative “Action Research” project, in which they’d work in pairs or trios to develop real-world projects meant to extend and enhance the mission and work of this extraordinary half-acre urban farm.

Having never led quite such a research project before, I wasn’t exactly sure how to instruct them in this process — consequently, I just didn’t have the procedure or the finished project all scripted out like I usually do. Instead, I offered some rough guidelines (see project guidelines here [pdf]), moral and logistical support (likewise provided by the farm’s director, Natasha Holbert), and a lot of room for creativity.

Boy, did I learn something. Give motivated, smart, and engaged students a chance to do creative applied research for a place that they respect and appreciate, and they are capable of doing terrific work. (Note to self: do this again.) Here’s what they came up with. All of these Action Research Projects are designed to be implemented, expanded, and/or revised by the Farm staff and workers — and some may be taken up and extended by future SUST 350 students here at Roosevelt.

Our last workday, 1 May 2013, at the farm. Pictured here are RU students, CLUF staff, and Growing Power / Chicago Lights "Youth Corps" interns.
Our last workday, 1 May 2013, at the farm. Pictured here are RU students, CLUF staff, and Growing Power / Chicago Lights “Youth Corps” interns.

Community Empowerment and Youth Enrichment (CEYE) Program
Allison Breeding, Scott Rogers, and Troy Withers

The CEYE Program is comprised of three branches—Community Service, Food Access and Engagement, and Roosevelt Credit—which collectively aim to benefit the lives and futures of Chicago Lights Urban Farm (CLUF) volunteers, at-risk urban youths, and Cabrini seniors. CEYE seeks to take teens out of a path of trouble and into a path of service, volunteerism, and eventually college and career. The program also seeks to empower and assist local seniors by improving their food access and strengthening their community connections. (CEYE Proposal pdf)

Community Gardeners’ Guide
Jordan Ewbank, Kristen Johnson, and Ana Molledo

A practical how-to resource for people wishing to start their own community garden, based on the knowledge and practices of the CLUF community garden, established in 2002. Discusses land preparation, garden organization and design, raised beds vs. in-ground gardening, soil quality, compost, and what kinds of vegetables to grow. (Gardeners’ Guide pdf)

Troy and his son, working together on our 24 April 2013 workday
Troy and his son, working together on our 24 April 2013 workday

Farm Education Lessons and Activities
Bob Basile, Christian Cameron, and Molly Connor

Educational lessons and activities for K through Grade 6 students on composting, planting, and nutrition meant to be used at the CLUF to connect urban farm education with sustainability. May be expanded by future students for 7-12 grade levels on these and additional topics. (Farm Curriculum pdf)

Knowing Your Neighborhood: Community Assets Brochure and Map
Mike Miller and Ken Schmidt

Brochure (pdf)and interactive Google map designed to highlight resources and assets with a one-mile radius of the Chicago Lights Urban Farm.

Rainwater Harvesting Plan
Michael Magdongon and Lore Mmutle

A concrete proposal for the installation of a rainwater harvesting system on one of the Farm’s hoop houses. Would provide a sustainable supply of water to decrease dependence upon usage of the street hydrant on Chicago Ave., now the Farm’s main water source. Projected return on investment within one year.
(Rainwater Proposal pdf)

Self-Guided Tour and Farm Map
Bryan McAlister and Lauren Winkler

This beautifully designed one-page, double-sided guided tour information sheet and map is ideal for first-time visitors to the Farm who would like a brief and fun introduction to all of the spaces and growing areas within its half-acre footprint. Includes information of selected vegetables and several recipes for cooking them.
(Guided Tour and Map Brochure pdf)

350 Self-Guided Tour Map _Page_2

Winter Symposium on Sustainability at Augustana College

Today I head west to the city of Rock Island, which hugs the Mississippi River in northwestern Illinois (right across the water from Davenport, Iowa). I’ve been invited to give a talk on urban sustainability issues in Chicago at Augustana College’s annual Winter Symposium, which this year is focused on sustainability and environmental issues. Since I can never resist a chance to talk about urban waterways, my talk is entitled “Paddling the Chicago River: A Good Way to Think about Science, Art, Ethics, and the Sustainability of Cities.”

Heading downstream on the Upper North Branch, about a half-mile from our destination in the Linné Woods forest preserve in Morton Grove, IL (M. Bryson)
Heading downstream on the Upper North Branch, about a half-mile north of Linné Woods forest preserve in Morton Grove, IL, north of Chicago, Oct. 2012 (M. Bryson)

The degraded yet undeniably charismatic Chicago River is a mighty fine place to contemplate the tangled relationships among water quality, land use, and sustainability within cities and suburbs. As a site for exploring urban nature, an object of analysis in the scientific assessment of water quality and urban ecology, and a case-study in landscape aesthetics, the Chicago river provides students and citizens myriad opportunities to develop a sense of place. More generally, experiencing urban rivers — and understanding their function within the complex watersheds of metropolitan regions — can foster not just ecological literacy about urban ecosystems but also ethical engagement with one’s community.

Here’s a pdf version of my presentation.

City Creatures Retreat at the Indiana Dunes (Pictures and Random Thoughts)

A marsh within the Calumet River watershed in the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore
A marsh within the Calumet River watershed in the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore

I’ve never been invited to a writer’s retreat before (not to mention a writers and artists retreat), and despite long anticipation and careful planning for this one, I almost didn’t get to go to this one when my spouse took ill and the kids needed tending. Thank goodness for CHN retreat organizer and all-around problem-solver Gavin Van Horn’s wisdom and quick decision-making, as he called me up and said, “Bring the girls along.”

I’m glad I did, as we had a terrific time — and I’m grateful to Gavin’s wife Marcie, who generously and graciously volunteered to watch my children during the times when I was occupied with fellow participants in wonderful discussions about our forthcoming City Creatures project.

For me the retreat had a number of highlights. Some of them were formal, in the sense that they were on the planned agenda — like the splendid hike through the wetlands of the Great Calumet Marsh on Friday led by Ron and Joan Engel, who escorted us along some of their favorite biodiversity-rich trails in the Dunes back-country; the lovely reception hosted by the Engels at their beautiful home in Beverly Shores (which surely has the best home study/library I’ve ever seen); the delightful dinner at Sage restaurant in Chesterton; and the “soundwalk” excursion we took in Gary on the grounds of the Paul Douglas Environmental Learning Center at the western end of the National Lakeshore.

Joan and Ron Engel, with Steve Packard

But the less-scripted elements of the retreat held many delights, as well. I became pals with a conservationist and writer I much admire, Stephen Packard, who rode in my car from field site to field site, and delighted my children with his funny stories, endless questions, and brilliant bird call imitations. At one point on our way to the soundwalk field trip, I deliberately got us lost (no, really!) so I could listen to the end of a story that involved “mucking about” a salt marsh on Cape Cod; the ensuing delay was worth it. I met some old friends but also made a bunch of new ones among a group of immensely talented and utterly fascinating people. And I learned a lot about what our collective project is aiming for, and had time and encouragement to think about how my small contribution fits into the bigger picture.

Lea Schweitz holds an opossum mandible

My two girls, Lily (age 10) and Esmé (age 5), had fun cavorting with Gavin’s 5-year-old son Hawkins, and they got a kick out of our field hikes, too. During our marsh walk, we had  several great kid discoveries: Steve Sullivan found the mandible of an opossum; Steve Packard found some eggshell fragments, still soft and pliable, from a turtle; and we all admired a large beaver lodge and the abundant nearby evidence of busy-ness on the part of this intrepid wetland mammal and fellow water engineer.

On our Saturday morning hike, I was initially concerned that my chatterbox children would fill the “soundscape” with their songs, stories, and sisterly bickering and thus necessitate my hanging back from the group. Turns out I greatly underestimated them. Lily hiked ahead with the grown-ups, while Esmé and I lollygagged with the renowned naturalist and writer Joel Greenberg, who happily pointed out flowers and identified bird calls for us. Esmé got a nosebleed for no apparent reason, but rather than crying or complaining, she just asked me for tissues until it stopped, and kept trudging along behind Joel and looking at everything he noted.

At a rest stop on our soundwalk, listening to the marsh and woods

The best part of that wonderful hike was when we ascended a hill about two-thirds of the way along the circuitous trail we were following, and stopped for a long listen. Here in the Dunes there’s lot of sand, of course, and this summit we were on was like a big sandbox. As we naturally formed a circle to listen, observe, and talk quietly about what we were experiencing, the girls just played quietly in the sand.

We watched them, too, and I couldn’t help but think about how our project — about connecting with nature and, more specifically, the non-human animals within the urban and suburban environment of the Chicago region — is also, ultimately, about nurturing an ethic of stewardship and love of nature in our children.

Esmé holds a piece of turtle eggshell; Gavin shows another to Hawkins

It had been way too long since I had been to the Dunes. This was a splendid excuse to return to that special landscape, and to introduce my kids to some of its treasures. It was also an inspiring way to begin our work on City Creatures.

I’m looking forward to future gatherings with these new friends and colleagues. I wonder what critters, or the leavings thereof, we’ll come across on our ensuing explorations?