Langham Island - the Rebirth of a Rebirth

Langham Island needed a second chance … and then a third. 

It had gone through – not just six months of Covid … it endured one hundred years of degradations and ill-treatments … then a period of recovery in the 1980s thanks to Illinois State Botanist John Schwegman … but then ten years of neglect, back-sliding, and near obliteration. Langham was not alone – like many needy remnants of rich nature in the ambitious Illinois Nature Preserves System, it was brought to its knees by governors who didn’t care, or, to be honest, were too busy saying “What’s in it for me?”

 

Funding dwindled. Staff heroically sought to stem the tide of Invasive Obliteration. Volunteers would have helped … if they knew … if they were given a chance. But that too takes staff time; the staff was (and is) spread too thin.

 

Now, emerging from the pandemic, the new and growing Friends of Illinois Nature Preserves have joined forces with Friends of Langham Island and adopted this still-challenged "famous island of rare plants” as a top priority. (You want to help form the new core group? Let us know - as a comment on this post - or by email at friendsILnature@gmail.com!)

Yes, we wear masks, when we're close together, working hard, breathing vigorously.

But, no, when we're relaxing over lunch or working separately, most of us don't. 

As the rare mallow seeds were ripe, we quickly took the opportunity to grab bags-full of seeds to spread back around the island, where they used to be. All the mallows we found were inside the two cages erected by Trevor Edmonson and Don Nelson four years ago. None outside? More about that bizarre fact later. 

On some sweltering days, we pulled weeds and cut small brush, but mostly we prowled the island, discovering, learning, drafting plans. We put our heads together with DNR ecologist Dan Kirk and INPC's Kim Roman to plan larger-group work for the cool fall weather. We want to rid the entire island of the invasive Lonicera mackii - ugly beast that it is. And below is a draft map of more specialized priorities. 

We started a plant inventory. Have some species been lost since Schwegman's inventory in 1985? He found big bluestem grass on the dry slope. Below, Katie Kucera warms up to the one plant we found remaining, in a socially distant way.

Of course, we found animals too. An indigo bunting's nest with chicks. Yellow-billed cuckoo sang. A walking stick crawled on us. 

We found and gathered a lot of seeds, for re-broadcast. Below, Eriko and Karen are harvesting the rare marble-seed - a plant that has increased dramatically since the restoration resumed. 

The seeds are "hard as rocks." They may lie in the soil for years before they germinate, but they're now on the way to repopulating wherever they want to grow.

Could you learn to identify rare plants, not in bloom, but in seed?

If so, the team could use you.

So far we've had three of these work-and-plan sessions. With the first two on Saturdays, Karen (above) couldn't come, because she's committed for now to helping her brother sell his honey at farmers' markets on weekends. But she wanted to be on the planning team, so she dropped by as we were leaving with an offering of honey. We planned the next session on a weekday. We appreciate each other. We try to make everything as happy and convenient as we can. You interested?

We're planning more weekend and weekday events now. Years ago we started clearing brush off the grassy slope with scattered trees, where most of the rare plants were most recently found. This photo is from 2014. Much was accomplished, but more than half of that nasty brush is still there. We've got to speed this up!

Watch this blog and the Langham Island Facebook page for event dates Coming Soon! Or just send a note - and even ask a question or two - at friendsILnature@gmail.com. 

Let's make these "degradations and ill-treatments … and near obliterations" a receding memory.

See you soon?  

Acknowledgments

Thanks for proofing to Eriko Kojima, who also took the Busy Bee Honey photo.