This year, the Milwaukee Public Museum is excited to partner with the Wehr Nature Center for its annual Bioblitz on Friday, June 12- Saturday June 13th.

If you’re new to the Milwaukee Public Museum’s Bioblitz, every year MPM partners with a different park, natural area, or nature preserve, and a team of volunteer surveyors (that’s you!) to count as many species as we can in 24 hours.  As always, the event starts at 3pm on Friday and goes to 3 pm on Saturday, when we will report our finds. Surveyors are welcome to join us for as much or as little of the 24-hour survey period as they would like. There will be space to camp if you are planning to stay overnight. Meals, snacks, and T-shirts will be provided.  There will be free activities for the public on Saturday from 10-3. 

The sign-up link is here ( Bioblitz 2026-Wehr Nature Center, Franklin WI June 12-13 – Fill out form)  but if you’re signing up a group, forms aren’t your speed, or have other questions, please don’t hesitate to email Julia at colby@mpm.edu. Feel free to share the link with friends or colleagues that might be interested!

Hope to see you this summer at Wehr!

In spite of the wicked weather the day (and week) before, we had fantastic participation for an Earth Day week Grant Park Beach cleanup this year. 76 adults and 26 kids stuffed bags full of cigarette butts, plastic and glass bottles, food wrappers and aluminum cans, along with some shotgun wadding washed up on the beach. Weirdest thing collected was a soggy sofa cushion. Yuk!

Q. What item takes 450 or more years to decompose in the landfill?

A. Plastic bottles never truly disappear, they break down to smaller and smaller pieces, eventually becoming microplastics, which can enter the drinking water supply.

We reduced our plastic bag purchases for this event by reusing large plastic bag trash from 25# bags of bird seed, potting soil and salt; and we recycled glass bottles and aluminum cans. And we offered drinking water to participants from a reusable stainless steel jug. Earth day should be every day!

A huge thank you to David Busse, a local film producer, who showed his incredible film “Beyond Our Senses: Bank Swallows” after a short meeting on January 8th. The discussion of how he produced the film was just as interesting and entertaining to the almost 50 people who gathered in the clubhouse on a foggy night. We wish him continued success in the future as he presents his film to many organizations.

“Each spring, thousands of Bank Swallows return to the Lake Michigan bluffs to build colonies, mate, and raise their young. Guided by extraordinary perceptions like tetrachromatic vision, magnetic senses, and aerial master, they navigate predators, rivals, and the relentless demands of survival in a hidden world beyond human perception.”

Here are a few reviews of the film:

From Anamarie: My thoughts are quite mixed. One thing that surprised me was that he included footage of exotic animals from Africa, etc. Why?

It was an engaging film. I loved the parallels that he drew between Swallow babies and his own baby.  Very sweet.

I have exceedingly mixed feelings about the “broadcasting” of this amazing natural event.  Our slopes are at such great risk. That puts the birds at the same level of risk. I truly hope that all the publicity doesn’t cause an incident of “loving life to death.” More emphasis should have been made on how fragile the entire system is. Maybe he took measures to limit the amount of damage he did while filming. If he did, he did not speak of it. That was a missed opportunity.

As we close the books for 2025, we are pleased to announce we have received 2 grants. One grant is from the Green Bay Packer Foundation in the amount of $3,500 for program costs. Specific plans to utilize the funds are listed in our meeting minutes for 12-11-25.

The second grant is from the Wisconsin DNR. FOGP worked with Parks administration to obtain the grant for funding to purchase 70 trees and fencing materials. Parks staff will supervise the planting of the trees and we are to supply volunteers to help do a variety of tasks. Stay tuned for tree planting volunteer opportunities in 2026.

Two wooden heads were carved and installed by Bryan Lorentzen, former owner of Parkway Floral, at the pavilion in Area 5A. They were copied from two heads that were removed due to years of UV and insect damage. At our December holiday gathering, he elaborated on the process. He discovered the structural beams the heads were carved on were made of pine wood. For the replacements he decided to use basswood instead. He had some difficulty reattaching the new carvings and finding an exact paint color match. We are very grateful for his time, exceptional talent and overall perseverance. Be sure to look for his work among the 40 different heads in the same pavilion the next time you visit! (He signed his carvings)

We will be hosting our Holiday Party on Thursday, Dec. 11th at 6:30 pm in the golf course clubhouse. Bring your memories of Grant Park and share them with all of us. We’d love to hear those!

Prior to the party, a brief monthly meeting will be held from 6 to 6:30 pm. Guests are welcome to attend either the meeting, party or both.

Now accepting photo submissions for our 2027 Calendar

Our theme for next year’s calendar is Grant Park Favorites. If you have a favorite clear photo of the park, for consideration please send it to:

friendsofgrantparkcalendar@gmail.com

The larger the file size, the better they reproduce as enlarged photos, but we have used photos from smart phones with smaller file sizes of 500KB. We hope you consider the four seasons as well, since we try to use calendar page photos that reflect the month.

Once again, various organizations in the South Milwaukee community welcomed the public to tour their buildings, facilities, and grounds. From 10am to 3 pm on Saturday, Sept. 13th, many locations opened their doors for you! The Friends of Grant Park opened Wulff Lodge for visitors to explore, along with information about the history of the lodge and its early residents, the family of Frederick C. Wulff: the German arborist and first horticulturalist hired by Milwaukee County. Visitors toured the gardens behind the lodge, and learned about the nursery and greenhouse Wulff created that generated nursery stock for all the county parks, as well as Grant Park.

Sept. 20, 2025 — 9am to Noon; Area 5 parking lot

Thank you to all who helped on Saturday, Sept. 20th. Here is the tally of the beach cleanup litter removed:

Attendance: 14
Litter weight: 66 lbs.

Top litter types:
• Plastic Pieces: 769 collected (including 70 pieces of plastic shotgun wadding)
• Foam Pieces: 313 collected
• Cigarette Butts: 207 collected

Each fall we partner with Alliance for the Great Lakes to hold the Seven Bridges beach cleanup. Alliance for the Great Lakes collects data from cleanups around the Great Lakes to assess the extent of pollution from various types of trash collected by volunteers. This data supports their mission to advocate for protections to keep our waters clean.

Five years ago today we lost this majestic Sugar Maple that had likely graced an old farm road, then a park road, and then Grant Park’s Area 7-8. It was undoubtedly a climbing tree for many generations, hosted many a nest of our wild companions, and created a shady picnic spot. We are most grateful that the Friends of Grant continue in our twentieth year to replace lost Ash and Elm or invasive species with these important and beloved species of trees. Please join us if you can.