Davenport's Nahant Marsh

[Abby Brown] Just like your home and your school are safe places for you to live and grow, Nahant Marsh is a safe place for animals and plants to live and grow; right here in the middle of Iowa's third largest city! Just like any city, Davenport is full of cars, sidewalks, and people. There's a lot of action here! But within Davenport's city limits lies Nahant Marsh. It's the largest urban wetland on the Upper Mississippi River. There's a lot of action here too! But it's all about nature. So, how is it that this marsh can be right inside the city of Davenport?

[Amy Loving] Yeah, so we are in the city of Davenport, on the southwest side. But it's a really special place. Being so close to the city, we're able to see a lot of students. But having a marsh in an urban setting is really important. We're right on the Mississippi River, we have to deal with flooding and marshes are going to be a great place for all that extra flood water to hold on and to filter out slowly.

[Abby] And there are a lot of cities on a river, so is it common that a marsh would be so close to a river and a city? Does this happen a lot?

[Amy] Not so much anymore. Most marshes in Iowa have been filled in, but this place is special. So, we actually saved it years ago and there was a big effort that was put by through a lot of partners to protect and to preserve this wetland.

[Jimmy Weibler] There's not very many places like this anymore. Iowa has lost over 95% of its wetlands. That we have this place in existence still today is just phenomenal. We do research out here, so we keep track of the water quality. But this is just an incredibly diverse place. We've documented over 500 different types of plants here, over 200 different birds, over 60 different mammals, and reptiles, amphibians, there's just an incredible amount of diversity to the wildlife here.

[Amy] A marsh is a type of wetland. So there's lots of different types of wetlands, but a marsh is basically going to be an area that has different levels of water depending on the time of year. Our marsh has a lot of cattails, and arrow heads, and American lotus growing out of it. So the different types of plants are going to determine what kind of wetland it is.

[Abby] So you're working today, but when you come here for fun, what do you do?

[Jimmy] I look for wildlife, I really like to look for birds, and so Nahant is a really great place to use binoculars and look for birds. We get a lot of water fowl and a lot of different types of birds too.

[Abby] What about kids? What do they like to do out here?

[Jimmy] The kids love digging in the marsh. They love taking their nets and scooping water out and plants out and looking for those insects and critters that are inside the marsh. Those little tiny dragonfly nymphs and damselfly nymphs and crayfish, crawdads, water scorpions, ghost shrimp; lots of cool things to find in the marsh.

[Kid] I caught a big turtle, but before I could pick it up, it fell out of my net.

[Jimmy] Even some of the smaller critters we find out here are things that you can find in your backyard pond, or really any pond in Iowa.

[Abby] Like what?

[Jimmy] So snapping turtles, they're everywhere. Painted turtles, those are the turtles you see basking on logs. Dragonfly larvae and even those mosquitos; which we don't like but they certainly find those in ponds and marshes and things like that.

[Abby] And where there are mosquitos, there are... bats!

[Jimmy] Yeah, birds and bats!

[Abby] I know we have those in my neighborhood.

[Jimmy] Tree swallows are great at getting the mosquitos, and bats for sure. But yeah, even the birds, the water fowl that we find here, you can find those in any other wetland. The plants too, you can find cattails at Nahant Marsh, but you can find cattails at any wetland.

[Abby] It's not very common to have a wetland like this so close to a big city. So that alone makes this place really awesome. But, when we take a closer look, we find out that it's so much more than that! It's nature working in harmony with humans. Imagine your own neighborhood and picture a spot where there might be some nature, and then think about what might be living or growing there. Or, grab a grown up and go check it out yourself!

[Announcer] Funding for FIND Iowa has been provided by the following supporters.

(text on screen Find Iowa, Coons Foundation, Pella, REAP-CEP, Gilchrist Foundation)

(text on screen Iowa PBS Education)