Hemi-marsh wetland habitat in the Calumet region of Illinois and Indiana provides benefits to marsh birds, other wildlife, and people. Through partnerships, Audubon Great Lakes has established marshbird and vegetation monitoring at over 40 sites across the region to track marshbird species' use of wetlands that have been restored and maintained over the last several years. We estimated trends in occupancy of 12 marshbird species during 2017 - 2023 and found that, on average, occupancy has remained stable in the Calumet region. Specifically, occupancy trends for 8 species were stable, Swamp Sparrow exhibited a significant positive trend, and 3 species exhibited non-significant negative trends (American Coot, Black-crowned Night-heron, Pied-billed Grebe). Several sites across the region had consistently high average marshbird occupancy during the 7-year period, demonstrating the importance of maintaining high-quality hemi-marsh habitat to sustain breeding marshbird populations in a highly urbanized landscape. For a subset of sites, we also estimated species-habitat relationships using a variety of site-specific characteristics (e.g. percent native vegetation, wetland type, muskrat presence). These results can be used to inform best management practices for wetland restorations aimed at recovering specific marshbird species or groups of species in the Upper Midwest.
