by Carolyn Arden Malkin

f you’ve been lucky enough to go on a bird walk with Margaret Murley, you probably did a lot more than just stare up at the trees. Maybe you learned to identify a bumblebee by its markings, or a plant by its seeds. Or perhaps you dug up a chunk of earth to see how many different plants and animals live together in a single small space. Murley’s workshops and field trips are legendary.

"When she leads a trip, she points out something about everything," says Alan Anderson, a former president of the Chicago Audubon Society. "Margaret has had an impact on so many different people. She has really expanded our horizons." Murley, a retired Northwestern University botany professor, recently stepped down as president of the Illinois Audubon Society’s Ft. Dearborn Chapter (Chicago-Evanston).

Under her 20-year leadership, the chapter established a butterfly garden at the North Park Village Nature Center on Chicago’s North Side, contributed shrubs to the Magic Hedge at Montrose Point, and labeled trees and shrubs at the Paul Douglas Sanctuary in Chicago’s Jackson Park. The chapter also started annual butterfly and dragonfly counts at the North Park Village Nature Center, and a bird count—now in its 23rd year — at the Lincoln Park Zoo.

"Margaret is an amazing person," says Wayne Svoboda, a professor at Northeastern Illinois University. "Most birding groups are single-minded: it’s all birding and nothing else." But with Murley, that just isn’t possible. "As the guiding spirit of Ft. Dearborn for so many years, Margaret exposed members to many other parts of natural history," Svoboda explains.

For years Murley typed a lengthy newsletter listing plants and animals seen on chapter outings. Nowadays, a hip ailment prevents her from going on long walks now, but it doesn’t keep her from staying abreast of scientific news and regularly corresponding with researchers. (She recently moved to a nursing home in Iowa.) Her latest passion is for the plight of pollinators that make plant growth possible — especially, the oft-overlooked bumblebee. Her message is simple. "Don’t step on them!" she says. "They are very important pollinators, and I want to make people aware of them."

Margaret Reba Murley grew up on a farm in Iowa and began her career as a 7th-grade teacher in Iowa. She later earned a Ph.D. in botany at North-western University, specializing in seeds and their use for plant identification. When she lived in Evanston, she grew more than 50 species of native plants in her little garden, a small strip along the alley behind her apartment building, and donated their seeds to local restoration projects.

In 1994, the Chicago Audubon Society named Murley "Protector of the Environment"; in 1998, they gave her a Silver Anniversary Honor; and in the fall of 1999, two red oak trees were planted in Murley’s name at Montrose Point. But of all the rewards she has received, one stands out clearly. In a letter printed by The Des Moines Register in 1996, a former student wrote: "On her own time, she took us on numerous field trips. On frosty winter nights, she led us to a golf course to gaze at the beauty of the heavens. Because of her, I still wonder at the marvels of nature: the jeweled colors of a dragonfly, the silken-winged seeds of a milkweed, the whistle of a cardinal."

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