With proper respect for social distancing, I hope many of you are able to get out and experience what nature can offer. We in Madison Audubon and other conservation organizations talk, plan, raise money, volunteer, and finally spend hours and hours in the field restoring parts of nature. Time to remember that nature can restore us.

Some of our favorite places to experience nature — state and county parks, for example — might be drawing crowds that push the social distancing limits. Here are two suggestions for off the beaten track lands that will be glorious to visit and not too crowded.

Waterfowl Production Areas (WPAs)

Love, love, love them. These are tracts of land, ranging in size from about 40 to about 500 across, purchased and managed by the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to provide nesting areas for waterfowl, and funded by the sale of the federal Duck Stamp. Each has some combination of wetlands and upland cover, usually restored prairies or grasslands. Many birds, including our perennial favorites — the grassland species — are happy to join their webbed-footed friends (others are shorebirds, some raptors, and among the most charming of Wisconsin natives, the woodcock).

*American woodcock, photo by Tom Benson*

(Woodcock digression... you still have time to go out in the evening and witness their mating ritual. For me, the most poignant moment occurs when the male, having finished his spectacular flight and plunge, wanders about, peenting, hoping for the date of his life. Lonely guys, this is your totem animal.)

In our area, we have two large clusters of WPAs: one in Columbia County, north and east of Goose Pond, and the other in southern Dane County, east and south of the Village of Oregon. All are managed by the happily named Aldo Leopold District of the USFWS, which provides maps and other information.

The WPAs are open for many forms of outdoor recreation including hunting. Caution while visiting during the hunting season is warranted, but WPAs don't get nearly the pressure of DNR public hunting areas because they are not stocked with pheasants. While most don't have hiking trails, they usually have mowed fire breaks that make walking easy. The grasslands are usually readily traversed too. Besides birding, keep an eye out for blackberries in late July and early August. I picked buckets of them for years, and also learned a lesson in mimicry, when I came across beetles that had evolved a credible impression of wasps.

*Sign at Schoenberg Marsh WPA. Photo by Arlene Koziol*

Madison Audubon folks are probably most familiar with the Schoenberg Marsh WPA because Madison Audubon owns and manages an adjacent property (Erstad Prairie). With a boardwalk and viewing area on a high point overlooking the marsh, Schoenberg is an easy and fun visit.

The first of southern Dane County’s WPAs you might want to visit is Harvey's Marsh off USH 14, south of Oregon and north of Evansville. Most of the 400 acres lie on the east side of 14. This property has some old farm road somewhat intact and the main parking lot is on a high spot. From there, you can get a good sense of where to go and how to get there. A large wetland complex is readily apparent and it holds lots of waterfowl during the spring.

The largest open water in this complex held the most amazing sight of waterfowl I've ever experienced in Wisconsin. We had a very wet fall 10 or 15 years ago, and huge cornfield had flooded early in the migration. It held more and more mallards with every passing day. A couple of days after hunting season they moved to the wetland. My dog (thank God I had her on a leash or she would still be chasing them!) and I happened on them. Thousands and thousands of mallards; you could barely see water for the birds. 500 or 1,000 would flush, then the next 1,000, then the nest 500, etc. The last ducks were still flushing 10 minutes later when the first groups were flying back.

Union Road is the eastern border of the property. Find the smaller parking lot there and hike in. You'll find a mix of wetlands, ponds, grasslands, oaks, shrubs and a great variety of wildlife. One area with short grasses was always loaded with short-eared owls — to the disappointment of Jake, my Labrador Retriever, who wonders, “Why aren't they pheasants?”

Public Fishing Areas (PFAs)

You might recall my touting trout stream easements as cool places to go; I was remiss in not mentioning the DNR's PFAs. There are areas with trout streams at which the DNR has purchased the surrounding lands and not just an easement on the stream corridor. Like the WPAs, they range quite a bit in size. Some on Black Earth Creek and Mt. Vernon Creek in Dane County are in the 20-50 acre range; others, such as Trout Creek, west of Barneveld, number into the 100s of acres.

They offer a mix of cover and habitats and a variety of birds. A few offer something incredibly special — very large springs. For me, there is no more hopeful natural resource than a large healthy spring. We can all use a little hope these days.

Two springs that I'd recommend: The first is on Mt. Vernon Creek on the DNR property just off STH 92, just west and north of the hamlet of Mt. Vernon. Walk straight toward the creek from the small parking lot. The spring emerges from a hillside and (I cannot believe I'm using these fatal words, but…) you can't miss it.

The second is probably the most spectacular spring in southwest Wisconsin, the Big Spring of Big Spring Creek off Big Spring Road near the village of Highland. The DNR has signs and a large parking lot with a bench. Take the trail from the parking; it leads to the spring in several hundred yards. The very, very big spring gushes from a hillside and cascades down to the creek. How can this be? why haven't I seen this before? are two pretty common questions. Back to the car, walk down to the bridge over the creek. You can marvel at the trout and wonder how did such a small creek produce such a deep pool at the bridge. You're looking at a very visible effect of climate change. The record-setting floods of the last 2-3 years gouged out that pool and are re-directing the creek. The odds are against you but as you walk around and drive the road downstream (slowly, please!) you might see one of our most endangered species, the timber rattlesnake. This area has, for now at least, one of the healthier populations of the snake left in the state. Again, if you're that lucky, watch from a distance.

You can use the same website to find PFAs that you can use for easements.

Advocacy consists of reminding you to please support the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Program Fund and please consider buying a Duck Stamp, whether you hunt or not. With the rush to find oil and gas in the Dakotas, the USFWS shifted its acquisitions to that area but I hope we'll one day see more WPAs in our neck of the woods.

Please take care of yourself and allow nature's healing presence in your life.

Written by Topf Wells, Madison Audubon board member and Advocacy Committee chair