The 2020-2021 Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp (aka the Duck Stamp) is now available. Please buy one or a bunch soon. I just bought several even though my duck hunting days are probably past. The reason:
A great egret hunts at Horicon Marsh, thanks to the protections of USFWS. Photo by Arlene Koziol
Revenue from the Duck Stamp supports the National Wildlife Refuges and the Waterfowl Production Areas. The Wildlife Refuges are big and mostly well known as are the habitat and wildlife they offer. Think Horicon and its waterfowl, and pelicans or Necedah and its whooping cranes. Some smaller ones are also very cool; one of my favorites is the Whittlesey Creek NWR between Ashland and Bayfield that protects springs, streams, coastal habitat, and coaster brook trout (readers of this blog could have seen that coming).
But please pay attention to the WPAs. We have about 7000 acres of them in our Aldo Leopold District of the US Fish and Wildlife Service and most of them are in the area served by Madison Audubon. They are open to the public.
Above photos by Arlene Koziol
They offer wonderful habitat for shorebirds, waterfowl, grassland birds, pollinators, and many other species of wildlife. Some of my best wildlife experiences have been on WPAs. One fall day, I was at the Harvey's Marsh WPA. A dry period has exposed big mud flats that had attracted shorebirds including flocks of snipe. While it's great fun to see a snipe or two, to see flocks and watch them fly in high winds are a total hoot. Madison Audubon has a great relationship with the USFW and the Schoenberg Marsh WPA; our Erstad Prairie adjoins it and provides great additional uplands and a wetland. That area has become the latest home of an endangered butterfly, a very apt and timely example of WPAs' multiple benefits.
Duck Stamps are easy to buy. Many post offices and big sporting goods retailers carry them (call the post office or retailer you have in mind to be sure). Other businesses carry them and they are widely available on-line. Use this link for the various options: www.fws.gov/duckstamps.
And the stamp this year features a duck a lot of birders would love to see; if it ever shows up at Faville or Goose Pond, we'll have hundreds of visitors: THE BLACK-BELLIED WHISTLING DUCK!
So, help a bluewing teal, a snipe, a pelican, a whooping crane, a bobolink, a Karner Blue Butterfly and buy a Duck Stamp or two.
Thanks,
Topf Wells, Madison Audubon board member and advocacy committee chair
