, ,

Goose Pond Sanctuary Update, November 2024

, ,

Goose Pond Sanctuary Update: November 25, 2024

Southern Wisconsin Bird Alliance’s Goose Pond Sanctuary always has a ton going on. Bird conservation, habitat restoration, research, and outreach are always in season here. Learn more about Goose Pond through the update below, by visiting our Goose Pond webpage, or by exploring our Goose Pond StoryMap.

 

Waterfowl Arrive at least Three Weeks Later than Usual

Tundra Swan migration (graphic courtesy of National Audubon Society).

Many bird species, particularly long-distance migrants, rely heavily on photoperiod (daylength) to determine when they should molt, sing for mates, produce young, and migrate. If you’re a Blackburnian Warbler wintering in Venezuela, it’s difficult to determine what the weather is like in Wisconsin. Blackburnian Warblers sense that days are getting longer and leave Venezuela in mid-April hoping that conditions will be favorable when they arrive on their breeding grounds. Check out the fascinating Bird Migration Explorer tool to “watch” the migration pattern of the species of your choice (458 species available) as they travel throughout the year.

Our late fall waterfowl also migrate in accordance with photoperiod, but their schedule depends much more heavily on temperature and food availability than most other species. Unseasonably warm November temperatures, especially in North Dakota, caused large numbers of waterfowl to arrive at least three weeks later than usual according to eBird bar charts. If their roost isn’t in danger of freezing, corn isn’t covered with too much snow in the fields, and they are not hunted, these hardy birds don’t have a strong reason to leave. Graham, Emma, Calla, Cayla, and Sayre counted 17 species on November 22. Highlights included 340 Tundra Swans, 555 Mallards, 17 American Coots, 8 American Black Ducks, 12 Canvasbacks, 12 Ring-necked Ducks, and 3 Northern Pintails. Hundreds more Tundra Swans arrived on November 23 bringing the total to at least 700. Temperatures for late November are forecasted to be as low as 11 degrees. Most waterfowl are likely to leave when that cold air arrives, so this week might be your last chance to view “ducknadoes” before winter is here!

 

April Showers bring May. . . Seed?

Collection began in early summer with species like wild lupine, wood betony, alum root, shooting star, and spiderwort. Spring showers resulted in a particularly productive year for those desirable, early-blooming plants. We harvested 3.2 pounds of shooting star and 32.1 pounds of spiderwort, while last year’s drought left us with a measly 0.6 pounds of shooting star and 0.16 pounds of spiderwort. Quite the improvement!

Seed collection volunteers (photo by Graham Steinhauer/SoWBA).

Collection began in early summer with species like wild lupine, wood betony, alum root, shooting star, and spiderwort. Spring showers resulted in a particularly productive year for those desirable, early-blooming plants. We harvested 3.2 pounds of shooting star and 32.1 pounds of spiderwort, while last year’s drought left us with a measly 0.6 pounds of shooting star and 0.16 pounds of spiderwort. Quite the improvement!

By the end of August, the number of species that are ripe for collecting can get overwhelming. Lucky for us, we had three part-time seed collectors, Calla Norris, Cayla Matte, and Sayre Vickers, who were eager to help. We also held 19 volunteer seed collection events, averaging 7 volunteers, and hosted 6 school groups who helped collect seed. The combination of last year’s successful burn season and this year’s bountiful rain also made it a great seed production year for compass plant (42.5 pounds), prairie dropseed (12.3 pounds), and white baptisia (212 pounds).

Together, we collected seeds from 165 species of prairie, savanna, woodland, and wetland plants. Thanks to all volunteers, summer interns, and fall seed collectors for another successful seed collection season! All seed has been cleaned and stored, so we will be transitioning to making seed mixes in the coming weeks.

A special thank you to Topf Wells, volunteer seed collector and nature-blog extraordinaire, for not only being a consistent face at collection events, but also for writing fantastic blogs on his experiences and observations while collecting seed with us. Check out Topf’s final seed collection blog of this season, The Last Hurrah.

 

Eagle Scout Vince Bertram Builds 56 Cedar Songbird Boxes

Vince Bertram with the newly built boxes (photo by . Graham Steinhauer/SoWBA).

Eleven volunteers monitored 156 songbird boxes at Goose Pond, Otsego Marsh, and Erstad Prairie in 2024. Thanks to their monitoring efforts, we fledged 500 Tree Swallows, 31 House Wrens, and 16 Eastern Bluebirds across the three properties. That’s 547 new birds on the wing! Our bluebird number is low, but it’s important to remember that Goose Pond doesn’t have the abundance of short grass and scattered trees that they require. Bluebird populations are increasing while Tree Swallow populations are decreasing, so we’re happy to have the swallows. According to data since 2015, 3,911 birds have fledged from our boxes. These are excellent stats and we want to maintain annual production, but boxes only last 15 - 20 years.

Eagle Scout is the highest rank that can be achieved through the Boy Scouts of America. Candidates must earn 21 merit badges and demonstrate leadership skills among other qualifications, and they must also complete an Eagle Scout project. We were fortunate this year to connect with Vince Bertram, an Eagle Scout candidate, who agreed to partner with Goose Pond for his final project. We gave Vince plans for a quality songbird box and dimensions for Noel Predator guards. He picked up the material and on November 3 and 10, Vince and 16 fellow scouts cranked out 56 new songbird boxes! We plan to put up at least 14 more boxes before the 2025 nesting season and use the rest for replacements as needed. We produce about 3.5 individuals per box on average. If these last 15 years, this project will be responsible for producing 2,940 birds! Thanks so much to Vince Bertram, Mike Bertram, box monitors, and anyone else who assisted with this project.

 

Fire Training and A Shortened Season

Joint Prescribed Fire Workshop participants (photo by Rob Baller).

Since more than three million acres of Wisconsin’s native ecosystems are fire-dependent, our state needs more people who are trained on the safe and effective use of fire. This year, Goose Pond Sanctuary and the Wisconsin Prescribed Fire Council (WPFC) cohosted the first ever WPFC training for private landowners. During the two-day training in late September, Goose Pond staff and WPFC volunteers introduced 24 participants from across the state (and out of state!) to fire behavior, fire ecology, and common fire tools and equipment.

In addition to training crew members, it is also vital that we increase our pool of enthusiastic instructors. Prior to the private landowner training, Goose Pond hosted a Train-the-Trainer event for 12 experienced practitioners to prepare for the upcoming training, as well as for future training opportunities. Thank you to Jeb Barzen, chair of the WPFC, for sharing the art of break burning with us!

Our prescribed fire season may be coming to an early end (compared to last year’s late December burns) on account of early fall’s dangerously dry conditions followed by soggy weather. So far this fall, we were able to burn six units, totaling 68 acres, but the oncoming wet and cold forecasts do not look hopeful for more burning. However, our fire breaks are in an we will be ready to burn again if another December window opens up!

 

Farewell to our Seed Collectors

November 22 was our fall seed collectors’ last day. We’re thankful to this hardworking crew for their enthusiasm, drive and curiosity. We will miss seeing them around the seed shed, but the fruits (or seeds, rather) of their labor will persist long after they're gone. Immerse yourself in the autumn prairie and read their experiences from this fall:

Cayla Matte

This Fall has been such a positive and whirlwind experience for me at Goose Pond Sanctuary. I had participated in many seed collection efforts before, but this experience was so much more intensive than that. From collecting nodding onion at Sue Ames Prairie on my first day to looking for Bottle Gentian in Jill’s prairie at the very end, there were so many new species in between that I learned how to identify. But identifying is only the start. Learning how to train my eyes to look amongst the different plant heights and the varying shades of brown to find the species I was looking for was the real challenge. Cleaning and processing the seeds was the fun part though. Sure, it’s definitely dusty, but there’s something so satisfying about seeing the fruits of your labor when it’s all bagged up and weighed. I’m incredibly grateful to the Goose Pond staff for allowing me this opportunity.

Cayla and Calla burning in fire breaks (photo by Graham Steinhauer/SoWBA).

Calla Norris

Having lived here at Goose Pond for over six years, and getting to see the landscape change throughout the seasons, I’ve grown to appreciate the phenology of this spectacular place. These changes become most apparent to me in fall. As we shift out of late summer, the color palette of the prairies goes from the striking bright blues and yellows of the late-blooming forbs into the rich reds of drying grasses. The migrating warblers peter out, giving way to massive swarms of waterfowl that form tornadoes above the pond as they come into land, where they remain to sing us to sleep each night. But my favorite tell-tale sign of the fall has to be the woolly bears, those small fuzzy caterpillars who come out en masse just as all of the other insects seem to be going to sleep for the winter. But not the woolly bears! These mighty little critters (the larval form of the Isabella tiger moth) remind me that there’s no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing, and to get my fuzzy coat on and get out there. 🙂

Sayre and volunteers, Janet and Robyn, with milkweed pods (ohoto by Graham Steinhauer/SoWBA).

Sayre Vickers

I am wandering the prairie tasked with collecting rough blazing star, a spire with distinctly separate puffs of spent blossom staggered up the stem. It is hard to see amongst the tall grass, it's bright blaze faded, it's focus turned inwards towards the future generation it nurtures. It feels elusive and tricksterish like it is hiding, obscured by Indian grass, masked by rattlesnake master, clouded in tickseed trefoil, darting behind the round headed bush clover, mimicking the gentle sway of the purple prairie clover.

My eyes bewildered, I wonder if I will find any at all let alone enough to fill my bucket. Then, I plant myself in the prairie, my roots sink down and dreamlike, I relax my gaze, receiving rather than reaching for the shape of the blazing star. My eyes open and I start seeing it everywhere, and laugh as it appears.

 

Opportunities, Articles, and More

 

Monarch Food Favorites and the 2024 Tagging Season

Monarchs on meadow blazing star (photo by JD Arnston).

Monarch tagging is really the perfect activity. It allows us to pursue major goals at Goose Pond Sanctuary and aligns nicely with the mission of Southern Wisconsin Bird Alliance (SoWBA). We get to contribute to meaningful research, advise other conservation organizations based on our data, educate the public, and have a whole lot of fun. This season we tagged 261 monarchs at Goose Pond, and partners tagged an additional 176 butterflies on other lands. This means we’ve tagged 8,581 monarchs at Goose Pond since 2012. With the help of our partners who tagged 2,129 monarchs in the same period, we’ve reached a grand total of 10,710 tagged monarchs. Those are fantastic statistics, but maybe more impressive is the number of folks that share experiences with us every season while focusing on this iconic species.

A record two hundred forty-two people learned about monarch tagging this year with folks from high school groups, elementary school groups, and regularly scheduled field trips. That number doesn't even include group leaders or folks who tagged monarchs solo. Human attendance was great, but monarch attendance was far lower than in other years. Their populations have been trending downward since winter roost site surveys began in 1994. We focus on monarchs through many avenues, but planting their favorite plant species is one of the most straightforward and attainable routes.

Preferred nectar species for monarchs (graphic by Goose Pond team).

Monarchs are often captured while they're busy nectaring during the tagging process. The netter writes down what the monarch was on if they're confident with plant identification. We've got 6,257 such records, and it gives us a clear depiction of what they are using at Goose Pond. Meadow blazing star is hands down the best for attracting late summer monarchs, but it is underrepresented in the table above (somewhere) because we don't have much of it at the sanctuary. It's well known that milkweeds are important to monarchs since they are the only plants that monarch caterpillars eat, but almost no one discusses the role of spring nectar resources.

Picture the area around your home in May when adult monarchs are arriving. Is there anything blooming at all? Maybe some dandelions? This time period is critical for monarchs to begin building their populations over the summer. Spiderwort, Canada anemone, white baptisia, and perhaps most importantly, prairie phlox, all flower during this time. Plant these species, any of the fall plants listed, and milkweeds, and you'll be doing a great deal for monarchs and other insects.

 

Written by Graham Steinhauer, Resident Land Steward; Mark and Susan Foote Martin, Sanctuary Managers; and Emma Raasch, Ecological Restoration and Research Technician

Cover photo: Waterfowl at Goose Pond Sanctuary (photo by Arlene Koziol).