Bird & Nature Blog
A clutch of the latest stories from Southern Wisconsin Bird Alliance
The report on the search for rare plants is well written and illustrated. And hopeful. The facts that dozens of volunteers are willing to be trained and then spend hours or days searching for these rare plants and that they find many show that the conservation ethic is alive and well in Wisconsin and that Nature always has some pleasant surprises.
Photo by John Winder FCC
I needed to check out a trout stream project on Sunday. The site was only 100 yards or so from the bridge and someone had already tracked through the snow almost all the way there. Almost. And I found out why. If Satan wants to make hell more miserable he can simply add postholing to the list of daily activities. As each foot breaks the crusted top layer of snow through the remaining eight inches of snow and is then extricated with a mix of lung and thigh power, the operator of that foot begins to question the sanity of being outside on what seemed such a nice day.
Photo by Katerine Hala FCC
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.
Photo by Joshua Mayer
Spring is sprung and our bird friends are oblivious to our anxiety. Their beauty and vitality can take us out of ourselves for precious rejuvenating hours.
How about a new place of many of you to look at some of our most interesting birds and some other amazing creatures? Try spring creeks!
Much of Madison Audubon's territory lies in Wisconsin's Driftless Area and holds a resource that is quite rare globally: spring creeks. A spring creek is spring fed; as important, the source of those springs are sandstone and limestone aquifers that confer wonderful productivity to the water.
Photo by Joshua Mayer
Goose Pond is a prairie pothole, one of the most threatened types of wetlands in the world and a mecca for wildlife. They’re biodiversity hotspots.
They’re also in danger of destruction in Wisconsin. These shallow ponds with fluctuating water levels fall under the "non-federal" or “isolated" wetlands category. Current proposed legislation seeks to eliminate any permitting or oversight by agencies like the WDNR and would allow developers to destroy and build over these wildlife havens.
Photo by Arlene Koziol
