field trip

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Join us this fall at Faville Grove!

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Join us this fall at Faville Grove!

It’s been a hectic summer at Faville Grove with lots of neat wildlife sightings and tons of brilliant wildflowers, as always. Canadian wildfire haze and drought have settled in from time to time, but plants keep blooming and birds keep moving; asters, goldenrods, and goldfinches are making their mark as summer fades.

Join us for weekly seed collecting beginning September 8th through the end of October. Our meeting point is the kiosk on Prairie Lane every Wednesday from 9:30-noon, and for two separate work parties every Saturday from 9:30-noon and 1:30-4pm. We need all of the help we can get!

Photo by Drew Harry

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Bird With Me! A Virtual Field Trip at Cherokee North

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Are you missing field trips as much as I am? When you are a new birder like myself, field trips and group bird walks are like gold. You can absorb so much from experienced birders that share tips and advice they’ve accumulated over many years of birding. Nothing quite compares to having someone ID a tricky bird song in the field or point out a field mark that you can recognize right then and there.

I can’t promise you all the joys of a real field trip here on the Entryway to Birding blog, but I’ll do my best! I am not nearly as experienced as Madison Audubon’s many other field trip leaders, but I hope the little bit of direction that I can share will help open your eyes to a few birds that you may not have noticed before.

So where are we off to? Last week, I wrote about my experience birding at Cherokee Marsh for our office’s relay-style participation in the Great Wisconsin Birdathon. This week, I’m heading back to the marsh … and I’m taking you with me!

Photo by Caitlyn Schuchhardt

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A DIY bird walk at Lake Farm County Park

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On March 18, 2020 Madison Audubon made the tough decision to cancel all field trips through May 2020 to protect our community from the spread of COVID-19. However! Birds bring so much joy to life, and birding is a great activity you can do independently or with members of your household, so we wanted to provide you with a resource for recreating some of the field trips on your own.

Let’s start with the one scheduled for early April, originally led by Patrick Ready, local bird guru and pottery-making extraordinaire. Pat put together this DIY bird walk at Lake Farm County Park. Thank you Pat, and happy birding!

Photo by Phil Brown

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Bursting with Life: Spring with Kids Outside

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For each of the last two years, Carolyn has worked with the DNR, Dane County Land and Water Resources Department, the Southern Wisconsin Chapter of Trout Unlimited, and Lincoln Elementary to provide a field trip for Josie's fourth grade class on the Sugar River. The site is the County's Basco Sugar River Wildlife Unit #1, on STH 69, just south of Paoli and across the road from Basco.

Madison Audubon photo

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The Owl

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The Owl

The dry oak leaves rustled in the same wind that frosted their fingers. They listened to each other’s feet crunch, crunch, crunch in the crystallized snow. A quiet but powerful sound caught their attention; a low, echoing call, above our eyes and ears and fingers, resounded through Cherokee Marsh. Kids and adults alike closed their mouths and glued their feet to the snow to try and hear it again...

A patient group, they peered around at each other, wide-eyed with anticipation. Hushed gasps and little clouds of frosty breath emitted as all ears heard, “who cooks for you?”

Photo by Arlene Koziol