My fascination with raptors started around third grade, when I read Jean Craighead George’s iconic My Side of the Mountain...

*Photo by Thomas Helbig, Creative Commons*

...I imagine this book marked the start of many young bird enthusiasts love for our feathered friends, as much as it planted the seeds for wanderlust and a love of wilderness for others. (Haven’t read it? Young adult novels are great for the young-at-heart, too.)

In the novel, a young boy named Sam runs away from his family's cramped life in New York City in order to live alone in the wilderness of the Adirondacks. Along the way, his companion is a peregrine falcon named Frightful, who he has trained to help him retrieve food, but who also becomes his one steadfast friend in the wild. Sam and Frightful are inseparable. As a kid this blew my mind: who knew that raptors were so intelligent, familial, and possessed the ability to bond with humans? Of course, Craighead’s book is fiction, yet the idea of the bond between humans and raptors is something that has stuck with me since I first devoured her words as an eager elementary student.

Most Madisonians are aware of our own celebrity falcons – those who have taken up occupancy of the nest box installed on the MG&E Blount Station, just a few blocks from the state capitol building. Since 2009, several nesting pairs have raised broods in the box, and with the installation of a live cam, their daily dramas (and not-so-dramatic events, too) unfold before our eyes. (As of the posting of this article, I've mostly been watching the chicks snooze and fluff their fuzzy gray feathers...)

*Above, this year's brood of feathered, fuzzy urban falcons. Photo by Arlene Koziol*

The falcons at Blount Station didn’t show up overnight: the nest box was installed for nearly ten years before a pair decided to call it home in 2009. Now, the return of nesting pairs and subsequent rearing of fuzzy, clumsy chicks at the MG&E site is an event that isthmus residents look forward each spring. Though it may seem like an odd site for the world’s fastest raptor to raise a family, many falcons have taken to feathering their nests on human structures: power plants, high-rises in cities like Chicago, and the outsides of factory smokestacks have all hosted falcon families. These raptors are busy making lemonade out of the lemon of disappearing natural habitat - an action that has proven essential to their survival in many regions.

Just this week, Madison Audubon director Matt Reetz and volunteer conservation photographer Arlene Koziol had the opportunity to view the banding of this year’s four tiny MG&E falcons, named Jean, Witt, Paul, and Billy after famous Wisconsin aviators. The bands will help researchers keep track of the young birds, and hopefully allow us to gain insight as to their movements and future offspring, too. As recently as the 50s and 60s, peregrine populations in Wisconsin faced serious trouble due to the use of DDT. In the 1980s, only 11 nest sites were recorded in the state. Now, there are 33 known nests. The MG&E nest box started as a classroom project for an employee’s son who is now well past his college graduation. This recovery – and the decade-long wait for falcons at Blount Station – are the proof that good conservation takes time, patience, and perseverance.

While we haven’t trained the Madison falcons how to help us hunt for food like Frightful (why would we with The Old Fashioned just up the street?) my fascination with the birds has been rekindled with the opportunity to engage with these urban residents. Just as Sam learned in My Side of the Mountain, I'm learning that the lines between wild nature of these falcons and our structured human world are often blurred.

By Emily Meier, Director of Communications & Outreach

For more information about the MG&E Falcons, view the articles below:

For more information about peregrine falcons in North America, visit Audubon.org's Guide to Birds

Goose Pond was mostly ice free on Tuesday, March 9th when Mark found the first tiger salamander of the year!

The salamander was found in the Bicentennial Prairie heading for Goose Pond. Mark was working with Maddie, our Goose Pond Sanctuary Land Steward, and volunteers. Always game for a riddle, Mark asked the volunteers if they could guess what animal he had in his pocket. The hint was that this species probably has the most biomass of any animal in the Goose Pond prairies! After a few rounds of guessing, Mark showed the volunteers the salamander. Adult tigers weigh about 4 ounces. One study in a Michigan forest found that red backed salamanders could reach over 3,600 per acre; the abundance of eastern tiger salamanders near Goose Pond is high, though we certainly don't know the total biomass of the species. It's pretty sound to guess that this species does indeed make up more biomass than any other vertebrate on the prairie!

Salamanders are one of the oldest types of amphibians and many experts believe that the tiger salamander has gone through very few changes over millions of years.

Tiger salamanders have a black body and yellow stripes or blotches of the length of the body. They can reach 14 inches in length, however, most we see are in the 7-8 inch range. They have sturdy legs and a long tail, all of which are able to regrow should these limbs become lost or damaged.

Adult salamanders live below ground in burrows, especially thirteen-lined ground squirrel burrows. They head to the pond to breed as soon as the pond becomes ice free. After breeding the adults head back to the uplands. A warm rain helps begin the movement to the pond and many salamanders move at night. We thought that all adults moved to the pond to breed and were surprised to learn that scientists believe that most individual will only get the chance to breed just once in their up to 15 years lifetime.

Since fish can prey heavily on salamanders eggs they do the best in shallow prairie wetland that do not contain fish. Visitors are surprised to learn that the most productive prairie wetlands for salamanders and ducklings do not contain fish. In the water, salamanders are easy prey for herons and egrets. One study in a North Dakota prairie wetland found over 2,000 tiger salamanders per acre of water! The young are entirely aquatic and have large external, feathery gills and a caudal fin that they lose just before they head out of the water in August and become adults. These feathery gills are the reason we've included salamanders as a Friday "Feathery" Feature!

In some years, we see hundreds of salamanders moving across the roads or in our lawn in August after a warm rain. Vehicles are a big source of mortality when they move across the road. Opossums, raccoons, mink and crows like to feed on road kills.

While in their burrows salamanders feed on insects and worms, however they can also emerge at night to feed. They have been known to feed on baby mice.

Next time you visit Goose Pond look for these rarely seen but very abundant creatures. It would be interesting to know the number of salamanders at Goose Pond.

By Mark and Sue Foote-Martin, Resident Managers, Goose Pond Sanctuary

My Side of the Substation: Peregrine Family Calls MG&E Plant Home

Friday "Feathery" Feature: Eastern Tiger Salamander

Goose Pond was mostly ice free on Tuesday, March 9th when Mark found the first tiger salamander of the year!