This article is an excerpt from Madison Audubon’s Summer/Fall 2022 Newsletter.
Access the full issue here.
Since our last newsletter, a whole lot of baby birds have taken to Wisconsin’s skies. One of summer’s delights is to observe the energetic busy-ness of birds. The air is positively alive with motion and noise! Our Bald Eagle Nest Watch volunteers now reminisce about the antics of the eaglets this spring as they jockeyed for food or practiced their first wing flaps. The Kestrel Nest Box Monitoring Program volunteers get a warm fuzzy feeling thinking about their fuzzy chicks they helped band this summer and how many flew from the box. Passionate Bird Collision Corps volunteers are working on the other side of the life spectrum to keep these busy birds alive and away from windows.
This is what motivates me most in this work: the fact that science—and certainly citizen science—is not just numerical, it’s emotional.
A handful of baby American Kestrels (photo by Brenna Marsicek/Madison Audubon).
To us, the number of chicks in a nest is not just a number, it is a signal of hope, of beauty. The number of birds documented as victims of window strikes is not just a statistic, it is a loss to mourn and to prevent in the future. The people who do citizen science are are soulfully connected to their communities.
This summer, as we wrapped up the Bald Eagle Nest Watch with nests in 29 counties, we realized that amidst the 71 nest failures, our volunteers joyfully documented 60 eaglets fledge from 45 nests. A few of our BENW volunteers even rescued two eaglets from certain death this spring. What incredible commitment from this group of bird lovers!
Similarly, the Kestrel Nest Box Monitoring program confirmed 270 kestrel chicks fledging from 72 of our boxes. We were lucky to band 255 kestrel chicks and 45 adults this year, with help from volunteers and coordinator Brand Smith, the Central Wisconsin Kestrel Research program, and Kurt Reed in Fort Atkinson. It doesn’t matter how many kestrel babies you hold and help band, it never ever gets old.
In addition, this summer we finished up our eighth Bird Collision Corps survey season and began thinking about our fall program. The time in between seasons is spent cultivating relation¬ships with site partners and brainstorming ways to make this work even better for volunteers, site hosts, and birds. This summer we are creating a video series showing how homeowners—many of whom are BCC volunteers—have “fixed” their own problem windows using a variety of bird-safe methods in hopes to inspire others do to the same. Find resources and watch the videos here.
What it all boils down to is heart. Those who donate their time to citizen science also invest some of their emotional bandwidth. We are constantly inspired by them. Volunteers: thank you for all you give to birds, the birding community, and Madison Audubon!
Written by Brenna Marsicek, director of communications and outreach.
Cover: Kestrel Nest Box Monitor volunteer Erin releases a banded American Kestrel near a green field (photo by Kaitlin Svabek/Madison Audubon).
