Advocacy

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An eagle wants to know: Why are we still shooting and fishing lead?

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Last week's issue of the Wisconsin Outdoor News (WON) has a story some Madison Audubon volunteers have been following with great concern. An adult Bald Eagle in distress was found near Barneveld and is now receiving care at the Dane County Humane Society. As I write this, his prognosis is guarded.

He has been diagnosed with lead poisoning. He has shotgun pellets from an old injury and has also probably eaten lead fragments as he scavenged the remains of deer shot by hunters.

Madison Audubon’s Bald Eagle Nest Watch volunteers have been monitoring an active bald eagle's nest in that area for a couple of years. It's possible this eagle was one of a nesting pair at some point. The nest is still active with a pair of eagles.

This eagle has every right to wonder: is this any way to treat your national symbol and a magnificent bird? No, and it needs to stop.

Photo by Monica Hall

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Greed and birds are a bad mix

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In the last days of the Trump administration, the Department of Interior ended some protection of migratory birds. The rollback consisted of removing penalties for actions that killed or injured birds but were perpetrated without the intention of killing birds. One past example of such an act was popularly cited: the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster which released millions of gallons of oil and destroyed hundreds of thousands of birds (and many other creatures). One that resonated with me would be a person or company who deliberately used a banned pesticide. Even if that poison killed many birds, the perpetrator would not be liable under the Trump Administration's revised regulations because the intent was to kill some sort of pest, not birds. This loss of protection changed the interpretation of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act that has protected migratory birds for decades.

Photo by Monica Hall

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Good news for Cerulean Warblers and us

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Please, please, please use this link to read how the MVC and an incredibly generous anonymous donor saved 108 acres of Crawford County habitat important to migrating Cerulean Warblers and other songbirds. And this land will be open for us to watch those lovely birds and the other cool flora and fauna the land supports.

Photo by Andy Reago & Chrissy McClarren

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Valentine's Day was for the birds (and maybe still is)

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The origin of Valentine's Day is a delightful mess. Probably it starts with the Lupercalia, a Roman pagan feast of late winter or early spring. You can probably guess of what—indeed, fertility. In some accounts, young Roman men would chase and try to hit young Roman women with strips of bloody goat hides, the goats having been sacrificed at the start of the festivities. Allegedly the women didn't mind because the strike of a goat hide would ensure their fertility.

And hundreds of years later here we are. In our backyards we indeed hear some birds with their mating calls and we have the chance to renew or perhaps find love. Hey, it beats frostbite.

Photo by Indiana Ivy Nature Photographer

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Gratitude for the Nest Best Blogger

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Madison Audubon has had the incredibly extraordinary fortune of having such a writer in our midst and helping introduce her to the world. Caitlyn Schuchhardt has written the Entryway to Birding Blog for almost a year. It has attracted thousands of readers and with good reason. It's a darn near perfect introduction to birding, especially in this area. It's funny, lively, humane, accurate, clear, sound, systematic, careful, genuine. I've never read it without: a) smiling and b) learning. It's, oh yeah, authoritative.

Photo by Caitlyn Schuchhardt