Bird & Nature Blog

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Tundra or Trumpeter? Your Guide to Swan ID (plus a special guest feature!)

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It’s February now. We’re deep into winter. Looking at our frozen lakes, you might think that waterfowl may be hard to come by. But never fear—you haven’t missed your chance! There are some special spots in our area where you can still find open water and several waterfowl species, even through the coldest part of the season.

This week’s Entryway to Birding blog is going to focus on two of those species that can be notoriously difficult to tell apart—the tundra swan and the trumpeter swan. To help us out, I’ve invited a special guest, Madison Audubon’s very own Becky Abel, who researched trumpeter swans for her graduate work. Becky also served on board of The Trumpeter Swan Society for several years and later as Associate Director of the nonprofit. She’s gonna help us navigate all things swan!

Photo by Brandyn Kerscher

Wonderful Winter Backyard Birds

Winter offers a wonderful diversity of birds in southern Wisconsin. The colors, sizes, and songs of these winter birds are fun to observe. But some of us are left wondering, who are these brunching bunch of birds? Here to help you get started with the backyard bird ID is our new resource: Wonderful Winter Backyard Birds!

Graphic by Madison Audubon

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Call of the Wild: Stewardship and Advocacy, Part 3

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Before you call or write your legislator, I thought some background on the nature of legislators might be helpful.

I spent my professional life working for, working with, and always closely observing legislators at the state and local levels. For most of those years and historically, every legislator's fundamental impulse was to say yes—as in getting something done for his or her district, some organization or business, or a constituent. Creating a new program or expanding one was a favorite pursuit. That could make winning support for the Stewardship Fund (SF) easier if you could show a legislator how the program would help her or his district—a city or village, for example, might need land or development funds for a new park. The biology for some legislators has changed in recent years. For a few, the fundamental impulse is to say no, often to long-lasting programs. New or expanded funding is usually a target, not a goal, for such legislators. These folks are almost always very conservative Republicans. They will be skeptical of a program such as SF that has been around for years and is financed with borrowing in the form of long term bonds.

Photo by David Musolf / Madison Audubon

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But everyone I know loves Stewardship: Stewardship and Advocacy, Part 2

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In the conservation community, Stewardship is incredibly popular and its successes (recall that interactive map) are widespread and well documented. Why so tough to renew the program?

To answer that, we can clarify a possible point of confusion in the last blog. I noted that Madison Audubon had used the Stewardship Fund (SF) to buy many acres in our sanctuaries, which mostly prohibit hunting. Now we don't use those grants because of the requirement to allow hunting. In the early days of Stewardship some organizations, including Madison Audubon, had used those grants to buy large tracts of land that they did not open to the public for some traditional and popular forms of outdoor recreation—hunting would head that list. Some legislators used that as a point of attack against the entire program. Policymakers reached a compromise to continue SF but require most of the land so purchased to be open to hunting.

Photo by Roger Packard / Madison Audubon

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A Clutch of Birdy Podcasts

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As a newer birder, I find so much value in birding podcasts. Each one is like a field trip leader who’s teaching me not just about birds, but about the birding community. Podcasts have helped me navigate this often-confusing hobby, they’ve shared perspectives that broaden my understanding of what birding can be, they’ve kept me up-to-date on all the news in the broader birding world, they’ve helped connect me to new content and resources that help me be a more thoughtful and inclusive birder … the list goes on.

So, to help you navigate the wide world of birding podcasts (seriously, there are so many!) this week’s Entryway to Birding blog brings you a short list of where you might get started.

Photo by USFWS Midwest Region