Bird & Nature Blog

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The quest for Milkweed Seeds this fall!

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Milkweeds are the host plant for monarch caterpillars, making them essential for healthy monarch populations. This fall, Madison Audubon and in particular our staff at Goose Pond Sanctuary have established a goal for volunteers to collect 50 pounds of milkweed seed for the butterflies, and we need your help!

The primary focus is on common milkweed since it is indeed common and found in old fields, along roadsides, and possibly in your yard. We also would like people to collect butterfly, whorled, and swamp (red) milkweed seed as they are highly desirable species that are not easy to locate in large numbers.

Madison Audubon photo

So long pond, hello great habitat!

A bulldozer on a prairie is not a common sight, nor a vision that comes to mind when one thinks of habitat restoration. But it is often a necessary tool in the process of bringing the land back to its previous state. Over the past 20+ years at Faville Grove Sanctuary and 50+ years at Goose Pond Sanctuary, we have put bulldozers, backhoes, excavators, and many other heavy machines to work filling man-made ditches, re-grading large areas, re-installing wetlands, and more. Our goal is always to bring the land back to its native and former glory.

Photo by David Musolf

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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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We will always choose to save birds.

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We will always choose to save birds.

If you had the power to save birds by making a small change, wouldn’t you?

Birds face many threats, including habitat loss, pesticide poisoning, and climate change. This year has been especially tough.

The severe winter storm in the south this past February is suspected to have caused significant bird deaths in migratory bird populations. A mysterious bird illness reported in the East Coast is continuing to spread into the Midwest, killing and sickening even more songbirds. And, hundreds of millions―even up to a billion―birds die each year in the United States after colliding with windows.

In spite of these devastating difficulties, there is hope.

Indigo Bunting photo by Kelly Colgan Azar.