There is only one possible identification—a Red-breasted Nuthatch, one of my favorite winter birds of Fair Meadows.

Photo by Gary Shackelford

Every Christmas Bird Count (CBC) is different. We enjoy the counts because you never know what observations you will have: your favorite winter bird, high numbers of a common bird, a bird that is out of place in late December, or even a rare bird.

Photo by Courtney Celley/USFWS

Blue Jays, with their quirky attributes, are quite a fun bird to observe and get to know. They can be found year round at Faville Grove, often seen in oak woodlands or savannas like the Lake Mills Ledge.

photo by Courtney Celley/USFWS

Wilson’s Snipe is one of the most common and widespread of all shorebirds. It is found everywhere in North America in its preferred habitat of wet grassy fields, marshes, bogs, and pond edges.

Photo by Gary Shackelford

While most of Wisconsin's breeding birds are stuffing their beaks at bird feeders or soaking up their last month(s) on their winter range, one of Wisconsin's earliest breeding birds, Great Horned Owls, are already in full mating season swing.

Photo by Sandra Uecker/USFWS

This majestic raptor, revered in North American cultures for millennia and into the present day, has earned its place in national history as the beloved symbol that we almost lost.

photo by Courtney Celley/USFWS

Every four or five years, a tiny, plump bird stops at Fair Meadows to seek food and shelter during migration—a Winter Wren!

Photo by Gary Shackelford

I often forget to look forward to some of our smallest arrivals until I hear the high-pitched tinkling reminder—kinglets are still around!

Photo by Sandra Uecker/USFWS

Now that the hush of winter is falling over the landscape, birders yearn for the chirping symphony of spring. But the bare trees and quiet air provide an opportunity for some more discreet birds to shine, such as the Brown Creeper. 

photo by Andy Reago & Chrissy McClarren

Careful study of the Mallard and American Black Duck has allowed me to reliably distinguish them from one another when I get good, clear views of plumage and bill color.

Photo by Gary Shackelford

Although natural cavities can be provided by leaving standing dead trees, the easiest way to supply ample nesting cavities is to build and install songbird boxes.

Photo by Arlene Koziol

After migrating over 2,500 kilometers from the Arctic tundra, Snow Buntings make agricultural fields and burned prairies in Wisconsin their home from now until next April.

photo by Andy Reago & Chrissy McClarren

The birds are slim and dark with black heads, necks, and breasts. Their wings are a light gray and sometimes you can catch a glimpse of white undertail coverts. Black Terns!

Photo by Gary Shackelford

Lapland Longspurs will migrate through and winter in southern Wisconsin, first showing up in late October and departing after the first half of April.

photo by Andy Reago & Chrissy McClarren

This summer, Faville Grove Sanctuary partnered with the Wisconsin DNR as part of the Wisconsin Bat Program to learn more about the bat species using our landscapes and what their presence reveals about our restoration progress. 

photo by Andy Reago & Chrissy McClarren

When I looked up, there were now two birds in the sky—the hawk and a smaller bird. What I witnessed next was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Photo by Gary Shackelford

Multiple days passed before I realized that the flit out of the corner of my eyes happened way too consistently to be my imagination, so I started paying closer attention.

Photo by Andy Reago & Chrissy McClarren

Earlier this summer, during a botanical field trip into one of Faville Grove Sanctuary’s bogs, one of our interns stopped abruptly. “What is that?” he asked, crouching over a patch of sedges.

photo by Jeff Steele

 A flash of yellow and a chestnut necklace catch my eye and there it is—a tiny bird, actively moving along the tips of the foliage in the upper canopy.

Photo by Gary Shackelford

What draws most people’s attention to Chimney Swifts in the fall is their incredible roosting behavior. Chimney Swifts spend 90% of their lives flying—only pausing their lives on-the-wing to roost and to nest. They eat, sleep, and mate while flying. In migration, flocks of Chimney Swifts roost in—you guessed it—chimneys, clinging with their feet to the walls while they sleep.

Photo by Andy Reago & Chrissy McClarren FCC

For three days during my internship this summer, I had the opportunity to conduct bird point counts at Southern Wisconsin Bird Alliance's newly acquired property: Hillside Prairie Sanctuary.

Photo by Mike Budd/USFWS

The elegant Great Egret is one of the most striking birds in Faville Grove’s wetlands—a tall, statuesque hunter clad in pure white feathers, moving with deliberate grace.

photo by Courtney Celley/USFWS

At Fair Meadows Sanctuary, one fact has been made abundantly clear: there is keen competition for nesting sites, both in artificial structures and in tree cavities.

Photo by Gary Shackelford

We asked Goose Pond’s ecological restoration interns what observations or experiences stuck out to them from their summer on the prairie.

Photo by Tucker Sanborn/SoWBA

In spring and summer, over a hundred volunteers give their time, energy, gas money, and hearts to American Kestrels. Why? Because this species is beautiful, fierce, and in decline; and the focal point of our citizen science program the Kestrel Nest Box Monitoring & Banding Program (KNB for short). Each year, hundreds of kestrel chicks fledge from the boxes these volunteers steward, and those chicks and some of the adults are banded for research. And each year, we try to get creative about how we can continue to make it easier for kestrels to successfully raise their young in southern Wisconsin.

Photo by Kaitlin Svabek/SoWBA

It’s one of those cool, misty mornings in late July. I am awakened at 5:30 by a sweet song in the nearby prairie—the paired notes of an Indigo Bunting.

Photo by Gary Shackelford

We are very fortunate to have Red-headed Woodpeckers—our favorite oak woodland and savanna species—at our Wildland cabin year round for the past couple of years.

photo by Jeff Galligan

When I got to see bats up close for the first time at Fair Meadows Sanctuary this past July, I was blown away by their beautiful strangeness.

Photo by Andy Reago & Chrissy McClarren

2025 was another amazing year of dedicated volunteers putting in thousands of hours monitoring the Bald Eagle nests they were assigned to, and documenting the fate of those nests.

Photo by Steve Fisher, BENW volunteer