The spring wildflower planting was done at fire circle #3, next to the small beach at the Narrows on Picnic Point. Hundreds of forbs, sedges, grasses and shrubs were all planted to help stem the erosion and beautify the heavily used area. The Preserve student seasonal staff will do follow-up watering and monitoring of the plantings. Participants were Ann Burgess, Biz Nitschke, Doris Dubielzig, Roma Lenehan, Glenda Denniston, Kathi Dwelle, Rick and Nancy Lindroth, Kelly Kearns. Bryn Scriver was the Lakeshore Preserve Volunteer Coordinator. Plant List:
0 Comments
The annual garlic mustard removal at Frautschi Point has clearly reduced the abundance of garlic mustard in the area. This and the odd spring weather made the garlic mustard hunt a challenge. Some of the plants had barely emerged above the leaf litter. A careful search resulted in only a small garbage bag full of plants. Meanwhile half of the group instead cut buckthorn out of the tree line between Lake Mendota Drive and the Preserve, just north of the gardens. Participant were Will Vuyk, Matt Chotlos, Roma Lenahan, Doris Dubielzig, Glenda Denniston, Marcia Schmidt, Karen Nakasone, John Marszal, Bryn's son Rilo Scriver-Nondorf, Kelly Kearns. Report Kelly Kearns, Photos Bryn Scriver, Lakeshore Preserve Volunteer coordinator..
Wow! Thirty-five people arrived for a spring birding tour that began at 7:30am in a chilly mist overlooking the Class of 1918 Marsh. Roma Lenehan, a founder of the Friends and author of the Preserve’s breeding bird survey and Becky Abel, Madison Audubon’s Director of Philanthropy, led the three-hour tour that observed birds in the Class of 1918 Marsh, in University Bay from the Picnic Point trail, in the Marsh on the leeward side of the Point, in deciduous and pine woods, in the former orchard, and on Biocore Prairie. And the birds cooperated. Becky Abel explained to the group the importance of stopover sites, like the Preserve, for migratory birds. On their journey north, birds stop to rest and refuel at three kinds of sites. Typically small, “fire escape” stopover sites, with limited resources, are infrequently used but vital in emergency situations. “Full-service hotel” stopover sites, like the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest in northern Wisconsin, provide abundant food, water and shelter for migrants.Lying between those two extremes, the Lakeshore Nature Preserve serves as a ”convenience store” stopover site. Located within the city of Madison, this Important Birding Area is a place where birds can rest for a few days and easily replenish some fat or muscle, or both, before continuing. The Preserve offers a variety of habitats, fresh water and a variety of food sources, including fruit and insects (although with our cool, slow spring, insects have been slow to emerge). ![]() Both leaders are expert birders-by-ear. Roma Lenehan recorded observing 65 bird species, and that doesn’t include the accipiter and the gulls we couldn’t identify! Some of the highlights were sighting sora in the Class of 1918 Marsh,
On April 10, the Friends offered a Destination for Exploration as part of the 3-day UW Campus-wide “Science Expeditions” Open House. At the entrance to Picnic Point, Doris Dubielzig and Gisela Kutzbach greeted visitors and gave each family or child a booklet containing a map of Picnic Point, with our three exploration stations indicated on the cover. Doris coordinated the event and Tom C T Yin was the photographer. The booklet also contains activities and challenges related to those three stations. With “decent” weather, more than 60 attendees enjoyed experiencing the Preserve on a day that held promise for the wonders of spring, but grew increasingly windy and chilly by mid-afternoon. At the Rock Wall, Geology Professor Phil Brown and Science Olympiad coach Scot Moss introduced visitors to the origins and kinds of rocks in the stone wall. Two tables held excellent labeled samples of the rocks in the wall. At the Tree Station in front of the newly restored iron gates, Friends Board members Matt Chotlos and Friends President-elect Will Vuyk showed visitors how to identify leafless trees by their branch and bark pattens. Children were given “tree cookies” (wood cross sections) on a string and shown how to calculate their section’s age by counting the annual rings. On the hillside by the bat house, a Birding Station, hosted by gifted naturalists Paul Noeldner, Ashley Olah and Chuck Keleny, provided strategies for identifying birds. Guests were introduced to the Merlin app, and could look through binoculars and a spotting scope into the spring sky and across the lake. Although a red-tailed hawk and turkey vultures soared above us (and an osprey was sighted!), it was generally too windy for good birding. Sonia Haeckel and her sons played Bird Bingo and made “binoculars” and bark rubbings with children. We heard satisfied remarks from the presenters, who already volunteered to share their knowledge for Science Expeditions 2023. Some children and their families remained interested, engaged and playful for the full 90 minutes, especially while in the company of their friends.
The Seed Fair for gardeners at the Eagle Heights Community gardens was held outside the Community Center on a beautiful, sunny spring day. For many years, the Friends have contributed educational exhibits on topics such as soil or pollinators. This year's exhibit focused on songbirds in the gardens and the Preserve. Exhibitors Gisela Kutzbach, Tom Morgan and Paul Noeldner showed human-made housing for bluebirds, purple martins and wrens, all cavity nesters, as well as birds nests, such as a robin nest and the tiny hummingbird nest. Gardeners had fun playing a bird bingo game and enjoyed learning the names of birds observed in the gardens. Another challenge was building a wren nest from sticks in an open wren box. Also, for gardeners who wished to install a wren house on the plot, the Friends distributed copper plates with a small entrance hole that is big enough for wrens but too small for house sparrows. Photos Kutzbach and Morgan. The Annual Meeting 2022 was held in-person, after two years of zoom meetings during the pandemic. About 70 people attended and another 20 joined the live streamed meeting on Zoom. Drawing point was our keynote speaker Janice Rice, Ho-Chunk Nation tribal member and lecturer at the UW -Madison Information School. President Olympia Mathiaparanam addressed attendees via Zoom, streamed on screen at the Arboretum, while Will Vuyk gave the Friends Annual Report in-person and remembered Lil Tong, who passed away recently. Subsequently, Kelly Kearns thanked departing Board members for their service, Eve Emshwiller, Dane Gallagher, Seth McGee, Olympia Mathiarapanam and Paul Noeldner. Friends Vice president Seth McGee introduced the new slate of candidates for the Board of directors and conducted their election. New to the Board are Reba Luiken, Diana Tapia Ramon, Cole Roecker, Josh Sulman and Tom Zinnen. Also, MJ Morgan and Will Vuyk began their second terms, with Will being president elect. The entire event was organized by Olympia Mathiarapanam, Annual meeting chair, and Will Vuyk, MC. The technical feat of seamlessly switching the screen from Zoom to live Powerpoints was done by Anne Pearce. Report here by Gisela Kutzbach. Photos by Glenda Denniston and Gisela Kutzbach. Preserve Director Gary Brown thanked the Friends for financial supported of the new Master Plan and introduced Preserve staff. Rhonda James, UW-Madison senior landscape architect, discussed the structure of the new Master Plan and invited the audience to attend the Master Plan Public Meeting on April 26, 2022 | 7:00 pm at Memorial Union. Janice Rice gave the keynote address, Voices and Values of Teejop (Four Lakes): A Hoocąk (Ho-Chunk), Winnebago) Perspective. Janice, Peacemaker for the Ho-Chunk Nation Trial Court, wove together her academic findings with the voices of her Hoocąk ancestors. She traced her own cultural roots in the Teejop homelands and southern Wisconsin, illustrating her stories of Hoocąk leaders, villages and cultural values with photographs and maps. Ho-chunk villages once dotted the shorelines of the Four Lakes (Teejop). Rice also related the stories of repeated forced removal of the Ho-chunk people from their ancestral lands to reservations further west and their determination to return to their homes. She explained the circumstances of the 1837 treaty that ceded all their lands in Wisconsin. The treaty itself was made under suspicious conditions, as the Ho-Chunk were not aware that it gave them only eight months to leave their ceded lands. The army attempted to remove the tribe to the Neutral Ground. Iowa, in 1841, but many Ho-Chunk came back to Wisconsin. Eventually, by the 1880s, the government decided to allow the Ho-Chunk to take up 40-acre farms and remain in Wisconsin. By contextualizing the landscape of Teejop with the deep histories, personal stories, and current vibrance of the Hoocąk community, Rice afforded us the opportunity to see the Preserve and the surrounding areas of Madison from a new perspective. As the Friends, we will strive to honor this perspective in our actions and care for the Preserve moving forward. The sunshine brought out about a dozen people to our early spring migrants walk led by Friends board member Dane Gallagher and Friends host Anne Pearce. We were greeted at the Picnic Point entrance by singing song sparrows and spotted one in the grass in front of the stone wall. A great sign of spring! While much of Lake Mendota is still frozen over, University Bay's open water hosted a raft of waterfowl. Luckily for us, the nearby ice kept the birds closer to shore, so we could see many of the ducks well without a spotting scope. A few stops along the Picnic Point path provided great looks at a variety of waterfowl, including American coot, lesser scaup, redhead, bufflehead, canvasback, and ring-necked ducks, in addition to the familiar mallards and Canada geese. Off in the distance, we saw two common loons, and even further away was a pair of common mergansers. We kept our eyes to the ice and the sky in hopes of seeing a bald eagle, but we did not see any today! Back on land, there were American robins and common grackles searching through the leaf litter. In one sunny spot, sheltered from the north wind, we were greeted by several black-capped chickadees, including a pair that were going in and out of a tree cavity, possibly building a nest! We also had a very cooperative golden-crowned kinglet flitting around at eye level right next to the path. We watched a red-bellied woodpecker searching for food in the crevices of shagbark hickory bark and a few downy woodpeckers working along some twigs. Later in the walk, we happened upon a white-breasted nuthatch and talked about how they also search for insects in tree bark, though unlike their woodpecker friends, they do it with their heads pointed down! While we enjoyed the sunshine and birds, the cold wind and icy lake definitely had people wishing for the warmer part of spring to arrive soon. Before we know it, we'll see even more birds and the spring wildflowers will add some more color to the forest floor. Report and photos by Anne Pearce.
The 4th Sunday of the month Madison FUN Bird and Nature Adventure at UW Lakeshore Preserve was led by Chuck Henrikson with help from Friends board members Signe Holtz and Paul Noeldner. A diverse group of about 30 people including some families with kids gathered at Pucnic Point, and about 10 more joined later to enjoy looking and listening for Winter Birds. Expert birder by ear Charles Naeseth joined the group along the way to help with the search. After a fairly slow start quite a few species were seen and heard and pointed out by various members of the group, including a 7 year old boy and his brother who loved chasing down the trail after flashes of feathers with kids binocs in hand to see what kind if bird was flitting in the bushes. Several people in the group spotted a Northern Flicker and a Coopers Hawk that swooped by overhead at treetop height. The tinkling call and partial sighting of a Brown Creeper also grabbed their attention. One person reported seeing an American Robin at the Preserve before joining up with the group. Everyone enjoyed walking back along the ice covered Lake Mendota shoreline and helped scan distant jagged upthrust ice ridges for reported possible Snowy Owls. A couple likely looking large white bird shaped lumps actually took flight but proved to be Herring Gulls. Report Paul Noeldner. Friends host Signe Holtz. The highlight of the day was a beautiful Barred Owl (Strix varia) perched near a known previous tree hollow nest site where its mate may already be brooding eggs that will hatch in about a month.
A small but enthused group of hearty nature lovers braved the winter cold on Sunday January 23 to join the "Winter Wonderland" 4th Sunday of the month Bird and Nature Adventure at UW Lakeshore Nature Preserve led by Paul Noeldner and Chuck Henrikson and Friends host Anne Pearce. Several other folks joined for short periods along the way before heading back someplace warm out of the chill wind. Most birds were taking shelter too but there were enough drumming woodpeckers that made appearances, cheery chickadees grooming oak treetop buds, chipping cardinals in bushes, and yank yanking nuthatches climbing tree trunks to keep cold fingers busy focusing freezing binoculars. Other Winter Wonderland Wonders the participants enjoyed were walking in sparkling white fluffy snow that blanketed tree limbs and pine boughs, talking about the beautiful fractal patterns of snowflakes and the safe sheltered subnivian (beneath the snow) layer that sintering (coalescing) snow provides for hiding, feeding and shelter out of the wind for a host of wild things, seeing the freshly scattered tracks and trails of mice, voles, squirrels, deer, fox and bunnies that scampered about and dove into holes in the snow and cavities in logs and trees and looking them up in Critter Trax and iTracks apps, celebrating Squirrel Appreciation Day and admiring lofty squirrel dreys cleverly suspended in high branches, spotting an odd looking abandoned wasp nest missing the top half due to blue jays foraging for grubs, and scanning jagged ice edges on University Bay hoping to spot two Snowy Owls recently reported to be in the area from the frozen Arctic. Winter birding and nature outings are always surprisingly fun and rewarding, just remember to dress warm. Inexpensive hand and toe warmers help when it is especially cold out and Chuck Henrikson showed everyone the latest and greatest solution, a USB rechargable hand warmer!
On Sunday, January 16, David Drake, the UW-Extension Wildlife Specialist and Professor of Forest and Wildlife Ecology, led a group of 52, including 13 children, from the Picnic Point entrance to the old orchard. The crowd that gathered on that chilly afternoon was eager to learn how he and his students attract and track foxes and coyotes in the UW-Madison Lakeshore Nature Preserve. Drake began by describing the categories of animals that live in the Preserve -- birds, mammals, amphibians and reptiles -- and identified the numbers of species of each that live in Wisconsin. As he led the group up the hill past Bill’s Woods, a red-tailed hawk flew overhead and Drake pointed out evidence of squirrel and pileated woodpecker activity in the area. He described the differences between the gray, red and flying squirrels that live in this area, and suggested positioning motion-sensored red lights near our birdfeeders to reveal the nocturnal visits by flying squirrels.
The recent snowfall provided fresh turkey tracks and gave the 13 children opportunities for their own ground level discoveries. Off trail, in the old orchard field where the Urban Canid Project traps coyotes and red foxes, Drake demonstrated how they set cable restraints to trap the animals humanely. Shortly after another red-tailed hawk (a buteo) flew overhead, a sharp-shinned/Cooper’s hawk (an accipiter) winged into Caretaker’s Woods. After noting the anatomical differences that allow the two birds to navigate the different habitats, Drake explained how his researchers handle, examine and outfit the canids with $1200 radio collars that enable the Project to track their movements throughout the Preserve and the city. A small blood sample is collected from each animal and submitted for COVID-19 testing as part of a study to learn whether the canids are carriers of the disease. The group had many questions for Professor Drake, which he answered expertly and clearly from his vast knowledge of wildlife ecology. As the UW Extension Specialist in Biotechnology, Friends host Tom Zinnen was particularly proud of his colleague’s presentation. Report by Doris Dubielzig and Tom Zinnen |
Archives
June 2024
|