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Update on the Cherokee Heights chimney effort

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Madison Metropolitan School District has publicly committed to collaborating with Southern Wisconsin Bird Alliance to build a faux chimney at the new school, based on the guidance and best practices that are known to benefit swifts. We are using construction templates from other successful sites with large chimneys like this, particularly one in Manitoba. It is our intent to keep a watchful eye on this project and weigh in on behalf of bird conservation. This includes making sure that the old chimney will remain on site and functional until the new chimney is available for swift use. We will be working closely with MMSD in the coming months and years to bring this to fruition, and monitor Chimney Swift use.

Photo by Brenna Marsicek/SoWBA

So Far and So Close

Dawn at Faville Grove Sanctuary. Southern Wisconsin Bird Alliance has used Stewardship funds to purchase and permanently protect nearly 1,400 acres in southern Wisconsin. Photo by Drew Harry

Please follow this link to the latest news about the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Fund from Gathering Waters. Essential reading, it clarifies the recent Assembly passage of a Stewardship program.

Unfortunately, the short phrase of analysis is "not really." The bill strips almost all the money for land purchases from the program with the most outrageous victims being land trusts and conservation organizations. What remains is the husk of Stewardship and not a viable program.

We have one chance left to save Stewardship. Although this program has earned widespread bipartisan support, its fate will largely be decided on party lines. Some Republicans in the State Senate might want to preserve a meaningful Stewardship program. They have to act now and Republican leaders have to permit them to work with Democrats.  

If you have any connection with any Republican Senator please contact him or her by phone or email of letter (or in person if you see that senator in your community) and ask that they add enough money to the bill so that the DNR, land trusts, conservation groups, and local governments can continue to buy land in order to protect natural resources and allow Wisconsin residents and visitors to enjoy them.

Canada Geese in a wetland on a foggy morning. Photo by Monica Blaser/USFWS

In the bigger picture the opposition of some Republicans to Stewardship is baffling. Ducks Unlimited and the National Wild Turkey Federation, not bastions of Democratic liberalism, have announced the purchase of 1,900 acres in the Avon Bottoms in Rock County. Stewardship dollars were a crucial part of the funding. The purchase of that  land is the final piece in a decades long process to restore wetlands and prairies, protect bottomland forests and the Sugar River, and provide habitat for waterfowl, upland game birds, and dozens of other bird species, some of which are endangered or threatened. Hunters, anglers, birders, paddlers, and hikers will have almost 10,000 acres to enjoy. Wisconsin with the vital help of conservation organizations, land trusts, the DNR, and the Stewardship Fund will have restored and saved one of the largest tracts of quality wildlife habitat in southern Wisconsin and this part of the Midwest. Why on God's good earth would anyone destroy a program that accomplishes so much good?

Stay warm and call, email or visit your favorite Republican State Senator,

Topf Wells, volunteer with Southern Wisconsin Bird Alliance’s advocacy committee

Bluebirds in Extreme Cold

During the recent extremely cold weather in Wisconsin, a group of Eastern Bluebirds has been roosting nightly in our front yard Peterson bird house. We first noticed their presence early on Jan 21st about 7AM while looking out a front window and were completely surprised to see seven bluebirds fly out of our bluebird house. It was still fairly dark at that time on a cloudy day. The bluebirds were gone all day, presumably feeding somewhere in the neighborhood. At this time of year our property has no shrubs bearing winter fruits for them to feed on.

Photo by Curt Caslavka

 
 
 
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