Bird & Nature Blog
A clutch of the latest stories from Southern Wisconsin Bird Alliance
As a teenager, I was charged with speaking on the virtue of faith at a Catholic retreat for some schoolmates. I read my draft to the group organizing the gathering, which included a kind, elderly priest. He spoke after I finished saying, "Topf, that was not a good presentation on faith but quite excellent on hope." That about sums up my spirituality and outlook on life then and now, short on faith but long on hope.
Photo by Mandy Martin
Window collisions are the second biggest killer of birds with just under half of those collisions being with homes and smaller buildings. In a study last year, about 3.5 billion birds died from Bird-Window Collisions. The two biggest factors for why birds fly into windows are transparency and reflectiveness. The birds either see something on the other side of the glass that they want to get to — we call this the pass through effect. Reflectiveness is when they see a reflection of something they want to get to.
The striped (or “common”) skunk doesn't have a great reputation. It’s hard to get past the smell. They’re unpopular for sometimes stealing eggs, honey, and vegetables. If you Google skunks, you’ll finds ads and advice for how to get rid of them. They've entered common parlance; no one wants to be the skunk at the party or the dead skunk on the side of the road.
Photo by Márcio Cabral de Moura FCC
Gathering Waters, SoWBA, numerous statewide and local conservation organizations, and thousands (yes, thousands) of citizens have lobbied legislators for four years to save this program. It's politically popular with the public across partisan lines and is wildly successful. We celebrate STEW’s big successes like SoWBA's purchase of the 300+ acre Hillside Prairie Sanctuary, but it helped fund all sorts of impactful projects around the state, which benefit communities and folks.
Photo by Brenna Marsicek/SoWBA
