[wisb] Weekly Wild Warner Nature Explorers Report

From: Paul Noeldner <paul_noeldner@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: wisbirdnet <wisbirdn@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2013 23:18:20 +0000


This is the Weekly Wild Warner Nature Explorers Report from Madison, Wisconsin. 
 About 35 Sherman Middle School students participate in this ongoing 
after-school outdoor education program advised by UW professor Jack Kloppenburg 
and led by PhD student Trish Okane, a number of UW grad students, Madison 
Audubon Bird Mentor Paul Noeldner and Wild Warner's Tim Nelson.   Wednesday's 
activities took the kids out over the thick ice to the Warner Park Island, a 
big marshy cattail and cottonwood island in the center of Warner Park Springs, 
a large spring-fed lagoon in the wild area of Warner Park.  It was very cold 
and there were no birds in sight!  So instead we shared pictures and info about 
the topic of the day, which was Wood Ducks and Kestrels, and passed around 
stuffed Audubon birds for these species that play the actual Cornell Lab 
sounds, and a couple portable media players with John Feith's super Birds Birds 
Birds DVD to look at videos.    The kids then helped monitor two Wood Duck 
houses that they helped put up a couple of years ago on the shoreline of Warner 
Park Island where the boxes can be viewed from walking paths along the lagoon.  
We had seen at least one family of baby Wood Ducks last season by one box but 
were not sure how many had hatched, or whether any had hatched from the other 
box.  By carefully picking through the soft down and nesting material layer on 
top of the old wood chips, students helped find  the leathery shell remnants of 
about 4 to 6 eggs in each house!  This means we had two healthy hatchings, a 
nice success in what is by and large mostly an urban area.  The boxes were then 
cleaned out with help by the kids and new pine wood shavings added to be ready 
for this year's mating pairs.   The Nature Explorers also got a bonus, they 
helped put up a new American Kestrel house provided just the day before by Mark 
Martin, Madison Audubon's Goose Pond Sanctuary Manager, and installed on the 
Warner Park Island with authorization from Russ Hefty, Madison Parks 
conservation parks supervisor.  The Kestrel house is mounted on a two-by-four 
attached to an old tree trunk using two large lag screws so that it can be 
pivoted down by removing one lag screw for yearly maintenance without having to 
climb a ladder.   Earlier in the day, Tim and Paul found a sleepy Screech Owl 
in one of the previously installed Kestrel houses on a tree in Cherokee Marsh 
just north of Warner Park while doing maintenance and putting in fresh wood 
shavings, we skipped that one of course.  I tried attaching a picture, hope it 
works. So no bird count to report this week, but a great educational 
experience! - Paul Noeldner, Maple Bluff                                        
   

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[wisb] Weekly Wild Warner Nature Explorers Report

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