Birds & wildlife
Cranes of Wisconsin
Near Baraboo, a global village of birds lives, loves and thrives.
In Wisconsin, the rarest birds in the world live not far from the Dells.
Not just any birds, but cranes — the tall, elegant birds of art and myth.
In ancient Japan, cranes could grant wishes. In India, they're omens of good fortune.
Wildlife reality show
Web cams open a window into lives of eagles, bears and other wild things.
In the northeast Iowa town of Decorah, a pair of nesting bald eagles have become an international phenomenon.
Via a web cam trained on the nest, millions of people watched in February 2012 as the eagles laid three eggs. In March, they saw the eggs hatch. In April and May, they watched the eaglets grow.
In 2013, the famous eagles threw their fans for a loop, building an alternate nest in a nearby tree that doesn't have a camera. The Raptor Resource Project explains why they may have built the new nest and offers fans an eagle fix with videos, still photos, a blog and a forum.
Life on Horicon Marsh
At an avian rest stop, humans learn about life on the wing.
On a spring morning in east-central Wisconsin, two geese suddenly shattered the stillness, honking urgently. Yellow warblers zoomed down from trees and out of sight. Redwing blackbirds clung to cattails, swaying in the stiffening wind.
It was only 6:30 a.m., but it was rush hour on the Horicon Marsh.
A human here feels oddly out of place, a lumbering interloper on a fast-moving avian freeway. Birds own this marsh, and they aren't shy about saying so, rending the air with trills and tweets as they go about their business.
Playing the field in Wisconsin
In April, the kooky courtship of prairie chickens brings out the bird watchers.
It's a cold dawn on a Wisconsin marsh, but to a bunch of prairie chickens, it's a hot Saturday night on the town.
They've come to see and be seen, and hormones are in charge. It's serious business, perpetuating a dwindling species.
But to humans watching from a blind, it's high comedy. Whenever a girl chicken is nearby, the boys inflate neon-orange sacs under their throats, drum their feet and start scurrying around like, well, chickens with their heads cut off.
Owls, owls, everywhere
An influx of magnificent birds has birders hurrying up north.
An irruption of owls has been making birders ecstatic in 2013.
Food has been scarce in far-north forests, so owls have been flying south to look for it, many along the shores of Lake Superior.
I don't have the patience to watch birds. But when they come right to me . . . who can resist?
Birding by rail
On Wisconsin's Chippewa River, a little train rolls into a bird-watcher's Eden.
If you don’t know a birder, you might think they have a severe case of attention-deficit disorder.
They tend to stare off into space. They often stop talking mid-sentence. It’s hard to finish conversations with them.
But their enthusiasm for nature is contagious. And in spring, birders know all the best places to go.
Spring bird festivals
After a long winter, birders welcome the return of feathered friends.
By April, the harbingers of spring are on the move.
"The spring migration is well underway!'' comes the report from wildlife refuges. "Eagles and swans, Canada geese, robins, sparrows, sandhills cranes have arrived!''
Where there are birds, there are birders — and bird festivals. Those are especially nice for beginners, who don’t
yet have the skills to find and identify birds.
Owl aboard
In southeast Minnesota, a live-wire named Alice is the star of a late-winter festival.
Like most women who take care of small creatures, Karla Bloem splits her life into two parts: Before Alice and After Alice.
Before Alice, Bloem could sleep late and travel whenever she felt like it.
But then little Alice came along. Alice wakes her up at the crack of dawn, sulks if she leaves her and leaves messes all over the house. Alice is a spoiled brat, Karla Bloem admits.
Where eagles land
Near winter gathering spots, towns capitalize on the birds' popularity by throwing festivals.
Benjamin Franklin was a wise man, but he was way off base when he proposed the turkey as a national symbol instead of the eagle.
Why? Because bald eagles are the perfect Americans. They're large, brash, opportunistic and easy to identify. And wherever they go, money follows.
Not long after the pesticide DDT was banned in 1972, bald eagle populations began to bounce back in the lower 48
states.
Ely and the three bears
At the North American Bear Center, visitors meet some big personalities.
Everyone loves a teddy bear, especially one called Ted.
He's likely the world's largest black bear, at 850 pounds, but he doesn't throw his weight around.
When his fellow bear Honey doesn't want to play, which is often, he merely whines, "like a foghorn,'' says curator Donna Phelan. And when he wants to make friends, which is all the time, he makes a "wonderful amiable sound, an umph-umph-umph.''
All eyes on Wabasha
Eagles are drawn to this Mississippi River town, along with flocks of binocular-toting visitors.
Along the Mississippi River, the fortunes of Wabasha have risen right along with the once-endangered bald eagle.
Eagles reappeared slowly after DDT was banned in 1972, and one of the first places they could be seen was in this Minnesota town, just downriver from the mouth of the Chippewa River, which kept water open in winter so eagles could fish.
The city built a deck downtown and staffed it with spotting scopes and volunteers from November through March. Then it started a makeshift eagle center behind an empty storefront. In 2007, it opened the National Eagle Center in a handsome brick building on the river banks.
Snow birds
A wintering flock of trumpeter swans has put Monticello on the map.
It's winter in Monticello, and the livin' is easy.
For trumpeter swans, the largest water bird in North America, the Mississippi River town is a virtual Club Med, thanks to balmy waters from the nuclear power-generating plant upstream and a daily all-you-can-eat spread of dried corn.
The first swans showed up in the winter of 1986, as the late Sheila Lawrence was feeding the ducks and geese in the yard of her riverside home. They appreciated her hospitality, and every year more came, first by the dozens, then by the hundreds.
Winter weekend in Monticello
Come for the swans; stay for the shopping and skiing.
Not far west of the Twin Cities, the Mississippi River town of Monticello is known for two things.
Passersby on I-94 can't fail to notice the nuclear-power reactor that marks the town. In winter, it's the power plant that attracts a flock of trumpeter swans, which thinks the plant's warm discharge waters are a little spa just for them (for more, see Snow birds).
Of course, the flock of swans draws a flock of swan-watchers. One January, my husband and I were among them, standing along the shore of the river and marveling at the raucous crowd of hundreds of birds, jostling for food and attention.
Wings over the Mississippi
Tundra-swan watchers have a honkin' good time during the November migration.
In the sloughs of the Upper Mississippi, birds of a feather flock together.
Bird-watchers, especially. On chilly days in late fall, they crowd onto a wooden platform to watch tundra swans paddling around a slough of the Buffalo River called Rieck’s Lake.
For years, this lake on the north edge of Alma, Wis., provided an all-you-can-eat smorgasbord for tundra swans, a big bird that needs a lot of fuel for its flight from the Arctic Circle to the marshes of Chesapeake Bay.
Bird walks
In spring, a symphony of trills and chirps draws hikers into the woods.
In April, everything returns to the forest.
It's easy to see the ephemerals — false rue anemone, hepatica and trout lilies, swelling into a carpet of
white — and the watercress that swirls in cold brooks.
Tiny chartreuse leaves unfold from the tips of tree branches, and tightly furled fiddlehead ferns push up from the old brown fronds.
Looking for bald eagles
In winter, the cold forces the birds to go where they're easier to see.
If you want to find eagles, the most important thing to know is they work only as hard as they have to.
When lakes up north start to freeze, eagles will head for the nearest open patch of water. In December, that's often on the northern stretches of the Mississippi River flyway, between Red Wing and Wabasha, Minn.
"They're still trying to decide where to spend the winter," says Pat Manthey of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.
Open sesame on the sloughs
In winter, eagle-watchers and snowshoers can explore frozen Mississippi byways.
For people who love nature, winter is a time of opportunity.
When it's cold enough, you can walk onto the Mississippi River. You can see bald eagles up close. You can explore sloughs and backwaters without being eaten alive by insects.
"Most of these places, you'd almost die in a few minutes in summer," says Scott Mehus, education specialist at the National Eagle Center in Wabasha. "So now is a good time to get out there and see things."
Hawk heaven
On a ridgetop in Duluth, bird watchers keep eyes on the fall skies.
On Duluth's Hawk Ridge, a bird in the hand is worth at least two in the sky.
They're impressive when spotted overhead. But up close, it's easier to get to know a bird — say, the northern goshawk, a fierce predator whose image once adorned the helmet of Attila the Hun.
As she held a young goshawk by the legs, naturalist Willow Maser struggled to make herself heard above its high-pitched screeches.
Beguiled by bears
In northern Minnesota, the man who loved bears left a legacy for thousands.
Half a century ago, a Minnesota logger who lived in a forest full of hungry bears decided that if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.
By the time he died at age 86, Vince Shute had fed generations of black bears, become best friends with a bear named Brownie and inspired bear-lovers all over the world.
Shute wasn't a sophisticated man, but he had a heart.
© Beth Gauper, 2007 - 2013 all rights reserved
