This summer has been yet another wonderful season for citizen science with our volunteers and neighbors, who contribute so much to the fields of conservation research and biology. Two recent projects that stand out in our minds are the Wisconsin Frog and Toad Survey and Purple Martin banding.
For 39 years, Goose Pond Sanctuary staff and volunteers have participated in the Wisconsin Frog and Toad Survey, a DNR citizen-based monitoring program that provides information on the population trends, status, and distribution of Wisconsin’s twelve frog and single toad species.
Leopard frog (photo by Arlene Koziol).
This year, our group visited 10 survey stops beginning at Otsego Marsh and ending at Goose Pond. Like most years, the trill of chorus frogs and the high-pitched ‘peeping’ of spring peepers dominated the earliest survey period (April 8–30), but we were lucky to hear leopard frogs and even wood frogs! Wood frogs are not often recorded on our survey because they have the shortest breeding period of any Wisconsin frog, are uncommon in the southern part of the state, and are often drowned out by the resonant chorus of spring peepers and chorus frogs.
We heard the most species during the second survey period (May 20–June 5): gray tree frog, Cope’s gray tree frog, American toad, green frog, spring peeper, chorus frog, and northern leopard frog. It was difficult to discern other calls among the shrill cries of the two tree frogs, but we were excited to record the American toads during their short calling period.
The third survey period (July 1–15) was dominated by the low strum of the green frogs, though a few tree frogs joined the chorus. At Mud Lake Wildlife Area, we found six smaller green frogs that overwintered as tadpoles and recently metamorphosed into frogs. Over the nearly four decades, frog numbers have remained fairly stable. It is amazing to see the species numbers rebound after drought years.
We hope the Anura populations remain strong!
The Purple Martin is a striking bird with a beautiful voice that performs aerial acrobatics while snapping up insects. Large Purple Martin colonies migrate south in the winter, primarily to Brazil, and return to familiar breeding grounds every spring.
Goose Pond staff and volunteers assisted Dick Nikolai, from the Wisconsin Purple Martin Association, with the banding of Purple Martins at the Amish community near Dalton in Marquette County. Over the course of two days in July, we visited four farms, where 580 young Purple Martins have received a flashy new anklet. Many of the nests had fledged young, otherwise our band numbers would have been much higher.
Purple Martin party! (photo by Brenna Marsicek/Madison Audubon).
Amish families are really helping increase Purple Martin numbers in their communities in Wisconsin. On July 12, we started at the Jacob Petersheim farm and ended up with 168 banded young. The Petersheim family cares for seven 14-unit houses. It was amazing to see that 97 of the 98 nest sites were occupied by Purple Martins.
This is the fifth year that we banded together with Dick, making 2,823 total birds! With an estimated statewide population around 30,000 that means we’ve banded around 1.9%. The association uses the data to study migration, survivorship, health, productivity, phenology, climate change impacts, and more.
It takes a full team to make this banding assembly line run smoothly: a bander, a data recorder, a person to open the bands, someone to raise and lower the boxes, a person to keep track of which birds go into which compartment, and a half dozen people to carry birds to the banding station and back. We can band about one bird per minute at full capacity. Thanks to volunteers, staff, Dick, and of course the Purple Martin landlords who take care of the birds and allow us to band on their properties.
Written by Emma Raasch, Mark Martin, Susan Foote-Martin, and Graham Steinhauer, Goose Pond Sanctuary team.
Cover: Purple Martins sit on a wire outside their white T-14 compartment house (photo by Kaitlin Svabek/Madison Audubon).
