In June 2020, Madison Audubon purchased a 36 acre parcel across the road from our Otsego Marsh property. The new parcel didn’t come pre-loaded with increidble diversity and beautiful vistas. It was mostly soybean fields, a woodlot chocked full of big oaks and invasive underbrush, and a small wetland with great potential. One needed a creative imagination to envision what it could be — and fortunately our visionary staff, board members, volunteers, and donors had a vision!

The resident managers and land steward at Goose Pond Sanctuary coordinate the restoration work at Otsego Marsh, and began getting the new parcel into shape by removing a bunch of the brushy, invasive buckthorn in the woodlot’s understory that was choking out the good native species. And beginning on January 6, 2021, we began installing wetland scrapes!

Photo by Brenna Marsicek / Madison Audubon