24 hours, 13 people, 141 bird species counted, $2790 raised for birds

See the amazing 2022 Reckless Wrens Birdathon species list here

For a decade, the Natural Resources Foundation (NRF) of Wisconsin has been holding the largest fundraiser for bird conservation, the Great Wisconsin Birdathon, as an exciting way to get outside and learn about birds, while raising money for the NRF’s Bird Protection Fund. The Bird Protection Fund supports conservation projects for Wisconsin’s highest priority bird species including Kirtland’s Warblers, Piping Plovers, and Whooping Cranes.

The Great Wisconsin Birdathon is also a great way for nonprofit conservation organizations like Madison Audubon to raise money for their own projects that support Wisconsin’s birds by receiving half of the funds they raised. This year, the funds raised by the Reckless Wrens will be going towards additional technology for the Motus Tower at Goose Pond.

Reckless Wrens Captain, Jim Shurts, and fellow Co-Founder, Kathy Shurts, give insight into the Reckless Wrens Team and its origin:

It’s hard to believe that the Reckless Wrens have been birding for 10 years. I heard about the Great Wisconsin Birdathon its very first year when it was a small number of “signature” teams. I thought that the Birdathon was a great way to fundraise and I knew a couple people on one of the teams, so I donated to their team. The next year Kathy and I started our own team, the Reckless Wrens. Because of my affiliation with Madison Audubon and friendship with Mark Martin and Sue Foote-Martin, we expanded the team members and started concentrating on Madison Audubon’s Columbia County properties and surrounding areas.

We’ve been doing this every year because it’s fun! It is also a wonderful way to raise money for Madison Audubon and the Bird Protection Fund. As in the past couple of years, in 2022 the team generally worked in pairs to cover lots of ground. We all started at 5:00 PM on May 12th and birded as many hours as we were able until 5:00 PM on May 13th. Kathy and I started at our usual spot, the Vienna Waterfowl Protection Area (WPA). Thursday the 12th was in that period with 90+ degree days, and we weren’t sure how that was going to affect the birds, but one never knows what might be at the Vienna WPA. This year’s highlight was a pair of Black-necked Stilts, a lovely bird that is expanding its breeding range into Wisconsin. Kathy and I continued to check various spots into the evening, and then met up with Mark at Goose Pond on Saturday morning.

The Reckless Wrens team had a marvelous 24-hour period of birding with 141 species! We also reached an all-time high for fund-raising – a remarkable $2,790. However, it’s not too late to donate: if you’d like to donate, go to the Reckless Wrens team page and click on the donate button. A huge thank you goes out to all of our donors.

Graham Steinhauer, Calla Norris, Miles Roth, and I (Emma Raasch) focused on birding at Madison Audubon Properties in Columbia county for the bulk of the Birdathon, but we split up in the hopes of finding additional warblers in Madison; our days go as follows:

Graham and I started the Thursday of the Birdathon at Goose Pond where we saw Semipalmated Plovers, Dunlins, and Short-billed Dowitchers foraging on the East pond. We then went to Erstad prairie, and were surprised to see that the fluffy gray lump at the edge of the pond was a Great Horned owlet! Other exciting finds at Erstad include a group of four Red-necked Grebes moving together with synchronized head-bobbing motions. We then headed to Schoeneberg Marsh, where we were joined by Calla. As we were walking on the boardwalk, we were greeted with the ‘peenting’ of two American Woodcocks, and were lucky enough to have one land a few feet in front of us after his sky dance!

Short-billed Dowitchers and Dunlins foraging. *Photo by John Kees*

On the Friday of the Birdathon, Graham and Calla headed to Judy Benade’s prairie with the hopes of hearing the unmistakable call of the Western Meadowlark, and were fortunate to do just that. We then set out for Otsego Marsh and identified the flitting colors in the trees as American Redstarts, Canada Warblers, Magnolia Warblers, and a Black-throated Green Warbler. After birding at Otsego Marsh, we were on a mission to see more warblers: Graham and Calla added a Prothonotary Warbler to the list at Lakeshore Nature Preserve, while Miles and I added Tennessee Warblers. In total, we saw 97 species!

Mark and Sue Foote-Martin spent the Birdathon at Wildland LLC, which is protected by conservation easement held by Madison Audubon, and other Madison Audubon properties in Columbia county including Goose Pond and Otsego Marsh. Their highlights include:

One of the areas we focused on was at our 160-acre “Wildland” cabin north of Rio. The mix of habits include wetlands, trout stream, restored prairie, oak savanna and mixed hardwood forest. It was nice to be able to search for birds after supper on Thursday and before breakfast on Friday. Sue was lucky to see a Common Nighthawk swoop by as we were admiring the sunset while listening for woodcocks on Thursday evening.

Red-headed Woodpecker. *Photo by Arlene Koziol*

We were pleasantly surprised to find 60 species, including all seven species of woodpeckers that nest in southern Wisconsin. The Yellow-bellied Sapsucker and Red-headed Woodpecker were feeding at our feeders. Red-headed Woodpecker numbers are the highest we have seen in the past 20 years. From our cabin and on 2.25 miles of roads to the south, there are four pairs of Red-headed Woodpeckers.

Other interesting birds recorded included a Black-billed Cuckoo, two ‘peenting’ American Woodcocks, a winnowing Wilson’s Snipe, four Great Blue Herons, five male Eastern Bluebirds, a White-crowned Sparrow, and three Orchard Orioles.

JD Arnston and Meghan LaPointe birded at Mud Lake State Wildlife Area (SWA), Rocky Run State Natural Area (SNA), and Picnic Point for a total of 15 hours and saw 94 species! JD writes:

Just going to Mud Lake to look for migrating warblers is always a highlight in itself. Although we missed out on some warbler species, we still managed to see a number of exciting ones: Canada Warblers, Wilson's Warblers, Blackburnian Warblers, and Magnolia Warblers (amongst others), lit up the forest with color. However, the biggest highlight this year was a species unexpected and not looked for: a pair of White-winged Crossbills. I parked at the entrance of Mud Lake on Friday morning to look for birds while waiting for Meg to arrive. Just as I was getting ready to drive further in, the crossbill pair flew down into a tree just off the side of the road in front of me. At first I couldn't believe what I was looking at, but it's hard to mistake a White-winged Crossbill. The few times I've seen them have been either in late fall or winter-- never this far into spring, especially in Columbia County. The pair lingered long enough for me to get some great looks at and photos of them before flying off toward a stand of pine trees. This was a perfect way to start off the day!

White-winged Crossbill spotted by JD Arnston at Mud Lake SWA. Photo by JD Arnston

Meghan’s highlights include:

From listening to the persistent calls of the Eastern Whip-poor-wills in the evening to watching Green Herons dart across the landscape, the Birdathon delivered excitement this spring! This was my first birdathon ever, and it was a pleasure to participate with JD on the Reckless Wrens team, as well as the No Egrets team (Wisconsin Society for Conservation Biology). Over the course of these birding outings, I added a lot of birds to my life list, but the highlight was the Scarlet Tanager JD and I saw at Mud Lake SWA. I had never seen a bird so vibrantly red! This experience drove home how beautifully, ornithologically biodiverse our home state of Wisconsin is—and we didn’t have to go far to see this.

Brand Smith and John Kees spent most of their Birdathon on the water, which gave them ample opportunity to add shorebird species to the list! Brand writes:

Prothonotary Warbler. *Photo by John Kees*

John and I started our Big Day by leaving Madison at 5 AM and heading up to a private marsh north of Portage. We put in and paddled for three hours. We saw many Marsh Wrens, heard Soras and saw a Virginia Rail only about 10 feet away, but missed out on a few species like Yellow-headed Black Bird and Least Bittern. The highlight was spotting a Black-necked Stilt and many shore birds. This was my first time seeing so many shorebird species using only binoculars. With the canoe we were able to get very close to the birds without flushing them.

We then went over to the floodplain forest south of Portage. Here we were able to hear a Yellow-billed Cuckoo. We also saw two Red-shouldered Hawk nests; one with the adult in the nest, and the other with one of the adults in the nest and the second adult coming in with food. A little later we spotted several Prothonotary Warblers, which was very nice because they were just off the road and very close by.

The low light of the day was going to the Grade on Lake Wisconsin. By now it was mid-day, the birding was very slow, and the numbers were almost nonexistent. When we finished, we decided that the earlier highlights really made a great day of birding.

Laura Wentz had the opportunity to cross off a number of ‘pasture bird’ species by birding at her farm. Her Birdathon goes as follows:

Eastern Meadowlark. *Photo by Pat Ready*

I was late to the Birdathon party, but I had so much fun and I'm looking forward to next year's Birdathon already. I look for birds every day at my own farm. I rotationally graze beef cows, dairy heifers and sheep so 2/3 of my farm is pasture with the rest as woods. There's a nice mix of what I call my pasture birds: Bobolinks, Eastern Meadowlarks, Savannah Sparrows, and Field Sparrows. At my parents' former dairy goat farm next door I was happy to hear the Wood Thrush and Blue-winged Warbler. I was surprised to have a Cooper's Hawk show up in the tree next to where I was parked. And since it was one of my two days to work off the farm I picked up the local nesting Osprey and was happy to hear a Baltimore Oriole, which was a first for me at the print shop.

Written by Emma Raasch, Jim and Kathy Shurts, Mark Martin and Sue Foote-Martin, Brand Smith, JD Arnston, Meghan LaPointe, and Laura Wentz