As a gardener, baker, and crafter, I love a good before-and-after project. Digging out lawn, working the soil, and replacing it with diverse native plants… Combining goopy, fragrant sourdough starter with flour and water to bake bread… Turning a plain white wall into a mural of trees in your camping-loving child’s room… What is more satisfying than total transformation as a result of your vision and hard work?
That feeling is magnified—exponentially—when we’re talking about land restoration.
Faville Grove Sanctuary (one of my favorite places on Earth) is experiencing incredible transformation right now. A critical 80-acre tract is about to be purchased, and with it, a whole new section of the sanctuary will be restored—yes, transformed! As the “Your Piece of the Puzzle” fundraiser goes on, generous and visionary donors like YOU create a more complete image of the landscape—donation by donation, piece by piece.
This particular puzzle holds great significance and memories for me.
In 2007, I became one of the Faville Grove Sanctuary summer interns. At the time, I thought I wanted to become a translator for the United Nations, having the knack for picking up languages and loving communications. I always loved being outside, and the internship sounded interesting even if it wasn’t related to my degree.
That’s me in 2007, with a prairie dropseed bunch. What am I doing? Good question. Hugging it, because I love that grass so very much. Photo provided by Brenna Marsicek
Then I spent a summer on the prairie, and that feeling of transformation hit. Not only on the landscape, which looks SO much better after meadows of yellow sweet clover are painstakingly removed by a team of energetic 20-year-olds, but also in me. I completely shifted gears and decided to apply my love of communications toward a career in conservation.
I remember standing as an intern on the hill west of Faville Marsh in that summer of 2007, looking at a pale purple coneflower and listening to a new bird song for me: a Common Yellowthroat’s witchity-witchity-witchity. I was impressed that a non-profit like Madison Audubon could acquire half of the land around that marsh and re-convert it from farm field to prairie, creating habitat for that witchity warbler and many other species.
Now, in 2023, another example of transformation is emerging—you can stand in the SAME spot, dedicated last year as the MacKenzie Overlook, and see and hear so much MORE.
A view of Overlook Prairie near Faville Marsh in 2007. Photo by Brenna Marsicek
A view of the same area in 2023, wow! You can see just a portion of Faville Marsh in the right of the photo. Photo by Brenna Marsicek / Madison Audubon
You can notice advancements in restorations that were already there in 2007: in the prairie surrounding the overlook to the west of the wetland, in the prairie and woodland to the south of the marsh, in the marsh itself. Then you can look north and see the Fat Goose Prairie addition bordering the wetland, purchased in 2019 to further protect the marsh.
Best of all, as you stand at the Overlook with bees and birds and prairie plants living their best lives and gaze across the wetland, your heart would skip a beat. See that agricultural field across the marsh? It will be purchased by Madison Audubon this year. For the next few seasons it will continue to be rented to a farmer while we work to remove fencerows and control weeds around the perimeter.
Then, the transformative process of ecological restoration will begin, and soon that field will become vibrant, native habitats: 55 acres of prairie, 20 acres of marsh, and 5 acres of woodland to expand Faville Woods.
The new 80 acres will reduce runoff and chemical drift from an adjacent farm, thereby improving the water quality ecological diversity of the marsh. AND, it will nearly complete the circle of Madison Audubon-owned land around the wetland.
Wow. It’s truly incredible. And I don’t say this because I’m now a Madison Audubon staff member. That is an honest, before-and-after feeling of awe.
As you stand at the MacKenzie overlook in 2023, you see Faville Marsh and the new parcel across the wetland (above the K in Overlook). Photo by Brenna Marsicek / Madison Audubon
Purchases like the new property—that 80 acre ag field, soon to be restored to native habitats—are only possible because donors like you share this love for landscape transformation. With your support, Madison Audubon holds a land acquisition fund which allows us to make quick and high-priority land purchases as they become available and are strategically necessary.
YOU make that possible!
Here’s how you can help us piece together the Faville Grove landscape to achieve its greatest potential.
When you donate to the Faville Grove land puzzle, you help us refill our coffers, making future purchases like this one possible. Each donation reveals a new piece of the puzzle, both on the landscape and in the image!
The Faville Grove puzzle is coming together, thanks to the generosity of so many land- and transformation-loving donors. You can help make this picture complete! Learn more and donate at madisonaudubon.org/puzzle
Please consider contributing to this incredible, life-giving, transforming effort.
Check out our puzzle progress and the beautiful jigsaw puzzle image and learn how to donate at madisonaudubon/puzzle.
In the words of a former wannabe translator: Gracias, Mercí, Danke, and Děkuju.
And witchity-witchity-witchity. Thank you.
Written by Brenna Marsicek, Madison Audubon director of communications and outreach and former Faville Grove Sanctuary intern
Cover photo: Faville Marsh in July 2023. Photo by Brenna Marsicek / Madison Audubon
