Operation Fresh Start’s Conservation Academy at Westport Prairie | Photo by Mario Quintana
Every year, we hire Operation Fresh Start’s Conservation Academy to help with our restoration work. OFS is a job training and mentorship program that prepares young people for careers in conservation and construction. It’s always a pleasure to meet new faces and hear where the trainees are headed.
This year, we brought the Conservation Academy to Westport Prairie. We got started the morning after the 11-inch snowfall in March. We hauled equipment sleds through a half mile of snow drifts, leaving us breathless as we reached the site. OFS got to work—two-stroke engines buzzing—and within two weeks, they’d cleared a full half mile of tree line.
Thank you to Stefanie Moritz, Vince Jenkins, and the Bock Foundation for their support of this program!
At Patrick Marsh, we burned a 25-acre prairie for the first time. This prairie was planted in 2021 with the help of nearly every Patrick Marsh Middle School student, acre by acre. Since then, we’ve relied on the City of Sun Prairie to keep the young prairie mowed while it put roots down. Now entering its fifth growing season, this tract is hitting its stride as a tallgrass prairie. This first fire felt like a rite of passage.
Going into this burn, we were unsure if the plant matter would carry a fire. This prairie is densely populated with forbs, or wildflowers, and sparsely populated with grasses. Typically, the presence of grasses in a prairie helps a fire move across the landscape. Despite this, we saw a nearly complete burn of the prairie, thanks to the Pheasants Forever crew.
Patrick Marsh is now a City of Sun Prairie Conservancy Park, a permanent protection decades in the making.
Patrick Marsh Middle School students seeding a new prairie in 2021 | Photo by Ben Lam
Finally, we burned the phoenix sculpture at Patrick Marsh on the spring equinox. It’s a small ritual that felt right at the turn of the season.
I’ll leave you with this photo of Jeanne Behrend, beaming, at our annual Patrick Marsh phoenix burn. Without Jeanne’s advocacy, Patrick Marsh would not be this place we can all enjoy. Thank you, Jeanne!
Jeanne Behrend in front of the smoldering phoenix at Patrick Marsh | Photo by Roberta Herschleb
Sam Douglass
Farm & Land Manager
P.S. If this work inspires you, please consider making a gift to Groundswell to keep the momentum going.
When I joined Groundswell nearly six years ago, I had a vision for how we would provide equitable access to farmland beyond renting land to farmers. We would help create a pathway to ownership by making farmland more affordable.
Today, I’m excited to share that this vision has become a reality with the closing of our first farmland ownership project and will set the stage for many more in the coming years!
Landowner E Makar
In December 2020, landowner E Makar reached out to me and expressed their interest in transitioning Elizabeth Rock Farms—a 21-acre property in the Town of Verona—to a farmer who would take care of it. As a conservation-minded person, they wanted to ensure their family legacy lives on.
I was only two months in with Groundswell at that time. I remember telling E that I had a vision, but it may not come to fruition for a few more years. E and I stayed in touch (or as much as we were able to because they were busy with medical school and post-graduate residency while I relentlessly created a plan).
In 2022, I was ready to put the ideas into action. I reached out to Alison Volk with American Farmland Trust (AFT) for help. She had completed a farmland access project in Minnesota using the “Buy-Protect-Sell” land ownership model. AFT would help Groundswell acquire the farm and protect it with an agricultural conservation easement. AFT has an amazing Buy-Protect-Sell program to “bridge the gap between retiring and aspiring landowners to keep land in agriculture.” AFT was the perfect partner to collaborate with.
What is Buy-Protect-Sell? Sometimes abbreviated as BPS, Buy-Protect-Sell is a strategy land trusts use to make a piece of land more affordable. We purchase agricultural land, protect it with a conservation easement, and sell it to an emerging farmer. With this strategy, we can sometimes reduce the price of buying farmland by up to 60%. If BPS interests you, read more about it here.
New landowner and farmer Adam D’ Angelo
Adam D’Angelo’s love for trees started at a young age in New Jersey, where his family had a Christmas tree farm. He always knew he wanted to be a farmer, but he couldn’t afford to buy farmland in Wisconsin. He searched for options to buy land for the past decade but never succeeded.
“It was so hard to buy farmland because of how expensive it is. I started to contact everyone and every organization helping farmers access farmland,” Adam said. Eventually, he worked with Bonnie Wardahl from Renewing the Countryside’s (RTC) Farmland Access Navigator Team and applied to buy Elizabeth Rock Farms.
On his newly acquired farm, Adam will be growing fruit trees, including paw paw, persimmons, honeyberries, sour cherries, and hazelnuts.
Our first pilot project wouldn’t have been successful without the right team players.
We appreciate how much work Alison Volk and AFT have contributed to the project. The land protection process requires determination, resilience, and patience to get to the finish line.
We would like to thank the following partners for believing in us, and in our creative solution to farmland access and succession. They play a critical role in funding our equitable farmland access work:
- Schlecht Family Foundation
- Nimick Forbesway Foundation
- Racine Dominican Mission and Forward Community Investments
We’re grateful to our partners who provided support, expertise, and feedback for finding the farm’s new owner:
Dane County’s Land and Water Resources Department put the finishing touches on the project by funding the difference between the purchase agreement price and the agricultural resale value of the land. “Dane County is proud to partner in the permanent protection of this farmland and to work alongside American Farmland Trust and Groundswell Conservancy to bring this innovative Buy-Protect-Sell project to life,” said County Executive Melissa Agard. “This effort supports retiring farmers, creates opportunity for the next generation, and ensures this land will remain in agriculture for years to come.”
Together, we provided E an option to pass on their family legacy, helped Adam buy farmland at an affordable price, and protected 21 acres of productive farmland forever this winter.
Partnerships, faith in a creative solution, and taking some risk (when there may be unknowns) make all the difference.
We look forward to sharing our next farmland access project with you soon!
Yours in conservation,
Yimmuaj Yang
Community Director
Over the past few weeks, Mother Nature has slowly stirred from her winter slumber. The earthy scent of skunk cabbage rises from the wetlands, frogs call out into the evening air, and woodcock dance across the sky in their annual spring displays. With each step outside, something new reveals itself, as if the landscape is waking up before our eyes. These familiar rhythms, returning year after year, bring a quiet comfort and a deep sense of renewal.
I hope you’ll take a few minutes to join me on a tour to see what’s happening outside!
Orange jelly fungus
Despite the lack of greenery on the landscape, there is still plenty of color painted throughout nature. While taking a walk through the primarily brown and gray woods, something vibrantly orange caught my my eye. Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a fungus often referred to as orange jelly. With nighttime temperatures still pretty cold, it was surprising to see something so colorful and alive.
Apparently, this type of fungus grows on dead logs and helps with the decaying process. While it is edible, it (supposedly) has little to no taste.
Skunk cabbage has emerged
Shooting star, maidenhair fern, spring beauty, and sky blue aster are all native plant species in Wisconsin that really lucked out in the naming department. Their names highlight characteristics that we, as humans, tend to associate with beauty and positivity. Then there is skunk cabbage (pictured above). The name alone tells you just about everything you need to know about our typical reaction to this plant. Words often associated with skunk cabbage include “odor,” “rotting meat,” and “unpleasant.”
While it’s true that skunk cabbage emits a rather pungent smell, it does so to attract pollinators like flies and beetles. Personally, I love skunk cabbage and look forward to finding it every spring. It has an almost otherworldly appearance, as if it belongs in the ocean on a coral reef. Its odd nature is exactly what makes it so special.
A tom turkey rests in a tree
Whenever I see a turkey in a tree, especially a rather large turkey, I can’t help but laugh. There’s just something about it that doesn’t seem right. I never question a barred owl or a bald eagle perched in a tree. Perhaps it’s because turkeys are ground-nesters, or maybe it’s because I mostly see them walking along the edges of farm fields. I suppose if I saw a barred owl walking along a soybean field I would feel the same way.
Even though it may seem strange, turkeys spend almost every night roosting up in trees. They have poor night vision, so spending the night up in a tree protects them from nocturnal predators like coyotes, foxes, and even owls.
Southern flying squirrel at night
Lastly, I’ll leave you with a photo of a nighttime visitor that I feel incredibly lucky to have seen. It’s a southern flying squirrel that has been frequenting the tree in my front yard. I’ve shared this photo with quite a few people, and many didn’t realize that flying squirrels even live in Wisconsin, let alone on Madison’s east side.
My wife, Carolyn, first spotted it one night while filling our bird feeder. Since then, we’ve seen two or three flying squirrels almost every evening, skittering around the tree in search of sunflower seeds and peanuts. These remarkable little mammals can glide up to 100 feet and even make sharp turns mid-air to avoid obstacles.
Well, I hope you enjoyed this month’s virtual tour of nature as it’s happening. See you next month!
View from atop the Wicklow Mountains, Ireland
Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Today’s newsletter is a dive into a well. We’re taking a trip to Ireland, and looking at the strands that weave together the tallgrass prairies of Wisconsin with the peat bogs of Ireland.
St. Patrick’s Day makes me think about my family immigrating to the United States. It makes me reflect on what we in the diaspora have carried to this continent and what we’ve lost along the way. While the stories that follow are about Ireland, we all relate to migration. All of us—whether our ancestors crossed oceans or have resided on this land forever—have ancestries of displacement. Our ancestors have brought stories, seeds, and words from their homelands which shape the place we live today. And many of those things are lost, or don’t translate.
Though we might not recognize it, our identities inform how we choose to take care of the land. Ecosystem restoration requires value judgements: Do we keep this native sumac patch, even though it might crowd out a rare prairie ecosystem? Is herbicide worth the unknown health and ecosystem risks?
The decisions we make about what the landscape should look like are influenced by stories we’ve been told—about wildness and cleanliness, about what makes a landscape beautiful and functional, about which plants are treasured and which plants are feared. Unearthing where we come from, and what biases we hold, helps us understand this work.
Sand formations on the North Coast of Donegal, Ireland
Translations
Westport Drumlin, in the center of Westport Prairie, is a special place many readers have visited. I hope you have. Most mornings I walk up the drumlin, reading the change from the day before and watching my step for animal dens. I was surprised to learn that drumlin is an Irish word. It comes from the Irish druim, meaning “hill,” with the suffix –lin, the same softening ending of duckling. Little hill.
In the Ho-Chunk language, the same feature is xeeš’ok. Little Hill. You can explore and hear that word pronounced in the Ho-Chunk Nation Dictionary Online. The word xee means “hill” as a noun, but as a verb, it means to bury. Thus, when this hill lost its name and was renamed a drumlin, we lost that everyday association of hills with burials. It matters which words we use.
Place-names in Indigenous languages—like Ho-chunk and Irish—are often ecological, describing the landscape; or mythological, capturing a story of something that happened there.
There is a 500-page Irish text called the Metrical Dindsenchas (you don’t have to remember that name) which compiled centuries of poems associated with specific places. In this book, you can find poems a thousand years old written about the hill you’re standing on. It’s an atlas of mythology and ecology. It’s lucky that we have these recorded; old Ireland was an oral storytelling culture. This unique record captures the idea that every hill, every river, and every bog has a story worth preserving.
Likewise, the hills and lakes where we live are laden with old stories. I like to visit the The Encyclopedia of Hōcąk (Winnebago) Mythology from time to time for the deep history of this place. I encourage you to explore it.
The Indigenous place-names that once acted as a field guide are largely overwritten with colonial names. Dejope, the land of “Four Lakes,” is now named after President James Madison. Te Wákącąk, “Sacred Lake,” is now called Devil’s Lake. Wihaqgaja, the west peak of Blue Mounds, once evoked “the Place of the Second-Born Daughter” to everyone who heard its name. I’m thankful for enduring names like Wauwatosa, which refers to “firefly” in Potawatomi; and Menominee, meaning “wild rice” (Manoomin) in Ojibwe. These names carry ecological meaning. I understand what I might find there.
To rename a landscape is to make it illegible to the people who know it, and to hand newcomers a landscape they cannot read. If we could know the old stories of Westport Drumlin, or its name, we could take even better care of it.
A contested place-name in Donegal, Ireland
A Tale of Two Trees
Ireland and Dejope are connected by more than language. Here’s another story of migration—this time, of two trees that ended up in the wrong place.
The Scots Pine is the only conifer native to Ireland. If you had visited the island 10 years ago, a botanist would have told you it was eradicated from the island but living elsewhere. Native forests on the island have been decimated over centuries, having once occupied an estimated 80% of the land. A population of Irish Scots Pines was rediscovered in 2016, tucked away in a remote area called the Burrens. It’s now enjoying a cautious resurgence as seedlings are planted throughout the island.
Irish Scots Pine discovered in the Burren,
County Clare
Photo by Belfast Media
There are plenty of conifers in Ireland, but it’s a Canadian tree—the Sitka Spruce—that’s thriving. Sitka Spruce timber plantations occupy nearly 5% of Ireland’s land mass, the equivalent of all its remaining native forest. Often, these monocultures are planted onto degraded landscapes in lieu of restoration. They are the bane of ecologists and farmers alike—much like the timber plantations of North America, which catch fire only because they’re out of balance with the ecosystem.
These two trees, perfectly co-evolved with their homelands, have swapped places. That same Scots Pine, native to Ireland and deeply missed, is planted by the thousands in Ontario to support another timber industry. It has become one of the “five most invasive species in Canada” (University of Toronto), all while being functionally absent from its native ecosystem.
By all accounts, the impact of Irish migration onto this landscape has deeply affected the ecology, language, and understandings we hold. The same goes for HMoob, Norwegian, and Mexican migrations, as with all of our ancestors. I feel empathy toward the Scots Pine, which didn’t ask to be brought here but has certainly found itself in the wrong place. As I tend to the land, I often reflect on how my identity impacts the way I see the landscape and what tools I use.
I once asked an Irish farmer if he had considered a prescribed burn. The heather grows so thick in Donegal that trees and grasses cannot regenerate. A little fire, I thought, might clear the way. He looked at me like I’d suggested arson. Some things don’t translate.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day! I hope you enjoyed the stories, and perhaps reflected on your own migration story. If this provoked something, I’d love to hear from you.
Slán,
We have exciting news to share! Over the past year, Groundswell Conservancy quietly launched a campaign to strengthen our land protection work. Demand for conservation in Dane County and across south-central Wisconsin has never been higher. We knew we needed more staff capacity to respond to opportunities and protect land before it’s lost to development.
Thanks to a $40,000 grant from Madison Community Foundation and generous support from private donors, that campaign was a success. Together, we raised $250,000 to fund a new Land Protection Manager position for the next three years. This role will help us move more quickly on conservation projects, and work more closely with communities and partners across the region.
Since our founding 42 years ago, Groundswell has protected nearly 15,000 acres of farmland, natural areas, and water resources. Adding a Land Protection Manager will allow us to take on more projects, support equitable access to farmland through our Buy-Protect-Sell+ program, and help Dane County and other municipalities meet their conservation goals.
We’re also excited to share that we’re now hiring for this new position. If you or someone you know is passionate about protecting land and water in our region, we encourage you to visit the Careers page on our website to learn more and apply.
Thanks goes to Madison Community Foundation and the following donors for supporting this campaign:
Anonymous (2)
Joan Braune & Tod Highsmith
Dave Drapac
Bob & Gail Green
Cate & John Harrington
Susan Hunt & Karl Gutknecht
Dr. Patrick & Linda McKenna
Jo & Herman Tucker
Pat Wende
Read more about the Land Protection Manager campaign in this press release.
It’s hard to believe that just four weeks ago it was -18°F in Madison, with a wind chill hovering near -40°F, and this Friday is forecast to reach the 60s. What a wild winter it’s been! I’m not putting away my winter coat and mittens just yet, though. I have a feeling this warm week is just a tease, hinting at an early spring that may not quite be here to stay.
Now that it’s no longer painfully cold, I hope you’ll join me outside to see what nature is up to!
Blue snow created by an Eastern cottontail
The blue snow has returned! Well, it had returned, until the recent warm weather melted it away. Thankfully, I was able to spot a few more patches out on the trail before they disappeared. I first discovered these odd colorful patches of blue snow while on a hike a couple years ago. I did a little research and found out that rabbits were the ones causing it, not Smurfs.
Throughout the winter, Eastern cottontails feed on the nutrient-rich stems of shrubs and young trees. One of their favorites is buckthorn, which contains a phytochemical that can turn rabbit urine blue after it’s exposed to sunlight. So tell your kids it’s not just yellow snow they need to watch out for!
Rodent tunnels in the snow
| As the snow began to melt, I noticed these small interconnected lines. I’ve seen intricate cracks on the surface of frozen lakes, but this was different. I soon realized that these lines were actually tunnels created by rodents. Before the snow melted, these mouse highways would have been completely hidden from view.
In the photo above, there are small patches of bare ground where the snow has completely melted. These tunnels all lead to those patches, which makes me think those could be living spaces, or areas where the mice would congregate. |
A tree that survived girdling
While walking through a local park in my neighborhood, I noticed a natural area that was being managed. Sometimes when managing a woodland, undesirable trees are cut down and removed. Other times, they are girdled like the one in the photo above, and left standing. Leaving a dead tree standing might not sound like the best idea, but it can create excellent habitat for all sorts of wildlife, like woodpeckers and insects.
These deep chainsaw cuts are intended to restrict the flow of water and nutrients throughout the tree, ultimately leading to its death. This one, however, seemed to be doing just fine. If the cuts aren’t deep enough, a tree can sometimes seal over the wounds and recover. It may not survive in the long run, but it was remarkable to see just how resilient it was—especially seeing it covered in buds ready to sprout in spring.
A squirrel gnawing on an ice chunk
Lastly, I’ll leave you with this squirrel that I saw the other day, which was doing something that I thought was quite strange. I watched the squirrel climb down from a tree, break off a piece of ice from a nearby frozen puddle, then carry the ice back up into the tree, where it began eating it. The squirrel did this a couple of times before scurrying away.
I had never really given much thought to how animals stay hydrated when their usual water sources are frozen. Like us, they need water to survive. When I saw this, the solution suddenly seemed so obvious—yet it also felt a little strange, simply because I had never witnessed it before.
Well, I hope you enjoyed this month’s virtual tour of nature as it’s happening. See you next month!
As part of an organization that connects people with land, I believe one of our greatest opportunities is to help local farmers. Small-scale farmers care for their land with deep knowledge and attention. When we support farmers, we’re supporting both a sustainable economy and a diverse ecosystem.
Every successful farmer I know depends on resources from the United States Department of Agriculture and other government agencies. These programs help farmers buy land, purchase equipment, grow their business, and get advice from experts. Having access to these resources can mean the difference between a farm that thrives and one that struggles.
Farmers gather at the 2025 Marbleseed Organic Farming Conference in La Crosse.
Today, we’re celebrating the completion of a major, multi-year project to help HMoob farmers access these important resources. This project, Strengthening Support Systems for Wisconsin HMoob Farmers, was the first of its kind in Wisconsin. We connected HMoob farmers with government programs, training, and technical assistance, breaking down barriers that stood in the way.
I’m proud to highlight the work of Groundswell Community Director Yimmuaj Yang, who led this effort in partnership with FairShare CSA Coalition and the University of Wisconsin–Madison Division of Extension.
Over three years, the Strengthening Support Systems for Wisconsin HMoob Farmers project built relationships with nearly 300 HMoob farmers across Wisconsin and Minnesota—more than three times the goal. The team connected with farmers at more than 20 workshops across the state through phone calls and in-person visits. It helped farmers apply for grants, tap into new markets, and attend conferences.
A field day at GreenGold Gardens in Wausau
Prior to this project, it was hard to find farming information written in HMoob or workshops that offered HMoob interpretation. That’s starting to change. Now, more resources are available in HMoob, including videos about bookkeeping, soil testing, food safety, managing vegetable diseases, and many more topics.
The team also wanted to help 20 HMoob farmers enroll in federal and state programs. By the end of the project, 62 HMoob farmers had enrolled.These programs include the Local Food Purchasing Assistance program, which bought food from small-scale farms to help communities that struggle to afford it. Other programs gave direct payments to farmers who grow vegetables or share the cost of buying equipment, like high tunnels.
Resources created during this project will be available for good. You can explore some of them on the UW-Madison Division of Extension HMoob Farmers web page.
I’ll leave you with a video tour of Frannta Lor’s farm. Frannta is a great example of how farmers can use government resources to better their farm.
Cheers,
Sam
P.S. If this work inspires you, please consider making a gift to Groundswell to keep the momentum going!
Brrr! What a wonderfully ‘Wisconsin’ winter we’ve had the last couple of weeks! The snow hasn’t immediately melted away after falling, we’re regularly getting single-digit temperatures, and yet somehow nature continues to thrive in these conditions.
While I have admittedly spent quite a bit of time indoors due to the cold, I did manage to get out a few times to experience nature (often in my backyard). Join me on a quick virtual stroll outside to see what I found!
My dog Lucy sabotaging my bubble picture
I recently discovered that if you blow bubbles when the “feels like” temperature is -38 degrees F outside, they start to crystallize and will freeze before falling to the ground. I decided to test this out with my 8-year-old son in the backyard. But between the wind and an overly excitable dog named Lucy who loves eating bubbles, it wasn’t very easy to get the picture I imagined. Despite her sabotage attempts, I think Lucy made the picture even better!
If you zoom in on the bubble, you can see the ice crystals forming. Unfortunately, that bubble was gobbled up approximately half a second later, but you get the idea.
After the bubble experiment, we obviously moved on to the next one. Having such intensely cold weather is not very common, so it’s incredible to see what the temperature is capable of, especially when it’s too cold to actually go out for a hike.
If you click the thumbnail above, you’ll see a slow-motion video my son took of me throwing boiling water from a coffee mug. The water turns into vapor right away and floats off like a small cloud. Because boiling water is already close to turning into vapor, the tiny droplets spread out as they leave the mug. When they hit the extremely cold air, they evaporate almost instantly. This experiment will not work with cold water.
It’s very important to be careful if you try this yourself. You could easily burn yourself if the hot water is not thrown far enough away from your body.
Pileated woodpecker
I was only outside for a few minutes to blow bubbles and toss mugs of hot water before immediately running back inside. Meanwhile, the critters that live outdoors were simply going about their day. On the coldest days, moments like this remind me of nature’s resilience.
During cold snaps like this recent one, humans can get frostbite in 10 minutes or less if they stay outside too long. Yet, animals like the pileated woodpecker (pictured above) seem completely unaffected. Their ability to survive in these temperatures is nothing short of amazing, and it makes me respect our local wildlife even more!
A cozy rabbit home beneath the snow
Lastly, I’ll leave you with this cozy little cottontail home (pictured above) that I recently came across at Westport Prairie. When I see such a perfectly formed entrance, it’s hard not to anthropomorphize its inhabitants. I immediately picture a family of rabbits keeping warm beside a tiny fireplace in their den. While that scene is probably not playing out exactly that way, they are undoubtedly staying impressively warm inside despite the bitter cold outside.
Like those cottontails, I hope you’re keeping warm as well! Have a wonderful weekend, and I hope to see you outside when it’s a little warmer.
Cheers,
BJ
Last weekend, Groundswell volunteers and staff planted nine more acres at Westport Prairie. Now, the entire valley from Bong Road to Westport Drumlin has been restored to native tallgrass prairie and oak savanna.
Joyful volunteers at last Saturday’s seed planting — Photos by Mario Quintana
Each year, we increase our capacity to plant and take care of more land through greater interest from volunteers who spend time in our preserves and donors who care deeply about conservation.
Habitat restoration also takes a great deal of planning.
Map by BJ Byers
Take a moment with this map (pictured above, or see the PDF here).
If you’ve visited Westport Prairie, you may recognize the purple and salmon shapes as prairie remnants (a remnant is an “old-growth” prairie). Ten years ago, these were fragments of habitat at the margins of agriculture. Each yellow shape is a planting, and only a faint exaggeration of the bursting shades of yellow coneflower, black-eyed Susan, and coreopsis which paint the prairie in summer.
Groundswell’s earliest plantings (2014, 2017, 2019, and 2020) added buffers around the remnants to protect sensitive habitat from pesticide drift. After that, we connected the remnants together to create wildlife corridors and expand habitat (2021, 2022, and 2023).
Before and after photos of the 2022 Westport Prairie planting — Photos by BJ Byers
Lately, I’ve been thinking about Isabelle Fremeaux and Jay Jordan’s conviction, “We are not defending nature. We are nature defending itself.”
I take this literally. As I work at Westport Prairie, my body physically changes to become part of the landscape. My muscles adapt and strengthen to match the slope of the hills. The berries and medicine I forage become part of me. Sunburn hardens my skin.
Sometimes I move through this landscape with a sense of mourning. There are only 168 acres remaining of the 129,000-acre “Empire Prairie” that once stretched across Dane and Columbia County. Volunteer Aaron Suiter reminded me of this fact recently through his blog Plant Propagation Project, and it really sunk in. We are working with mere fragments of what once was.
Bobolink (Dolichonyx oryzivorus) — Photo by BJ Byers
The work at Westport Prairie also makes me feel hopeful. In the coming years, we will begin planting fields nearly 20 acres in size. Over the next 10 years, all of the land within the green boundaries on the map above will be restored to native tallgrass prairie.
This year, we saw the return of bobolinks to Westport Prairie. As we increase the size of the prairie, it becomes a better refuge for ground nesting birds. This group has seen a 43% population decline since 1970.
Seeing these birds return and being part of creating space for them gives me hope for a future—one in which we see ourselves as part of this ecosystem and care for it accordingly.
I invite you to come out this spring to be among the first to walk our trail newly surrounded by restored prairie.
If you know any birds, tell them to visit Westport Prairie.
It’s hard to believe that another year has come and gone, but I’m more than ready for 2026! I’m looking forward to more ice fishing this winter, hearing woodcock “peent”-ing in the spring, watching monarch butterflies teeter among wildflowers in summer, crunching through freshly fallen leaves in autumn, and everything in between.
There’s so much to explore and experience in the year ahead, but for now, let’s take a moment to appreciate the present. Join me on a quick virtual stroll outside to see the beauty that’s unfolding right now.
Hoarfrost on an early December morning
If you enjoy the cold, and the sight of snow doesn’t stir feelings similar to those of Ebenezer Scrooge, you might agree that this winter has been pretty amazing so far. It truly feels like a Wisconsin winter, and I’m soaking up every bit of it.
Recently, we had a warm, foggy evening followed by a very cold night, which led to some fantastic hoarfrost (pictured above). These incredible ice formations form when water vapor in the air freezes, creating intricate and incredibly fragile crystals that coat nearly every surface. As the sun rose in the distance, I couldn’t stop taking photos, even though they hardly do justice to the beauty of the hoarfrost.
Tundra swans in the sky
While lakes across southern Wisconsin are beginning to freeze over, there are still pockets of open water remaining. These areas attract geese, swans, and other waterfowl by the thousands. I recently visited the shore of Lake Mendota after hearing a chorus of honking, quacking, and bugling, and I was amazed by just how many migrating birds had gathered there.
Most notably were the tundra swans (pictured above), easily recognized by their inquisitive “who-who-who” calls echoing overhead. It truly feels like a privilege to live in a place where these birds pause during their long journey from the high Arctic of Alaska and Canada to their wintering grounds along the Mid-Atlantic Coast near the Chesapeake Bay.
Mouse tracks in the snow
One of my favorite parts of all the snow we’ve received so far is discovering little secrets in nature that might otherwise go unnoticed. While visiting Westport Prairie after a recent snowfall, I came across what looked like a tiny mouse highway winding across the snow’s surface (pictured above).
These tracks were likely left by deer mice or white-footed mice, both of which are known for hopping through the snow and dragging their long tails behind them as they move. If you look closely, you can see two small circles where the feet landed, with a thin line down the middle made by the tail.
Hawk’s wing print in the snow
Lastly, I’ll leave you with something I’ve been searching for every winter for as long as I can remember—and this year, I finally found one. It’s the snowy wing print of a hawk that had been hunting a small rodent. With so many mouse highways crisscrossing the snow, it seems like the perfect place for a predatory bird to hunt.
Over the years, several readers of my Nature Now reports have shared their own sightings of owl and hawk wing prints. Despite how much time I spend outdoors, I had never seen one myself until now. It felt like a fitting way to close out an adventurous year in nature, and I hope the new year brings many more memorable moments for us all.
Finding cool things in nature is easy; you just need to get outside. I’ll see you next year!