Happy spring!  At least I think it’s spring… For the last week or two I’ve been slowly opening my curtains in the morning with my fingers crossed, hoping the ground isn’t covered in snow.  While I love a snow-filled winter, I’m ready for it to start feeling like spring.

The days are still cold and cloudy, but if you have been outside lately, you’ll know that nature is beginning to wake up.  Let’s take this opportunity to see what sort of changes are going on outside!

The bugling of sandhill cranes can be heard overhead as many of them have begun their migration north.  If you visit a local wetland, you may notice Canada geese by the hundreds (even thousands in some places) honking to their heart’s content.

I was recently drawn in to a small vernal pool when on a hike with my family.  The sound of chorus frogs filled the air and reminded me that even though it may not feel like it, spring is here!  Click HERE to see (and hear) the video I took.  The best way to identify a chorus frog by its call is to imagine running your thumb down the teeth of a comb.  They sound oddly similar!

If you’re like me, you may be eagerly waiting for plants to emerge from the soil.  Some of my favorite plants are spring ephemerals which are some of the first plants to bloom.  They have adapted to the cold and low light conditions.  Think of bloodroot, trout lily, and Dutchman’s breeches.  These are the early plants that bloom before the trees start to leaf out.

While not a spring ephemeral by definition, the plant pictured above is a true harbinger of spring.  They are pasque flowers in a very early stage (roughly 1″ tall).  Pasque flowers are covered with fine silky hairs to help insulate the plant from cold conditions.  In just a week or two, these low-growing purple flowered plants will be in full bloom!

Another less known sign of spring is the emergence of skunk cabbage.  It usually pops up in the late winter or early spring while snow is still on the ground.  As its name implies, it’s called skunk cabbage because it emits a very unpleasant smell (maybe not unpleasant to everyone).  The plant uses its smell to attract pollinators. While skunk cabbage loses its leaves annually, the plant is able to live up to 20 years!

Lastly, if you need a little more proof that spring is actually here (I’m still not entirely convinced), head outside at dusk and if you’re in the right spot, you may hear woodcock peenting.  I did this with my family last week and it was amazing!

Male woodcock (also known as ‘timberdoodle’, ‘Labrador twister’, ‘night partridge’, and bog sucker’) can be seen doing their evening spring flights to attract mates.  They start by making ‘peent’ sounds from their display area and then shoot upward into the sky (roughly 200-350′) in a wide spiral while making a twittering noise.  After about 30 seconds of this, they zigzag back down to the same spot they left from and begin peenting again.  Check out THIS video of one calling.

Well, I hope you enjoyed my virtual tour of nature as it’s happening.  However you experience the outdoors or nature, be it physical, virtual, spiritual, or anything in between, I encourage you to do it!

See you next month!

Today we purchased an agricultural conservation easement over 93 acres of farmland. The farm is located on the south side of Black Earth Creek. It is adjacent to a streambank easement held by the DNR along 3,000 feet of the creek. Black Earth Creek remains a healthy trout stream thanks to a dependable supply of groundwater. The soil on the farm is among the most productive in the state and nation.

This easement prevents development of the farm and keeps the rich soil available for farming. Also, it limits the construction of impervious surfaces to a one-acre portion of the farm. Impervious surfaces prevent rain and snow from seeping into the ground. Instead, rain and snow is forced into the creek, carrying sediment with it.  So limiting the amount of pavement and rooftops is important to the long-term health of the creek.

We thank the conservation-minded landowners for their foresight about the future of farming. According to the landowners, “For the past 70 years, our family has farmed in the Black Earth Valley. We have enjoyed the beautiful area and the rich, fertile soil that has helped produce our crops. Working with Groundswell Conservancy provided us the opportunity to protect this farmland from the development pressures of Dane County and have it continue to produce food to feed our country and our world. ” The farm will remain in private ownership and on the property tax rolls.

Funding to purchase the agricultural conservation easement was provided by the Dane County Conservation Fund, the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, and Groundswell’s Norm Anderson Conservation Opportunities Fund.

Thanks to the conservation vision of many landowners, this is the 17^th land protection project Groundswell has completed in the valley since 2001.  Overall we have worked together to permanently protect 1,209 acres of farmland, wetlands, stream corridors, and hiking trails in the valley.

We have excellent news to share!  We would like to introduce you to Angela West Blank, as we welcome her as our new Executive Director. 

Angela comes to us with a depth of nonprofit leadership experience. Most recently she was the Director of Strategic Development for Wisconsin Conservation Voters. She oversaw the development program and played a leading role in strategy and capacity building. She has a passion for bringing people and groups together to promote healthy ecosystems, diversity and equity, and meaningful change in the community. We are thrilled that she will bring her creative energy to Groundswell.

“I love the mission and incredible team at Groundswell,” Angela says. “I am thrilled to have the chance to help protect Wisconsin’s farmland, wetlands, wildlife habitat, and streams. Connecting people from all walks of life with these special places excites me. Groundswell is on a solid path and has a strong track record of success. I’m honored to be a part of it. Here’s to the new and groundbreaking things we can all accomplish together!”

We are deeply grateful for the legacy Jim Welsh leaves in his retirement. Anyone who has worked closely with Jim has heard him echo the following Groundswell truisms: “conservation doesn’t happen by accident” and “we are in the business of building relationships.” Angela’s leadership and commitment to environmental and social justice will ensure that we continue to protect special places forever for everyone. Angela is known for building strong relationships among staff, board, organizational partners, and volunteers.

Jim has been planning his retirement for some time. He is leaving Groundswell in a strong financial position with an incredible team of skilled and passionate staff. His last day was Friday, February 25^th. Angela’s appointment is the culmination of a multi-month hiring process that attracted more than 70 applicants. We worked with Mark Richardson of Unfinished Business Consulting to help guide us through the search. He specializes in talent recruitment and process coaching with a diversity, equity, and inclusion lens. Our hiring committee was a team of ten current and past board members as well as staff. We are grateful for their time and commitment as they shared decades of Groundswell knowledge to help us land in the right place!

Groundswell has big plans for the future. We look forward to working with Angela as we continue to connect people with nature, act on the climate crisis, provide equitable access to land, and create green school yards. Together we will continue our mission to protect special places forever. We know this is essential for our communities’ physical, emotional, and spiritual wellness.

As Groundswell moves into this exciting new chapter, we thank you for your continued support.

We are really happy to report that another wonderful piece of the Wisconsin River has been permanently protected.  This morning Nancy Heiden, a founder of Groundswell Conservancy and lifelong conservationist, generously donated a 13-acre parcel of land on the south side of the river to Groundswell.

Nancy said that she is delighted to donate the property.  “This donation has been a long time coming.  My family and I enjoyed the property for many years.  It was part of many wonderful adventures we had on the Wisconsin River.  I was one of the founders of Groundswell Conservancy back in 1983 when several conservationists came together to form the Dane County Natural Heritage Foundation.  This donation makes perfect sense for me.”

The property includes 800 feet of shoreline on the river.  It features a large “sand blow” which is a specialized wildlife habitat that occurs on unstable sandy areas.  While much of the property is now relatively lightly covered by oak and pine trees, aerial photos from the 1930s show that the property and the surrounding land used to be nearly treeless.

With Nancy’s permission, Groundswell will place a perpetual conservation easement on the property. The easement will limit development of the property. While the property has had buildings on it over the years, it is currently vacant.  The easement will limit development to a small house or cabin.  This structure will have to be located away from the river and out of the delicate “sand blow” habitat.  We will offer the restricted property for sale to a conservation-minded landowner later this year.  The proceeds from the sale will support our conservation work for years to come.

It’s been an odd winter to say the least.  One day it’s -10F outside with 20mph winds and the next it’s 51F and sunny.  To follow that, we experienced a ‘snow squall’ this week which lead to some pretty intense ice.  I don’t know about you, but when the weather behaves so unpredictably, it often leaves me feeling a bit uninspired to go outside.  It’s harder to plan outdoor adventures and leaves me in a bit of a nature slump.

It happens!  These slumps provide a great opportunity to reset and start daydreaming about what’s around the corner.  While I probably stayed inside more this month than any other month in the last year, I did manage to sneak away on a few nice days to spend some quality time outside.  So with that, let’s see what’s happening out there!

When it’s the middle of winter and there’s a nice sunny day without a lot of wind in the forecast, I like to try and get out on a frozen lake.  This time of year, many of the lakes are still frozen over, but always be cautious while out on the ice and look up ice reports before going out.

Recently, I went out ice fishing with my family and caught some of the smallest bluegill I have ever seen in my life.  While they were tiny, they were plentiful, and that makes for a great evening on the ice. My son likes to kiss the bluegill he catches on the lips before returning them to the water.  It’s something he’s always done and it cracks me up every time.

While out at Patrick Marsh, I came across some very tiny tracks in the snow (pictured above).  It appeared that whatever made the tracks were jumping like a kangaroo with both feet planted before leaping.  You can also see a very thin line in the snow behind these footprints.  That thin line is the critter’s tail hitting the snow as it lands.

If you haven’t guessed it yet, the tracks definitely belong to some sort of rodent.  Wisconsin has a few rodents that leave similar tracks so it’s very hard to identify them down to a species (at least for me).  My guess is that it’s likely a meadow vole.  I’ve seen loads of meadow voles out at Patrick Marsh and have even caught a couple while doing restoration work in the summer.

I ended up following the tracks to a tiny hole in the snow (pictured above).  It was about the size of a quarter and I noticed that there were little ice crystals around the edge.  These ice crystals are referred to as ‘hoarfrost’.  This is a type of frost created by air that is brought to its frost point by cooling.

So why was it around this hole in the snow with animal tracks leading to it?  Animals that live under the snow in winter stay warm because the snow actually insulates them.  As they breathe, the air rises and starts exiting the hole.  Once the warm air hits the freezing temperatures outside, it makes this beautiful frost pattern around the entrance.  This is an easy way to tell that a critter is actively using their home under the snow!

Lastly, I’ll leave you with this photo that I pulled from the trail camera in my backyard.  My wife Carolyn let our dog out late one night about a week ago and noticed movement from our bird feeder out of the corner of her eye.  I immediately reached for my trail camera to see what it was and the next morning we discovered that we have flying squirrels that visit our yard!  In case you’re wondering, their late night snack was sunflower seeds.

Well, I hope you enjoyed my virtual tour of nature as it’s happening.  However you experience the outdoors or nature, be it physical, virtual, spiritual, or anything in between, I encourage you to do it!

See you next month!

This is a bittersweet week for Groundswell board and staff as we celebrate Jim’s final days as our Executive Director. We will certainly miss him, but we’re excited for him to start his next chapter and enjoy retired life!

“It has been an honor for me to work with so many conservation-minded landowners over the years.  Collaborating with our excellent staff and board, our volunteers, our partners, and all of our supporters has made my job enjoyable and very rewarding.” -Jim Welsh

Jim has been instrumental in the permanent protection of many of the most loved and valued places in south central Wisconsin. During Jim’s successful tenure over the past 18+ years, Groundswell has achieved national accreditation and has conserved more than 13,000 acres of farms, forests, prairies, and wetlands in and around Dane County.

Under Jim’s leadership, Groundswell has preserved land in rural, agricultural, and urban environments, a testament to his belief that everyone deserves access to nature and open spaces. In addition to his success in expanding conservation areas, protecting new lands and conserving historical areas, Jim has worked with community members to provide equitable access to land and nature, including expanding the outdoor classroom at Lake View Elementary School in Madison and securing land tenure for immigrant farmers and farmers of color.

Thank you, Jim, for everything you have done to create a world filled with green spaces.

Stay tuned for an announcement about our new Executive Director coming soon!

Our success stories are usually about preserving the conservation values of private land for future private or public users.  But thanks to a new collaboration by Groundswell and the Town of Perry on the southwest side of Dane County, the conservation values of a public property have just been protected forever.

About a year and a half ago, Roger Kittleson, the Chairman of the Town of Perry, sent Groundswell a letter asking if we would consider a conservation easement to protect a Town park.  The conservation easement was signed by the Town earlier this week, thanks to efforts by Doug King, CEO of The Madison Group Consultants, and Town Supervisor Mick Klein Kennedy.

The new conservation easement provides an extra layer of protection to a unique Town park. The Town of Perry created the 30-acre Hauge Historic District Park in 2001 around the privately owned, two-acre Hauge Log Church National Historic Site to protect the scenic view of the Blue Mounds and its peace and serenity from the effects of neighboring development.  It took the Town’s residents two decades of sustained effort to protect the park with a Historic Preservation Plan, a Historic District Ordinance, Dane County’s first Historic Overlay District, Wisconsin’s first Town level Historic District, a DNR deed restriction, a Dane County deed restriction, and protective provisions in the Town’s Land Use Plan.

But even with all of those protections in place, Town Supervisors and Town residents were concerned that the protections could still be undone, revised, or relaxed.  As Town Chairman Kittleson suggested in his proposal to Groundswell, “The park still needs to be permanently protected in perpetuity against ‘our future selves.’”

The unique property was approved by the Dane County Board as a Dane County Historical and Cultural Site in its 2018-2023 Dane County Parks and Open Space Plan.  The acquisition of the park land was made possible with strong public support from former Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk and former U.S. Ambassador to Norway Tom Loftus, and letters of encouragement from the King and Queen of Norway.

The park is the second highest public park observation point in Dane County, with several miles of mowed hiking trails and a spectacular view of the Blue Mounds.  It was voted “Best Place to Watch a Sunset in Dane County” by Madison Magazine.  It is open year round from sunrise to sunset.  A park brochure with visitor guide and hiking trail map can be downloaded here.

We are pleased and excited to have completed this public-private partnership to help protect a special and unique place of public land forever.

Your voice is URGENTLY needed to prevent Wisconsin’s State Legislature from undermining the protection of lands funded by the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Fund. This action would put many of your favorite nature preserves in a perilous state.

TELL THEM NO!

In a recent hearing, the State Senate was presented with Senate Bill 802 which would allow for the sale of lands acquired with Knowles-Nelson dollars provided the grant money and accrued interest are returned to the state.

The good news that we shared yesterday about the Dell Creek property we just purchased is an excellent example of the faith that landowners put in us and the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Program to ensure that land purchased with Knowles-Nelson funding will never be developed.  Although we can’t imagine a turn of events in which Groundswell would ever sell land for development, the changes being proposed to the Stewardship Program would allow us to do just that.  The 40 acres we bought yesterday was part of a farmer’s 160-acre farm.  We believe that he wouldn’t have sold his land to us if he suspected that we might be able to turn around and sell it to a developer.

Gathering Waters, Wisconsin’s alliance for land trusts, has met with several Senate offices to discuss our concerns. They emphasized that the bill, as written, would create perverse incentives to sell conservation lands in response to short term changes in the politics of local governments and fluctuations in the real estate market. They also made it clear that the bill would NOT, in fact, create a pathway to take lands out of the county forest program (the original impetus for the bill).

While they had what felt like constructive conversations with the Senate offices, they have received no assurances that they are willing to make substantive changes to the bill.

The Knowles-Nelson land sale bill has now been introduced in the Assembly as AB 852.
The language is identical to the Senate bill. The Assembly Committee on Forestry, Parks and Outdoor Recreation will hold a hearing on the bill on Wednesday, February 2 at 10:00 AM (417 North, GAR Hall).

Speak out before February 2.
Email your legislators and the Assembly Forestry Committee members to voice your opposition, using the easy letter-writing tools from Gathering Waters. The take-action page has been updated to send messages to the Assembly Committee. Please take action here even if you already emailed the Senate committee.

WRITE LETTERS HERE.

We’re happy to share the good news that yesterday we purchased 40 acres of land at Dell Creek Wildlife Area in Sauk County.

The land features 1,850 feet of Dell Creek and part of a tributary to the creek.  The bordering land includes wetlands as well as high ground with mixed oak forest.  DNR wildlife biologist Nancy Frost advocated for this purchase for years as it has been a gap in a large tract of DNR land at the Wildlife Area.  And a recent fish survey of Dell Creek confirms it as a good and improving trout stream.

This acquisition came together thanks to the generosity of the landowner, anglers, supporters of Groundswell including Sean McBride, our Norm Anderson Conservation Opportunities Fund, and the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Program.

When a hoped-for grant to match the Stewardship Program funding didn’t come through, the anglers stepped up.   In less than a month the Aldo Leopold Chapter Trout Unlimited, Badger Fly Fishers, Southern Wisconsin Chapter Trout Unlimited, and the Watershed Access Fund of the Wisconsin State Council of Trout Unlimited raised $20,000 needed to complete the deal.  This quick work made it possible to meet the landowner’s deadline to sell the property before the end of this month.

Topf Wells, a strong supporter of both Trout Unlimited and Groundswell, helped with the private fundraising.  He told us that he did it in part in memory of long-time environmental advocate Dan Wisniewski.  Topf said, “I remember Dan Wisniewski, my sadly departed good friend and fishing partner, who always believed that land trusts would be a great ally to Trout Unlimited in conserving Wisconsin trout streams and making them available to the public.  Groundswell’s leadership in this purchase confirms Dan’s belief.”

As our Executive Director Jim likes to say, the conservation of cherished places doesn’t happen by accident.  This acquisition is a great example of a community effort to permanently protect land.

It’s a new year which means new adventures await.  For many of us, winter isn’t just a time of hibernating and planning for the spring, it’s a time to get outside and enjoy nature.  Whether it’s cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, birdwatching, or having evening bonfires, there’s plenty to do this winter!

One of my favorite things to do is search for signs of wildlife in fresh snow.  If I’m lucky, I can even snap a picture of the animal tracks before my son stomps through them or makes a snow angel on top of them (he apparently thinks this is hilarious).  So with that, let’s get outside and see what we can identify in the snow!

I don’t know about you, but whenever I find tracks in the snow that I cannot immediately recognize, I always jump to the rarest creature.  For example, I recently found the tracks pictured above and while I felt like I had seen them before, I just couldn’t place them.  Naturally, I figured they simply had to be the tracks of a wolverine, fisher, porcupine, or even baby Sasquatch.

There’s something exciting about not being able to identify a set a tracks because they could have come from anything!  Well, not quite but it’s still exciting.  So I went home and pulled out my animal tracks and sign book and sure enough, the elusive and rare creature that made the tracks was from an opossum.  I confirmed this by posting on the Wisconsin Naturalists Facebook page.  This is a great resource that I encourage you to check out if you have nature questions.

When I found the tracks pictured above, what struck me most of all was how jealous I was that whoever made the tracks didn’t sink into the snow like I was.  These tracks just looked effortless, like the creature was simply gliding across the snow.  Meanwhile, I was huffing and puffing through the snow while sinking in around mid-shin.

Having a dog of my own, I’m pretty familiar with canid tracks.  These tracks were a lot smaller than Tucker’s (my black lab), but they have a similar classic dog-like shape.  I narrowed it down to fox or coyote and snapped a picture so I could identify it later.  I followed the tracks which led me to taking the picture below.

Note how the tracks are no longer gliding across the snow.  They actually go quite deep and lead to some sort of hole.  If you haven’t guessed it yet, these are the tracks of a hunting coyote.  Coyotes have incredible ears and can hear rodents like mice and voles beneath the snow.  They tiptoe across the snow with ears pointed down and once they’ve narrowed down the approximate location of the critter below, they pounce!  Watch a video HERE of a coyote hunting.

In the photo above, you can see the four feet in the snow (bottom half of the photo) with the two at the very bottom being the coyote’s back feet.  Note how much deeper they are than the front feet.  These deep impressions are created from the jumping motion and the hole at the top of the photo was where the coyote landed.  So cool!

Well, I hope you enjoyed my virtual tour of nature as it’s happening.  However you experience the outdoors or nature, be it physical, virtual, spiritual, or anything in between, I encourage you to do it!

See you next month!