To celebrate our 40th anniversary, Annette and I went to Mexico in January 2017 to see the wintering grounds of the Monarch butterfly. We stayed at a bed-and-breakfast in Michoacan and rode horseback up the mountain where the butterflies gather in the pine trees. Some trees had so many butterflies they looked like butterfly trees. Our guide told us that when he was a boy his father, who was a warden on the mountain protecting the area, took him to see these trees, and there were hundreds of them. Now there are dozens. The Monarch population is in serious decline.
The Friends of Lake View Hill Park has been suppressing the exotic thistles on the front lawn and encouraging the growth of woodland flowers the Monarchs feed on and the common milkweed they need to lay their eggs on. The caterpillars of the Monarch eat only milkweed leaves.
Our park was recently recognized by Monarch Watch, a nonprofit education and conservation group, as meeting the criteria as a Monarch Waystation. We hope that providing the habitat and diet Monarch butterflies need will help them rebuild their population.
The Hartmeyer Nature Area provides water retention that reduces runoff and flooding, and serves as home to a variety of wildlife. Photo from Friends of Hartmeyer Facebook page
By Anita Weier Friends of Hartmeyer
The Friends of Hartmeyer Natural Area continue to support protecting the 29-acre property bounded by North Sherman Avenue, Roth Street, the former Oscar Mayer plant and Commercial Avenue. This area (behind the Esquire Club) was historically a large wetland marsh with some shallow ponds and oak opening uplands.
Communications have occurred with an attorney for the Hartmeyer Estate property owners and with the Madison Parks Department.
Interested residents are encouraged to attend a public meeting Monday, Aug. 12, 6 pm, at the Lakeview Library. Groundswell Conservancy Director Jim Welsh will share information about what his organization has done to protect important environmental areas. For more information, contact fhna.ginny@gmail.com or go to the Friends of Hartmeyer Facebook page.
Almost all of the historic shallow wetland ponds, marshes and natural oak opening uplands in the near Northside are gone — along with the populations of butterflies and other pollinators, frogs, birds and wildlife they used to support. But the upland area of the parcel near the railroad tracks behind the Oscar Mayer plant reaching over to Commercial Avenue contains large healthy stands of milkweed beneficial to pollinators, especially monarch butterflies. Frogs and sandhill cranes commonly use the site.
“Having a large natural area in a neighborhood is an important asset for neighborhood values and building a sense of community,” said Paul Noeldner, a Wisconsin Master Naturalist instructor and member of the Friends of Hartmeyer. “People enjoy seeing and talking about the cranes and other birds and wildlife as they drive, bus, bike or walk by this area. Even a few minutes of nature recreation reduces stress, improves health and gives a sense of well-being.”
Current Wisconsin law recognizes the importance of preserving and restoring natural wetlands for the health of our water and the benefits they bring for reducing runoff and flooding.
“This historic wetland is a gem,” said Noeldner. “It should be preserved and restored to full health by removing invasive plants and encouraging growth of native Wisconsin wetland plants that benefit pollinators and many other wildlife species.”
This area provides acres of carbon sequestration, natural water infiltration and water retention that helps reduce runoff and flooding in Madison lakes. A variety of native Wisconsin birds, aquatics, pollinators and wildlife make their homes in the Hartmeyer Natural Area or pass through during migration.
The Hartmeyer Natural Area is private property. Public access is not permitted as of this writing.
Plogging is a trend that began in Sweden a few years ago and is spreading around the world. It involves the simple act of picking up litter when you’re out for a run or walk. The Swedish term is “plocka upp,” which means “pick up.”
We have a lot of fast-food restaurants on the Northside and just enough thoughtless people to create a fair amount of litter on our streets and in our public spaces. According to Keep America Beautiful, most litter is deposited by pedestrians, and the costs to governments and other institutions is over $10 billion annually. Litter contributes to lower property values and a reduced sense of well-being. And research shows that the presence of litter contributes to even more littering.
So joggers and walkers that stop to gather up litter are making a real contribution to our neighborhoods while gaining benefits for themselves. The bending, squatting and stretching needed for plogging result in a better workout and about 50 extra calories burned each half-hour.
It turns out I have been a plogger for several years without knowing it. So here are a few tips you might want to use if you are interested in joining this growing movement:
Make a mental note of public trash receptacles on your route so you don’t have to carry things for long.
Plogging is easiest when it’s trash collection day on your route. You can separate recyclables as you go.
Gloves are necessary in winter, but a bit hot in summer. If you don’t wear gloves, try not to touch your nose or eyes until you’ve washed your hands.
Don’t collect anything that might possibly contain human or animal feces. I suffered a bout of norovirus after picking up some questionable stuff and, believe me, you do not want to go through that.
Do a super job of hand and arm washing when you get home.
Hopefully, plogging will become a craze all over America. There are internet apps centered on #plogging and #DoBeautifulThings, along with the fitness tracking app Lifesum. Let’s be among the first to join this fun and beneficial “plogging mania.”
A painted turtle nesting at Warner Park. Photo by Kathlean Wolf
By Kathlean Wolf Wild Warner
“A large snapping turtle is laying eggs in a mulch pile on a trail in the dog park,” Douglas posted on the Nextdoor website, and I replied in excitement, “I’ll come out and put a grating over it to keep dogs from digging it up.”
Twenty minutes later, I studied the disturbed surface of the mulch pile, pocked by a number of holes. Somewhere under there hid the hopes of an entire year for one mother snapping turtle. Searching, I broke through to a chamber filled with perfect spheres, each the diameter of a quarter; hundreds of embryos in white leather shells, slumbering in the self-warming compost pile. I carefully closed the nest up again. Fitting a metal grating over the nesting chamber, I tagged it with the message “turtle nest,” and then buried it beneath several more inches of mulch to avoid drawing attention.
Throughout the following weeks in June and July, turtle sightings became a common occurrence, and neighbors like Douglas expressed an interest in helping these beautiful reptiles to complete their nesting efforts safely. All of Wisconsin’s turtles face declining populations due to threats such as plastic entanglement, lead poisoning from abandoned fishing gear, and car strikes on females crossing roads in search of nesting sites. Warner Park is one of the few areas where our snapping, painted, Blandings and spiny softshell turtles can reach quality nesting sites without risking their lives crossing a road. In the face of all the threats to survival of these ancient animals, my experimental protection with a metal grating felt like a mere token, but over the months of June and July, my observations proved the opposite.
In past summers, I’d noticed a strip of land where emptied turtle egg shells would appear, scattered around small holes in the soil. Turtles favor the spot for its dry location and sun exposure, which helps warm the soil and incubate the eggs. Immediately after laying her eggs, a turtle mother carefully creates an earthen cap over the nest entrance, mixing her urine with soil to make a mud slurry that dries hard and disappears quickly into the background appearance of the environment. In September or October, tiny replicas of their fierce mother will come clambering out of the nest chamber all at once, racing for the waters of the nearby marsh. There they’ll seek the cover of cattails, muddy bottoms and banks, and search for tender water plants and insects to fuel their fight for survival.
Unfortunately, local predators also know this favorite sunny nesting site, and clear out nearly every nest almost as soon as they are made. Sniffing for the mixture of turtle urine and disturbed earth, predators generally find nests within the first day of laying, but if rain washes the scent away or a predator doesn’t locate it within a few days, the smell fades and the nestlings stand a chance of survival. At the end of June, I documented over 20 destroyed nests in this area, with two remaining unmolested as I write this, safe beneath my metal mesh. Other favored locations in the park suffer similar mortality.
This nesting site is a perfect laboratory for citizen-science, experimenting with ways to keep predators away from turtle eggs. Consulting an expert at the Wisconsin Turtle Conservation project, I’ve studied the effectiveness of metal gratings and chemical deterrents at keeping raccoons, foxes, skunks and other predators out of new nests. Next June, Wild Warner and partner groups will be ready to protect these nests and the mothers who lay them. With signs explaining how to help a turtle cross a road, well-made predator-deterrent nest coverings, and a program for dog park users who spot nesting turtles in their off-leash areas, June and July will hopefully be the start of a more successful breeding year for turtles, eventually helping to compensate for turtle mortality outside of the safety of our parks. Leaders of youth groups are invited to contact me at wolf.kathlean@zoho.com to discuss participation in this pilot project.
Madison Parks has installed a new floating pier at the School Road boat landing. Unlike the previous fixed pier, which flooded in times of high water, the new pier rises and falls with the water level. City crews will remove the pier each year at the end of the season and set it back out after the ice melts.
Public canoe and kayak storage racks have also been installed at the landing. The rental cost is $110 per year for Madison residents.
If you want to bring your stored paddle craft with you on a winter vacation, be aware that the road to the boat landing is gated and unplowed in the off season.
