Wisconsin is for the birds

In a state teeming with birdwatchers, Chuck Henrikson might qualify as Wisconsin’s most dedicated.

Each Tuesday morning since 2015, with a brief pause for COVID, Henrikson has led an informal birdwatching group in the UW Arboretum attracting both newcomers and longtime enthusiasts. He’s also a top local contributor to eBird and is proud of his streak of over 2,300 consecutive days filing a report with the national registry.

Henrikson isn’t looking for any publicity or recognition. He’s simply sharing his passion for a pastime that can be enjoyed on the back deck, a wooded trail, or from the seat of a canoe.

“Birds are just so amazing and they’re all around us,” says Henrikson, 81, a retired lecturer from the UW School of Veterinary Medicine. “Why not stop and pay attention to them?”

By almost any measure, birdwatching in Wisconsin has never been more popular — with technology making it easier than ever to tell a nuthatch from a chickadee or to post colorful photos on social media sites. 

Last September police in Port Washington were forced to close roads along the shores of Lake Michigan after thousands of bird enthusiasts raced to catch a glimpse of five American flamingos who’d wandered far from their Caribbean home. It was the only time the pink birds had been seen in Wisconsin — outside of the plastic ones first placed on UW’s Bascom Hill in 1979 by campus jokesters.

Two months later in Door County, the sighting of an ancient murrelet had bird lovers again jumping in their cars and driving for hours to seek out the small Pacific Coast seabird, scarcely larger than a robin.

Events like the Great Wisconsin Birdathon, the annual fundraiser for the Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin, are drawing record numbers of responses. And groups specifically trying to involve women or people of color are bringing more diversity to the state’s birding scene.

“Birds can get you in touch with nature and provide all sorts of mental health benefits,” says Kim Kreitinger, past president of the Wisconsin Society for Ornithology. “Plus, you don’t have to travel very far to do it. You can just look out the back window.” 

Kreitinger notes that May is a particularly thrilling time of year for local bird enthusiasts as they anticipate the arrival of colorful migrating warblers like the American redstart or summer residents like the Baltimore oriole.

National surveys do suggest Wisconsin is a birdwatching hot spot. The state has been ranked No. 2 behind Vermont in the percentage of residents (33%) who report closely observing, feeding or photographing birds on a regular basis, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. 

Wisconsin residents have also now submitted well over one million individual checklists to eBird, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s online platform for reporting local bird observations. That made Wisconsin the second smallest state by population to reach that milestone, behind Oregon.

Yet all this interest in watching birds, or “birding” to avid devotees, comes as they face ongoing pressure from habitat loss due to farming, forestry or urban development. Nearly 1 in 3 North American birds have vanished since 1970 — almost three billion birds, according to the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

“Our birds are in trouble,” says Lisa Gaumnitz of Madison’s Save Our Songbirds, a new advocacy group. “But if everyone who enjoys watching wildlife planted a few native trees, shrubs or wildflowers, together we could make a big difference.”

Why Wisconsin?

From a strict species count standpoint, Wisconsin lags behind coastal states like California, Texas and Florida. The state also can’t claim very many “endemic” birds, or species found only within a defined geographic area. 

What the state does have, however, is a long history of human connection to the outdoors in a landscape that boasts 15,000 inland lakes, 17 million acres of forestland, deep stream-cut valleys, and open prairies.

“This may not completely explain why birding is so popular in Wisconsin but I’m guessing our legacy of conservation leadership is a big part of the story,” says Dave Clutter, executive director of the Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin.

Wisconsin can claim John Muir and Aldo Leopold as favorite sons, the latter credited with developing the concept of a “land ethic,” the idea that the relationship between people and the land are intertwined. Gaylord Nelson, who served one term as governor and three terms in the U.S. Senate, was the founder of Earth Day, which began as a 1970s “teach-in” about environmental issues and today is celebrated by billions of people across 192 countries.

Of course, the first residents to appreciate the significance of bird life were the Indigenous populations who migrated into present-day Wisconsin following the retreat of the glaciers over 10,000 years ago. Ancestors of the Ho-Chunk, Iowa and Dakota not only relied on birds for food but honored them with stunning earthen displays. The largest bird effigy mound in the world — with a wingspan of 624 feet and a body 131 feet long — sits on the grounds of the Mendota Mental Health Institute on the north shore of Lake Mendota.

Wisconsin is also surrounded on three sides by the major freshwater systems in the country: Lake Superior to the north, Lake Michigan to the east and the Mississippi River to the west.

“We’re very well positioned to be an important place for birds and that gives people in the state a terrific chance to get to know their beauty, wonder and diversity,” says Bryan Lenz, who lives in Cedarburg and is director of the Bird City network for the American Bird Conservancy.

Migrating birds have long used these waterways as road maps and resting places, helping them find their way from warmer winter refuges in the South to the cooler boreal forests of the Northland. Nearly half of Wisconsin’s bird species are considered “neotropical migrants,” meaning they spend the winter in Mexico, Central and South America and venture here in the spring to nest.

Unfortunately, rainforests in those locales continue to decline,  converted to agriculture or cut for wood fuel. Fully one-third of the 340 migratory bird species in the U.S. are declining in large part because of this habitat loss, experts say.

“We need to remember that what happens in Nicaragua, Panama, Mexico, really all of Central and South America, impacts the birds we enjoy here in Wisconsin,” says Craig Thompson, who helps lead the state Department of Natural Resources bird conservation efforts.

Looking to make an impact, Wisconsin conservationists are now part of the Neotropical Flyways Project partnership with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and a nonprofit in Colombia called SELVA to identify critical migratory stopover regions and habitats in Latin America. 

Singling out songbirds

“The excitement around birds in Wisconsin has never been greater and few places seem as birdy as Dane County,” says Gaumnitz of Save Our Songbirds (SOS), an initiative of the Wisconsin Bird Conservation Partnership, a collaboration of 180 different groups committed to sustaining Wisconsin’s native birds. It launched in Madison last year.

Songbirds — a specific order of “passerines” featuring a toe arrangement that helps them grasp branches and a specialized vocal organ called a syrinx — find themselves particularly vulnerable to human impacts including lawn pesticides, outdoor cats, and collisions with windows. Some estimates put the losses from those factors in the billions.

SOS is advocating a backyard-based approach at reversing the decline of Wisconsin’s most popular birds: encouraging native plantings, reducing home window collisions, and informing consumers about the impact of coffee plantations on migratory species.

Even planting a few native plants that are good for birds can help, Gaumnitz says. Over 95% of land-based birds feed their young on insects, and native trees, shrubs or wildflowers provide far more insects than non-native plants. SOS advises trying to add a few native plants like sunflower, pussy willow or spotty jewelweed to your garden each year. The Wisconsin DNR link on the SOS website carries a list of native plant nurseries organized by location.

Protecting birds from deadly window threats is important in both homes and businesses. Glass is invisible to birds and they often mistake reflections of trees or sky as safe habitat, thinking they can fly right through to reach them. 

Last October in a Wisconsin court room, birds won an important legal victory when the state Court of Appeals upheld Madison’s bird-safe glass ordinance. Bird-friendly glass generally features dots or patterns that break up the reflectiveness of glass so birds can see it. This helps reduce collisions while still allowing sunlight and outdoor views for humans.

Adopted in 2020, the Madison ordinance requires bird-safe glass treatment on new construction or redevelopments over 10,000 square feet. But the ordinance was challenged by a coalition of trade groups who claimed it would add unnecessary costs to projects.

Bird advocates considered the Wisconsin decision significant since it was the first time a bird-friendly policy in the U.S. had faced a legal challenge. The Madison-based Southern Wisconsin Bird Alliance and the American Bird Conservancy had developed the ordinance and joined with the Wisconsin Society for Ornithology in fighting the appeal.

Matt Reetz, executive director of the Southern Wisconsin Bird Alliance (formerly Madison Audubon), notes that nearly a billion birds die each year in the U.S. from window strikes and losing the case would have set a bad precedent for other communities with bird-safe glass rules. 

Reetz adds that using bird-safe glass during initial construction is much less expensive than trying to retrofit buildings after the fact. He points to the Minnesota Vikings football stadium, which became the biggest bird-killing building in Minneapolis and sparked outrage throughout the community. Installing bird-safe glass initially would have added about $1 million to the cost of the $1.1 billion stadium but doing it now is costing an estimated $10 million.

“It’s such an easy solution and we’re really seeing a sea change in how new buildings are being designed,” says Reetz, whose organization dropped the Audubon name in 2023 following backlash over the ornithologist’s white supremacist views and family slave ownership history. 

For homes or apartments, there are a variety of safe window options that include commercial film or markers and hanging strips for those who don’t want to stick things on their window glass.

Gaumnitz of SOS says perhaps the simplest way to avoid deadly bird window strikes are insect screens. “If you have screens on your windows just leave them up all year round,” she says. “That probably provides the best protection.”

Purchasing bird-friendly coffee can also make a difference. Two-thirds of Americans drink coffee daily but most aren’t aware that much Central and South American coffee is grown on large plantations created by destroying habitats of migrating songbirds. 

SOS recommends buying coffee that is grown underneath the existing tree canopy rather than on cleared land. Some coffee carries the “Smithsonian Bird Friendly”  seal. Birds & Beans Coffee is also a certified bird-friendly coffee and an SOS partner. Anything labeled shade grown or 100 percent organic is the next best choice.

From opera glasses to phone apps

Birding as a hobby is something of a new pursuit in the annals of human history. In fact, the term “birdwatching” wasn’t even coined until 1901 by Edmund Selous, a British ornithologist who was appalled at the wholesale slaughter of birds for everything from food to ornamental feathers. 

It’s often forgotten that 19th century ornithologists from John James Audubon to Wisconsin’s long-overlooked Thure Kumlien downed birds with shotguns in the name of science.

 Eventually, however, opera glasses replaced buckshot as the preferred method of getting a closer look at birds. By the early years of the 20th century “Christmas Day Bird Counts” had become popular in many American communities, supplanting the traditional Christmas Day hunts where families would harvest wild game for the feast.

In the 1950s, birdwatchers were equipped with lighter and more affordable binoculars. Soon enthusiasts were heading out with massive spotting scopes, image-stabilized zoom cameras, and precision-honed binoculars. 

Today, phone apps like the popular Merlin Bird ID from the Cornell Lab help newcomers identify birds either by sight or sound. Enter a photo taken with your phone and Merlin will produce an identification much like the plant identification feature on Google Lens.

Merlin’s Sound ID feature, unveiled in 2021, will also tell you all of the various birds within range of your phone’s mic. Then you can set out trying to spot whatever species that’s catching your fancy or simply enjoy knowing what’s hiding in the treetops. The app lights up each time a different bird call is detected, helping users to hone their own ears to the symphony of sound.

It was in spring 2021, with COVID fears easing, when I first realized that birdwatching had entered a whole new era. Hoping to catch a glimpse of some of the colorful migrating birds, I drove out to the 6 a.m. “Warbler Walk” hosted by the Friends of Cherokee Marsh.

When I arrived, I found what you’d expect on a weekday morning bird outing: friendly folks, mainly seniors, wearing wide-brimmed hats with binoculars hanging around their necks. What I didn’t expect to find was most of the group with their cell phones out including the leader.

 “Man, can’t these folks give Facebook a rest,” I thought.

Fifteen minutes later as we hiked along a section of woods, our guide abruptly brought the group to a stop. “Golden wing,” he announced as the other attendees started scanning a nearby thicket for a glimpse of the endangered golden-winged warbler.

“OK, this dude is a phone junkie but he sure knows his bird calls,” I mused while making a fruitless search of the bushes with my cheap binoculars. 

Only later, did one of the attendees show me our guide’s little secret: the phone app. 

There are now lots of birding apps out there: BirdsEye, Audubon Bird, iBird and National Geographic Bird. Peterson and Sibley, publishers of paper guides, are also out with their own electronic versions. Many are free for the most basic functions.

I’ve been using the Merlin Bird ID since that fateful walk at Cherokee Marsh. It’s free to download, easy to use, and maintains a database of some 400 different species, which is about as many as novices like myself would ever need.

Merlin isn’t infallible, experts argue, but for the average backyard birder or as a way to get kids interested in nature it’s a true game-changer. 

“Not as many kids today spend as much time outside as they used to but I think online tools like Merlin can help them develop an interest in birds,” says Lenz of Bird City, a parent of two.

Spreading the joy of flight 

Surveys suggest younger people are increasingly catching the birding bug. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service found that people in the 25 to 34 age group actually took the most away-from-home recreational trips with the 65+ crowd having the lowest rate of active travel.

In a broader sense, wildlife watching — which includes birding — is now considered the most popular outdoor recreational activity in the U.S. with a 57% participation rate, surpassing fishing (15%), hunting (6%), and motorized boating (7%), according to the FWS. Wildlife watchers also spent $250.2 billion and notched nearly 13 billion days total pursuing their activities in 2022, according to the FSW. By comparison, anglers spent $99.4 billion during 785 million days with hunters spending $45.2 billion over 241 million days.

“People love their birds and they spend significant amounts of time and plenty of money enjoying them or caring for them,” says Karen Etter Hale, who chairs the Wisconsin Bird Conservation Partnership.

Nobody needs to tell that to Bob Ross, owner of the Wild Birds Unlimited retail outlet on Old Sauk Road. At 5,000 square feet, it’s the largest of any of the 360 Wild Birds franchises in the U.S. and Canada.

Ross says it’s been “an absolute zoo” at the store this spring and thinks customers are looking for relief from the nasty politics of the day and worries over the future of the planet.

“Birds are a great way to get away and there are so many different places to find them,” says Ross, ticking off some of his favorite birding spots: the Arboretum, Pheasant Branch Conservancy, Edna Taylor Conservancy and Ice Age Trail to name just a few.

Still, birdwatching can seem like a white person’s pastime, with only 45% of the nation’s Black population reporting wildlife viewing in 2022 compared to 60% of the white population, according to the FWS survey. But there are national and local efforts afoot to change that perception.

This spring, the Madison Public Library is offering loaner “Birding Backpacks” thanks in part to a donation from the Feminist Bird Club-Madison Chapter. The backpacks include two sets of binoculars for adults and kids, a copy of Sibley’s Field Guide and a guide to potential birding spots near each library. 

The BIPOC Birding Club of Wisconsin is providing similar “birding kits” to a dozen neighborhood centers and schools in Madison and Milwaukee. The outreach program is designed to engage people who’ve been historically excluded from accessing the outdoors to try their hand at watching birds.

“We’re just looking to spread the love and appreciation of birds to kids and families who’ve never birded before,” says the group’s co-founder Jeff Galligan.

Galligan says he came up with the idea of a BIPOC Birding Club after the 2021 George Floyd killing in Minneapolis and the incident in New York’s Central Park, on the same day, when a white woman called police on a Black birdwatcher. Galligan points to events like Black Birders Week launched at Southern University in helping to break the stigma.

“We’re not trying to be pushy but the question is whether somebody of color can be out there in rural parts of Wisconsin with binoculars and a camera and not raise suspicions,” says Galligan, director of first generation initiatives at Madison College. “We think the outdoors are for everyone.”

No bird lover would ever take issue with that.