Upham Woods "Woods Writings," September 2019

September 2019

Water Stories Summit Recap

On August 1 ^st 58 campers showed up to attend the Wisconsin Youth Water Stories Summit hosted at Upham Woods Outdoor Learning Center. 62% of campers, collaborating on over 17 water story projects, presented on the final day of camp. Every camper participated in story writing and journaling while at camp. Their stories can be found here: https://fyi.extension.wisc.edu/uphamwoods/programs/dots-at-upham-woods/ . On the first day of the Water Stories Summit, the Lieutenant Governor attended and addressed the group for a half hour answering questions. We had several other speakers attend and share their water stories with campers including North Central Region Water Network marketing professional, Anne Nardi, Nature videographer and photographer, Dudley Edmondson, and Director of the Baruch Institute for Marine and Coastal Sciences at the University of South Carolina, Dr. William Strosnider. Campers actively engaged with these presentations through thoughtful questions and journaling in their camp books. This helped us meet our goals of developing a network of community members invested in support student research and science education. We used our connections and partnerships in Milwaukee to recruit campers from 4-H and the Urban Ecology Center. We connected with multiple speakers and presenters through Extension and by publicizing our work.

While onsite, participants assisted with conservation projects related to water and ecosystem health including a invasive pull of crown vetch and birds foot tree oil, cleared understory of prickly ash and invasive honeysuckle. The older group of students built trail on Blackhawk Island to mitigate erosion from storms. This aligns with our goal of increasing public understanding of conservation projects and stewardship.

Radical Raptors

Ever wonder about the Radical Raptor, Beauty, who calls Upham Woods home?

Even though Beauty is in captivity, during nesting season, she will act like she is building a nest on the ground. This is a natural behavior for her because she was not always in captivity. Red tailed hawks make very large nests and start laying their eggs in April. Red tailed hawk nests can get as large as 3 feet wide.

After nesting season, the molting process takes place. Molting is when a bird sheds their old feather to make way for new ones to come in. Feathers need to be molted because they are made out of keratin-based structures similar to our hair and finger nails, which get damaged over time and need to be replaced. One sign that a bird is molting is pin, or blood feathers. It is called a blood feather because an artery or vein extends up through the feather follicle to supply it with nourishment.

While Beauty was molting she had a vet checkup with UW Zoo medicine resident Cameron Ratlift and Director of Conservation Medicine at International Crane foundation Barry Hartup. They gave us a closeup look of Beauty molting her 2 ^nd primary feather on both sides. During this exam we also learned that Beauty was a healthy weight and needed a minor beak trim.

Conservation Programming

at Upham Woods

Conservation Challenge

Upham Woods is dedicated to restoring our land. To do just that, we have started a Conservation Challenge. We aim to put 10,000 hours of conservation service into our lands by the year 2020. We will accomplish this goal through our many conservation program opportunities for both campers and community members. The goal of the challenge is to restore our land while simultaneously giving people the skills and knowledge of land management. These land management principles can then be easily applied to their own communities. An NCCC team participated in this challenge and brought our running total up to 944 hours! To get involved in the Conservation Challenge email our Conservation Program Coordinator, Caroline Zimmerman, at [email protected] or call (608) 254-6461.

Snapshot Day

On August 17, Upham Woods hosted the annual Snapshot Day for Juneau County in association with the River Alliance and the Wisconsin DNR. We sampled 5 different locations for aquatic invasive species in order to help the DNR develop management plans to keep the Wisconsin River healthy and to improve the river’s water quality. We found 2 species of invasive plants (Eurasian Watermilfoil and Curly Pond-Leaf) that were previously undocumented in our stretch of the river. Early detection is the first step to properly managing these species.

Canoeing with Naturalist Erin

As we come to the end of an awesome summer at Upham Woods, I’ve started to think back on some of the super fun stuff that I got to spend all summer doing with amazing people. I’ve found this summer, that one of my favorite things to do with campers is t-rescues at Dell House Beach while canoeing. I’m always getting asked “can we tip our canoes??” and it’s awesome to be able to say yes and see how excited everyone is for it. Sometimes when a canoe capsizes, there are no places to get to shore safely, so we have to get the people back into their canoe without going to shore. A t-rescue is when the capsized canoe is emptied out by sliding it on top perpendicular to another canoe. It is then flipped over and put back on the water parallel to the other canoe. Using the weight of the people performing the rescue against the weight of the people in the water, they help balance the canoe to allow the people in the water to climb back in. I love getting to let kids do something they really want to do, while also making sure that they are prepared to deal with these types of situations. As sad as I am that the summer is ending, I’m so happy that I was lucky enough to experience all of the amazing things I got to do and spend time with all of the awesome people who came through Upham Woods this summer. Thank you to everyone who made this summer everything that it was!