Horicon Marsh Birding Festival

We were up early this past Saturday morning and on our way to Horicon at 7:00 a.m. to take in some of the activities associated with the Horicon Marsh Birding Club's annual festival. Spring migration is at its peak and the variety of birds that can be found at the marsh is amazing.

We arrived just after 8:00 am and checked in at the DNR office where some dedicated birders were holding a Big Sit. They began at midnight and had counted 59 species by 8:00 am.

A pontoon boat tour of the marsh was next on our agenda. We boarded at 9:00 am for a two hour birding adventure. The tour was a little disappointing in that there were way too many people on board and the boats had canopies overhead making it very difficult to see anything above. Still, we counted 44 species, some just by audible identification but most we got at least a glimpse of most. The highlight of the boat tour was the sighting of a Marsh Wren and a Swamp Sparrow - two new birds for my list. We heard the Sora Rail but it never came out to let us get a peek at it.

After the boat tour, we drove up the west side of the marsh to Hwy. 49 and hiked the floating boardwalk where we saw many yellow warblers, coots, geese, a blue grey gnatcatcher, blue-winged teal and, on our way out, Bobolink, who cooperated nicely while I took their photos.

Signs of Spring!

Spring must be right around the corner...the birds are coming back. This little hermit thrush was on our suet feeder Sunday in the midst of quite a snowfall. Haven't seen him since, maybe he decided to go south again for a couple of weeks. The weather man on channel 6 last night also reported seeing Red-Winged Blackbirds back in the area. Another good sign!

In other news, the Wauwatosa Red Raiders Boys Basketball team won the WIAA Division 1 State Basketball Championship Saturday night at the Kohl Center in Madison! All of Tosa is buzzing and so proud of our team! Kurt took one of seven student fan busses over to Madison last Thursday night for the quarter-final game. He and his buddies watched the semi-final game and the championship game on TV from their suite at the Wilderness Resort in the Wisconsin Dells on Friday and Saturday. Who has it harder than that kid?

We are really looking forward to our Spring Break trip to Florida next Saturday (3/22). Not sure what we will do with ourselves for five whole days without snow on the ground and crater-sized potholes to negotiate while driving around town. Hoping that most, if not all, of our snow is gone when we get back and we can turn our attention to the yard and the garden.


Hope you have had a meaningful Lenten season. I have enjoyed a book study at church on John Ortberg's The Life You've Always Wanted. Our last session is tonight and I hate to see it end. Palm Sunday this week already! Bill and some of the other men of our church will be up before the crack of dawn making fresh hot crossed buns for our coffee hour after the service. They are so delicious!


Happy Easter

Great Backyard Bird Count

Do you have 15 minutes this weekend to watch the birds at your feeder or in the park? Then think about participating in the Great Backyard Bird Count!

The Great Backyard Bird Count is an annual four-day event that engages bird watchers of all ages in counting birds to create a real-time snapshot of where the birds are across the continent. Anyone can participate, from beginning bird watchers to experts. It takes as little as 15 minutes. It’s free, fun, and easy—and it helps the birds.

How to Participate
It’s as easy as 1, 2, 3!

1. Plan to count birds for at least 15 minutes during February 15–18, 2008. Count birds at as many places and on as many days as you like—just keep a separate list of counts for each day and/or location.

2. Count the greatest number of individuals of each species that you see together at any one time, and write it down. (You can get regional checklists at http://gbbc.birdsource.org/gbbcApps/checklist).

3. Enter your results through the web site at http://www.birdsource.org/gbbc/

Why Count Birds?
Scientists and bird enthusiasts can learn a lot by knowing where the birds are. Bird populations are dynamic; they are constantly in flux. No single scientist or team of scientists could hope to document the complex distribution and movements of so many species in such a short time.We need your help. Make sure the birds from your community are well represented in the count.
It doesn't matter whether you report the 5 species coming to your backyard feeder or the 75 species you see during a day's outing to a wildlife refuge.

Sugar coated / We're drowning in high fructose corn syrup. Do the risks go beyond our waistline?

Sugar coated / We're drowning in high fructose corn syrup. Do the risks go beyond our waistline?

Say NO to high fructose corn syrup

Over the last couple of months I have become aware of not only how bad high fructose corn syrup is for you, but also just how prevalent it is in food products. It is in things I never would have suspected until I started reading the ingredient labels on everything I buy. The higher up on the ingredient list, the more of it there is in the product. It is in several varieties of Brownberry Bread marketed as health breads. It is the first ingredient in Hershey's chocolate syrup! It is in ketchup, pasta sauces (not Paul Newman), salad dressings, jams and jelly, barbeque sauce, ice cream, non-diet soda, fruit juice blends, even so-called health bars or energy bars and more!

Since the first of the year, we have gone through our kitchen and pantry and have eliminated everything containing HFCS. It is not that difficult to find alternatives, you just need to read the labels. Anything labeled organic certainly doesn't contain HFCS so that is always a safe bet.

If you want to find out more, read the article at the link on the post above. This is just one of many that comes up if you Google high fructose corn syrup.

If Americans stop buying products contaminated with this stuff, manufacturers will stop making it! We need to stop and think about what we are putting inside of our bodies. If the ingredient list has 25 things and you can't pronouce most of them, don't eat it!

www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2004/02/18/FDGS24VKMH1.DTL - 54k

Kurt takes off!

Just dropped Kurt off at church where he joined up with the other members of the Mission Mazahua team and headed for O'Hare. (He is second from the left in the back row.) Please keep him in your thoughts for the next eight days. For a look at where he is going to be and what it is all about click on http://home.woh.rr.com/mazahua/mazahua.html. We are on our way to Lake Tom. today. Happy New Year!

December 22

Just finished reading an interesting and very entertaining book, The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs. The author, a self described agnostic Jew, decides to spend one year obeying the Bible as literally as possible.

From the book jacket: The resulting spiritual journey is at once funny and profound, reverent and irreverent, personal and universal and will make you see history's most influential book with new eyes.

I know everyone is going to be cheering for the Packers tomorrow right? And also for Carolina! Retailers in Wisconsin can't keep Favre merchandise on the shelves for Christmas - reports are that Favre jerseys and the new sideline hat are going for ridiculously high prices on ebay. You can read about it at http://www.620wtmj.com/news/local/12587236.html

The northwoods is expecting 5-8 inches of snow tomorrow. Looks like we'll have no trouble doing some cross country skiing during Christmas break! I'm anxious to get up to the lake and see if the Pileated Woodpecker is still coming to the deck for suet.

Merry Christmas!