For the Birds
By John Luthens
Wisconsin soars with some of the finest, feathered photography opportunities in the country.
It’s clear as an owl hoot on a crisp, northern night that Wisconsin is for the birds.
Warblers color the springtime flowers and fence lines. Loons call across forlorn waters and nighthawks swoop in the mists of humid summer. Owls and jays swing down from the arctic reaches to winter amidst snowcapped pines.
Come the blazing glory of autumn, hunters statewide are well-seasoned in reaping the feathered richness of waterfowl, turkey and upland birds, but the thrill of stalking Wisconsin’s picture-perfect terrain and capturing a perfect wing shot is a year-round pastime that can canvas an outdoor photographer into some of the wildest bird sanctuaries in the nation.
The rolling vista of Crex Meadows is the picture-perfect studio for birds, and for nature photographers.
With 30,000 acres of windblown sedge grass and brush prairie forest, Crex Meadows, in the western Wisconsin reaches of Burnett County is a must-see destination for bird enthusiasts and nature photographers alike.
Raised, gravel lanes cut through mazes of waving grass and hardwood islands that are equally liable to yield a rainbow of butterflies, a flock of sharp-tailed grouse, or a hectic rush of swamp sparrows and sedge wrens.
Trumpeter swans pose for the camera along a back-country pond in Crex Meadows.
Sandhill cranes splash across the green ocean of the meadows on their migratory journeys and haunt the horizon with their primordial calls, and the natural blinds of marshy sunlight that spring open above the countless tiny potholes and channels are among the finest locations in the country to photograph elusive, trumpeter swans at close range.
Horicon Marsh, Dodge and Fond du Lac Counties
The cattail expanse of the Horicon Marsh in the eastern Wisconsin burgs of Dodge and Fond du Lac is the largest, freshwater habitat of its kind in the United States, and it exposes a living, black and white snapshot of a time when the autumn sky was black with geese and ducks, and the ill-advised bag limit was as many as a market hunter could shoot from dawn to dusk.
Today, best known as a protected sanctuary for nesting birds and a migratory holdover for thousands of Canadian geese, the 32,000 acres of wetland also attracts rare species of whistling ducks, teal and grebes that are seldom glimpsed, not to mention rarely photographed in a wild setting.
The air above Horicon Marsh comes alive with the wings of migrating geese.
The flooded plains and cattails puffs feathering through the Horicon are a rare time-capsule of nature that still sings overhead with the lonely song of ducks flown past, and the Rock River channel that runs through the backbone of its deepest reaches can easily be drifted in a canoe or kayak, giving way to the picture-perfect setting for the posing, frantic habits of meadowlarks, sparrows and blackbirds.
Rolling through Superior, Wisconsin, across the frozen sheets of the Saint Louis River and into the furthest, northwest corner of the state – for those adventurous enough to brave a little back-road, winter driving and weather a bit of tense, border-storm rivalry between the Packers and the Viking – the Iron Range wilderness of northern Minnesota’s Sax Zim Bog is a migratory wonderland for south-bound birds and northern-bound photographers.
A scant hour northwest of Duluth, Minnesota, the Sax Zim Bog is an internationally known bird-watching destination, and it may be as close as one can get to the birds of the Canadian Shield without needing a passport. Great gray owls, gray jays and boreal chickadees; birds that seldom chance very far south of the Canadian border swing down from their summer homes in the tundra to shelter for the winter amidst the bog’s 147,00 acres of southern, boreal forest and upland, aspen meadows.
Winter volunteers take in the carcasses of deer that were unfortunate enough not to survive the highway or the frigid winter, hanging them as natural suet in spruce clearings along the ice-covered lanes, so plenty of prime, photographic opportunities in the Sax Zim can be had without slipping waist deep in the drifts. But there are also several trails and boardwalks for those who don’t mind trading a fragrant dusting down the back of the neck from the vast stands of black spruce and balsam in order to capture a wilder shot at some rare, arctic feathers.
A rare opportunity for a photo of a boreal chickadee in the Sax Zim Bog.
Uncase your cameras, oil up the tripod, and stalk out into field. Bird hunting is in full swing in this Midwestern neck of the woods.
And the best part is – the season never closes.
John Luthens is a freelance writer and outdoor journalist from Grafton, Wisconsin. His first novel, Taconite Creek, is available on Amazon, or by contacting his publisher at www.cablepublishing.com