Green Lake Bird Festival - April 25th
She sat across from me in Mugs wearing a button-down shirt covered in birds and donned a pair of owl earrings. Wendy Schultz embodied a true birding enthusiast.
As we drank our coffee Wendy enthused over the cool pattern in her mug and gave me a short introduction into birdwatching.
Wendy first caught the bug when she was at Marian College. One of her professors was a bird watcher and asked her to come to a bird watching club meeting in the evening. It was here that Wendy found two things: her husband Tom, and her love for birds. Wendy spend the next part of her life traveling around the country birding with her husband. She revealed that she loved traveling to the American southwest but if she had to choose some place in Wisconsin to bird, she definitely enjoyed traveling up north. She also state that the Green Lake Country area is a great place to begin birding and that it never ceases to amaze her the variety of birds that can be found here. After the whirlwind birding adventure, Wendy and her husband settled down in Green Lake and have been living here for 32 years. Having spent half her life in Wisconsin, and having met so many bird and nature enthusiasts in the area, Wendy decided it was time to make Green Lake an official "Bird City". After months of hard work and meetings, Green Lake became a Bird City, along with Princeton. Green Lake, during this time, hosts approximately 80-100 different bird species. Adding the name of "birding city" helps draw attention to this important fact and as Wendy adds, makes people stop and think about our habitats.
It is because of this certification that every year Green Lake hosts the Green Lake Bird Festival, and this year will be its third. The event is set to take place on April 25thand will feature an early morning birdwatching walk, lectures, and Jack and Holly Bartholmai from the Horicon area as keynote speakers. Wendy explains that the objective of this festival is to increase awareness of birding and promote the conservation of the habitat in the area. She states, "The bird festival isn't just for hard core birders. It's for backyard birders and casual birders." Perhaps you too might catch the bug and want to make birding your next hobby. Wendy encourages this idea and explains that, "Bird watching is an activity that can be as superficial or as deep as people take it." Wendy and Tom recently started The Green Lake Bird and Nature Clubwhich meets once a month in Green Lake. With migration season starting, this is the perfect time to "catch the bug".
Written by Lauren Hince, Ripon College Freshman, GLCVB Social Media Coordinator.