PBS Wisconsin Documentaries

>> Oh, gosh. Okay, you can stay there. >> Birds can connect us. In North America and Latin America. >> Oh, my god! That was so incredible! >> People have connected to save these small migratory birds. >> We have to work as a team. >> They are "Our Birds." And they face a perilous future. >> The clock is ticking. >> Major funding for "Our Birds" is provided by the people of Alliant Energy, who bring safe, reliable and environmentally friendly energy to keep homes, neighborhoods, and life in Wisconsin running smoothly. Alliant Energy, offering energy saving ideas on the Web. And the Animal Dentistry and Oral Surgery Specialists of Milwaukee, Oshkosh and Minneapolis. A veterinary team working with pet owners and family veterinarians throughout Wisconsin, providing care for oral disease and dental problems of small companion animals. Additional funding is provided by the Paul E. Stry Foundation of La Crosse, Wisconsin, and Friends of Wisconsin Public Television. >> There's a connection between Calumet County in Wisconsin and the rugged hills rising up from the Pacific Ocean of Costa Rica's Corcovado National Park. A tie between the skyscraper canyons in the cities of North America. >> It's a Canada Warbler. >> And the rainforest of the southern hemisphere. This is the bond, a winged connection that we share. >> That's a long ways on those little wings. >> These birds, neotrops, short for neotropical migrants, that breed in the northern hemisphere and migrate in fall and spring, back and forth, to their home in the southern forests. Their numbers are falling, and they face enormous perils, north and south. People are working to save them, working to save "Our Birds." >> Look at that! >> Wow! >> That is amazing to me. >> They take the leaves back and they culture fungus on them. Then they eat the fungus. >> Change is not always easy to see. >> Oh, he's eating it. >> See how he mushes it up and eats it. >> These birds watchers. >> Look at that, going back and forth. >> All from Wisconsin. >> A lineated woodpecker. >> Are on an adventure through the jungles and beaches, and other wild places of Costa Rica. And in the process, they are creating change, creating a new model for bird conservation that could be imitated worldwide. It's a model pioneered by this man, Craig Thompson. He's an ardent birder. >> Oh, yeah, it's just, what are we gonna see next? So you just get so jazzed, and you go, "Ahh!" He's backing up. He's backing up! >> Oh, he's turning. He's moving! >> Thompson works as a regional land program supervisor. >> Oh, my gosh, it's a Swainson's Thrush. >> For the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. This is his beat, the Mississippi River side of the state. >> I got him! >> You got him? >> He knows birds and conservation. And he's traveled the world in his time off putting the two together in a new way. >> We're calling it conservation birding trips. What we do, is provide trips basically at cost. So we're offering bargain basement prices, but the catch is that every birder, every participant that goes on these trips has to donate $500 per person to a non-profit conservation organization. And of course, the primary emphasis of that is to save habitat, to save wintering habitat specifically, for those birds that migrate from Wisconsin down to Latin America. >> Wintering habitat. Home base, really, for these tiny birds for most of the year. >> It's a Philadelphia Vireo. >> And different neotrops need different habitat. Red-eyed Vireos prefer living up in the canopy of the rainforest. It's watery coastal mango forest for the Prothonotary Warbler. Weedy areas at the edges of agricultural fields for the Indigo Bunting. The Eastern Phoebe likes to hang by rivers and streams. Places that are also valuable and vulnerable. >> The clock is ticking. The population of Latin America is expected to increase by 100 million to 360 million over the next 40 years. That's a lot more people in a very finite land mass. They need clothes. They need food. They need shelter. And they're going to want all the things that we have in terms of lifestyle, televisions, washers, dryers, refrigerators. The clock is ticking and we really have a very limited window to try to protect these remaining big blocks of forest, so we can hang onto the birds that breed up in the States and then winter down here. Every acre that's protected makes an enormous difference. >> Fall, by a small pond on the outskirts of Madison. Wisconsin conservationist Charlie Luthin is on the lookout for the last of the small fall migrants, the neotrops, as overhead the big migrants move through. >> They came back from the brink. There were times when the Canada Goose was rare in Wisconsin, but now they're abundant, because of the protective measures. >> Birds are a big concern for Luthin and the non-profit organization he works for. He's the executive director of the Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin. It's a 2,500-member organization with a budget of more than a million dollars, and a singular mission. >> We raise money to give it away, to support good conservation work. >> And birds have been a big part of that. The Whooping Crane. The endangered Kirtland Warbler. Turkey Vultures. But now, for the first time, they're sending money south, to buy land here. >> I saw an opportunity for our Wisconsin organization to get involved in Latin American conservation. I couldn't have been happier. I was thrilled. If we, as Wisconsin citizens, don't protect habitat in Central America and South America, we'll lose the songbirds in our backyard. It's as simple as that. They're really tropical birds. They are more fluent in Spanish than they are in English, because they spend more than half their life in either Central or South America. >> Yes, our birds spend the bulk of the year here. Sharing the landscape with the locals. The Rufous Motmot. The Spectacle Owl. The Scarlet Macaw. The tropical birds who don't travel. But our birds do. Every fall, they pour south. >> Imagine that this funnel represents a map. The top part of the funnel, the wide part, is Canada and the United States. The lower part of the funnel is the isthmus of Central America. >> The grains of sand are south migrating birds. They funnel down, and they're packed in to these wild places. >> So, for every acre of Central America, it's much more valuable than an acre of North America, because it's holding more birds at a higher concentration. >> These migrating birds pour on the miles. That backyard Baltimore Oriole can log up to 3,000, one way. The U.S. first third is probably the easiest part of their incredibly demanding journey. >> Now they actually migrate over the Gulf of Mexico nonstop for 500 miles. That's going to take a Baltimore Oriole probably 18 hours. If it hits a head wind, 24 hours. It's going to land on the Yucatan Peninsula, exhausted, emaciated. It's got to be able to eat right away if it wants to be able to continue its journey another 700, 800, 900 or 1,000 miles south to its wintering grounds, either in Costa Rica or Panama. We have to make sure that they have quality habitat when they actually arrive on their wintering grounds. It doesn't matter how many of them we grow up in Wisconsin if there isn't a place for them to winter down here, we're just growing more birds that are going to come down here, drift around and die. >> And they are. >> The Wood Thrush is going down. Kentucky Warblers are going down. Even our Baltimore Oriole, that species is declining at 1.3% per year. >> How to stop that decline when the habitat here is disappearing. >> We have never sent money to Latin America, despite the fact that more than half of our birds are entirely dependent on the these forests that you see around us. >> We do, however, send money to Canada. We have for years. Wisconsin hunters buy water fowl stamps. Those monies buy habitat north, across the border. >> Upwards of $100,000 to $200,000 a year that has been applied to protecting breeding habitats for water fowl in Canada. That's been going on for the last couple of decades. You know, the hunters understood the notion of conservation very early. If they want to keep hunting ducks, there has to be not only breeding habitat for them, but wintering habitat for them. >> Thompson believes it's time for birders to step up to the plate. >> Everybody on it? >> These folks have. Monies raised by these conservation birders have saved more than 2,000 acres of land south of the border for migratory song birds. >> How's everybody feeling? Everybody all right? >> And in 2009, Thompson helped bring in another partner to purchase land. A big one, the state of Wisconsin. >> I'm very proud to say, for the first time in history, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources has actually donated a substantial amount of funding to help protect the wintering habitat in Latin America for our migratory birds. It's never happened before. Ground breaking in terms of the department's participation. >> The state of Wisconsin donated $20,000 to save wintering habitat here. Note that Wisconsin's donation to save Wisconsin's birds didn't require tax dollars. >> It's not tax dollars that are being used. It was a wonderful donation called the Bell Family Foundation. It's money that's actually been donated to the agency. We made a conscious decision to apply those funds to help purchase the Cerro Osa property. >> The Cerro Osa. >> Two-thirds of this property is primary forest. It's the good stuff. Never been cut. Thousand-year-old trees. >> Here's a look. In the foreground is Cerro Osa, a 1,500-acre property, forested and wild. In the background, past the hills, is the southern tip of Corcovado, Costa Rica's largest national park, 100,000 acres. The goal is to create a corridor of protected land, from Corcovado, including the Cerro Osa property, and extending to the southern tip of the Osa Peninsula. This peninsula, the Osa Peninsula, is a very rare place. >> It is literally one of the most biodiverse places on the planet. It's this big chunk of land that sticks into the Pacific. It's covered with forest. And one of the reasons this peninsula is so significant is not only because it has all kinds of species, many of which are found nowhere else in the world, but because there are still big blocks of forest here, there are hundreds of thousands of acres of forest, essentially in tact. >> It's a mecca for thousands of birds, including our migrants. >> We have 240 species of breeding birds in Wisconsin. Of those, at least 54 species, so 25% of our Wisconsin birds are spending the winter in a very, very tiny piece of real estate, the Osa peninsula of Costa Rica. If we can save a portion of the Osa Peninsula, we'll be able to protect a lot of our Wisconsin birds. >> There are all kinds of species that breed in Wisconsin that depend on these big blocks of forest, Swainson's Thrush, Kentucky Warbler, Wood Thrush, Olive-sided Flycatcher. They're dependent on these forests. If the forests aren't there, what happens from the practical standpoint is they're pushed into secondary habitats, and a lot just don't make it. >> They need a large intact forest. They aren't alone. The forests of the Osa Peninsula are still wild enough, still big enough to support five different species of wild cats. >> They hunt in a huge home range. Sometimes around 100 square kilometers, 400 square kilometers, and sometimes more than 1,000 square kilometers. >> Ricardo Moreno is a Costa Rican researcher who knows his forests. >> It's the garlic tree, the ajo tree. It's one of the biggest around. >> And his felines. >> They will have different sounds, and one of those is like-- ( imitates a roar ) >> And the connections between these so-called large cats, the jaguarundi, the ocelot, the puma, the margay and the jaguar, these wild cats of the Osa, and Wisconsin warblers. >> The connection between the jaguars and the birds of Wisconsin is pretty big. Jaguars are a keystone species and umbrella species. If we can protect the range, the huge home range of the jaguar, we can protect all the animals inside, the birds and the other species can come and be safe. >> Moreno and his research partner, Aida Bustamante, have pioneered a multi-year study of wild cat population dynamics and habitat needs. >> This is one of our best places. We like it a lot. >> To study these secretive creatures, they've set up one of the largest camera trap survey grids in the world. More than 100 square kilometers large, across the Osa Peninsula. >> Hopefully, we get some wild cats. Cross your fingers. Wow, this is a margay. >> Margays can spend their entire lives up here in these trees, just like a bird, and never touch down. >> We can identify the individual with the spot patterns, because every single animal has different spot patterns. >> And like our birds, many of these wild cats are under pressure. >> We know between 2008 and 2009, nine jaguars were killed. And it's a lot. A lot of jaguars killed. >> Moreno explains, one of these conservation concerns in a PowerPoint for Thompson's conservation birding group. >> People still trade the skins here in the Osa Peninsula. That is horrible. Look at this. This is an ocelot fur coat in Italy, in the black market in Italy. How many ocelot that people need to make one fur coat like this? Give me one number. Sixteen? 20? Okay, people need at least 30 ocelots to make one fur coat like this. Most of them have destroyed our cameras, or stole our cameras. If we don't do something really, really hard and really good with the locale people, we have a forest without jaguars. And I cannot imagine something like this. >> The solution was in this forest. They had to get the local people, the local poachers, to see this forest in a different way. So they offered up a business plan. >> If you know where one jaguar is walking around, and you come with us and put the camera, and if the jaguar cross in front of the camera and we get a picture, we pay to you. And all the poachers are like, wow, hmm. Okay, it's easy. You need to talk with your friends, the other poachers around, because if one of your friends stole the camera, or broke, you don't have the money. >> Save the camera. Save money. Save the wild cats, and save our birds. >> Everything in the wildlife and in the forests have a connection. Everything. We cannot see, like jaguars on this side, birds on this side. All that fauna are together. If we can keep the forests like this, I think it's magic. It's going to continue coming back, go to North America, and come to the Neotropics. >> The local people are the key of the conservation around this area. If we don't change the mind of the people here, we don't do anything very, very good. >> Juan Felice Mendoza Suarez is one of the those local people. His family goes back generations in the Osa. Suarez describes his job as farmer. He plants trees for the Costa Rican environmental non-profit, Amigos de Osa. Friends of the Osa has funded a variety of conservation projects, including the initial purchase of land in the Cerro Osa property. The organization was founded in part by this man, Adrian Forsyth, the guy on the right, holding the chunk of bamboo. >> So, anyways, it's an experiment to try. >> Okay. >> And it'll be dirt cheap, which is what we like. We like dirt cheap, right? >> Forsyth is one of the world's top conservationists, a tropical scientist, he's not a birder. He's a dung beetle specialist. >> You know, I'm really a bug person by nature. I think that's because of my extreme myopia. I like to look at little close-up things. I like nothing better than to just sit on a log watching an army ant swarm going by. >> And maybe that explains his start small, think big approach to conservation. On this day, he's showing Kory Kramer, the supervisor of the Cerro Osa, a new process for preserving bamboo, that could grow into a lucrative local business using local and dirt cheap materials. >> If you make guava leaf tea, you get this stuff that looks like Coca-Cola. I made a bunch last night on the stove. >> Forsyth has also come up with a dirt cheap and very innovative research model for restoring damaged forest land on the Cerro Osa. It's funded through contributions from various Wisconsin businesses, including Neenah Paper. >> They are contributing $60,000 over three years to help reforest areas that have lost their original forest cover. The funds go directly into raising seedlings, and providing funds for those people who are planting those trees. >> The funds for this replanting project are routed through the Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin. And the project includes some unexpected co-collaborators. >> I figured when you have to replant a rainforest, you've got to plant 140 different species of trees. >> Not so. >> In fact, if you plant the species that attract the animals, they will recreate a rainforest. They eat the fruits. They eat the nuts. They walk through the woods and they poop. They leave the seeds on the ground. It's as simple as that. Birds fly over head. They drop seeds when they poop. Bats fly in. They may have some seeds attached to their fur. Or something like a parrot, or a fruit-eating bird, may eat the fruit part and drop the seed. So you get your native animals to come in and do the work for you, if you attract them in. It's a brilliant idea. >> They're concentrating on 30 species of trees, with attractive seeds and fruits. Kramer shows Thompson's conservation birding group the tree farm. >> These are all wild nutmeg. They call it fruita dorado here, like golden fruit. It opens up and it has a bright red aril, and that's what toucans, monkeys and other animals eat. They'll grab that seed. You know how toucans eat, right? They flip it up and they swallow it. They eat that and then they regurgitate that seed. They don't stay in one place, obviously. They'll fly somewhere and then they'll spit that seed out. >> So from these select trees, a complete rainforest can emerge. Those who plant those trees, like Suarez, are critical to that effort. >> Now, people are starting to see the forests as a resource that can create jobs for local people that are based on living with the forest rather than being against the forest. >> Given time and helped by this innovative planting project, rainforests will grow to resemble these. But Friends of the Osa is also supporting innovative alternatives to harvesting trees here. >> If you tell farmers they can't go and cut a 500-year-old tree to build a barn, you have to provide some alternative to them. >> This is an alternative. Bamboo. Alfredo Quintero has a doctoral degree in agronomy. He's worked and studied abroad, but made the decision to return to his father's farm, here in the Osa. Quintero has planted species that are non-invasive and can be viewed here in his demonstration garden. >> They grow in a clump and you can manage them, just the way you manage an orange tree. It doesn't take off into the forest and become a pest. But you know, it provides great framing timber for making lightweight, super strong structures. >> Bamboo is strong enough to serve as scaffolding. >> There's a business in providing green, sustainably managed materials. You get usable, terrifically strong bamboo in five years, versus waiting 500 years for a rainforest tree to finally mature. >> Quintero's goal, supported by Friends of the Osa, is to get local farmers to see bamboo as a sustainable, sometimes superior substitute for wood from the forest. This scientist hopes to provide farmers with a new crop, a new source of income that will also save the forest and our birds. Thousands of miles north, in Wisconsin's Vilas County, another researcher, Amber Roth, is searching for ways to save our birds with a different kind of forest. >> This is an aspen clear-cut that is about seven years old. We have a Golden-winged Warbler nest right in front of me. >> Here's the important take away from what Roth just said. It's the tie between this young scrubby aspen forest that grows up after a clear-cut, and this Golden-winged Warbler nest. The nest was abandoned because of predators, but that fact that a Golden-winged nested here says that this type of forest is ideal for this sort of bird. >> He's got a nest that he needs to get back to. >> But Golden-wings are in trouble. Their numbers are in serious decline. The birds face a triple whammy. Their annual migrations are ordeal enough. >> It's thousands of miles, potentially, that they're traveling. It's a long ways on those little wings. >> Once in their wintering grounds, they face ongoing loss of forest land to agriculture, making this an increasingly rare sight. >> A Golden-winged Warbler! >> Golden-winged Warbler. >> Okay, go above the light, and to the right of the light. >> You got him! >> Golden-winged Warbler. >> Wow. >> There he goes. >> While back on their summer breeding grounds, these low shrublands, perfect for hiding a ground-based nest are disappearing. Research is critical. And Wisconsin is a critical place. >> Wisconsin is known as the epicenter for Golden-winged Warbler breeding. >> These guys like young shrublands. >> And Golden-wings aren't the only ones. >> I have a male Chestnut-sided Warbler. >> There are many birds that prefer this kind of place. >> We have got a Black-and-white Warbler. This attracts birds that like a dense shrub layer. This is a Mourning Warbler. Because they have a lot of cover for their nests. Okay, there you go, dear. >> This landscape is valuable for these birds. It may also be increasingly valuable for us. That intersection is the focus of her research. >> We're part of a big cellulosic ethanol project with a variety of researchers who are really interested in what the future potential is for using aspen and grasslands for potential sources for cellulosic ethanol. >> Fill 'er up. With aspen. >> You can make ethanol from any kind of plant material. That's what we're trying to look for, is sort of a win-win scenario between our economic needs and the needs of wildlife. You know, is there a way that we can help our fuel prices, and can we also create better habitat for wildlife at the same time? >> Here. There you go. >> Logging is big business in Wisconsin. And one that has faced rocky times. >> They're very interested in new options, especially with the way prices are in the timber industry. Cellulosic ethanol is a big, emerging industry that has a lot of potential. When contractors come out and cut a site like this, there's a bunch of branches and twigs, and portions of the trees that aren't used. It could be that they use more of the forest when they cut. They lose the potential of using what we call waste wood for cellulosic ethanol. >> Can a new industry take wing? >> This might be a juvenile Nashville Warbler. >> Can we change the way we see this landscape, see this forest as a place that provides fuel for us, jobs for the future, and sustenance for our birds? To see a new way. To work with the forest instead of against it, in the north and in the south, and in the process, protect our birds. Deep in the rainforest of Panama, Raul Arias, a businessman, politician and a leading light in Panama's conservation community, fell in love. >> I don't know why, but I did fell in love with this structure. It was a radar when the Cold War was at its height. The idea was to detect missiles coming from Cuba, or from the Soviet Union, to attack the canal, an early warning type of thing. >> It was an abandoned U.S. radar station overlooking the Panama Canal. >> I knew it could become a great birding lodge. Here, you see canopy birds at eye level. >> Now, it's called Canopy Tower, and it's one of the top birding sites in the world. It helped spark an industry in eco-tourism in Panama. >> There was no precedent in Panama. I had my own doubts if it would work or not. It was a shot in the dark. Fortunately, it hit right in the center. >> It's even sparked a companion business in the highlands of Panama, Canopy Lodge. But most importantly, it's a successful business, creating jobs, working with the forest. >> There are 18 people working here. It's a 100% sustainable activity. >> Canopy Tower birding guide, Jose Rafael Soto. >> So far, it's a good job. You can make a good living out of this. It's a Violaceous Trogan. It's right out in the open, sitting on a dead branch. I have a house. I got married and have a car. So, when I tell people what I do, they don't believe it. Apparently, there's a male and female trying to build a nest in a curled up cecropia leaf. >> It's a job with a future. >> They take their chances when they do this, because the leaf is dead. It will fall any time. >> Other jobs that cut down the forest can come and go. >> With eco-tourism, we can take people, hundreds of times, through the same forest and still be the same. >> The male is right next to her. >> The forest around Canopy Tower and the Panama Canal is now a national park. When the United States controlled the canal, for security reasons, there was no development allowed. It was an inadvertent windfall that saved bird habitat, and is critical for the smooth operation of the canal. >> The forest here has not only aesthetic value for enjoyment and eco-tourism, but also it protects the watershed of the canal. It's vital for Panama's economy, the canal and fresh water. It makes the watershed to be in good condition. If you have a good forest in the winter, the rains come and they just wash into the ocean, into the sea. >> An intact forest can provide the fuel for a canal, and shelter and food for our birds. The fuel for that long journey north. >> It's a day in May, a bleak and blustery day in downtown Milwaukee. >> Whoa! Wind hazard! >> It's early morning, and Scott Diehl is on a search and rescue mission. Search and rescue for small survivors like these. Diehl is the director of Wildlife Rehabilitation for the Wisconsin Humane Society in Milwaukee. >> A lot of glass. I think the bird collision issue has been one that has not had much awareness to date. And when these buildings were built, there wasn't an awareness about the magnitude of this problem. Reasonable estimates place the mortality between 100 million and a billion native birds dying in North America each year in window collisions. >> They hit the glass and they die. It's a phenomenon called window strikes. Hundreds of millions of neotrops perish every year in North America. The problem is particularly acute in Milwaukee, which is dead center in the Lake Michigan Flyway, a bird migration highway, and oh, so different from the rainforests back home. >> What happens down in this urban canyon down here, downtown Milwaukee, is there's so much confusion. There's so much glass, and so many reflective surfaces that the birds really get confused. They land in this area and then it's literally a gauntlet of glass and steel and concrete that they just are not prepared to deal with. >> And all these reflections and light in this gauntlet of glass can cause collisions. >> They hit the building for one of two reasons. Either they see the lights at night when they're migrating and they get confused by the lights. The other reason they collide is daytime collisions, where it's just reflections of the landscape on the glass. >> Or the birds actually see through these windows to greenery beyond, and think they've found a passageway. >> They have no concept of glass. And if you think about the jungle or the forest where these birds live, it's much like flying through the trees, where there are gaps, and so on, and winding their way through the foliage. So when they see in one window and out another, they think they can pass through there, you know, with deadly consequences. >> So, every morning during migration season, Diehl and a team of volunteers fan out across the city. It's search and rescue below big buildings with many windows. It's search and rescue to count the dead and save the injured. WIngs is the name of Diehl's rescue group. Wisconsin Night Guardians for Song Birds. >> We've got a little bird up ahead here. I'm going to go up and see if I can snag the little guy. >> Just outside one of the city's biggest skyscrapers, Diehl finds his first casualty, a bright yellow warbler, lying still against the gray cement. >> It's a Canada Warbler. Ah, poor little guy, or girl, as the case may be. >> Research has shown that one out of every two window strikes leads to a fatality. Often birds that may appear merely stunned have internal injuries that lead to their demise. >> We've got a Nashville Warbler that was found dead down at U.S. Bank, north side of Michigan, between Cass and Van Buren. This bird that weighs ten grams has flown to Costa Rica or Panama to Wisconsin, across so many hazards. They're at once amazing in their capability flying those distances and traversing all those mountain ranges, rivers and oceans, and yet, you know 1/16" thick piece of glass is enough to stop them permanently. Staggering, staggering. And we're talking about dump trucks-full of these beautiful birds, just dying senselessly. And again, most of us aren't even aware of the issue. If something the size of a deer was laying dead outside these businesses each morning, or ten or 20 of them, you can really believe that someone to take notice. >> There you go. There you are. >> Most are in the dark about this problem. The Wisconsin Humane Society is on a mission to change that. >> It's great to be able to treat that bird and hopefully rehabilitate it, get it out again, get it released. But how much better is it to prevent this in the first place? To stop this needless death and suffering for birds. >> Rehabilitation is costly. And wildlife rehabilitators receive no public dollars. They exist on private donations. So the volunteers not only collect birds, they also compile information on the location of the window strikes. The hope is to persuade business owners to take steps to cut down on collisions. >> We want to be able to go back to them and say, here's what we found, and be able to actually document the problem. It gives us a little bit of backup when we approach these folks and ask them to help us save birds. >> Cutting down on collisions needn't be costly. In fact, it can save businesses money. A voluntary program called "Lights Out Toronto" hits the off switch from 11pm to 6am during fall and spring migrations. >> Those businesses saved hundreds of thousands of dollars and reduced their carbon footprint. >> Easy peel window treatments. Put them up during migration, then take them down, on just the first two floors of buildings and homes can cut down enormously on death and injuries from daytime collisions. Dead or alive? >> Alive! Fortunately, alive, which is wonderful. >> The little warbler Diehl found is alive. Diehl bundles the bird into a simple paper bag. It's dark and safe. And the bird won't injure herself if she flutters about and tries to fly. And it's off to the Humane Society. >> Window collisions, we'll look for eye injuries, head injuries, blood coming from the mouth. You can see this eye is a little bit swollen. It looks a little dehydrated, kind of droopy-eyed. It's not open all the way, like this one is. I'm just testing to see how they bounce back into place. If they're broken, they'll droop down and they won't pop back into place like this one's doing. He looks in good condition. I'm not feeling any breaks in the wings. >> After assessment, it's time for a little rehydration and a warbler-sized amount of medicine. >> I'm just going to put it on the seam of the bill. This helps with pain, and swelling, and inflammation. >> The same day as this rescue, Diehl drove to Doctors Park, north of Milwaukee, to band-- >> Okay, bud. Be careful. >> And release four birds brought back to health after window strikes. >> So, just roll him over there, Elizabeth, and let me get a leg. Okay, ready to go. Be careful there, kiddo. Don't you hit any windows. Ah, success. Ha-ha! Wonderful. Oh, I hope they do well. We gave them a second chance, anyway. There's 10,000 windows between here and where some of these guys want to be. So we're hoping that people will get involved and take action on their own homes and businesses to help these little guys make it. >> The migrations of these tiny birds, traveling thousands of miles twice a year, is full of peril. >> Somebody who lived near my mother's house had a Baltimore Oriole in a cage. It was very sad for me to know that this bird traveled for miles and miles, to get down to Panama and get trapped. I told him, you have to let it go, because it needs to go back home. If you want to see him, put a feeder outside your house, and it will come to the feeder. Then you will provide him with food, like you would with people who migrate. You offer them water and food to keep going. Well, do it with the birds, too. >> They need shelter and food, stopover habitat. And 30 miles north of Milwaukee, they're making some. Just outside of Port Washington, people had the vision to put this old golf course to new use. From swing time to sing time. This 116-acre parcel was purchased by the Ozaukee Washington Land Trust. Shawn Graff is the director. >> We purchased the site with the idea that it's number one function here is for the birds. Literally. As a matter of fact, we changed the name from Squires Country Club to Forest Beach Migratory Preserve. This was a real opportunity. This was one of the last remaining 100+ acre sites that was not developed on Lake Michigan. >> This lake is a critical flyway for migrating birds. Birds need this lake and land along it. Kim Grveles, conservation biologist for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, and one of the advisors to the Forest Beach project. >> They migrate at night, and they fly all night. Many flocks will find themselves out over Lake Michigan when dawn hits. They can't put down in the water, so they must find habitat quickly, because they could easily get picked off by a hawk that's also migrating at that time of the year. >> They need protection and they need food. >> When they arrive at a stopover site, oftentimes their energy stores have been depleted and they are voraciously hungry. They're actively foraging and feeding, and moving around in the trees and shrubs, and grabbing what insects they can find. >> Birds touch down and bulk up all along Lake Michigan. Biologists describe the quality of the landing spots this way. >> The fire escape, the convenience store, and the full service hotel. Well, a fire escape is a place that will save the bird's life when it's migrating. It's going to be a very nominal habitat, such as a hedgerow in a box store, or even the railing of a ship on Lake Michigan. It gives the bird a place to put down and rest. >> Next up, the convenience store. Kind of what's here now. >> A convenience store would be the next best thing for a bird. It may not replace all the energy that the bird has spent, but it will give it some replacement. A full-service hotel would be a large landscape with a mosaic of different habitat types. That would give them everything they need to build up their energy stores for a long fight. >> Different species need different habitats. We're hoping to have woods. We're going to have grassland. We'll have savannah. We'll have shrubland, all different types of areas for different species to have their best shot at surviving that journey that they take along the flyway. We're told by some of our experts that this is the first time that they've heard of a preserve that's being developed specifically for migratory stopover habitat. They haven't heard of one in Wisconsin, or anywhere in the country. This is one of those projects where a lot of people thought, you know, you're crazy, buying this golf course and trying to turn it into preserve. They thought I had gone cuckoo. It's really a pleasure and rewarding that we're making it happen. >> Habitat, created. Habitat, found. On the other side of the state, Craig Thompson is birding in his home town of La Crosse. >> It's a little warbler called a Tennessee Warbler. That's it, right there. ( imitates warbler's song ) It's got this accelerating staccato call. That bird just spent the winter, probably in Costa Rica, and is headed to boreal Canada to breed. This is a species that we'll only hear during migration. >> The sharper-eyed among you may have noticed the headstones behind Thompson. Yes, that's right, he's birding in a cemetery. And here's the story. Cemeteries have a role to play in international conservation efforts for migrating birds. This one is called Oak Grove, and it's not way out in the suburbs. Nope, it's nearly downtown. >> We're almost smack in the middle of the city of La Crosse. It's a town of 50,000. It's highly urbanized. It's busy, busy, busy. >> Take a look at the city of La Crosse, and it's easy to see how places like cemeteries can provide a little pocket of green, a kind of avian pit stop for the birds. Oak Grove joins up with the La Crosse marsh on one end, making for 80 acres in the heart of the city. It's inadvertent, but terrific bird habitat. The soundtrack tells the story. >> I hear a ball game going on behind us, or some kind of baseball practice. I can hear car traffic and vehicles over on Lang Drive. At the same time, we're hearing American Redstarts, a Yellow Warbler way off in the distance, a Baltimore Oriole, Chipping Sparrows, and the works. So it's this mishmosh of all kinds of nature and urban environment that come together. >> Okay, they don't mind the city. But what draws them here? Let's go back to that overview of La Crosse. It's a river town, built on the banks of the Mississippi. Think Interstate for migrating birds. >> It's a monstrous river, in fact the largest river in the United States that gets tremendous traffic, both from people and from wildlife, particularly migratory birds. You get millions of birds, literally, that funnel up the Mississippi, especially to the bird that's just migrated up, and they're exhausted and they're really hungry. They drop down and they have to find something to eat. If they drop in a bed of gravel with a couple of mums poking out of it, that's not a good habitat for them. >> This place wasn't landscaped for birds. It was landscaped for aesthetics. What resulted is a pretty, peaceful place that is also, happily, an avian smorgasbord. Which is great, because different birds have different dining demands. >> This is perfect. There are young trees. There are old trees. There are shrubs down near the ground level that the thrushes and the towhees will hop around in. So, you've got birds that are scattered throughout that entire zone, from ground layer up to canopy. They're everywhere. The birds just love it. There's an oriole singing above us right now. As habitats continue to shrink worldwide, these kinds of places are going to provide safe refuge for birds, ultimately, if they're done right. So to have this series of habitats that are linked in some way, along their entire migratory pathway is vital for the conservation of all species that migrate back and forth. >> And every bit of green, of the right kind, can help. Thompson takes us to his backyard. >> This yard is less than two-tenths of an acre, and we've got it crammed wall-to-wall with flowers and flowering shrubs and trees. >> Neighbors see a pretty yard. Migrating neotrops will see an avian diner full of bugs, full of food. >> This is all basically native plants. These are species called Culver's Root, Bergamot, Rigid Stem Goldenrod, New England Aster, and a host of other things that are all planted to benefit bugs. So when this is blossoming, when it's at the peak of phenology blossom-wise, in midsummer, this place is a nectar factory. >> It's a food factory underfoot, too. Check out the lawn. >> What I want to point out here is that this is just filled with weeds. We've got clover, and we've got chickweed, and we've got plantain, and we've got dandelions. I don't make an effort to get rid of any of them. The reason I don't is because monotypic, dense turfgrass is a biological desert. It doesn't provide a lot of habitat for anything. You want to provide plants that bugs feed on. Then those in turn feed bigger bugs. Those in turn feed birds. That's what we're trying to accomplish here. The Siskens and the Goldfinches come in and eat the dandelions. The Chipping Sparrows will eat these dandelion heads. Anybody can plant their yard to make it worthwhile for wildlife. It's really easy. It's fun. It takes a little bit of time to see it come into maturity, but it's incredibly satisfying. And to see the birds respond when they come in, jackpot. Mission accomplished. >> And as if on cue, minutes later, we hit the jackpot. >> I just heard the "chip" back here. It won't be coming into these, we're too close, but, there it is! Here it comes into the humming bird feeder. This is so cool. Here's a bird that just spent the winter in Central America. Somehow, in a miraculous flight, made it all the way across the Gulf of Mexico. This is a bird that weighs less than a dime. It flew non-stop across the Gulf of Mexico and somehow flew all the way up through every conceivable hazard to get to our backyard. Now it's feeding here and nesting here. >> Of course, this is all backyard for the birds. The wintering grounds. The summer nesting territory. And the flyways that stretch between. Saved, created, added to, by the efforts of governments and organizations. But most often, by the push of individuals. >> We need committed, passionate individuals. >> Good morning. >> Hi, nice to see you again. One individual can make so much difference. >> In Panama, monies donated by the birders of Thompson's conservation birding trip paid for three years of operating expenses, including mist nets, and collection bags, and materials to collect data, for a bird banding station run by researcher Chelina Batista and her volunteer crew. >> This is a station, which is monitoring overwinter, station for migratory birds. Because we are interested to know what happened with the bird that came from the USA, and they spend their winter here. >> From deep in the rainforest from Central America... To a park in downtown Milwaukee, Tim Vargo, research director of the Urban Ecology Center, oversees another crew of volunteers. >> The value is tremendous. The work that our volunteers are doing are published in peer review journals. >> 13.5 grams. >> They are doing real science. >> Miles apart, working together. >> If we can save that bird coming from North America, we are saving also, our bird. Or if we save the bird here, we can save the bird there. >> Oh, you pretty thing. Look at you! >> Birds can connect us. >> This is so cool. >> It's just one planet. >> The birds know it. >> Hey, sweet thing, how are ya? If you're happy, I'm happy. Oh, my god! That was so incredible! >> Carijean, you haven't let a bird go in a while, do you want to do this one? >> Volunteer Carijean Buhk. >> You are holding a bird that might have started in Mexico, Panama, or somewhere else, and we're just a tiny part of its life. You realize that you're part of something really big, and yet really small at the same time. >> You can go now. >> There he goes! >> These small travelers. >> It's a Canada Warbler. >> Sky jewels, seldom seen. >> This might be a juvenile Nashville Warbler. >> Reminds us of the sky we share, their song speaks to our connection. >> We have to work as a team. We have to look at this as not just as two separate countries, but one land, one big piece of land for the birds. >> Major funding for "Our Birds" was provided by the people of Alliant Energy, who bring safe, reliable and environmentally friendly energy to keep homes, neighborhoods, and life in Wisconsin running smoothly. Alliant Energy, offering energy saving ideas on the Web. And the Animal Dentistry and Oral Surgery Specialists of Milwaukee, Oshkosh and Minneapolis. A veterinary team working with pet owners and family veterinarians throughout Wisconsin, providing care for oral disease and dental problems of small companion animals. Additional funding is provided by the Paul E. Stry Foundation of La Crosse, Wisconsin, and Friends of Wisconsin Public Television.