Wisconsin Life

In the backwoods of central Wisconsin, Britt Searles is in her environment. When I'm outside with wildlife, that's a good day. When the brake lights appear, you also know it's a good day. Because Britt is on to something, like a porcupine high in the tree. He looks like he's sort of wrapped around the branch. I'm a teacher by training. I was working at a school that was very environmentally focused. I've always had an interest in wildlife. I went from middle school kids to wildlife, which was not a big jump. Now as a Department of Natural Resources educator, her classroom encompasses more than 9,000 acres at the Sandhill Wildlife Area near Babcock. It was started in the '30s as a game farm by a man named Wallace Grange. And he was a conservationist. He was really interested in wildlife management, which was kind of a new thing. He did that until 1962 when he sold it to the state. When he sold it, he wanted the State to maintain it as an education and research facility. This is a State Wildlife Area. And it belongs to the State of Wisconsin, which means it belongs to you. So this is your wildlife area. And that's always sort of stuck with me, that education and research is really something that we all can have a part of. On this day, Britt will witness an ancient migration that is repeated year after year. And there's no other crane experience like it in Wisconsin. When Wallace Grange was here in the '30s or '40s or so, he was fascinated with Sandhill cranes. And there were less than 30 Sandhill cranes in the state of Wisconsin. Less than 30 in the entire state. The Sandhill cranes had been hunted to near extinction. People were just hunting them, along with all sorts of other critters, to the point of really harming the breeding populations. And that makes what's about to happen even more amazing.

Britt

We'll see thousands of cranes tonight. So a huge difference between the populations then and now. And it's right in our backyard. I think a lot of people don't realize that we have a staging area right here with these huge numbers of birds coming in. During the migration season, bird watchers hunker down in the tall grass and prepare to wait as they search the autumn sky. Patience is really,

laughs

Britt

really the big part of it. Just sit still. And sit still a little bit longer and a little bit longer. They'll start arriving in maybe even late September. The later into October and early November, it'll start to be really big numbers. This is pretty typical. I think probably over 3,000 cranes are coming in. They're coming into Sandhill into the Gallagher Marsh because it's a staging area. This marsh area was formed by a glacial lake-- an expansive region that is now flat marsh and woodlands covering parts of seven counties. And they're all flying from wherever they've spent the summer to these little pockets of marshes, like the Gallagher Marsh. It's close to ag fields where they can feed for the day. They'll head down to Jasper-Pulaski, which is a federal area in Indiana. And that's a main staging area. So after that, they'll head to Florida. The comeback of the Sandhill crane is an environmental success story. It's just an amazing sight. It's nothing that I knew happened here. I didn't realize that you could see something so amazing right here in central Wisconsin.