Dear Lakeshore Nature Preserve e-letter subscriber,

As we plunge into the thick of summer I am escaping from the heat to send this first e-letter from the Preserve. I am delighted to report progress and awards. We thank the stewards and contributors who have helped achieve these milestones.

~ Cathie Bruner, Lakeshore Nature Preserve Field Manager

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Spring 2007 Recognitions!

Important Bird Area Award

Lakeshore Nature Preserve Steward Roma Lenehan recently achieved for the Preserve the designation of Important Bird Area (IBA). The dedication was awarded at the Friends of the Lakeshore Nature Preserve annual meeting. This achievement recognizes how the Preserve even as a relatively small urban natural area supports migrating birds and ecological values with impact far beyond our local community. The Important Bird Area Program identifies sites that provide critical habitat for birds and strives to maintain those sites through voluntary, collaborative approaches. The Wisconsin Important Bird Area program has its own web site:  http://www.wisconsinbirds.org/iba/ .

Preserve website and interactive map win awards

The Lakeshore Nature Preserve website has been awarded "2007 Best Web Site" by PlacesOnLine.org, part of the Association of American Geographers, an international professional organization for geographers. Also, the Lakeshore Nature Preserve interactive map won a first place award for Best Animated Map from the Wisconsin Land Information Association (WLIA). Rob Roth shared this honor with other students and faculty on the Lakeshore Map design team: Mark Harrower (faculty), Joel Przybylowski, Andy Woodruff, and Melanie McCalmont. The interactive map also won a prestigous national award for Best Interactive/Digital Map from the American Congress on Surveying and Mapping (ACSM).

About our students and stewardship !

Gifts to the Preserve have made it possible this year for the first time in the history of this land for students to contribute significantly to the stewardship and restoration of the Preserve.

We have hired more than 25 students to work for a few hours per week to care for the Preserve this season. The dedicated performance of the students is setting the bar high for the Preserve. In addition to controlling invasive plants the students are planning and implementing the restorations of Muir Woods, the Lakeshore Path, Tent Colony Woods, the woods below Parking Lot 34, and preparing the plans for Willow Creek Woods savanna.

Through the efforts of the Students for the Lakeshore Nature Preserve student organization, more graduate and undergraduate peers and classmates come to volunteer and stay to form interests in stewardship of the Preserve, a golden sign for the Preserve's future.

Congratulations students and supporters of the Preserve! The future is in your hands!

Update on field projects

Leading field Projects for 2007 summer and fall are :

• Continued restorations of Muir Woods, the Lakeshore Path, Tent Colony Woods by student teams
• Continued restorations led by community stewards of Bills Woods and Frautschi Point
• Planning the Willow Creek Woods savanna
• Implementation of pervious paving in parking Lot 34 along the Lakeshore Path, a demonstration project resulting from the new infiltration and water quality protection of the UW Madison, accompanied by the student led restoration of the woods below Lot 34 to stop erosion and restore this special wooded west extent of Muir Woods.
• Improvements of habitat along University Houses Gardens

For more information on these and other projects write me, call me!

I look forward to talking with you anytime.

Cathie Bruner

cbruner@fpm.wisc.edu

608-265-9275

Field Manager, Lakeshore Nature Preserve

Have you seen these sightings in the Preserve?

Photo 1, below: Madison Audubon Society intern, sponsored by the Friends of the Lakeshore Nature Preserve, with a "parsnip predator" off to dig sweet clover in the Preserve.

Photo 2: People enjoying a spring day on the Lakeshore Path.

Photo 3: A Volunteer Steward (Glenda Denniston) digging weeds to expand the native plantings of Frautschi Point gully farther into the field. Volunteer led and student assisted efforts to expand the wet prairie and opened woodland has reduced storm water erosion of the woods into Lake Mendota. A red headed woodpecker was seen last season in the opened and enriched habitat !

Photo 4: Individuals clambering in the thickets with bags: This is the 10th year of arduous effort to stem the tide of garlic mustard. In the next Friends of the Lakeshore Nature Preserve Preserve! newsletter, Volunteer Steward Roma Lenehan will summarize many months of Friends volunteer and Friends-sponsored labor and the thousands of plants removed with very little use of herbicide. Below is a student warning off garlic mustard with a sprig in his bandanna.

Photo 5: People filing logs in the Frautschi Point parking lot on sawhorses: DATCP looked for, but fortunately did not find, galleries of the emerald ash borer in detection trees. Picnic goers are asked not to bring into the Preserve any wood from the outside as part of the protocol to prevent the borer.

Photo 6: A Red Tailed Hawk hunting from an Eagle Heights Gardens post, oblivious to gardening families within 2 feet.  Some bird sightings are very accessible to Preserve visitors.

Photo 7: Grounds staff clearing small trees out of the crowns of old oaks in Willow Creek Woods. Removing competition for light is the first step of restoration of this open oak woodland community. Students are preparing a restoration plan. Donations to the Stewardship fund through Friends of the Lakeshore Nature Preserve are making this important project possible.

Photo 8: Wildlife Ecology student monitoring project  (photo by Glenda Denniston)

Photo 9: Fish caught off Frautschi Point (Photo by Glenda Denniston)

Photo 10: Trout Lily in bloom (photo by Glenda Denniston)

Photo 11: Students helping Restoration of Frautschi Point Gully (Photo by Glenda Denniston)