Oconto Marsh is birders’ destination for fall migrations

OCONTO – Sandhill cranes make Oconto a destination for fall birders, while Snowy Owls are a welcome sight during winter mornings and evenings when they’re most active.

Birds migrating south for the winter often take a shoreline path, traveling through Oconto in October and November, said Cathy Carnes, an Oconto resident and retired biologist who worked for U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and now studies birds as an avocation.

“Oconto is kind of a hotspot for birds and also a refuge area, especially during spring and fall migrations. A lot of birds come through here,” Carnes said. “We’ve got a great shoreline.”

While many consider the warm-weather months better for bird-watching, during the fall people often see more visiting birds they might miss during other times of the year.

“The closer we get to the second week in November, the more birds will congregate in wetlands along the journey south,” Carnes said. In October, several hundred red-wing blackbirds were staging in northeast Wisconsin, gathering together to prepare to migrate south, she said.

For Carnes, bird watching provides a reason to get out and enjoy nature.
“It connects you to the natural world. Most people don’t think about the natural world in their daily busy, lives,” Carnes said.

“The birds are all around us. They brighten up our world. They boost our spirit.”
For others, like retiree Gene Birr, protecting native bluebirds by building nesting boxes has provided him with a purpose and a sense of accomplishment year round. “I just got a new supply of lumber and cut it down to the right size,” he said in early October. He’ll be building nest boxes during the winter months, he said.

The City of Oconto aims to attract birders to its parks, marsh and harbor, he said.

Sandhill cranes gather in large numbers along the bay and in the Oconto Marsh, located about one mile northeast of Oconto, Carnes said. She recommended parking along County Road Y or in the marsh parking lot 30 minutes before sunset or sunrise.

“It’s one of the most wonderful places to see sandhill cranes in the fall.”
Carnes wrote in an article last year, “As the evening deepens, the numbers of cranes increase into the hundreds, creating a cacophony of raucous bugling as the swirling flocks drift down into the marsh. With a crimson sunset backdrop, this is a spectacular sight, a phenomenon of nature, right here in our ‘backyard,’” Carnes described.

Spectacular for their size and beauty, sandhill cranes have wingspans of 5 feet to 7 feet, she said, while whooping cranes are even larger. When they’ve landed, sandhill cranes measure between 3 and 4 feet tall.

While most small birds don’t live past two years in nature, cranes can live for 25 years. The cranes stay in Oconto as long as there is food and wetlands aren’t frozen, often into the second week of November, she said.

After that, snowy owls migrating from the Arctic continue to engage birders at the Oconto Harbor from November to January, Carnes said.

“They like to hang out at the harbor.”

The owls come to Oconto looking for wide open territory, she said. “They grew up in the Arctic where there are very few trees and big open landscape like the tundra. They’ll hunt waterfowl at the march and feed on muskrats,” she said.
Snowy owls also can be seen at the Oconto Marsh, where they hunt for waterfowl, she said.

“They’re most active in the morning and early evening. They’re beautiful birds, mostly white,” she said.

Other bird species that can be seen in the winter in Oconto are cardinals, bluejays, house finch, purple finch, some robins, juncos and house sparrows, Carnes said.

Oconto is an ideal location for bird-watching because it offers a diversity of habitats that attracts a variety of birds, Carnes said.

“It’s got Oconto Marsh. It’s got parks with jetties and breakwaters and causeways that provide habitats especially for shore birds,” she said.
“Around here we have the fields that the sandhill cranes love to be in during the day as well as the geese. So the area provides a good diversity of habitats for the birds.”

The Bay of Green Bay is diverse in its own right, offering shallow wetlands, forested edges, deeper water and marshy edges, she said.

Wisconsin is home to about 225 birds that stay in the state year round, she said, while others are migratory, here in the spring and summer before heading south in the fall.

As the host city for the Wisconsin Purple Martin Festival this past June, the City of Oconto has become a destination for birders, Birr said.

Colony nest sites for purple martins at the Oconto Docks and City Park produce 200 to 300 purple martins each year, by protecting the martins’ habitat from invasive birds, such as starlings, Birr said. While the purple martins might appear black in color from a distance, their purple color shines in the right light, he said.

Individual birders in Oconto have established purple martin trails with nest boxes they monitor, Birr said, while public nest sites at City Park on the bay include a rack of about 18 apartments. City Docks on the river also has two housings for the birds, with each one containing apartment multiples, Carnes said.

The housings encourage birds to make Oconto their home, while banded birds provide information for researchers, such as how they breed and their wintering habitat, Carnes.

“People who see the dead bird look at the band and call the phone number, which goes to the U.S. Geological Survey’s Bird Banding Laboratory,” she said.
Carnes said she has called in bird band information and requested a report on the banded bird.

“They told me the age of the bird and where it was banded. I learned my merlin was banded in Superior two years ago and was an adult female,” she said.
“That’s the way we all learn through research how far these banded birds travel. It’s all good information.”

As a member of Pond Road Birders, which meets twice a week for 90-minute bird walks from May to October and for occasional walks during the winter, Carnes said she has observed more varieties of birds than she would have on her own.

“I’m always amazed at how many species of birds we see, 30 to 60 species in an hour and a half, from songbirds to raptors to shore birds to duck species,” she said.

A group recorder takes notes on the bird species that were observed and their numbers, such as four eagles, she said.

With so many birds to see, Carnes said, the learning is continuous.

“I’m still learning my warblers,” she said. “Good birders can point out the different warblers,” she said, among a large category of songbirds, including bobolinks, goldfinches, cardinals and robins.

“All those are birds that wake us up in the morning,” she said.