The Friends of Cherokee Marsh's 2019 annual member meeting will feature a special presentation, Wisconsin wildlife rehabilitation: caring for sick and injured animals, with Jackie Sandberg, Wildlife Rehabilitation Training Coordinator at the Dane County Humane Society’s (DCHS) Wildlife Center. Staff and volunteers at the center help over 4,000 sick, injured, and orphaned wild animals every year.

The end of the year is approaching, and that means it's time to renew your membership. Your member dues help fund our activities to protect, preserve, and restore Cherokee Marsh, Dane County’s largest wetland. 

 

 

All memberships expire on December 31. If you joined the Friends after June 30, 2018, your membership is paid through December 31, 2019. For everyone else, it’s time to renew. If you’re not sure when you joined, contact us at janaxelson@gmail.com or (608) 215-0426.

 

As a member, you’ll receive our newsletter six times a year, and you’ll know that you’re helping to protect and preserve a healthy Cherokee Marsh.

 

 

Visit our website to find a member form to mail or to pay online. With either method, you can join or renew your membership and make additional contributions.

 

 

When you renew, please also consider including a donation to the Cherokee Marsh Conservation Fund. The fund pays a yearly dividend to support conservation at Cherokee Marsh. The dividends grow as the fund grows, providing a permanent source of funding for the marsh.

 

 

We also ask you to consider donating to bring local schoolchildren to Cherokee Marsh for hands-on environmental education. Hands-on learning at Cherokee Marsh introduces kids to wetlands and their importance. The Madison Metropolitan Area School District, in cooperation with Madison School and Community Recreation (MSCR), provides trained naturalist guides, but the classes are responsible for transportation, and many classes struggle to find money to charter a bus. A donation of $45 buys transportation for 20 kids.

 

 

If you know someone who loves Cherokee Marsh, consider giving them a gift membership to the Friends this holiday season or as a birthday gift.

Jan Axelson

As we look forward to continuing our activities in our twelfth(!) year of stewardship at Cherokee Marsh, here is look back at 2018.

 

To make more room for native grasses and flowers, we removed invasive cattails from a wetland behind the Bonner Rd pond at South Cherokee.

We continued our efforts to remove garlic mustard in Cherokee Marsh Conservation Park and removed invasives and collected prairie seeds with County Parks and Operation Fresh Start at Yahara Heights Park. 

At the request of Madison Parks, as part of their efforts to preserve and promote snags (dead, standing trees) as habitat, our volunteers surveyed the snags in the woods behind Lu's Pond in North Cherokee.

Volunteers from the Friends and Dane County helped County staff conduct a prescribed burn of 95 acres of prairie, woods, and wetland at Yahara Heights Park, the largest burn the park has seen in memory.

In partnership with the Department of Natural Resources, we girdled aspen trees and removed brush in the Cherokee Marsh State Natural Area. Although the weather and other time commitments and challenges kept us from our phragmites removal work this year, in 2019, we are committed to continue maintaining the area we have restored.

The Cherokee Marsh Conservation Fund, started by us in 2013 and managed by the Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin, continues to grow and provides a permanent source of funding for conservation of the marsh. In 2018, the fund provided $1,264 to support the work of the DNR's conservation crew in the Cherokee Marsh State Natural Area.

We celebrated the arrival of three purple martin nests in the martin “condo” donated by member Mike Rewey, installed on Burning Wood Way, and maintained by member Ellen Barnard. 

We continued to watch for chimney swifts at the tower on the corner of Wheeler Rd and Comanche Way. Though we haven’t yet seen evidence that swifts are using the tower, we’ve spotted swifts flying overhead and are hopeful they will soon make use of the tower. The tower-top's camera captured an owl using the tower as a perch.

 

2018 was a banner year for land preservation at Cherokee Marsh. We supported the City of Madison’s purchase of 31 acres to be added to Cherokee Marsh Conservation Park. The land is north of Wheeler Rd between N. Sherman Ave and HWY CV, adjacent to over 200 acres of City-owned wetland. We supported the protection over 100 acres in two parcels that will be acquired by Groundswell Conservancy and an additional  90 acres protected by a conservation easement. These parcels provide a valuable connection between existing parcels of publicly owned land between the upper Yahara River and Bong Rd and south of HWY 19.

To answer the frequently asked question, “How big is Cherokee Marsh?”, volunteer Doug Norgord measured Cherokee Marsh as 3595 wetland acres including 2335 acres at Cherokee Marsh and the upper Yahara, 915 acres along Token Creek, and 345 acres on the northeast tip of Lake Mendota. Doug also created two great maps.
 

We donated $842 in targeted donations from Friends members and the Benvenutos fundraiser to bring schoolchildren to the marsh for hands-on, outdoor environmental education.

We joined Dane County’s efforts in advocating to keep leaves and grass clippings out of the street.

We talked to folks and shared stories while tabling at the Northside Farmers Market, and we kept you informed with our newsletter, Facebook page, website, emails, and Northside News stories.

 

Now in their fifth year, our monthly, guided Bird and Nature outings continue to draw folks from around the city and beyond.

We helped sponsor the annual Bird & Nature Festival at Warner Park, this year with a popular Bats LIVE! presentation.

Other tours we co-sponsored and promoted included two warbler walks, a woodcock walk, butterfly walk, Hayrides and Hikes, and walks led by City Parks staff. Our partners included Madison Audubon Society, Madison Parks, Dane County Parks, and the Southern Wisconsin Butterfly Association. With the Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin, we sponsored three fundraiser tours for the Cherokee Marsh Conservation Fund. Weather permitting, our candlelight walk will be back in 2019.

At our 2018 member meeting, we sponsored a presentation about “herps” – snakes, lizards, frogs, toads, turtles, and more.
 

We celebrated the digging of a new well and the return of year-round, full restrooms at North Cherokee.

Thanks to a targeted donation from a member, our volunteers enjoyed good food and conversation at a picnic held at a member’s property just north of the marsh.

 

With your support and participation, we can continue to expand our activities to promote land and water protection, restoration, education, and enjoyment of Cherokee Marsh. If you have ideas for activities or would like to help, we want to hear from you. Call (608) 215-0426, write (janaxelson@gmail.com), or attend one of our monthly meetings.

I developed a love of nature thanks to my parents who shared their love of plants and birds with me. We took family vacations to see Yellowstone National Park, Grand Tetons, Devil’s Tower and other remarkable places that sparked my interest in conservation. As a teenager my first conservation action was salvaging native prairie plants from a nearby stone quarry, and transplanting them in our yard. A conversation between my parents and Wayne Pauly at the Dane County Fair led me to volunteering at the Madison Audubon’s Goose Pond Sanctuary near Arlington. This eventually led to me becoming the first college student intern at Goose Pond Sanctuary.

 

I received a Horticulture degree with an emphasis on natural resources from the UW and started work for the City of Madison as a season conservation ranger in 1980. From 1991- 2016, I was privileged to lead Madison’s conservation parks as the Conservation Resource Supervisor. Cherokee Marsh has always been one of my favorite parks as it offered the opportunity to restore native plant and animal communities on a large landscape scale like no other place in Madison. I have led efforts to save the peat wetlands along the Upper Yahara River for the past 15 years. More recently we’ve worked on restoring a large oak savanna / prairie complex and our efforts were rewarded when red-headed woodpeckers nested there for the first time in decades.

 

In January 2016, I retired from the City of Madison Park Division after 34 years of service. Serving on the Board of Directors of the Friends of Cherokee Marsh has allowed me to stay involved in protecting this very special resource.

 

Warner Park Community Recreation Center, 1625 Northport Dr (map)

Learn about Wisconsin wildlife rehabilitation, learn about recent and upcoming activities, elect directors for 2019 – 2020, and enjoy refreshments and mingling with other Friends members. See above in this newsletter for more details.
 

 

Cherokee Marsh Conservation Park, North Unit, 6098 N. Sherman Ave. (map)

Tour the marsh by candlelight, then warm up with free hot cocoa by the fire. Three lighted loops, arrive anytime, walk at your own pace. Bring your own snowshoes or wear appropriate winter footwear. This event will take place with or without snow cover but may be canceled if conditions are icy or otherwise unsafe. Check our website calendar for cancellation information.