Rain doesn't dampen enthusiasm at Monarch Trail event on County Grounds

The Monarch Trail is an 11-acre protected butterfly habitat that circles around the Echelon Apartments on the Innovation Campus of the Milwaukee County Grounds in Wauwatosa. It is currently awash in a magnificent spread of brown-eyed Susans.

The Friends of the Monarch Trail held their annual migration season kickoff celebration yesterday. Despite periods of light rain a good crowd enjoyed displays about monarch and other butterflies, the remarkable story of the 3000 mile migration, and the significance of the County Grounds as a roosting site. For the first time the event was held in the courtyard of the Echelon Apartment complex, in front of the recently renovated Eschweiler-designed historic Administration building. In a sign of the growing popularity of the event the Milwaukee County Parks Department provided a traveling beer tent and Cousins dispatched a food truck.

Ceole Cairde, the Irish ensemble, were on hand to provide musical accompaniment, as usual. A new feature this year was the McDonald family troupe of fife, drum and Irish dancers (above).

As if on cue, in the midst of all the merriment wild monarch butterflies quietly began to flutter into the courtyard and roost on the tree closest to the action (below). This bit of serendipity caused a sensation. Barb Agnew, the director of the Friends of the Monarch Trail considers it the precursor to what is likely to be an excellent season for butterfly watching. For updates on trail activities go to the Friends of the Monarch Trail website.

To see more photos of the Milwaukee County Grounds and Monarch Trail go to my Flickr album.

Monarch migration celebration on Milwaukee County Grounds

Monarch waiting to be released to the wild (click to enlarge)

The Friends of the Monarch Trail held their annual celebration to mark the start of the monarch butterfly migration season on Sunday, August 28. The Monarch Trail is located at the north end of Innovation Park. It circles around the perimeter of the now-complete Echelon Apartment complex. A large crowd of monarch admirers gathered to bid safe travels to the butterflies as they begin their annual 2,500 mile journey to Mexico.

The tour begins

Festivities included food, face painting, live music by Ceol Cairde “Music of Friends”, and butterfly life-cycle displays. The main event was a tour guided of the trail by Friends director Barb Agnew. She explained the significance of the County Grounds as a roosting site and stopover for monarchs and described restoration efforts undertaken by the Friends.

 

Mke Regional Medical Center backdrop to Monarch Trail

Restoration includes many new seedlings

Trail includes interpretive signage

Director Agnew leading tour

Milwaukee skyline visible from the trail

The oak grove

Echelon Apartments backdrop the trail

Monarch caterpillars on milkweed

New plantings along the west berm section of the trail

Stiff goldenrod in full bloom

Monarch chrysalis display

To see more photos of the County Grounds go to my Flickr album.
 
For more information about the Friends of the Monarch Trail visit www.theMonarchTrail.org

World fish migration day at Riveredge Nature Center

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Did you know there was a World Fish Migration Day? I didn’t. But Riveredge Nature Center in Ozaukee County was honoring it and I found out when I got a Facebook invitation to attend. So I went. It was on Saturday and the weather—finally—was splendid and warm enough to feel like summer had arrived. Reason enough to go for a walk in the woods along the Milwaukee River!

According to the official World Fish Migration Day website, the one-day “global-local” event is intended “to create awareness of the importance of open rivers and migratory fish.” Although I don’t really need a reminder that open rivers are healthy rivers and fish need to migrate freely, I was curious about the event.

I arrived at the river just as a team of fish specialists from the Ozaukee Fish Passage Program, which co-sponsored the day, was wrapping up a fishing expedition. Clad in hip waders, they used electroshocking to stun the fish and scooped them up with nets. Then they brought the catch back to a floating dock where visitors including several families were waiting to see what they had.

The fish were dumped into a tank on the shore where children could press their faces up against the glass and get a good look. Some of the kids eagerly reached in and held up a wriggling specimen. Most of the fish were no more than a few inches long. The prize of the day, however, was the approximately 18-inch smallmouth bass (top). I asked if that was an unusual size and was told that the record at Riveredge was 20 inches, so yes indeed, it was a good find.

In the tank along with the fish there were a couple of healthy, native crayfish. This was a good sign as the invasive rusty crayfish has been aggressively competing with the natives in Milwaukee’s rivers.

Later I went for a walk in the woods where I found a wealth of spring wildflowers and, of course, collected some photographs. 

Phlox

Trillium

Tangles of roots, dead trees and branches in the river provide good habitat for migrating fish, as the crowd was told by the fish specialists.

A particularly lovely fungus specimen on a stump

 The may apples, which were budding but mostly not quite ready to flower, were the most spectacular ground cover species I noticed. Here they carpet a hilltop.

May apple, worm's eye view

I only saw this one tent caterpillar colony, however it doesn't take but one to give me the willies. The devastation the caterpillars can cause to a woodlot is one of my earliest childhood memories relating to the balance of nature.

The forest was full of trees bearing bright red-orange markings. I enquired about them. Some years ago a team from U.W. Stevens Point had done a tree study in order to improve forest management techniques. The types of marks indicate a variety of tree species and conditions.

The original owner of the land that is now Riveredge Nature Center had developed a modest version of a Dells-like resort, I was told. Crumbling and overgrown foundations are all that remain of the endeavor.

false rue anemone, vole's-eye view

Butterflies return to County Grounds - etched in concrete

If you live anywhere near the intersection of I-94 and I-894/Hwy 45 you probably received the latest edition of the Zoo Interchange Newsletter, as did I. It is full of maps and handy information about the progress of this massive--and massively disruptive--construction project. In addition the practical information about which ramps and roads are currently closed or under construction, you can learn about carpooling options and how much recycling the WisDOT is doing.

Did you know, for example, that the DOT "anticipates recycling the equivalent of 4,000 dump trucks full of concrete" in 2015? (What you won't learn from the newsletter is the good news that, as of yet at least, the concrete crushing that precedes all this recycling is not being done in the middle of the County Grounds.)

But what caught my eye right away was the small photograph in the lower right corner of the front page of the newsletter. It depicts "the butterfly wall" that recently has been completed under the Swan Boulevard bridge crossing Hwy 45. The concrete wall has been deeply etched with flowers and butterflies. It will be visible to motorists on Hwy 45 as they flash by. And also to anyone who uses the yet-to-be-completed underpass trail that will connect the new trail system in Innovation Park with the existing one in Wil-O-Way Woods on the north side of Swan.

The caption under the photo reads, "The 2013 Swan Boulevard project includes the construction of 'the butterfly wall' along US 45. The wall celebrates the migratory path of monarch butterflies."

Other recently rebuilt bridges sport similar designs. The airport spur has airplanes etched into the bridge abutments. The most interesting one, I think, is the I-43 bridge over Fon du Lac Avenue. In raised relief it commemorates the underground railroad and the struggle for civil rights.

I think it's great that the DOT is decorating the highways. They could go further, it seems to me. There are all those sound barriers being erected along the freeways to protect adjacent neighborhoods from the incessant noise. Why not liven them up with graphic designs?

But instead of cheering me up the butterfly wall saddens me. Last fall the migration that the wall celebrates was disappointing. It may have been temporary. It certainly was part of a larger problem that extended throughout the historic monarch migration routes and was most noticeable in the wintering grounds of Michoacan, Mexico.

Loss of habitat is the most often cited reason for the decline, as is the case with so many other animal species. At the County Grounds an 11-acre segment of the Innovation Park campus has been set aside as protected monarch habitat. With proper and persistent care and maintenance, perhaps it will enable the butterflies to return in future years. That is the hope.

For now we have concrete freeway walls etched with commemorative butterflies. I had to go see them for myself. With construction suspended for Easter Sunday I was able to do so. Here is what I saw.

The small sign in the center, erected by the Friends of the Monarch Trail, reads, "Butterfly habitat restoration project."

There is a second "butterfly wall" under construction along the unfinished cloverleaf ramp for the new Watertown Plank Road interchange.

A small wetland habitat next to the Eschweiler complex is staked with protective flags.

The boarded engineering building, part of the Eschweiler complex, awaits its fate: restoration if all goes well; demolition if not.

ABB is the first business to be located in the Innovation Park campus. The building is expected to open sometime this spring.

Monarch Trail at Milwaukee County Grounds featured on TV

Followers of Urban Wilderness know that the Milwaukee County Grounds in Wauwatosa is among my favorite places. I try to keep abreast of ongoing developments. One of the most significant among many remarkable features of that diverse urban landscape is the Monarch butterfly migration. Historically, migrating Monarchs have roosted there in great numbers. It is one of the few known roosting sites in the region. The planners and developers of Innovation Park, UWM's research accelerator and business campus, have honored the phenomenon by setting aside an 11-acre portion of their development zone as butterfly habitat. And there is a dedicated group of volunteers who maintain the Monarch Trail for the ever increasing throngs of people who have discovered how beautiful it is.

Of course none of this is happening in February, so you may be wondering why I bring it up.

Last August, when it was happening, MPTV sent a camera crew to cover the story and interview some of the principle people involved. These include the indefatigable leader of the Friends of the Monarch Trail, Barb Agnew, and Sue Borkin, a biologist with the Milwaukee Public Museum. The video they created has just been released. You can see it on Adelante!

The video explains the unique character of the Monarch migration, the significance of the County Grounds as a stopover on that migration, and threats to the Monarch population and the continuation of the migration. These threats include the loss of critical species like milkweed (below), which is the Monarch caterpillar's only source of nutrients. The video also shows the Friends of the Monarch Trail leading the effort to involve more people in preservation and enjoyment of the site (above).

Although Adelante! is a Spanish language program, don't be deterred by the introduction, which is in Spanish with English subtitles. The people who are interviewed during the segment all speak in English. The Monarch segment is at the beginning of the program and lasts about ten minutes.

Check it out: Monarch Migration.