Author: Winneshiek County Conservation Board

The Winneshiek County Conservation Board is happy to introduce two new full-time employees to the team.

Evan Neubauer joins the team as the new Waste Reduction and Recycling Educator, replacing Birgitta Meade who recently retired. He will be responsible for creating programming and collaborating with schools and other organizations to promote waste reduction, recycling, and sustainable behaviors.  

Neubauer graduated from Decorah High School and Luther College with a B.A. in Environmental Science. His time at Luther sparked his interest in sustainability.

For several years, he worked as an environmental specialist for West Liberty Foods in the Iowa City area, ensuring that the company remained landfill free. Evan is thrilled to be back in Winneshiek County with his family. Evan says, “Recycling has always been a huge passion of mine. I’m looking forward to programming with community members and encouraging individuals to reduce, reuse, and recycle!”

Hanna Schmitt joins the team as the new Education and Outreach Coordinator, where she will be responsible for planning environmental education programs and outdoor recreation opportunities for local organizations and schools.

Schmitt graduated from South Winneshiek High School and Wartburg College with a B.A. in Biology and Secondary Education with an All Science Endorsement. Her interest in environmental education has grown over the past three summers as she interned with Winneshiek County Conservation.

Hanna is looking forward to giving back to her community in this full-time role. She says, “I am most excited to collaborate with local organizations to promote the enjoyment of our natural spaces and appreciation for the natural world in Winneshiek County.”

Neubauer and Schmitt already have several upcoming programs this summer that you are welcome to attend. Meet them and check out their booths under the grandstand at the Winneshiek County Fair from July 12-16. Visit www.winneshiekwild.com/ and https://www.winneshiekwaste.com/ for more information and to explore program opportunities.

Parts of the Trout Run Trail will be closed to the public as repairs are made. The Iowa DNR’s Decorah Fisheries Management Unit will begin their Trout Run Creek FEMA repairs from Highway 9 to the Chuck Gipp Decorah Fish Hatchery. The work is scheduled to begin Tuesday, May 31^st and take 2-3 weeks to be completed (weather permitting).

 

The construction work will require the closure of the Trout Run Trail from Highway 9 to the Chuck Gipp Decorah Fish Hatchery, Monday through Friday from 7:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. Each evening, the trail will reopen with reduced access due to two rocked truck crossings.

 

The Prairie Farmer Recreation Trail is open and clear for use.

 

Please direct questions to the Decorah Fish Hatchery at (563) 382-8324.

Winneshiek County Conservation Receives $30,000 for Dry Run Bridge

Winneshiek County Conservation has been awarded a grant from the Arlin Falck Foundation in support of the on-going development of the Dry Run Trail.

The $30,000 grant will be used toward the construction of a walking and biking bridge over Dry Run Creek along the Dry Run Trail route. The bridge will be located less than a half-mile west of the Highway 52 and Highway 9 intersection and is the second construction project of the Dry Run Trail, following the completion of the box culvert under Highway 52.

The completed bridge will form an integral part of the Dry Run Trail, which will eventually connect Decorah’s Trout Run Trail with the Prairie Farmer Recreational Trail that runs from Calmar to Cresco.

Once completed, the bridge will open access to further trail-building that will connect users to the Dry Run Greenbelt, more than 100 acres of public land that include hardwood forests, oak savannas, and prairie remnants that harbor at least 284 species of plants and animals, as well as hidden springs and limestone outcroppings.

Development and planning for the overall Dry Run Trail continues as Winneshiek County Conservation acquires right-of-way easements and applies for and secures additional grant funding for the numerous culverts and bridges needed for the first phases of the Dry Run Trail. Construction of the bridge should begin in the Spring of 2022.

The Arlin Falck Foundation awards grants for community development, community promotions, community education, and similar matters that will benefit persons residing in Iowa’s Winneshiek and Allamakee counties and Minnesota’s Fillmore and Houston counties.

Contributions to the Dry Run Trail project can be made in one of several tax-deductible ways. Checks can be sent to the Winneshiek Conservation Foundation, a 501(c)3 organization, at PO Box 265, Calmar, Iowa 52132. Online contributions can be made through a fund established at the Community Foundation of Northeast Iowa. More information is available here or by calling (563) 534-7145.

Winter Bird Feeding and Watching

I have a confession to make. For years, even during my time as an educator with Winneshiek County Conservation, I was a birdfeeding skeptic.

I inwardly guffawed, raised my eyebrows, and even shook my head at the many (many) people in my life who fed birds in their backyards. I couldn’t believe their devotion—the time! the energy! the money!—to their backyard feeders.

Well, I have to eat a little crow here because, I too, am now an avid backyard bird feeder. It all started as something to keep us entertained and distracted during the weird and unnerving spring of 2020. We threw up a tube feeder and some suet and watched in amazement at the swirl of goldfinches, woodpeckers, and cardinals that flocked in. It was just what we needed: ever-changing entertainment, easy chores, and a way to feel some connection to nature when it is not all that nice outside.

So, we added another feeder, and then another. Then we figured out a makeshift birdbath. And soon enough, I was looking for somewhere to hook a third hummingbird feeder and was officially a fully-fledged backyard bird feeder.

Watching and maintaining our feeders is something we do year-round, but the intensity with which we do so—and the intensity of the birds’ use of the feeders—drops off over the summer.

With autumn winding down and winter truly just around the corner, feeder visits will ramp back up as birds begin looking for the sources of food that will sustain them over the winter. They’re making their rounds, charting out where and how they can find some easy meals.

So now is a great time of year to start with backyard bird feeding. The tips and tricks below come from a bit of my own experience, but also from the years of experience and knowledge of some of the birding experts in our local area, including Winneshiek County Conservation Naturalist Larry Reis and ornithologist Paul Skrade.

Download our winter birdfeeding guide outlining the preferred feeder and food types for different species, and our Birding page offers many additional resources.

And, welcome to the club.

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Types of Feeders and Food

Birdfeeders come in enough designs, shapes, and colors to satisfy any style and preference, but they can generally be categorized into several types, including platform, tube, hopper, ground, and suet, designed to hold and dispense different foods in different ways.

Different birds use different types of feeders depending on the bird’s feeding style, food preferences, and body shape. Cardinals, for example, don’t do well on small tube feeders because they need long perches to grasp.

Generally, using different feeders with different food types will bring in the most and widest variety of birds. Start with a tube, platform, or hopper feeder that can hold a wide variety of foods, then consider adding feeders built for specific types of food. And keep in mind that birds really don’t care what the feeder looks like. A flat board on a stump makes a perfectly suitable platform feeder.

If you thought there would be lots of decisions to make about the type of feeder to use, wait until you dig into what you put in that feeder. Birds are like people in that they all have their favorite foods. What you fill your feeders with will have a dramatic effect on who visits them.

If you want to keep things simple, you can’t go wrong with black oil sunflower seed in the shell; it’s a great, economical choice for attracting a very wide variety of birds and works in many different feeder types. Adding a bit of shelled sunflower seeds to the mix will make it even more enticing, but slightly more expensive.

After that, you can work on attracting different types of birds with different types of food. Want woodpeckers? Add a suet feeder. Itching to see nuthatches? They like peanuts. Goldfinches? Better try a Nyjer thistle tube feeder. If you really want to up the birdfeeder ante, set up a heated birdbath.

Birdseed mixes that contain cracked corn, white millet, and safflower are a good choice for platform or tray feeders. The pickier birds will messily sort through the mix, thrashing extras down to ground-feeding birds like dark-eyed juncos and mourning doves. Avoid mixes that have lots of red millet, golden millet, or flax, which our birds just don’t like and will leave behind as waste seed that could lead to fungus or bacteria growth.

 

Location, Location, Location

Where you place your birdfeeders is nearly as important as what you put in them, both for your own enjoyment and for the health and safety of the birds.

Avoid placing feeders where they will increase the chance that birds will hit your windows. Aim to site them more than thirty feet away from your windows, or within about three feet.

Squirrels, raccoons, mice, and other unwanted critters might also be attracted to the food in your feeders, but they don’t have the advantage of flight. Make it harder for them by hanging your feeders from shepherds’ hooks and well away from trees, fences, or overhanging branches that could give them a way to jump onto the feeder.

Birds also need places to hide, rest, and get out of the wind when they are not actively feeding. Planting native shrubs and grasses can provide year-round cover and food for birds, but dense brush piles (or spent Christmas trees, like in my household) can offer great cover in the winter too.

However, cats and other predators can also use cover to sneak up on unsuspecting birds, so keep about five feet of open space between the birdfeeder and the cover.

 

What to Watch For

Once you’ve got feeder type, food, and location sorted out, the fun of watching begins! Some of our year-round birds in northeast Iowa—including cardinals, blue jays, black-capped chickadees, goldfinches, and various woodpeckers—are all common feeder birds. Dark-eyed juncos are a regular “winter bird” that comes south to Iowa from farther north, and on good years we’ll also see increased numbers of purple finches, house finches, and pine siskins in the winter.

There can also be more unusual winter birds that pop up, especially if food supplies up north are low, and our staff keeps tabs on some of the exciting winter bird sightings across the region. If unusual ones show up, we’ll post ideas and tips for spotting them yourself on the Winneshiek County Conservation Facebook page.

 

Photo Captions

Photo Credit: Larry Reis, Winneshiek County Conservation

Above: Suet is the best way to attract woodpeckers, like this male downy woodpecker.

Below: Dark-eyed juncos are a winter visitor to northeast Iowa and are perfectly content gathering seed right off the ground.