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Health & Fitness

Newburg Lands Bird City Title

Newburg joins 29 other communities as a Bird City after meeting 10 of 10 requirements.

Check out these remarks form Carl Schwartz, founder of the Bird City program at our Visit Newburg meeting last week:

I am very pleased to be here today to salute the Village of Newburg as one of nine new Bird City Wisconsin communities that are being recognized this fall for their efforts to make their communities a better place for birds ... and people. These additional communities bring our ranks statewide to 29 as we close out the inaugural year of this innovative conservation undertaking.

The Milwaukee Audubon Society is partnering with eight Wisconsin conservation organizations — including the Wisconsin Bird Conservation Initiative, the Wisconsin Society for Ornithology and close to home here the Riveredge Bird Club — to take a collaborative approach to conservation.  Bird City Wisconsin seeks to mobilize a statewide coalition of citizens and public officials who already know that birds are more than beautiful — they are significant.

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Modeled on the “Tree City USA” program, Bird City has developed 22 criteria across five categories, including habitat creation and protection, community forest management, limiting hazards, public education and recognizing International Migratory Bird Day.  If a community meets at least seven criteria it becomes an official “Bird City.”  Newburg met 10!

We believe that local governments not only can implement sound conservation practices on their own, but they also can educate others to take complementary actions. Bird City Wisconsin offers highly visible public recognition to those communities that succeed in doing so. That's why I am here this afternoon. Not simply to present the signs, flag and plaque that will publicly celebrate your recognition but also to say a public "thank you" to those who worked hard to seek this recognition and to formally recognize and celebrate International Migratory Bird Day.

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Let me single out here Village President Mike Heili, the Village Clerk Bill Cording, and, from the Riveredge Nature Center, Adult Programs Coordinator Mary Holleback, Environmental Educator Jayne Henderson and Executive Director Patrick Boyle.

The Bird City organization also believes that this recognition can make a strong contribution to community pride. It presents the kind of image that most citizens want to have for the place they live, conduct their business or take their vacation. 

Many of our communities have focused portions of their applications on strong partnerships with their residents and neighbors. Last month, I was all the way across the state in the village of Trempealeau, which is about the same size as Newburg, Situated on the Mississippi, it works actively with the staff of the Trempealeau National Wildlife Refuge to promote refuge activities through village Web sites, while steering folks to links from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on bird habitat and the control and removal of invasive species. Newburg's application emphasized its partnership with Riveredge, manifested in a number of ways.

Let me mention a few of them, as well as some of the other ways Newburg met our criteria:

  • Riveredge's annual Christmas Bird Count encompasses the village and its parks and in recent years has ranked among the top five counts in Wisconsin for number of species counted and is usually second only to Madison in having the largest number of observers; about 100.
  • Newburg has recently established two new parks, the Francis Fritz Falkner Park and the Freedom Park.
  • Newburg is working with DNR State Forester Julie Peltier to slow the spread of Emerald Ash Borer, which included removal of ash trees right here in Firemen’s Park. Newburg also has held a workshop on how to handle EAB-infected trees.
  • Riveredge offers numerous opportunities to learn about the control of invasive species, and has information on slowing the spread of EAB on its  website.
  • Riveredge is listed on the Great Wisconsin Birding and Nature Trail.
  • Riveredge sells window alert decals to prevent birds from striking windows. Riveredge is also registered as a bird safe building with the Wisconsin Humane Society.
  • Mary Holleback, Steve Kupcho and John Stathus have provided numerous Flying Wild training sessions to teachers at many of the local schools.
  • Other bird monitoring and conservation activities are sponsored by Riveredge, including an annual Birdathon/Bandathon in mid-May, which coincides with the spring migration and International Migratory Bird Day. The object of this event is to count and/or band as many species of birds as possible on the property during a 24-hour period. A trail of 25 bluebird boxes is also monitored weekly from April to September  to increase the production of bluebirds and other cavity-nesting birds on the property. The Natural Areas Breeding Bird Survey has been done here since the late 1980s to determine breeding bird densities along Riveredge Creek four times during June and July.

Newburg is among our third group of recognized communities, which we publicly announced on Aug. 11.  In each of these groups, Bird City has drawn applications from towns, counties, cities and villages — and from all over our wonderfully diverse state.  And in reaching 29 Bird Cities in our first year, we have topped the goals we set as part of the Together Green Innovation Grant that the Milwaukee Audubon Society received last year  to publicly launch the Bird City project. National Audubon and Toyota launched the TogetherGreen initiative in 2008 to fund conservation projects, support conservation leadership and offer volunteer opportunities that significantly benefit the environment and reach new audiences. More than 160 projects totaling more than $4.7 million have received Innovation grants. Together Green recently announced that it is extending its support to us for a third year, during which we also will receive financial support from the Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin's Bird Protection Fund.

Like Tree City USA, we want to showcase our recognition with entryway street signs, a flag and a plaque.  They help trumpet your current conservation successes while promoting strategies for coordinated, far-reaching, bird-centered conservation activities. Like Tree City USA, our program offers an annual renewal (Sustained Flight) , as well as a higher level of recognition (High Flyer) for additional conservation activities. We hope our relationship with Newburg is sustained for years to come.

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