Report courtesy Topf Wells.
Our field trip and conservation mission at Neperud was a blast and productive, thanks to 22 wonderful 4th graders from Lincoln Elementary School, three of their teachers, Carolyn Byers, Education Coordinator for Madison Audubon, Dan Oele with his two wonderful techs, and a very nice and patient bus driver, whose name I did not catch.

The day started at the Neperud farm bridge with all the kids on the bridge and Dan and his crew in the water.  The probes went in, the fish came out, and the kids went nuts.  Many cheers, much excitement and the kids hit the stream bank in pursuit of Dan and the fish.  Dan, Caitlin, and Alex shocked and netted fish up to the stream’s turn to the north (300-400 ft.).  They emptied the bucket of fish with lots of explanations and chances for the kids to see and handle the fish and ask questions.  Many of them had not seen that variety of fish that close up or been able to touch a fish.  What would the TU readers of this message be interested in?  Hmm … the DNR crew captured about 15 brown trout, ranging in size from one tiny Young of Year fellow to several over 12 inches.  All the bigger fish were healthy chunksters.  Many were happily situated under the bank covers.  Of course the biggest fish was a carp (only one); the kids also saw shiners, chubs, red horse, suckers, darters, sculpin, and sunfish.  Good to be reminded by the kids that all the fish are beautiful and fun to see.  Dan and his crew were completely patient and good-humored.  The first question to Dan was, “Do you get paid to do this?”  I think and hope when he said yes and talked about the education one needs to get his and his crew’s sort of jobs some wheels started turning in those lively brains.

We then planted native trees and shrubs to provide better riparian habitat, especially for birds and bugs.  The kids worked very conscientiously to make sure the hackberries, ironwood, hazelnut, indigo, juneberries, and nine bark are perfectly planted.  They are and properly watered in.  By the way, every oak that we planted in April prospers.

Onto the toughest part of the day:  sowing bag after bag after bag of Indian grass seed on a windy day in all the area we’re working to re-establish a prairie.  We discovered that Indian grass seed is very itchy on bare arms and that there is a lot of seed in a bag.  But the kids kept at it and thanks to their hard work, a lunch break, and chocolate chip and sugar cookies, we sowed four bags of seed in all the area we wanted to cover.   In two wet areas we found lots of tadpoles, at which point our straight line of sowers wavered a bit.  But even better observations were to come – these kids were attentive, with great eyes.  Upstream of the bridge, we found a redwing blackbird nest with eggs and, even better, a grasshopper sparrow nest with eggs.

Latrell ended the day about as good as possible.  He found some nice plants are emerging, with clumps of milkweed.  Somehow those sharp young eyes spotted a very young monarch caterpillar on top of one of the milkweeds.  This now may be the most photographed monarch caterpillar in Wisconsin.

We all had a lot of fun, got a lot done, saw a lot, learned a lot.  I just hope the 4th graders had as much fun as I did.  They’re fabulous and deserve our thanks.