Frogs, Fowl, and Foraging Fun

Hey, this is raised in the woods.

You're one stop shop for everything in the great outdoors of the great states of Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois and Iowa.

My name's Joel Clayfish and you never know what you're going to get on this show.

Ellie Lawton is at my side, the cohost of the show.

Megan Salazar's got the week off and

Boy, oh boy, we filled it in with Homesteader Sarah Marinus, who is full of Vim and Vinegar this week.

And James Cooper.

James Cooper, our frog gigging guy.

Wait,

James, what was your new name that we gave you?

Captain Frogman.

And

did you

change it on your Instagram or something?

My personal one.

Yeah.

Captain Frogman.

I love it.

I like it very much.

Taylor Finger is here.

He's the Chief Gamebird Ecologist for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

He is a wealth of knowledge.

about everything, uh, game birds in Wisconsin and the Midwest.

He follows the flyways, the byways, the highways, the rooftops we were talking about where birds are evidently hatching.

They're Goslings on the top of skyscrapers and getting ushered by the folks who live in great places.

I'm not even joking.

I'm not making this up.

We were just talking about birds that are being hatched on the top of high rises on the top of skyscrapers and get ushered through the building by the people who work there down to the street.

onto a water source.

The wild bird management folks who are here, Ava and Travis, they were telling us.

Migratory bird management.

Migratory bird management folks and Wild Goose Chase.

I gotta get the company names right.

They've done for.

Yeah, thank you.

They have seen this in action.

Taylor, what are some of the most bizarre

How does this, what are some of the most bizarre things you've seen as far as nesting?

Yeah, again, you mentioned it.

You'll see this is the time of year where people start hearing geese and they look up and they're sitting on the points of rooftops.

And again, I just had a picture sent to me of a Canada goose had an active nest inside an old abandoned eagle nest.

Oh

my God.

What?

Again, you're like, well, it's not a wood duck.

Like what is going on here?

And so I'm not sure how the gosslings plan to get out.

It looked like it was a long drop.

So because we're not ushering out of them out of their their

eagleness, but that is absolutely insane.

Now now now just realistically, will those gazelings most likely first of all, they're very safe from predators up there, except other hawks

and other birds of prey.

But how how do they get like if there's a long hour.

Mom, he's calculating how much

the

drop is when they have to pick them out of the nest.

I'm thinking that

part of their brain doesn't work.

They're not typically an aerial nesting species.

Their math is not math.

Wood ducks can get away with it because they're so light and their bones are hollow so that when they jump down...

They just bounce off.

There's just not enough weight.

Whereas a Gosling, it's dependent on the height.

That's still a long fall there.

There's a lot longer neck and lower legs.

So why can't you

help them get out?

Is it illegal to touch an eagle's nest or you just can't reach that

high?

In most cases, the effort for doing so, we're not going to expend that type of effort for a single goose nest.

Because when I hear eagle, it's like, oh, because you're not allowed to touch it.

Yeah, no.

And that scenario, whereas this one, there's people are invested in.

being on you know a rooftop they're like hey and we want to see these where it's in the Eagle Nest they're like that's in the woods good luck on you

let nature

take its course yes so but when they drop out they cannot fly yet nope so people realize when they come out of the nest our most goose nests near to the ground on

the ground yet almost almost all of them are

Yes, where they're much more susceptible to coyotes, raccoons.

Right, and they're usually, you know, within walking distance or relatively close to water.

And so that's the first thing.

They hatch out.

A lot of people, again, fund nest fact and egg fact is...

the way that they get all of their eggs to hatch at the same time.

They only lay one egg a day.

And so how do you get them all to hatch at the same time is they don't sit on them until their last egg is laid.

And then they all incubate at the same time.

And so they all hatch out within minutes.

And then within about an hour, hour and a half, they are ready to go.

They're not

like not

like raptor species or songbirds where they have to sit in a nest for weeks to get ready.

They're like, hey, I'm hatched out.

Give me.

an hour, we're ready to walk.

They get

their sea legs right away.

Yeah.

All right.

Raised in the woods, the only place you're going to hear fun egg facts.

There you go.

Wow.

On a regular basis that don't have to do with culinary in this case.

This is absolutely.

We need to finish our wilds.

Fascinating.

Yeah, let's finish our

wild.

Ava's threw us totally off course.

Yeah.

It was so wild.

I'm completely lost by the whole deal.

Travis.

Travis.

Well, I don't have anything near as wild as the last two.

I was actually on vacation last week.

So I was in Vegas.

Oh, that's

wild.

That's wild.

I think Sarah's top anything that I've seen was on Vegas with her tractor and wagons towing behind.

And one

of them did flip.

I was so mad.

Oh, God.

Oh, boy.

Let's

not share with the audience.

No,

no, no.

It was just the floaties.

The wind.

All right.

I

see.

Children first, then floaties.

James Cooper.

You were obviously out in the wild this week.

Did you do anything crazy or fun?

So yeah Yeah, guiding's like my main job, but waterfowl is my main love and I was checking trail cams putting batteries in the local duck holes that I hunt That's a great way if you don't want to disturb where you're going out every day or going out every week where you can't get your

binoculars on where you need to go.

A trail cam is perfect.

You can see it.

It's the best way.

That's

a great scouting tip.

Yeah,

preparation.

We're going to get into that

a little later.

That's a fantastic scouting tip using game cameras for waterfall.

I don't think many people do that.

Yeah, I saw Sandhill Cranes, Wood Ducks, Deer, me and Taylor, I was showing them some trail cam pictures before the podcast.

So it's just

great way to check your spots.

I'm so

excited about this.

I'm really excited about talking about what to do to make sure you're very well hidden when you're actually hunting the species.

Everybody and their brothers out there looking around when the birds are coming in walking in the field.

Can the birds see you?

Do they see you?

Does it matter?

Taylor Finger is going to answer all those questions from a scientific standpoint because he's Wisconsin's chief game bird ecologist and we're going to talk to him a little bit about the banding programs.

What has

happened?

How many birds he's banded and how many bands he has on his lanyard because I think it would be awfully curious if he had quite a few of them.

There'd be a lot of questions.

This is Raised in the Woods.

You never know where you're going to go on Raised in the Woods.

Look, look, free listening out there.

The show used to be called Raised in Wisco, but we've been so blessed to have listeners expanding across the Midwest that we are now in five states, Michigan, Minnesota, Illinois.

Wisconsin and Iowa.

And if you miss the show live Saturdays at 11 o'clock on your Civic Media station, you can check us out where Ellie Lawton.

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go to our facebook page raised in the woods follow us the followers are expanding by over a hundred percent a month right now or we're thrilled to have you along ask your questions comment on our posts see what we're doing in real life out in the woods we are a real group of hunters anglers and foragers so follow us the chief game bird ecologist

Taylor Finger is here.

We've been talking about the banding situation for waterfall, but I want to know, give me, before we get into the recipe and homestead our segments, I want to know what is the best way to remain camouflaged and unseen in this waterfall season?

Yeah, so the hide is the most important thing when it comes to being successful while you're waterfall hunting.

Again, doing the scouting, making sure that you're at the spot where the birds want to be is really important.

But if you're just not there, making sure you're hidden is the most important thing.

So spend the amount of time making sure that you have the right camo, you have a right setup, you have overhead coverage, you're not moving around while you're doing it.

I know your buddy likes to bring his dog, and his dog's the best-behaved dog in the world.

But

if

you've never hunted with them, and that dog just runs around behind the blind for six hours, again, those are the types of things that's ultimately going to make a hunt successful.

So spend

the extra time on the hide and stop walking around in the spread when the birds are approaching.

Absolutely.

That's what I'm getting out of you.

I believe that homesteader tip of the week, Sarah Marinas, what have you got for us?

Well, I've been gardening for maybe four years now, but I never do research.

I just kind of like to jump and figure it out as I go.

That's what I love about you, Sarah.

Oh my God, I got that.

Well, a lot of myself doesn't grow.

And I was like, well, what am I doing wrong?

I think we just did that backwards.

No, because I recently learned about companion planting.

There

are a lot of plants that you should not grow and plant along other sides, or other ones that will either choke each other out.

One will get more sun.

They won't, there's certain plants that you can do together and then bugs won't want them.

Really?

So these are all things.

Complaintianship.

Oh

my gosh.

So I'll just talk about basil because that's my son Ethan loves pesto.

So basil, you can plant that next to asparagus, beets, marigold, oregano, peppers, radish, and tomatoes.

So plant the basil next to your tomatoes.

Do not plant your basil next to your cucumber, fennel, sage, and thyme.

Wow, that is fascinating.

We just don't have any time.

Yeah.

I absolutely love that.

OK, talk to me about frogs, Chef Lawton.

I've been waiting for this.

Well, I mean, I'm actually a little bit nervous because James Cooper, who is here on the panel today,

He's the frog expert.

Captain Frogman.

Captain Frogman has been cooking frog legs since he was a little frog man.

And so...

Since he

was

Captain Frogboy.

Since I am a

classically trained French chef, I am doing the classic French way to make frog legs.

So James, you already know this recipe.

So it's very, very easy.

It takes about an hour to make.

You're gonna take your frog legs, you're gonna soak them in buttermilk or milk for about 20 to 30 minutes.

We're doing like a pound, pound and a half.

And then take them out, dry them off, you're gonna dredge them in a seasoned flour.

Put whatever spices in you want to taste in your flour.

Okay, then you have a hot or medium cast iron pan.

Put your butter in there, brown it up, put those frog legs in there, brown them on each side.

cook them all the way through, take them out of the pan.

Then you're gonna add more butter because this is French cooking and we like butter.

And you're gonna add garlic.

And as soon as that garlic starts to brown a little bit, throw those frog legs back in.

You're gonna juice like, I like a lot of lemons.

So I do two lemons, the juice of two lemons, parsley.

I had some cilantro.

That's not in the recipe, but I love cilantro.

And then you're gonna finish that with a little bit more butter.

And as soon as they're sizzling, they're good to go.

Wow.

And they'll fall

off.

And they are so wonderful.

Oh my God.

You guys, if you're not eating frog legs, I don't know what you're doing.

And James, if you need frog legs, you reach out to Halligan.

Yep.

Yeah.

They'll hook you up.

I love the fact that James Cooper, who runs Halligan Outdoors, the only frog gigging outfitter in the state of Wisconsin, tells people if you want a really good way to put a fantastic, great tasting protein on your

table, you can do it for such an inexpensive price, the cost

of

gaging equipment.

Go out your first time with him, learn how to do it.

And I will tell you, if you're afraid to try frog legs, they are like a combination of dark meat, chicken and scallops mixed together.

They have the consistency of seafoody chicken and they're fantastic.

It's like a little chicken wing.

So I

It's impossible to summarize this show every week because of what we learn.

I'd be willing to listen to you try.

I'm gonna give it a shot.

And if you don't have a cast iron, you can use a air fryer or air fryer stage.

So you don't need oil.

If you take that out of your diet, we're all in a health kick these days, but you can use that.

Electric air fire.

Yeah, great point James.

Very

clearly that James is coming to us from not the French cuisine perspective which adds all the butter.

Butter is good for you.

And I'm going to make it keto friendly.

You can buy pulverized pork rinds and bread just about anything in makes a fantastic crispy coating.

Pork rinds and

butter.

Pork

rinds and keto's.

Your cholesterol might be through the roof, but at least you're eating keto.

Oh, we love having you along on Raised in the Woods.

Today we talked about everything from the best ways to hunt and enjoy waterfall, the best ways to make sure that they're not a nuisance and keeping a waterfall out of your business when you need to.

The folks we had here, we had homesteader tips and of course our recipe of the week.

And somehow I end up hungry at the end of

We'll see you next week on Raised in the Woods.

What's up, everybody?

This is Raised in the Woods.

My name's Joel Clayfish.

I am very excited about the summer moving on because it's taken us closer to the forage and the hunting seasons.

But I don't want to wish it away because right now is the best time of the year to get out there and try your angling skills.

The fish are biting.

The bluegills are on their beds right now.

And the carp shooting is going off the hook as well, which is a fantastic thing to do in the summertime to keep those hunting archery skills alive.

I have a new goal.

Allie Lawton co-host of the show and chef extraordinaire official Cuisine master of raised in the woods.

What what what's your goal?

So We're bringing halogen outdoors into a third show now and my newest goal is I'm gonna be the first woman that Bowfish is on his boat and gets a fish

the first

Wow.

Are you the only woman or how many women have been on your boat?

No.

James, listen.

James Cooper.

Pat the story a little bit.

James Cooper's got women on his boat all the time, okay?

Well, he actually does.

I'm not joking.

I do.

If my wife's hearing this, if they're all clients, nothing too crazy.

No bachelorette parties.

Shout

out to her.

Yeah, she's great, but no.

Ellie's gonna be hopefully the first female to shoot a common carp or a grass carp on a boat.

We're gonna get her out there.

Yes

Now, wait, I don't mean to disparage.

I am not being.

Wait, what are you doing here?

I'm not trying to disparage.

But what?

Well, what is the average amount somebody shoots before they connect with a carp?

So that question was asked on the boat.

Dave actually asked that, I think.

Megan's lover, Dave.

OK.

I said I've witnessed 50 to 100 shots before someone hits one and.

Well before you continue

How many shots did I shoot before I?

We're not talking about you.

Are you a lady?

We're talking about females.

And that is

Sarah

Marinus.

Stay

in your lane,

Joel.

It is

2026.

Beep, beep, Joel.

Sarah's coming through.

This is

Ellie's moment.

Don't steal it.

Homesteader.

Homesteader.

Thanks, girl.

Yeah.

Homesteader, Sarah.

God, I love it that Sarah's back.

Homesteader, Sarah Marinus with a little homestead.

schooling with me, I was there.

Yes, my apologies.

I was just very surprised that I shot one, so.

You did shoot one.

During the day, too.

It was not night yet, so that's

right.

Oh, Kent, from last week, can we talk about when you can go gigging?

Yes.

Most people don't know when gigging season is and when.

We'll get

to that later.

We've got James Cooper's here.

Whoa, Joel's pulling us back on the

tracks

for the one and only

time

I've ever

witnessed.

That means we're really getting wild.

Whoa!

Getting

crazy.

We've got an

all expert

panel.

He's just mad because he

can't be the first female on James' boat to get a fish.

He can denify as one.

Listen,

you can do it,

everyone.

I was the first fish to get a fish on James' boat.

That is true.

And as James

and Joel were driving away, Joel was still sitting in the boat.

We're walking and he yells, guys, there's two fish in the boat.

One clayfish and one non-clayfish.

Carpfish, which is one of my old college nicknames, Carpfish.

OK, now we're going to get back on track.

Now we were off the rails for a second.

James Cooper is here.

is the only frog gigging guide in the state of Wisconsin.

We dragged him back yet another week.

You might as well just rent a room here,

James.

I know, maybe Tuesday nights I'm here.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well,

you're here Saturday

too.

You're becoming

a recurring member of the cast, keeping Megan Salazar's seat warm for her.

She has off this week, but she'll be back.

This is very exciting.

I'm going to go with Wilds of the Week right away because we do have an all-star cast.

We were able to bring the folks from the migratory bird management group back.

this week and we have Taylor Finger here who's the chief game bird ecologist for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and we're going to talk about some fascinating things that relate to waterfall, waterfall patterns, how to hide if you're a hunter, what's the best way to hide and how birds see and what they see including the colors they see, the colors they don't see, the dimensions they see in, the dimensions they don't see in, but first

We're going to do Wilds of the Week.

And I'm going to kick it off this week with, you might think it's a bad time to do it, but I'm telling you, it's the best time.

I started scouting for waterfowl

this week

already right in the mid June because I am out there looking for certain types of crops that are going to come off first.

I'm going to be the first food sources for waterfowl.

And Taylor Finger says that's a good idea.

Yeah, absolutely.

Now is the time making sure that what fields are coming up and how they're situated as it relates to wetland areas, river systems, and where the food's going to be yet and where they're going to loaf is important.

Did you do anything?

Do you have a wild of the week?

Do you do anything great outside since last we had you on the show last week?

Yeah, we just got back.

My wife and I, we flew out to Fresno, rented an RV, and did Sequoia National Park, Kings Canyon National Park in Yosemite.

Wow.

Beautiful.

That is

quite the wild.

Makes you feel insignificant when you're standing amongst everything that is that much larger

than you.

I bet it does.

Now, see, I was imagining that people in other states would look at you and would say,

Whoa, make way.

This is the Wisconsin Chief Game Bird Ecologist here from the DNR.

Everybody, Taylor Finger.

Do you run into other folks who are involved in other DNRs in other states?

I try to avoid letting people know that I work for the state government.

What

is your

code?

If people

ask, hey man, what do you do?

What do you say?

There's a guy that he used to be the DNR dear biologist.

And every time he got asked what he did for a job, he said,

And nobody asked him after that.

Now we'll follow up questions and all of that.

I'm like, that's perfect.

That's what I should say that I do for work, because nobody understands what I do for a living.

You actually do sell salt.

I actually do.

It's not a lie.

I

mean, it's like flake salt and pink salt and stuff like that, I imagine.

Yeah, it's a black salt.

A fancy

salt.

I would have questions.

Sarah

Marinas, you would definitely not question.

You asked the salt question, Sarah.

When we went to Hawaii together, I was like, do you think we could scoop up some water and boil it down and make salt?

Yeah.

I was like, you know, listen, we're on

vacation.

Just relax.

Okay.

He was like, you buy it.

You really are a homesteader.

You're really trying to cut corners everywhere.

Well, but the thing about Hawaii is so damn expensive to be there and live there.

You gotta boil down your own salt.

I'm pretty sure.

Sarah, did you do anything cool in the outdoors this week?

Do you have a world of the week?

We live about a quarter mile from a lake.

And the older my boys get, the more stuff we want to bring down to the lake.

So now we have

like floaties, toys, food.

Yeah.

So I hook up two trailers to the back of the lawnmower.

And I have some kids in

the

lawnmower and some kids ride their bike.

We bungee'd.

And it's just, it's so fun to see them enjoy every part of it.

Sarah, you make it sound like you have 12 kids.

Yeah, I have four.

That's

pretty close.

It feels like 12.

That's like 12 these days.

Yeah, they're wild.

That's lovely, wild.

Yeah, that's crazy.

I felt like a little duck with my little baby ducks behind

me.

Oh, goodness.

It is brood season in the waterfowl industry.

We're going to get to that.

How about our folks from the migratory bird management group?

Eva, we got you and Travis here.

What'd you do in the outdoors this week?

You know, we work in the outdoors.

So I get to be wild and all week.

But this week, I actually rescued some Goslings from a rooftop.

Oh,

my goodness.

They can't

jump over those parapets.

So you kind of got to help them out and walk them over to a better place.

Wait a minute.

Wait a minute.

Wait a minute.

Geese are having.

Laying eggs and having babies.

There's no predators up there.

Oh absolutely.

Wouldn't you

want to be up on a roof?

Downtown Milwaukee, all of you.

Well, I mean, they're out of the game for their seat for the fireworks.

Exactly.

They had

everything

reserved and I took them away.

I'm very sorry.

Taylor Finger, how often does this happen?

A lot.

Yeah, it's pretty heavy because, again, it's a spot that they don't have to worry about ground nesting predators to come and get them.

They can be up there.

They can control everything.

The problem is, is getting down.

Yep.

Well, yeah.

And then when we help them, they're like, well, this was perfect.

We're coming back next.

Exactly.

Right.

Yeah, because if you're not there to help them, they're not getting down.

No.

This is crazy.

This

is absolutely crazy.

Why didn't I think of

that?

Yeah, birds are laying like, like,

like big there's

like geese

on tops of you would know, depending on some buildings, if they don't ask you, like they usher them through the elevator and out the front wall to help them down.

Yeah.

Yeah, some places have little walks every time every year.

I'm telling you, if you want to become TikTok famous, you should start recording the people hurting the geese.

from the, the, the roof of high rises in the city of Chicago or Indianapolis.

Yeah.

Herding the geese down.

Well, now, wait a minute.

You have to get creative.

Because what happens when you get down to fifth and center?

Where do they go then?

You walk to the local water source,

which is

usually the Milwaukee River.

When you're downtown, you just got to walk them, walk them, walk them and don't stand in traffic.

Help traffic.

Okay, I

think I would be the perfect candidate for a seasonal position to do that.

You should apply.

I'll give you a reference.

You

can be our family mover.

The

problem is I bring my big yeti bag and I'd be stuffing them in there and taking

them home.

You're not allowed to touch them.

Yeah, that's

a no-no.

Yeah, so do you guys have like a little, okay, I showed pigs at the fair when I was a child and you'd use that little board to walk them around.

Do you have like a little mini board for the geese?

We do use that to defend against geese sometimes.

Oh, yeah.

No, I just, you kind of just got to get creative sometimes.

on the situation.

This is unreal.

I have never thought of this in my life.

So now if someone gets in your way, do you honk?

Oh,

I do have a

question though.

So when you're taking these, the little, um, baby, yes, Gosling, thank you off the roof.

Where's mom and dad?

Are they going after you and going?

Going honkers

a little bit of a little bit of both, you know, sometimes we can push mom and dad off the roof and then

And

you know you can hold the Gosling and they'll squeak and mom and dad will just follow you down the road

Wow.

This is fascinating.

It's literally if you see the ducklings following mom,

you become mom.

You had an unpleasant experience with a goose very recently that ended you up in the hospital.

Yeah, yeah, I had a couple, just a little bit of cauterization on my head, you know, with the geese.

That's not a normal day, but just so you know, the rest of us aren't doing that.

That's not her wild of the week.

Yes, that is not my wild of the week.

That would have been a couple of weeks ago.

Wow.

Yeah, you know, because they are protected species, we kind of just have to take the hit.

You can't fight back.

You can't touch them.

So, you know, it sometimes accidents happen and then we get bit in the head.

I didn't.

Yeah.

Dad kind of just danced on my head.

So

and

tore the skin of your head.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That does not sound fast.

Yeah.

Yeah, it was.

You you adapt.

I would say you adapt.

We're gonna have to continue.

I like your week.

That's crazy the thought of geese being herded off of like high-rise rooftops Even down Chicago fingers laughing at that downtown Chicago or Milwaukee.

Do you guys stop at UNO's and get them

a deep dish?

Oh

my gosh, I'm

when you this show blows my mind every single week, there's something else that comes up that I've never heard of or never imagined.

But I'm really excited about talking with Taylor finger about the upcoming hunting season, what you can do now to prepare for it.

We've got homesteader Sarah Marinas, who's going to bring us a homesteader tip and and

The only frog gigging guide in Wisconsin, James Cooper's here.

That means our recipe of the week is going to be amphibious.

Fantastic.

This is raised in the woods.

Fascinating topics are always close at hand on raised in the woods.

You can listen to us Saturdays at 11 o'clock in the great states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and Iowa and all your civic media stations.

11 a.m.

on Saturdays and if you miss us please if you want to laugh and trust me when I tell you I don't mind if you're laughing at us or with us and you want to learn some great stuff about the great outdoors from culinary and bringing field and forage to the table to how to be a better hunter angler

forager user of the outdoors.

This show has got it all for you and we dive into some real crazy corners of the world.

We're talking today about waterfall migration, waterfall control,

birds landing on top of high-rise buildings, having their babies.

And this is just fascinating stuff to me.

Chef Ellie Lawton is here.

She's got an amphibious recipe for the end of the show.

I'm excited to talk.

Just kidding.

Oh.

I have a pretty cool wild that I still need to share.

Well, let's hear your wild of the week.

So it's more of a public service announcement, and it fits right into this whole panel.

So I learned this week that blue jays are very bad birds and very aggressive birds.

Yes.

And

they're nasty critters.

I don't personally like them and I don't think they personally like each other because I have some blue jays in my backyard and they have been brawling with each other almost every morning and they have nest right now and their babies are flying or

They're throwing them out of the nest.

And then they squawk and freak out, and my dogs are back there, and I was back there, and they attacked all of us.

And I was like, what the heck

is your problem?

The Blue Jays attacked

you?

They're awful.

Taylor, do you know this?

You're over there like laughing.

Did you know how horrible these birds are?

Yeah,

they're very aggressive.

Blue

jays, notoriously bad birds, naughty birds.

Blue jays, red wing blackbirds, they're just like absolutely.

Are you allowed to sweat them

with

a tennis

racket?

Oh, no, no.

Which I knew that.

You haven't experienced a childhood if you've never ridden your bike by a red wing blackbird and it is bouncing off of your head.

Well, these blue jays are

just so offensive, I can't even.

They went after one of my dogs and now when he goes outside because they're in there, they're in the trees yelling at him every morning.

He stays super tight

against the house.

Listen, I'm

not gonna mess with you guys anymore.

I got the message the other day, but they're going after each other's nests.

Is that a normal thing?

They were attacking each other's nests.

They're throwing their babies out left and right.

They were going after me.

I'm like, what the heck did the world do to you guys?

They're awful.

So

public service announcement,

Avoid those jerks.

They're pretty, but you know what run territorial.

Oh, they're

horrible.

Yes,

Ellie's got these civil I

grew up with domesticated geese, and I thought that we always carried a goose stick because they'd attack us the Blue Jays are worse because they're coming from the top Travis.

I don't know how you guys do this.

Like I'm not messing with them anymore.

I'm going to go get a laser and show those guys who's boss.

Oh my gosh.

Yeah, so that's it.

That's a pretty

good one.

Well, I'm kind of worked up from that one.

Well, get ready, because we've got Taylor Finger here, Chief Gamebird Ecologist for the DNR, and he is going to talk about what on earth to do right now to prepare for the waterfowl season, what we're seeing in the state, how the numbers are with the migration, the future migration numbers, what to look for.

What is the key right now to be doing to getting prepared for the waterfowl season, which seems so far away, but really will be here right around the corner?

Yeah, as we had mentioned earlier, it's brood rearing season right now.

now is a good time to go scout out your local water bodies your local wetlands those areas to get an idea of how was production so did we get water at a good time or did we get water at a bad time because if we get water late it washes out a bunch of nests and then whether or not that those birds will re-nest or not could determine how good production is here locally and so right now fortunately across the state we've had really good production we're seeing a lot of broods we had a lot of water early and then it hasn't been all that wet

lately, which is good in terms of nesting, those birds will stay dry and their ability to pull that nest off just goes up that much higher.

But so that's right now.

That's key is get out there, see where things are at, because if it's low, then you focus on the migration.

You're focusing on where should I be putting all my effort into, you know, the first couple of weeks, or should I wait until that big push of birds comes through around the third, fourth week of October.

And so now is the time to look at that.

Wow, that's fascinating.

That is interesting.

Yeah, I love hearing that because I think so many waterfowlers, and if you've never waterfowl hunted.

Let this be the year you ask somebody who gets out there and does it Because you're gonna it's gonna change your life getting out in the field watching that sunrise watching birds Circle you if not come in it's an incredible feeling and it's one of the most Fantastic things to put on your dinner table frankly.

I eat a ton of waterfowl.

It's very healthy organic It's fantastic now.

I'm gonna go ahead.

Oh, I just

have a question for Taylor

So for folks that are listening and they're trying to get into waterfall hunting and you just talked about, you know, how to prepare yourself, what to be looking for.

If these people don't have your direct phone number or you with them, is there somewhere they can call?

Are there resources on the website?

Yeah, you can go to the DNR page and just type in waterfall hunting or waterfall management and I'm listed on there.

We actually also have like a

It's like a 15 to 20 page PDF that's the basic of waterfowl hunting.

Okay, so they can

find those resources online.

Yep, we have that all there.

It shows you different ways to decoy or how different types of hunting is, different species of birds, how to focus on those things, how to process a bird.

We have all of that

information.

Wonderful.

And I would like to point out

that in the Wisconsin DNR right now there's a young man named Spencer who is holding a waterfowl series teaching folks how to get into waterfowl.

classes are very cheap.

Spencer's a fantastic guy doing a great job out there.

Go to his classes on dog handling on how to how to blow a goose or duck call and how to ask permission.

Spencer's out there teaching these classes.

You can sign up in the state or even if you're out of state you can come to Wisconsin and and learn from the DNR how to get into waterfall hunting.

I think you should do that.

I want to go into a subject that's that's tricky right now.

I'm going to go into

to the subject of bird bands.

Yep.

Banding birds, shooting banded birds, hunting banded birds.

If you don't know, Sarah Marinas, our homesteaders looking at me like she has no idea what I'm talking

about.

I was thinking of like a when a cow gets tagged.

That's what I was thinking.

Well, we're a bird.

It's actually.

Yeah, that's it.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

So again, essentially, why is

that special?

Bandings have been around, like again, the first bird that was ever banded was a falcon in like 1492.

Yeah, seriously, it was some like over

and over made it 1492.

Yeah.

Columbus Sylvia blue.

That was a bad old guy joke.

Just gonna move

right.

Yeah, it was good.

It was so

good.

But no, so we bet there have been people that have been interested in banding birds for centuries.

And so now, again, what it is, you get an aluminum band or a stainless steel band.

It's just essentially a ring that we put on the leg of these birds.

It has a unique identification number on it.

And a way to report that, it has...

birdbanding.gov webpage right on the band.

And so when we put a band on, we say, is this a male or a female, adult or juvenile?

And we record all that information.

And then when that bird is either resided or harvested or shot, that information is then submitted.

And that's how we use all that information to band, how to manage hunting for all waterfowl populations.

What percentage of all birds are banded?

Very few.

Like 2%?

So for mallards, I would say mallards are our highest banded species.

Really?

And we're talking not in raw numbers, though, in percentage or raw numbers?

And oh, probably in raw numbers, not percentage, just

because there's

I mean, there's roughly five million mallards out there.

And I think we banned across the country, probably 80,000 to 100,000.

Okay.

And it on any basis.

So

Well, I've only ever shot one band at Mallard, but I have 19 goose bands.

So is there a higher percentage of geese?

Because geese behave differently.

When you usually shoot one goose band, you're probably shooting three or four because

they

go in families.

They still travel in families.

And so your likelihood of shooting a goose band is higher because they're concentrated more than with ducks.

A cool thing about the banding, it happens all over the states.

All over the

world.

Yeah, I have a banded, I shot a banded goose up in northern Wisconsin, but it was banded in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota.

So it's really cool.

It's cool to look up your band.

We had a mallard that was banded here in Wisconsin that was shot in Greenland.

a

world traveler.

So again,

just recognizing

that these birds go

absolutely everywhere.

He was riding the back of a musk ox all the way over to Greenland.

That's unbelievable.

So I want to let everybody know if you haven't, you know, if you didn't realize this, the U.S.

bird banding program was in jeopardy of

being completely ended.

It caused a huge panic across the United States.

And it forced a lot of people to speak up.

And now Taylor was saying that that's back.

That's back in place.

Everybody can breathe a sigh of relief.

Yeah, the USGS is the main body that manages the bird banning lab.

And yeah, the administration currently had suggested zeroing out their budget for the year.

And

You know, people like, oh, there's a lot of other things going on.

So people weren't paying attention until they had to pay attention.

And then some pretty influential people started talking in the right years.

And then that the bird banning lab did get fully funded even to a higher level than what they had in the past.

It's they're still struggling with how many positions that they have.

And, you know, there's still all the work that's out there.

But so apply.

If this is something that interests you, you could USGS has taken

that.

So the funding is

still there.

They just need butts to fill seats.

Correct.

But

no,

it's important as Joel is saying, this is the most important source of data that we have for managing these populations.

And to lose that, it undercuts everything that we've built decades on in terms of waterfall management.

Right.

So just shy of not knowing, like me, I'd be like, oh yeah, never heard of it.

Who cares?

then I would understand, but if people are familiar with it, what would be a reason that they wouldn't want it that would make sense?

Most people that know about it want it.

And so again, the people that ultimately hold the purse strings don't necessarily understand how everything works.

And when those people got told how things work, they're like, oh, I guess we have

to find

that.

So lack of education.

Yeah, so I think it in people don't realize when a banded bird is shot and that research is sent in they can tell where that bird was originally flew from where it flew to so they can

watch migratory patterns and see you know oh this bird which was with another family member that one bird got shot in Indiana and then the third one got shot in Arkansas so now they know if they're in a family group like Canada geese that group went to Indiana first and then maybe they ended up in Arkansas and this is

absolutely invaluable when you got to make sure that species and the economies of those species are staying intact.

How many are in each state?

How many are getting killed off as they travel through the United States?

It's so fascinating to me.

My question to you is...

Well, we're going to have to save this question because I think the answer is a little bit longer and we're going to talk about the best ways to hide what birds see, what colors they see.

And I want to know about the bird banding.

Does it mean people are only hunting the banded birds versus shooting the regular birds?

And if that skews the count for those who are studying that, this is fascinating.

And then we're going to have a recipe of the week.

And of course, our

a homesteader segment from Sierra Marina.

This is Raised in the Woods.