Odd Wisconsin Archives: Animals
As tiny kinglets and gigantic sandhill cranes move north through Wisconsin again, this may be a good time to consider our state's place in American ornithology. Before the Civil War, R.P. Hoy cataloged the birds of southeastern Wisconsin and reported his findings to scholars in the East. Another mid-century scientist, Increase Lapham, built on Hoy's work to create the first... :: Posted on April 24, 2008
Driving from Madison into Dodge Co. yesterday, we saw open water for the first time in months, as well as a foolish turkey walking in Hwy 73 and three majestic sandhill cranes overhead. That part of the state is known for its wildlife, thanks in large part to the preservation of Horicon Marsh. On March 14, 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt... :: Posted on March 15, 2008
Friday's Wisconsin State Journal contained a photo of a wolf in Kate Cassidy's Iowa County yard. Like the cougar sighting near Milton two weeks ago, this led us to look into the history of wolves in Wisconsin. We discovered that when white settlers dispersed across the state in the 1830s, wolves were everywhere. Robert Ream (1809-1885), one of the first... :: Posted on February 16, 2008
Early in the last century, Jack Ryan kept a saloon for woodsmen at Mercer, Wisconsin. Fresh from a long winter in the forest, lumberjacks would often blow their entire season's wages on a grand spring bout of drinking, gambling, fighting, and debauchery. Ryan kept a pile of old gunny sacks in a corner where they could pass out on the... :: Posted on September 30, 2007
At the battle of Wisconsin Heights on July 21, 1832, Orderly Sgt. John McNair took a bullet in a tender spot. Although it was just a flesh wound, McNair complained incessantly about it in the hours after the battle, and insisted that he could no longer ride his horse. His comrades made so much fun of him that he asked... :: Posted on August 2, 2007
In honor of July 4th, we offer another glimpse into the bald eagle, this time in its role as a cultural symbol in Wisconsin history. Long before white people came to Wisconsin, Native Americans used eagles' tail feathers to express power and bravery. Warriors in most tribes from the Great Plains to the Northeast were only permitted to wear eagle... :: Posted on July 3, 2007
Last week the U.S. Dept. of the Interior took the bald eagle off the list of threatened and endangered species. According to press reports, by the early 1960s widespread use of the pesticide dichloro-diphenyl-trichloro-ethane (DDT) had nearly exterminated the entire species, and only 25 pairs of eagles were left in Wisconsin. Today there are more than 1,000 breeding pairs... :: Posted on June 30, 2007
"If any man wants to know what frogs can accomplish in the matter of making a noise, let him take a summer trip to Green Bay," wrote Alfred Cope (1806-1875) when visiting that city in 1849. Now, in the interests of objectivity, we must admit to a certain familial fascination with frogs that may lead us to see merits in... :: Posted on June 20, 2007
Father Jacques Marquette was in the prime of life 334 years ago this week as he made his way down the west shore of Green Bay. With him was Louis Joliet, a young trader with "the courage to dread nothing where everything is to be feared." The pair was on their way to discover whether the Mississippi River went south... :: Posted on May 20, 2007
... not only, as T.S. Eliot said, for "breeding / Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing / Memory and desire" but also for more ominous climatic changes. This (April 9-13, 2007) is Tornado and Severe Weather Awareness Week in Wisconsin, a state that has had its share of devasting storms. The most famous occured on June 12, 1899, when... :: Posted on April 10, 2007
Here at the Historical Society headquarters we are busy mounting all the back issues of our quarterly Magazine of Historyonline. Besides printing scholarly and popular articles, the Magazine also gave occasional glimpses into the activities of the staff. One Sunday in 1955, director Clifford Lord and associate director Don McNeil drove down to Milton, in Rock Co., to support innovative... :: Posted on March 18, 2007
Driving from Madison into Dodge Co. yesterday, we saw open water for the first time in months, as well as a foolish turkey walking in Hwy 73 and three majestic sandhill cranes overhead. That part of the state is known for its wildlife, thanks in large part to the preservation of Horicon Marsh . On March 14, 1903, President Theodore... :: Posted on March 15, 2007
As the deep snow departed from Wisconsin fields this weekend, its place was taken by another sure sign of spring: migrating sandhill cranes. Driving from Milwaukee to Madison on Sunday afternoon we spotted no fewer than 24 -- a flock of 12 circling over a meadow in Waukesha Co., another 8 crossing above the highway in Jefferson Co., and two... :: Posted on March 11, 2007
We may never know exactly what Americans understood by the refrain "and a partridge in a pear tree" since the word partridge was used for an amazingly wide variety of birds in America. Here in Wisconsin it was haphazardly applied to any small game bird, but especially to the spruce grouse and the ruffed grouse. Two unusual gifts of partridges... :: Posted on December 16, 2006
During the winter of 1811, fur trader Thomas Gummersall Anderson was far from civilization, isolated with five French-Canadian helpers deep in the frozen forest of the northwest. They’d eaten all the migrating waterfowl shot the previous autumn, and the friendly Sioux hunters were all in the field collecting beaver pelts. But that didn’t keep the lonely little party from attempting... :: Posted on December 4, 2006
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