Hiking the Wisconsin Dells

Every time we mention Wisconsin, people ask if we've been to The Dells. No. From what I could tell, it was just water parks and hotels. Well, this time I decided to figure out what attracted people to this area before they turned it into the Water Park Capital of America's Midwest. We found a lovely Boondockers Welcome site on nice stretch of land. The birding here and along the fields was really good.

It was time to figure out what the Wisconsin Dells had to offer in regards to natural beauty. I found the Chapel Gorge Trail, a two mile trail thru forest that finally drops down to a beach with views of the surrounding cliffs.

This turned out to be a very enjoyable hike.

Back in town, the view of the water from the main street was nice.

It's a touristy town, so in addition to places like Ripley's Believe it or Not, you have strange sights like this.

We had planned to meet our friend Dawn and her children at Mirror Lake State Park for the day, however they weren't able to make it. Instead we found a boat ramp for the kids to fish from and just relaxed. 

Fishing in Wisconsin.

All the World's Cranes

As I was researching things to do in Wisconsin, I found our AZA membership covered the International Crane Foundation! This place was fantastic! They have ALL 15 species of cranes that exist around the world, ten of which are threatened or endangered. This is the only place where you can see all of them!

Grey-crowned Crane  (above)                           Sarus Crane (below)

Demoiselle Crane  (above)                           Wattled Crane (below)

We thought this might be a quick visit, but there was so much to see and learn. We have Sandhill Cranes in our yard and here we learned they have four types of calls.

And finally we came to the Whooping Cranes and the most interesting story.

Whooping Cranes are endangered. At one point there were only 21 wild birds left in the world! One of the International Crane Foundation founders, George Archibald, decided to try something unusual. He attempted to form a pair bond with Tex, a bird that had become imprinted on humans in a zoo. He moved his bed into her room, spoke to her and even danced with her, as cranes would do. Soon they began building a nest together and thanks to artificial insemination technology, she laid an egg. It was some years before her eggs became viable, but eventually she had a chick named, Gee Whiz. Sadly she was killed by raccoons shortly after, but Gee Whiz went on to father many cranes in breeding program that brought the total numbers up. In the fall after we were here, the 7 Florida birds dropped to 5 when one in our area found a Sandhill Crane girlfriend. Before they were able to reproduce, FWC moved him and his brother to Louisiana to be with other Whooping Cranes where they hope they'll breed.

You could spend anywhere from 45 minutes to half a day here depending on what you want to experience. We ended up spending three hours, and I could have stayed longer. We watched a beautiful film, read the displays and visited all 15 cranes. Some were in their walled enclosure, so we looped back around a second time and waited for them to come outside. Eventually they did. This is a great place doing great work to save cranes and improve their habitat around the world. They have a nice gift shop too.