$4,481
Raised of $4,000
Yes We Pelican! (Feminist Bird Club)
Team Profile
669 total birds seen
Team participating in Great Wisconsin Birdathon 2022
Takes place Apr 15 - Jun 15, 2022
Captained by Megan Heneke
Support our team in the Great Wisconsin Birdathon!
Team Yes We Pelican! is back for our second year of the Birdathon, representing Madison's chapter of the Feminist Bird Club. Can we spot a lot of birds, raise funds for bird conservation, and build an inclusive birding community all at the same time? Yes We Pelican!
This year, we’re excited to announce that we’re partnering with our friends at the Madison Public Library and using our portion of funds raised to put Birding Backpacks at all nine neighborhood libraries!
These birding backpacks will contain a pair of adult and youth binoculars; bird guides for adults and kids; and special brochures created by our Feminist Bird Club members that identify nearby birding locations, share birding tips, and recommend birding books. Library users will be able to “check out” a birding backpack just like they would borrow books at the library.
We need YOUR help to make these Birding Backpacks a reality! A donation to our team will not only have the benefit of supporting on-the-ground bird conservation through the Bird Protection Fund, but it will also increase access to the wonderful world of birds! We hope these backpacks will not only spark curiosity about this joyful hobby, but also remove a cost barrier and allow anyone with a free library card access to birding gear.
We deeply appreciate any amount you are able to give—even if it's just a few dollars.
If you’re interested in covering the full cost of a Birding Backpack, here are some suggested donation amounts:
- Donate $50 to cover the cost of a backpack
- Donate $120 to cover the cost of youth pair of binoculars
- Donate $190 to cover the cost of adult binoculars
🐤 Our Birdathon Day Plans
We’ll be birding on Sunday, May 8th in the Madison area. Our FBC chapter will be leading multiple bird outings throughout the day, all across town. FBC members will also be birding solo and sharing their sightings with us to contribute to our species count. We’ve set our collective species goal at 125 bird species! Click “Join” above if you’d like to help us fundraise, or RVSP HERE to bird with us!
🌈 More about the Feminist Bird Club
The Feminist Bird Club is dedicated to promoting inclusivity in birding while fundraising and providing a safe opportunity for members of the LGBTQIA+ community, BIPOC, and women to connect with the natural world. Our Madison chapter was founded in 2019.
- Learn more about the Feminist Bird Club
- Connect with the Madison chapter on Facebook
- Send us an email at feministbirdclubwi@gmail.com
📚 More about the Madison Public Library
The Madison Public Library has a tradition of promoting education, literacy and community involvement in the City of Madison for more than 145 years. They have nine locations throughout Madison and are open seven days a week (with limited Sunday locations and hours) and welcome nearly 2 million visits each year. In addition to books, they offer a wealth of other services that support community members.
Thanks for considering a donation! Your support of this community-based birding project means so much to our members.
Make a donation online by clicking "donate" above, or mail a check to: Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin, ATTN: Great Wisconsin Birdathon, 211 S. Paterson St., Suite 100, Madison, WI 53703 (and include our team name in the memo line!)
Team Members 8
Megan Heneke
Caitlyn Schuchhardt
Ben Lam
Josh Seibel
Melissa Kesling
Caitlyn Schuchhardt
2 yr. ago
154
birds seen
$2.78
Per bird seen
$428.12
Earned
Madison's chapter of the Feminist Bird Club participated in the Great Wisconsin Birdathon on Sunday, May 8th as team "Yes We Pelican!" This was our second year participating in the Birdathon and our members knocked it out of the park. A huge, huge thank you to every single birder that joined us on Sunday, from those who were attending for their very first FBC event, to those of you who helped lead outings and helped our members spot lifers, to those who started birding at 4:30am to make sure we got eastern whip-poor-will on our list. Every single one of you made this day a success. ♥
Our team collectively saw 154 species across 51 eBird checklists submitted on Sunday. We held organized group outings at Cherokee North, Cherokee South, Nine Springs, Hoyt Park, and Lakeshore Nature Preserve and our birding groups at each of these locations helped us nab some incredible birds for our list. Lifers abounded for many and bird joy was at an all-time high as we got to welcome back so many new spring migrants.
We'd like to give a special thank you to Josh S. and Cass W. who were behind the many, many checklists submitted all over Dane County. These two went hard and we owe some really cool birds on our list to them! We'd also like to give a shout-out to FBC members Dawn Z. and Nicole W., Hilary S., and Lauren M. who also submitted checklists outside of our organized walks. This total is truly a team effort, made possible by everyone who participated with us today.
And last but not least, a huge thank you to every one who supported our team with a monetary donation. Together, our members have helped us raise over $4,400! Fifty percent of these funds will come back to our group so we can put free birding backpacks at all nine locations of the Madison Public Library. The other 50% is supporting Wisconsin's highest priority bird conservation projects. Thank you, thank you, thank you for your support. It means the world to us. ♥
Donors, stay tuned! We’ve got a special recap and lots of fun photos to share with you all. We can’t wait to report on the next steps of our birding backpack project too. Thank you again, everyone, for helping us make this a reality!
Contributions 68
Your Donation Makes a Difference For Birds
Donations made to the Great Wisconsin Birdathon support the Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin’s Bird Protection Fund, which has given out over $1.2 million towards Wisconsin’s highest priority bird conservation projects since its inception in 2009.
Whether it's creating Piping Plover habitat, rearing Whooping Crane chicks, monitoring Kirtland's Warbler nests, supporting community initiatives for bird-friendly neighborhoods, engaging new and underrepresented voices in the birding community, building impactful collaborations to protect Wisconsin's Important Bird Areas, protecting our neotropical migrants on their long migratory journeys to Central America ... the Bird Protection Fund is there to help.
Your donations make this work possible. Thank you for supporting on-the-ground conservation and being there #ForTheBirds!