Outdoors: Prairie Chicken Festival preview
What: The Third Annual Prairie Chicken Festival
When: Friday through Sunday
Cost: $25; reservations must be made in advance. The price includes a reservation to a blind (requires being there at 4:30 a.m.), breakfast and access to all the other events of the three-day event. Other interesting activities include grassland birding tours, raptor information, radio telemetry demonstrations, bird banding demonstrations, children's events, literary bash, and more.
More info: Go to www.prairiechickenfestival.org or call (715) 343-6215.
About the festival: Hosted by the Golden Sands Resource Conservation and Development Council, it is a celebration of the grasslands of Wisconsin, and the birds that inhabit them, namely prairie chickens.
Sharon Schwab, coordinator of the Central Wisconsin Grassland Conservation Area Partnership, said that the Festival "provides information and educational opportunities to landowners, students and the public. We hope to build appreciation for this unique grassland species in central Wisconsin in concert with the large agricultural community."
Observers can make reservations and watch prairie chickens at the Buena Vista Grasslands (between Wisconsin Rapids and Bancroft), and Mead, Leola and Paul Olson Wildlife Areas. In addition, at least one farmer is renting out blind space to prairie chicken observers.
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