Record-breaking numbers have the 2025 Birdathon soaring to new heights!
Read on for highlights and results from this year’s Great Wisconsin Birdathon.
Team ‘Yes We Pelican!’, representing the Feminist Bird Club Madison Chapter, partnered with SOS Save Our Songbirds for the 2025 Great Wisconsin Birdathon. Photo by Caitlyn Schuchhardt.
The 2025 Great Wisconsin Birdathon has truly ruffled feathers in the best way! A record-breaking 620+ birders across 91 teams flocked together to raise $127,001—our biggest nest egg yet—to protect Wisconsin’s birds.
The funds raised by this incredible effort will support the Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin’s Bird Protection Fund, which helps top-priority bird conservation projects take flight across the state.
We couldn’t have soared this high without our incredible birders, team captains, donors, and sponsors—our loyal flock who return year after year. Your passion and support keep this event flying strong.
The 2025 Birdathon Report is here to showcase some of the fun stories, great successes, and standout moments from the 14th annual Birdathon. From rare sightings to clever team names, this season was truly one for the books!
Be sure to mark your calendars: the Birdathon will take off again next spring, April 15 – June 15. Until then, keep your binoculars ready and your spirits sky-high!
I am a part of a birding spectacle that encompasses the whole state of Wisconsin. My team, route, and fundraising are just one small part of a larger movement with everyone cooperating to raise money and see birds.
The red-headed woodpecker was chosen as our 2025 Bird of the Year to raise awareness about this Species of Special Concern and the woodland bird community. Photo by Sarah Dezwarte.
Announcing the 2025 Bird Protection Fund grant recipients
We’re thrilled to share where this year’s flock of funds will land!
The Birdathon fuels the Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin’s Bird Protection Fund, which helps Wisconsin’s most threatened and endangered birds thrive. From creating and restoring crucial habitat and supporting research to helping young birders take flight through education and outreach—every dollar helps protect our state’s birds.
Each year, the Bird Protection Fund Committee, a “talon-ted” team of Wisconsin bird conservation experts, works carefully to ensure these funds fly straight to where they’ll make the biggest impact for our feathered friends.
We’re proud to announce the 2025 Bird Protection Fund recipients:
Advancing Bird Conservation within Wisconsin’s Important Bird Area System
Wisconsin’s Important Bird Area (IBA) system brings partners and stakeholders together to coordinate and plan management, stewardship, and monitoring activities that will benefit vulnerable bird species, ensuring access to essential habitat. Funds will provide financial and technical support for IBA partnerships that address widespread bird population declines, with a special focus on grassland birds. Partner: Wisconsin Bird Conservation Partnership
Audubon Conservation Ranching
Over the last three years, Audubon Great Lakes has improved grazing and grassland habitat management practices across more than 12,500 acres in Wisconsin. This work primarily occurs on farms within Important Bird Areas, Wisconsin Grassland Bird Conservation Areas, and priority areas identified in the Wisconsin State Wildlife Action Plan. These working lands will deliver significant benefits to grassland birds, wildlife, water, soil, and people, and specifically address rapid population declines of species such as upland sandpiper, Henslow’s sparrow, eastern and western meadowlark, and bobolink. Partner: Audubon Great Lakes
Bird Conservation, Research, and Outreach with Tribal Partners
This funding will support habitat work, research, and education in partnership with several Wisconsin Tribes. One will enhance bird habitat by opening the forest canopy to support species like the Canada warbler and northern goshawk. Another will support grassland bird populations on former industrial land that is being converted into native habitat. Another project will engage tribal youth and community members through bird-focused field trips and educational programs. We’re excited to share more details in partnership with the Tribes as the projects progress.
Building an Inclusive Bird Conservation Partnership for Milwaukee
This project will develop a partnership to achieve Urban Bird Treaty City designation, enabling Milwaukee partners to access more funding and pursue landscape-level initiatives needed to reverse bird declines. A special focus will be on diversity, equity, and inclusion to ensure historically underrepresented groups in bird conservation and birding are a part of the process from the beginning. Partner: Lake Michigan Bird Observatory
Bus to Nature Program
The BIPOC Birding Club of Wisconsin hosts monthly birding events in Madison and Milwaukee and special events around the state that bring BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) and allies together to enjoy and experience the birds and natural wonders of Wisconsin. This year’s grant will support the club’s efforts to make meaningful connections with schools and organizations in the Madison area and provide birding experiences for students. This will occur via grants to provide transportation to green spaces through the club’s pilot program, “Bus to Nature.” Partner: BIPOC Birding Club of Wisconsin
Climate Lifeboat Initiative: Building Climate Resilience for People and Migratory Birds
This project will restore and enrich forest habitat along Costa Rica’s Amistosa Biological Corridor, creating an elevational pathway critical for bird survival, including many of Wisconsin’s most treasured migratory birds. Through native tree planting and strategic reforestation, it will strengthen a climate-resilient corridor linking lowland and highland ecosystems. Partner: Osa Conservation
Endangered Bird Conservation
Wisconsin is home to both the piping plover (federally endangered) and the Kirtland’s warbler (state endangered). The Lower Green Bay area home to one of only three Wisconsin piping plover populations. Last year for the first time, four chicks were captive-reared and then released at Cat Island. Additionally, the overall Great Lakes piping plover population had the most nesting pairs (80) since they were listed as endangered in 1986. Funding will support the Lower Green Bay team and contribute to a multi-partner collaborative endangered species recovery project.
The Kirtland’s warbler has nested in Wisconsin for over 15 years. Funding will support continued population recovery and conservation of the species in Wisconsin, including through monitoring efforts. The state is crucial for the birds’ population expansion beyond its core breeding range in Michigan because it provides the 5- to 20-year-old jack pine stands necessary for breeding. Partner: Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources – Natural Heritage Conservation
Long-term Bird Monitoring at Restoration Sites on the Oneida Nation Reservation
This collaborative volunteer bird monitoring program, co-led by Northeastern Wisconsin (NEW) Bird Alliance, has an impressive track record of surveying birds at restoration sites on the Oneida Nation Reservation. This year’s funding will support community outreach events and data collection and analysis at existing bird monitoring locations. It will also help provide land management guidance for the Oneida Nation, expand understanding of what constitutes bird conservation though a formalized Oneida cultural exchange, and build bridges between the Oneida and non-Tribal communities. Partner: Northeastern Wisconsin (NEW) Bird Alliance
Neotropical Flyways Project - Creating Stepping Stones for Migratory Birds in Urabá, Colombia
This project will identify and delimit a series of habitat islands, designed to act like stepping stones for migratory landbirds stopping over in a major migratory bottleneck in NW Colombia. Through a participatory process with local communities, the project will promote the protection of native forests and the restoration/enrichment of the native tree cover associated with agroforestry systems and degraded lands. Partner: SELVA Investigación para la Conservación en el Neotropico
Restoring Historical Grassland in the Badger Army Ammunition Plant Important Bird Area
The Badger History Group, Inc is working to expand and connect critical grassland tracts by forestry mowing, hand-cutting, and treating non-native and encroaching species. They will monitor the effects of this work on breeding birds and small mammal populations within and adjacent to the project area. Partner: Badger History Group, Inc
Smith-Reiner Drumlin Prairie Grassland Bird Habitat Enhancement
This project seeks to improve habitat for rare and threatened grassland birds by improving the floristic quality of the non-remnant areas through interseeding and removing non-native invasive weeds that threaten to degrade existing habitat quality. Partner: The Prairie Enthusiasts
Save our Songbirds: Bird Protection in Southern Wisconsin through Community Outreach
SOS Save Our Songbirds and Southern Wisconsin Bird Alliance are working to raise awareness about songbird decline in Wisconsin and spur action at home. By providing basic Wisconsin-tailored information, hands-on events, and discounts and supplies, they’re helping people make small changes at home to give birds the habitat they need year-round and to reduce threats. Partner: Southern Wisconsin Bird Alliance
Whooping Crane Reintroduction
The International Crane Foundation is committed to the long-term reintroduction and protection of migratory whooping cranes in eastern North America. Grant funding will support captive breeding and rearing of chicks using costume-rearing and parent-rearing methods, specialized veterinary care, research and monitoring of reintroduced whooping cranes in Wisconsin, and community education and outreach. Partner: International Crane Foundation
Wisconsin Breeding Bird Atlas II Book Publication
The Wisconsin Breeding Bird Atlas II is a comprehensive field survey documenting the distribution and abundance of birds breeding across our state. This funding will help the Wisconsin Society for Ornithology price the atlas below $50, which surveys show would put the Atlas in the hands of a greater audience. Partner: Wisconsin Society for Ornithology
Team ‘Millennial Falcons,’ representing NRF’s Wisconsin Wayfarers, participated in the 2025 Great Wisconsin Birdathon. Photo by Naomi Hadley.
Feathering local nests: $23,000+ is flying back to local bird conservation
The Great Wisconsin Birdathon isn’t just about making a statewide impact—it’s also about lifting up our local flocks!
Birdathon teams that represent nonprofits, bird clubs, Bird Cities, and classrooms are eligible to keep 50% of the funds they raise so they can feather their own nests with bird-friendly projects. This year, a beak-dropping $23,370 will support bird conservation in hometown habitats.
Our 22 amazing organizational teams are doing imperative conservation work like making windows safer for birds, building and installing nest boxes, supporting bird banding and monitoring, planting native species that give birds food and shelter, restoring habitat, and much more! These projects are giving our feathered friends a place to call home and inspiring their human neighbors to protect them.
We’re proud to help these local heroes flap their wings and make a difference where it matters most: right in their own backyards!
This is a wonderful way to get people out birding and to fundraise for bird conservation and our land trust. Two things that are very important to me!
A Record-Breaking Number of Birders
Year after year, the Great Wisconsin Birdathon community continues to grow. More than 620 birders made up a record-breaking 91 teams across 39 Wisconsin counties and spotted 283 bird species! We also welcomed 32 teams joining for the first time this year and an incredible 10 classroom teams making the Birdathon an exciting part of their spring curriculum. The Birdathon is for everyone! From families to coworkers, from classrooms to youth groups, from nonprofits to bird clubs, our birding community is ready to do what it takes to bring birds back.
Over 20 Birdathon teams were lucky enough to spot the red-headed woodpecker, our 2025 Bird of the Year. Through funding woodland habitat restoration and management initiatives, the Birdathon supports this Species of Special Concern.
It’s a “place-based” educational opportunity that helps cement the importance of local wildlife areas to migratory and resident bird populations.
Team ‘AFHS Birders,’ representing an Adams-Friendship High School class, participated in the 2025 Great Wisconsin Birdathon. Photo by Haley Shannon.
Top Fundraisers
1. Cutright’s Old Coots $27,637
2. Lake Superior eBirders $12,838
3. Glacial Lakes Conservancy Chickadees $7,081
4. The Motmot Crew $6,555
5. River Raptors $6,144
Most Species Seen
1. The Lincoln Sparrows 204 species
2. BIPOC Flock 200 species
3. Good Godwits 194 species
3. Yes We Pelican! 194 species
4. The Motmot Crew 186 species
Classroom Teams
AFHS Birders, Adams-Friendship High School in Adams County
Edison Environmental Club, Edison Middle School in Brown County
Gulls Just Want to Have Fun! – Grantsburg ‘25, High School in Burnett County
Lincoln 3rd grade Lions, Lincoln Elementary School in Dane County
Mr. Dargatz’s Nature Kindergarten, Woodside Elementary School in Waukesha County
Mr. Delain’s APES Class, West Bend High School in Washington County
RBMS Science, River Bluff Middle School in Dane County
UW Eau Claire Camping Club, University in Eau Claire County
UWSP TWS Student Chapter, University in Portage County
West High Whip-poor-wills, Madison West High School in Dane County
Thank you to all our birders and donors for making the 2025 season another fundraising success!
Team ‘Lake Superior eBirders’ participated in the 2025 Great Wisconsin Birdathon. Photo by Ryan Brady.
Birdathon Impact Spotlight
Volunteers working the Hopkins Hollow Volunteer Planting Day with Nearby Nature Milwaukee. Photo courtesy of David Thomas at Nearby Nature Milwaukee.
Thanks to last year’s Birdathon efforts and a grant from NRF’s Bird Protection Fund, Nearby Nature Milwaukee was able to carry out their Lincoln Creek Habitat Research and Restoration project at the 19-acre Hopkins Hollow natural area.
Their dedicated team of staff, interns, and volunteers conducted wildlife studies, planted native species, removed invasive plants, and cleaned up trash. They were also able to expand their internship program—both in curriculum and capacity. As a result, more than 600 community members were able to engage in hands-on urban conservation work locally.
Written by Naomi Hadley, Donor Relations Coordinator