Chapter Meeting

Bill conducted numerous studies of the great blue heron during more than 20 years of field work. He surveyed nesting colonies across southern Wisconsin and provided management recommendations for several rookery sites. In his travels he has sighted many of the world’s species of herons and egrets and this program will explore a variety of the species found throughout the world. We will then delve into the habits and ecology of the great blue heron. This program will explore its nesting habits and demonstrate how surveys of annual nesting success are conducted. Additionally, there will be several examples of rookery management projects that Bill conducted over the years in Wisconsin.

About the speaker: Bill worked as the naturalist and wildlife educator for Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources at Horicon Marsh for 27 years, where he conducted more than 3,700 education programs for over 220,000 people. His broad audiences included professional training for 66 delegations of scientists from 43 countries. He has worked professionally in 5 foreign countries and throughout his career has presented well over 4,000 public programs.

In his personal time, he has traveled widely in search of the world’s birds and the wild places they inhabit. His adventures have taken him to nearly 50 countries, traveling throughout Central and South America, across the Canadian Arctic, to Africa, India, Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand, Russia and Mongolia. From September 2014 to April 2015, Bill and his wife Connie took a seven-and-a-half-month around the world birding trip and in 2025 and 2026 they traveled for more than four months to Indonesia, Philippines, Taiwan, Sri Lanka and northeast India to explore remote locations in search of endemic birds.

​Bill has been watching and studying birds for over 50 years and in his travels has sighted more than 4,900 species. To facilitate his studies, he is also a federally licensed master bird bander, with the Bird Banding Laboratory of the U.S. Geological Survey.

His work experience includes assisting the Russian Natural Resources Agency (formerly Goscomecologia, Buryatia) and the Russian Academy of Sciences to further protection of Lake Baikal in Siberia, Russia. From 1991 to 2004 he made 8 trips to the Republic of Buryatia to work on various projects in the Lake Baikal area and two trips to Mongolia to focus efforts on the Selenga River watershed, the largest river flowing into Lake Baikal. Since 2002, he has worked with ornithologists and conservationists in Nicaragua to develop a National Bird Conservation Education Plan and establish a national strategy for protecting Nicaragua’s threatened and endangered birds. He has made 20 trips to Nicaragua and continues to support various bird conservation projects in the country. He and his wife Connie also lead birding tours to Nicaragua.

Bill and Connie make their home in the northern Kettle Moraine area of east-central Wisconsin.  Here they work together to restore and manage a series of native plant communities on their land, including an oak-hickory forest, a planted prairie community and native plant nursery, and manage various types of wetlands.  On this land, they have now identified more than 750 species of plants and animals, including 211 species of birds.

Bill shares his experiences and understanding of the natural world through lectures, presentations, field trips, and the media. He has been a regular guest on Wisconsin Public Radio for more than 30 years with over 200 appearances as Wisconsin’s bird expert. He has written 5 books and published numerous papers and is working on several new writing projects that will give these presentations more permanence and reach an even wider public.

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Bird Walks at Big Foot

Join us for a Bird Walk near the shores of beautiful Geneva Lake. We will follow the park’s trails while on the lookout for birds and other wildlife. Meet in the main parking area to the right of the entrance station a little before 11:00 AM. A state park sticker: $28 or daily pass: $8 ($13, $3 if age 65 or older) is required to enter Big Foot Beach State Park.

Please contact us if you are interested in attending a walk.

Kevin Dickey – https://lakelandaudubon.com/contact/ or +1 (262) 729-9702

Visit the events page to see a list of our scheduled bird walks.

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bird walks at white river

Get out and enjoy one of the best parks Walworth County has to offer. We’ll walk the trails and be on the lookout for birds and other critters. We’ll also watch for plant blooms and other interesting elements of nature. Meet at the kiosk by the parking lot a little before 11:00 AM.

Please contact us if you are interested in attending a walk.

Kevin Dickey – https://lakelandaudubon.com/contact/ or +1 (262) 729-9702

Visit the events page to see a list of our scheduled bird walks.

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Christmas bird count results

Lake Geneva CBC-2025 (Data)

For anyone who is interested in the final numbers of last year’s CBC, simply click on the link below: