#Frederick Hamerstrom

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A National Chicken Month Feathursday

September is National Chicken Month! What a great opportunity to celebrate these beautiful birds. Today we’re sharing Strictly for the Chickens by Frances Hamerstrom, published by Iowa State University Press in 1980. The book tells the story of Frances and her husband Frederick’s work to study and conserve the Greater Prairie Chicken in Wisconsin. Frances and Frederick were inducted into the Wisconsin Conservation Hall of Fame in 1996. 

The Prairie Chicken (Tympanuchus cupido) is technically a kind of Grouse, but we’re going with it since “Chicken” is in the name! Frances and Frederick Hamerstrom moved to the middle of Wisconsin in the 1930s to study the Prairie Chicken and by 1950 their research was “flourishing to the extent that they needed outside help to collect data during the ‘booming’ [mating] season” (back dust jacket flap). The Prairie Chicken was in danger of extinction when they began their research and conservation work and “Today, over 30,000 acres are managed by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources as greater prairie chicken habitat. Birdwatchers travel from around the world to visit Wisconsin in April for the Central Wisconsin Prairie Chicken Festival, started in 2006 by Golden Sands Resource Conservation & Development Council, Inc.” (Wikipedia). 

View more posts about Prairie Chickens. 

View more Feathursday posts. 

- Alice, Special Collections Department Manager

#Feathursday #Prairie Chicken #Greater Prairie Chicken #National Chicken Month #Grouse #Frances Hamerstrom #Frederick Hamerstrom #Chickens #booming

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International Owl Awareness Day 2017

Owls are appreciated every day here at UWM Special Collections, and to celebrate this designated day of Strigiformes awareness we are showing off Wisconsin owls.

Birds of Prey of Wisconsin was written by Frances Hamerstrom and illustrated by her daughter Elva Paulson. Frances and her husband Frederick came to Wisconsin to work with prairie chickens in 1935. In 1940, Frances was the only woman to earn a graduate degree, studying with Aldo Leopold, at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Both of the Hamerstroms were inducted in to the Wisconsin Conservation Hall of Fame in 1996.

Frances says that to attract owls: “Listen, especially at dusk or daybreak, and if you can imitate calls well . . . you may attract owls you would not otherwise have seen.”

In comparing hawks and owls she says: “Hawks and owls both have sharp talons and strong hooked beaks but they differ in their hunting tactics – one could almost say they differ in their approach to life. Hawks often miss their quarry; owls seldom miss. They are more apt to wait and wait until they are sure of making a kill.”

Birds of Prey of Wisconsin was first printed in softcover by the Department of Natural Resources Madison, in 1972. Our copy is a special edition that was published by the Wisconsin Society for Ornithology the same year and is signed by Frances Hamerstrom. The book was designed and edited by Ruth L. Hine who, in 1949, was the first woman awarded a PhD in zoology by the University of Wisconsin - Madison. In 2010 Hine was also inducted in to the Wisconsin Conservation Hall of Fame.

#owls #international owl awareness day #birds of wisconsin #frances hamerstrom #strigiformes #the imperturbability of owls #alison #Ruth L. Hine #Elva Paulson