Horicon Marsh Overnight Birding Trip
This class will take place on Wednesday and Thursday, September 23 and 24, 2026, with Bill Volkert.
This 2-day field trip will consist of an evening dinner at a local restaurant with a presentation by well-known naturalist Bill Volkert, www.billvolkert.com, on Sept. 23 and a half-day morning auto and walking tour of the Marsh in search of birds with Volkert, and
an optional one-hour boat tour at 1:00 p.m. on Sept. 24.
Fe University registration fee of $45 includes the evening presentation, a light breakfast, and the auto tour. The optional boat tour is
$22.50 per person and must be paid at registration to reserve a seat–refund if canceled 24 hours prior.
Transportation, dinner, lunch, and hotel room will be paid individually by participants. FeU has reserved a block of 15 rooms at a local hotel until Aug. 23rd, $83-$88 plus tax. Estimated cost of the trip, including registration and boat tour, is approximately $200 per person assuming car pooling and double occupancy of the rooms: registration $45, boat tour $22.50, room $48 double occupancy, dinner and lunch $50, gas $100 divided by number of people in the car. Anyone wishing to stay longer can rent kayaks and explore exhibits and hiking areas on their own.
Additional details such as the schedule, making room reservations, location of the dinner, kayak rental, exhibits, etc., will be provided upon receipt of your registration.
Also, it is highly recommended that participants attend John Bates’s free FeU presentation “Stitching Continents Together: The Phenomenon of Bird Migration” on Sept. 22 at 10 a.m. at the Mercer Community Center. Registration is required; register online or at the door.
About the Marsh and the trip from Bill Volkert:
Horicon Marsh is the largest wetland in the Midwest encompassing 33,000 acres. The marsh is divided into two administrative units – the National Wildlife Refuge and State Wildlife Area. During the evening presentation participants will come to understand the long human history and the series of human impacts to this wetland over the past 150 years and how these two separate units of the marsh came to be.
The field trip on the following day will begin at the Auto Tour Route on the National Wildlife Refuge. The tour will consist of car-pooling along the 3-mile route along with a series of short walks to search for birds and other animals. September is the peak of the late songbird migration and beginning of the fall waterfowl migration so this will provide an opportunity to observe a good variety of migrant birds. We will be searching for birds on the various ponds and impoundments and along the West Branch of the Rock River which enters the marsh at this point. We also will be able to enjoy a walk on the floating boardwalk which takes us into the marsh itself. If time permits, we may also explore the main dike road.
This trip is limited to 25 students.
Instructor: Bill Volkert
Offline Registration: Download PDF Registration Form, complete and mail in with payment.
Registration Questions? Contact us or call (715) 862-2032 or (715) 476-2881.
Registration Issues/Troubleshooting: If you are registering with one email address for two or more people, please register each person individually (i.e. do not register all at once, but add students one at a time to checkout). If you continue to have difficulty or have another question, please contact us.