This photo is a production still from a recent trip to what we call "The Southern Front". We've been following the problems faced by our state's migratory songbirds in a series of reports for In Wisconsin. For example, check out the first and second installments in the bird strike series that details the problem of window collisions which kills millions of migrating songbirds every year.

Early this February, we travelled to the Osa Peninsula in Costa Rica to document critical efforts to conserve these birds on their wintering grounds. If these birds aren't protected in Central and South America, all of our efforts are for naught. This shoot was funded through the generous help of a Wisconsin non-profit, the Stry Foundation. Next week I'll describe what we shot and what it means to our upcoming hour-long documentary, "Our Birds". The crew, parked in that big ole rainforest tree, consists of sound recordist Kerman Eckes, producer Jo Garrett, and videographer Frank Boll.

More next week!

New academic standards could be on the way for 48 states including Wisconsin. A group of educators working for the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers today released proposed common academic standards. The standards detail what American public school students should learn in math and English from kindergarten through high school. The Obama administration endorses the standards.

They can be seen on the Common Core State Standards Initiative site.

Alaska and Texas are the only states not taking part in the standards re-write effort.

There's news to report on the subject of groundwater in Wisconsin. You may remember our stories we broadcast on In Wisconsin in November regarding the "dry lakes" in Waushara County and the declining water tables in the central sands area in general. At that time the legislature was discussing possible changes to the state's groundwater laws. Today(Monday March 8th) Representative Spencer Black (D-Madison) and Senator Mark Miller (D-Monona) are unveiling a revised groundwater protection bill. Some of the folks who live on Long Lake and Huron Lake, or what's left of them, are expected to be present for the legislator's press conference at the U-W Arboretum. We'll be there as well and will have details on Here and Now, Friday, March 12 at 7:30 p.m.

Also this week we'll be heading to Rhinelander to report on the process the DNR uses to estimate the state's deer herd. That's the subject of great debate and of a new study to check the accuracy of the state's population model.

But wait, there's more: We think there's a hidden history behind the Hodag. Curious? You'll have to watch In Wisconsin to see what we uncover.

I've never seen the National Geographic program called Border Wars but members of my family, who live in southern Arizona, tell me it's a very realistic representation of what's happening in their backyard, literally. I spent a week visiting them recently and got a first-person look at this conflict.

The U. S. Border Patrol flies helicopters back and forth all day. On the main highway, 3 miles from their home, all northbound cars must stop for inspection. While riding his mountain bike on a back road my brother-in-law was stopped by a Border Patrol officer. He was told to call the dispatch office if he saw anyone "suspicious".

As I understand it, the Border Wars program presents a variety of perspectives on the tensions surrounding what my family call "the undocumented". There are stories of the victimization by "coyotes", those who illegally transport and often rip off people desperate to get into the United States. There are also stories about the valiant attempts of the Border Patrol to prevent drugs and violent criminals from crossing into our country.

I haven't seen the program yet so I don't know if it presents a particular bias. I do know that Al Jazeera reported that:

'The total number of people killed while attempting to cross the border lies between 350 and 500 a year, depending on whether figures from the US and Mexican governments are used."

Many of these people die of thirst.

Border Wars will air a new program this Sunday, 3/7, at noon. It will feature a town on the border called Nogales, some 20 miles south of my family's home.

I don't know if this program is advocating for a different way to handle this growing problem. I do know it's needed.

This week I am knee-deep in editing. The story is about a program sponsored by the Urban Ecology Center in Milwaukee.

This environmental education center has a full calendar of many interesting activities and projects.

Our story focuses on a UEC program to train "citizen scientists". The UEC requires that "citizen scientists" are used for all their research projects. These volunteers spend massive hours in training to become skilled at the research tasks of each project. In return, they are very, very invested in these research projects. This story will air in the coming weeks on In Wisconsin. Hope you get a chance to check it out.

We always look for the Wisconsin angle in any story. So as a soccer fan, I was surprised and interested to see that a member of the US National Team is from Green Bay, a city known worldwide for American football but not at all for what the rest of the world calls football.

Jay DeMerit's route to soccer success is one of the most unusual around. Typically, for an American to get a chance play in Europe, he has to establish himself as a star on a team in this country's Major League Soccer (MLS) and hope for an invitation to the much, much more competitive european leagues.

After graduating from the University of Illinois-Chicago, where his team had made the NCAA playoffs, DeMerit remained undrafted by MLS. Because he had a Danish grandfather he could legally work in Europe. DeMerit moved to England and tried to find a team to play for.

English Football is a stratified system, with the best teams in what's called the Premiership. But unlike the NFL or other American sports leagues, if a team doesn't perform well, they are sent down to a lower level of competition. Essentially the whole organization is sent to the minors.

DeMerit's start was with a team at the ninth tier, playing for a few pounds a week. After a move to a seventh tier team, he caught the eye of the manager of Watford, a premier league team that counted Elton John among its fan base. DeMerit's play at Watford finally got him the attention of the American soccer leadership. No wonder his nickname on the national team is "Rags to Riches."

If you aren't aware, the next World Cup gets underway from South Africa this June. The US faces a big challenge from the start when they face England on June 12.

State Representative Jeff Wood goes before a legislative committee Wednesday... a committee that is considering whether to expel the independent who represents a northwestern Wisconsin district.

Wood has been charged three times for driving under the influence. The committee will hold a public hearing on the matter of expulsion and may also consider a lesser penalty of reprimand. Wood says he should not be treated differently than the many other lawmakers charged with crimes over the last 70 years who were not disciplined by the legislature.

You may recall the story we broadcast on In Wisconsin involving Astronaut Jeffery Williams. I interviewed Williams at his family's home near Winter in northern Wisconsin. A boyhood friend of Williams happened to be visiting that day. Bernie Reich, who's a masonry contractor from the Chicago area, is so close a friend he has twice gone to Kazakhstan to watch Williams lift off from the Russian Cosmodrome.

Reich, who at the time of our visit to Winter, had been playing guitar for only a few months, had written a song in honor of Williams entitled "Lonesome Heart." Even though he was a relative beginner Reich performed the song in front of our camera and we featured it in the segment.

It's time to update the report a bit. Williams is still in orbit on the International Space Station. He was featured on the CBS Evening News fingering spots on a globe so Steve Hartman could visit them and tell the story of someone who lived at the picked point.

Reich, meanwhile, hasn't quit his day job but he is furthering his musical career. He's now formed a country and western band, Big Greedy Redneck. Reich's company is BGR Construction (those are his initials) and he has been using those words to help people remember the name. I had a chance to attend a house concert put on by the four piece group and, while I'm no music critic, I can say Bernie is making progress. He's had at least one performance at a bar in his home town of Couderay. That's appropriate since several of the other songs he's since written talk about the changes the town has seen since he moved away. Some of his songs are up on You Tube if you want to give them a listen.

This recent report on funding public and government access channels on cable from Wisconsin Public Radio's Shawn Johnson caught my attention (a print version is available here).

Not long ago, the state legislature passed laws deregulating cable television. In the past, cable providers have had to set aside channels on their systems for public and local government use and provide some operational funding. That requirement is set to expire in about a year. Sun Prairie Democrat Gary Hebl has authored a bill that would allow communities to fund these access operations by collecting one-percent from cable subscribers' bills.

My start in television was through public access about twenty-five years ago. We would shoot in the now defunct Betamax format using a shoulder mounted camera attached to what was essentially a VCR in a bag. It took some commitment, but the ability to actually make television was exciting and empowering.

Of course, a lot has changed, and that is the cable industry's argument against this mandate. Back then, cable was more or less a monopoly without the competition of satellite and other digital providers. Because a satellite dish doesn't need government authority to bring television wiring to your house, they are not subject to the same access demands local governments had been able to make to the cable providers.

And user technology has changed even more. Those clunky cameras of the past are no match for a palm-sized digital recorder capable of capturing full HD video. Video that can be edited on a laptop and seen by a potentially world-wide audience on YouTube or other video-sharing site.

So those barriers to making television have been substantially lowered by technology. But when I look back on how I first learned about video production, it wasn't just through access to the technology--thrilling though that was--but also from really good mentoring from the head of my town's access channel, the person who also gave me my first job in television. That's something that no law can ensure.