A June Walk at Wilderness Park: Deer, Wild Turkeys, and Motherwort

I took a walk through Wilderness Park here in Neenah today. It was a gorgeous June afternoon, though the mosquitoes were hungry enough that they kept me moving a little quicker than I would have liked. Even at a brisk pace, the park put on a show. Wilderness Park wraps around a marsh, and on any given visit you might run into all sorts of wildlife. Today was a good one.

A deer along the trail

The highlight was a white-tailed deer that stepped out near the trail and simply stood there, watching me, long enough to let me take its picture. We get a lot of deer around here, but it never gets old when one holds still and looks right back at you.

White-tailed deer are everywhere in Wisconsin, common enough that we sometimes take them for granted. They are also our official state wildlife animal, a title the legislature handed them back in 1957. In June the does often have young fawns tucked away nearby, so a doe out on her own is usually not far from one.

Wild turkeys in the brush

A little farther on I came across a pair of wild turkeys, an adult and a baby. The little one was quick and vanished into the grass before I could get a shot, but the adult held still just long enough.

Wild turkeys are one of Wisconsin’s great comeback stories. They were native here, but unregulated hunting and habitat loss wiped them out by the late 1800s. Early attempts to bring them back with farm-raised birds went nowhere. Then in 1976 the DNR traded ruffed grouse to Missouri in exchange for wild-trapped turkeys and released them in the southwestern part of the state, and that batch finally took hold. Today wild turkeys live in all 72 Wisconsin counties, and 2026 marks 50 years since that effort began. Not bad for a bird that was completely gone from the state a century ago.

A young robin in the clover — (this shot was just before the park on my walk)

There were plenty of other birds out too. This one sat in the clover long enough for a good look. The speckled breast gives it away as a young American robin, still in its juvenile feathers. By late June the woods are full of recently fledged birds learning how to be birds.

A plant I had to look up: motherwort

There were a couple of patches of a tall, leafy plant I did not recognize, so I looked it up. It is motherwort, Leonurus cardiaca. It belongs to the mint family, which you can confirm with the classic test: the stems are square. It is not a Wisconsin native. It came over from Europe and central Asia a long time ago and naturalized here, and you will usually find it just like this, along woodland edges and disturbed ground. The little pink flowers tucked into the leaf joints bloom right about now, June into late summer. The name comes from its long history in old herbal medicine. I am not suggesting anyone go use it for anything, I just thought it was a neat plant to finally put a name to.

One walk, mosquitoes and all

That was all from a single walk. Wilderness Park is one of the quiet gems of Neenah, and the marsh keeps it full of life right through the summer. If you would like to see the same park on a different day, here is a windy evening I spent there earlier this week. I will be back soon, probably with more bug spray.

Wilderness Park turns up in my photo guessing game, Where in the Fox Cities? Drop a pin and see how well you know the Fox Valley.