A Northwoods Almanac for April 19 – May
2, 2013
One Value of a Late Spring
Last
year with our exceptionally early spring, a lot of plants budded out early and
then froze when the inevitable May and early June frosts hit. We had only one
apple develop on our six apple trees, and virtually none of our lilacs bloomed.
Maple syrup producers had little if any sap to work with because the buds
flowered so quickly.
So,
this year will likely look closer to normal for the plants. Spring in the
Northwoods has always been a slow-to-arrive/quick-to-leave season, and the
plants and animals have adapted to that general cycle. We need to remember
that, though I understand it’s also equally in our DNA to perpetually complain
about how late spring arrives.
Sightings
Sonja Roediger on County O in Eagle
River sent me photos of 50+ snow buntings that have spent all winter at her
feeders, a very unusual behavior for snow buntings, which typically winter well
south of our area where the snow depths are far less. Ordinarily, we start to
see the males come through on their long northward migration to the Arctic in
early April, while the females follow four to six weeks later.
The males return when temperatures in
the Arctic can still dip as low as -30°C, in order to compete for high-quality
nest sites in rock cavities. By tucking their
nests deep in narrow rock fissures, snow buntings suffer lower rates of nest
predation than open-nesting arctic songbirds.
3/30: Paul and
Ellen Gottwald on the Turtle Flambeau Flowage in Springstead saw their first
robin of the year as well as two sandhill cranes.
3/31: Nick
Petreman in Presque Isle reported 14 red crossbills at his feeder and a deluge
of common redpolls – somewhere around 250!
4/4: Sharon
Lintereur in Lake Tomahawk said the maple sap was running and they were making
syrup. For those of us seriously addicted to the elixir, this is great news!
4/5: Mary
Madsen in Presque Isle was visited by her first robin and grackle of the year.
4/5: John Werth on the Manitowish
River reported seeing the first great blue heron of the year. Several days
later John looked out his kitchen window and watched a mink running across his
yard with a chipmunk in its mouth. Later that day he saw a redheaded woodpecker
on Found Lake Rd., a pretty uncommon sighting these days.
4/6: Jim and
Helen Travis in Lake Tomahawk were treated to their first sighting ever of a
female cardinal at their feeders.
4/6: Joe
Tennessen had four red crossbills visiting his feeders.
4/6: Our first
flock of red-winged blackbirds returned to Manitowish. A northern harrier also
flew over our house, the first one of the year. The next day a juvenile
sharp-shinned hawk haunted our feeders for over an hour, giving us exceptional
views of it.
4/8: Linda
Thomas in Sayner observed a loon flying over the Sayner Chamber of Commerce. It
was most likely scouting to see if any lakes had opened and instead had to
return south with advice of patience.
4/9: Mark
Pflieger in Harshaw watched the 20 or so redpolls that had been at their
feeders all winter suddenly increase to over 300 in two days.
4/9: Several
fox sparrows appeared under our feeders in Manitowish, as did a northern
shrike, and a flock of starlings.
4/11: Bill and
Cheryl Crawford sent a photo of an army of common redpolls that suddenly showed
up at their feeders.
4/15: A
woodcock appeared below our house and probed for food on the exposed mud of the
south-facing slope.
Courtship
and Territorial Displays
It’s
spring, despite all the snowy evidence to the contrary, and the male birds that
have returned are already cranking up their testosterone to establish
territories and woo females. Grackles are back, and we often observe them
“puffing themselves up” in what’s called their “ruff-out” display. Here the males spread their wings and tail, ruffle their contour feathers,
and rise up by extending their legs so they look nearly twice their size. It’s
impressive and effective!
In a
relatively similar manner, the red-winged blackbird males around our feeders do
a “songspread” display where they arch forward, spread their wings to the side,
bend their tails down, and fully expose their red epaulets. Like the grackles,
they make themselves appear much larger, and the brilliant red epaulets really
accentuate the effect! Right
now, their display is only to impress other males, because the females usually
don’t return until nearly three weeks after the males red-wings arrive. This
year, however, all bets are off on that. The females may arrive “on schedule,”
which is usually by the third week in April, though our snowy weather may
discourage their timing.
Various
waterfowl are displaying as well. Trumpeter swans perform an elegant courtship
display where the pair swim together, dipping their bills in the water. Prior
to copulation, the male crosses his neck over the female’s neck, and she then
extends her neck and lowers her body deeper into the water so he can mount her.
Male
common goldeneyes perform a ritualized courtship display where the male
repeatedly flicks his head rapidly backward in a smooth arc, pointing his bill
upward.
Not all birds
are courting – many species of waterfowl arrive in the Northwoods already pair
bonded. For instance, wood ducks perform their courtship more in fall and
winter than in spring, which means that much of the population forms pairs prior
to migrating north. Once they arrive here, their pair bonds are maintained
through the initial incubation of the eggs, but soon the male wanders away,
leaving the female to rear the chicks.
Mallards, too,
perform courtship displays in the fall before migration, as well as on their
wintering grounds, resulting in many individuals arriving here already paired.
But many will still display in the spring, either because some individuals are
not yet paired, or because mated pairs need to strengthen their bond. Mallard
courtship includes an impressive variety of displays, some of which are performed
by groups of males toward one or more females. In the “grunt-whistle” display,
the male lowers his bill into the water, arches his neck, and raises his body
upright and almost out of the water while still keeping his bill in the water.
Then the drake tosses an arc of water droplets in to the air with his bill and
gives a loud, sharp whistle followed by a deep grunt, all of which takes a
second or two. Very romantic stuff!
Great blue
heron males advertise their interests by howling, starting the loud call at a
high pitch with the head and neck stretched up, and then lowering the pitch of
the howl as he lowers his head and body into a crouch. He often follows this up
with grabbing a twig or by appearing to “sharpen” his bill on the branch.
Sandhill
cranes perform one of the most exquisite displays of all birds, performing an
elegant dance that has five parts: the upright wing stretch, horizontal head
pump, bow, vertical leap, and vertical toss.
Crane
Count
Speaking
of cranes, on April 13, Mary and I participated in the very snowy Christmas
Bird Count – oops – I mean, Sandhill Crane Count, and we heard a whopping total
of zero cranes. In fact, only one of our counters reported hearing any cranes,
though not all counts had been tallied as of this writing.
Usually cranes are back by now, even if
we still have snow on the ground, so we expected to still hear them despite the
light snow that was falling. We’ve conducted many crane counts over the last 20
years where we had to ski, or the temperature was below freezing, or a
snowstorm was raging, but typically we still found cranes. Not so this year,
and all I can think is that the snow was so unusually deep that it exceeded the
cranes’ acceptable range of variation, a tipping point that apparently has kept
the cranes mostly down in southern and central Wisconsin.
On
the other hand, they may have been “out there,” but were simply quiet that
morning for reasons we’re unlikely to unravel.
As
always, though, we still enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. Our territory for the
count is a stretch of the Manitowish River from the Hwy. 51 state wayside down
to the Hwy. 47 bridge by our home. We’ve always paddled the river, no matter
the weather. But this year, after seeing the morning temperatures forecast for
12° with high winds, we gave in to our misgivings (discretion being the better
part of valor), threw the snowshoes in the car, and decided to tramp along the
edges of the river.
We
eventually got a bit turned around in all of the cedar swamps and upland aspen
stands that border the wildly meandering Manitowish. But that made it all the
more of an adventure! And though we saw few birds of any kind, we did find at
least two small flocks of golden-crowned kinglets, the first we’d heard or seen
this winter. We also found an esker we didn’t know about, a few big pines, as
well as that cedar swamp I just mentioned which was just as amazingly tangled
as any other one we’ve ever groped our way through.
Our
dog surely thought this was the way life should be – starting at daylight and
going for a two-hour walk in the woods.
And I have to say we agree with her.
This
was the 38th annual Midwest Crane Count. Some 2,000 volunteer counters survey for
sandhill and whooping cranes over 100 counties in six states (Wisconsin
and portions of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, and Minnesota).
The
count tally varies from year to year given April’s propensity for fickle
weather conditions – very cold, very windy days make for poor counts.
Wisconsin’s count over the last six
years has been this:
2012: 9,750
2011: 9,479
2010: 10,892
2009: 10,363
2008: 11,254
2007: 13,764
I
suspect 2013 will be one of the lowest totals in the last decade, not because
of a declining crane population, but because of so much snowcover in northern
part of the state. But perhaps the cranes were all just stacked up in the south
and the numbers were high there. I’ll report the results when they’re released.
Celestial
Events
The
peak Lyrid meteor shower takes place on 4/22, though the nearly full moon will wash
most of it out. The full moon occurs on 4/25, and the way we’re going, will
still be beautifully reflected on a snowy landscape. That same night, look for
Saturn about 4° north of the moon.
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