NWA 3/6/15

A Northwoods Almanac for March 6-19, 2015

Sightings

Bill and Sherry Tischendorf in Harshaw sent me this note on 2/15: “Throughout this winter we have been having our suet bags (we reuse the orange and onion bags) torn apart and the suet gone. We have never found tracks around the tree the bag hangs in. Then last Sunday we noticed the suet bag being jerked around, and we believe we have discovered the culprit – a weasel!” The Tischendorf’s attached a photo, then graciously added, “We are still finding the suet bags torn apart, but it is a long winter and everyone needs to eat, but at least now we believe we know who is doing it.”

Tom Oscar in Irma sent me a series of wildlife photos taken on his land, several of which were close-ups of a bobcat stalking prey in his yard.

            Otto and Linda Novak sent me a photo of an “albino like” bird they saw hanging around with the pine siskins, redpolls and goldfinches. The bird appears to be a pine siskin that is a partial albino – it’s all white except for the brown streaking on the breast that is characteristic of siskins.

Birds Courting, Displaying, Even Nesting

It’s been a long winter, as all Northwoods winters are supposed to be, but signs of spring are certainly at hand. Sara Krembs in Manitowish Waters noted in a 2/26 email that she has been observing “one devoted [blue jay] couple where the (presumably) male has been feeding the female little pieces of peanut consistently throughout the winter. They even did their courting routine this morning when it was 26 below zero.”

Mary and I have seen ravens carrying sticks for nest building, and engaging in what is usually thought of as acrobatic courtship displays. But in researching the aerial displays of ravens, it turns out that in one study, aerobatic rolls were seen in as many as 16% of observations of individual flying birds. The researchers noted that, “Sometimes [the raven] makes half-rolls onto [its] back (95% of recorded rolls), and occasionally makes full rolls (3%) and double rolls (1%). Aerobatic rolls may serve a socialization function (dominance or courtship display), but are performed throughout the year by solitary individuals and by birds in large flocks and small groups.” Remarkably, ravens have also been observed flying upside down for as far as one kilometer! So precisely what functionality is being achieved in their circus-like performances will always be a matter of speculation, but a wonderful thing to witness!

Great horned owls are already on nest, and some have already hatched chicks in the southern part of the state.

I’ve heard chickadees singing far more of their “sweet-ie” song in the last week, an indication they are getting in hormonal tune with spring.

And finally, an array of mammals are also hormonally getting exercised: red squirrels mate in March while some gray squirrels will have their first litter by mid-March. Mink breed in early March, red fox give birth to their kits as early as late March, and gray wolves breed in as early as February and into March.

So, love is in the air, even if our nights are still occasionally dropping to below zero.

Silent Sports Maps!

If you’re looking for excellent maps of local skiing, snowshoeing, hiking, biking, and paddling trails, go to http://www.northwoodstrails.com.

Wisconsin Breeding Bird Atlas 2

            Whenever I have a question on the status of a bird in our area, my “go-to” book is the Atlas of the Breeding Birds of Wisconsin. The first Wisconsin Breeding Bird Atlas was conducted from 1995 to 2000, and represented the largest coordinated field effort in the history of Wisconsin ornithology. Volunteer field observers documented 237 bird species, 226 of which were confirmed to be breeding in the state. Results from that first survey (available online and as a printed book) provided insights into Wisconsin’s bird community that DNR and others have used to make decisions regarding how to manage public lands and how to conserve birds.

Last weekend, Mary and I, along with 200 others, attended the kickoff meeting in Wausau for the second Wisconsin Breeding Bird Atlas. Twenty years after the initiation of the first atlas, the second atlas will be a comprehensive field survey that documents the current distribution and abundance of birds breeding in Wisconsin. The new information will allow researchers to see changes in bird populations since the last survey. Many species face grave threats from habitat loss, climate change, and other human-caused pressures, and nearly one-third are imperiled or will be without intervention. To conserve them, we need a current understanding of birds that rely on Wisconsin to breed and raise their young.

The fieldwork will run from 2015 to 2019 and will update and expand on the findings of the first atlas. Meetings are being held throughout the state to gather volunteers to document precisely where birds are breeding. The first meeting locally will be in Manitowish Waters on May 9 at 1:15 pm at the North Lakeland Discovery Center. Nick Anich, the Breeding Bird Atlas coordinator, will speak about the atlas for the Northwoods Birding Festival.

For more information, go to www.wsobirds.org/atlas

Snowy Owl Advertising for Quick Trip

Birders at the atlas meeting went on field trips on the sub-zero morning of 2/28 and found male prairie chickens already displaying on a lek in the Mead Wildlife Area. If you’ve never watched male prairie chickens fervently dancing in hopes of attracting a female, well, you’ve been missing one of the most remarkable courtship displays of any bird in North America.

Birders also found numerous snowy owls in the area, one of which has been perching daily throughout the winter on the Quick Trip billboard on Hwy. 39 just south of the Mosinee exit. It’s certainly not a quick trip for a snowy to wander its way down here from its Arctic tundra breeding grounds, but I suppose it’s only appropriate given the adjacent Central Wisconsin Airport.

Another Attempt to Hunt Albino Deer

The 2015 Wisconsin Conservation Congress Spring Hearing notice is out on the DNR website. Question 7 (p. 43) on the Spring Hearing questionnaire, reads: "Several areas of the state are becoming populated with white deer. This population is increasing because white deer are protected. Some landowners report seeing only white deer during the hunting season and dominant white bucks seem to chase other bucks away preventing harvest opportunities. Do you support a rule change that would allow County Deer Advisory Councils to recommend the hunting of white deer in their respective counties?"

I must admit to being very surprised that anyone is reporting “seeing only white deer during the hunting season.” The Boulder Junction area is the epicenter of the albino deer population of Wisconsin, and most people still find it a rare, and wondrous, occurrence to see a white deer. The notion that we are overrun with white deer is simply unsupportable by any field data that I’m aware of.

            The other premise that “dominant white bucks are chasing other bucks away and preventing harvest opportunities” is similarly unsupportable. From conversations with people that feed the white deer in Boulder Junction, and thus see them regularly in action, the white deer can be aggressive, but no different than brown deer. It’s a pecking order at the feeders, and the biggest and strongest, not the whitest, get first dibs.

As I’ve stated in this column before, there is no significant biological reason to either conserve or to harvest white deer. They represent a tiny fraction of the deer population, and appear for all intents and purposes to do well despite possible visual issues commonly associated with albinism. They’re here, and from written records, they appear to have been here since at least the 1840s. Their presence or elimination from our landscape is purely a matter of human values. I prefer to see them in the wild and not as a mount in someone’s home, because that’s what this vote is really about.

Celestial Events

            The full moon occurred last night, 3/5, but it will still appear 100% illuminated tonight. This last full moon of winter was called variously by Native Americans the “worm moon,” after the worm trails that would appear in the newly thawed ground; the “death moon,” acknowledging how many animals may die in this last hard month of winter; the “crust moon,” a reference to how snow becomes crusty as it thaws during the day and freezes at night; and the “sap moon,” after the tapping of the maple trees.

March is the time to enjoy the “winter hexagon,” the grouping of the brightest stars of the year. The group contains eight of the brightest "first magnitude" stars visible in our sky and is visible
high in the southern sky and moves slightly westward each
night. At the center of the hexagon, you’ll find Orion’s bright red star Betelgeuse. Rigel, Aldebaran, Capella, Procyon, Sirius, Castor and Pollux are the other bright stars that make up the large, circular pattern.

For planet watching, look after sunset for Jupiter in the eastern sky climbing higher as the night progresses. If you have a small telescope or good bird spotting scope, you can also see its four moons. In the western sky after sunset, Venus also continues to climb higher as the month progresses. At magnitude - 4, it’s the brightest object in the night sky other than the moon. The planet Mars is still visible low in the west at sunset, while Saturn remains visible in the southern sky in the early morning.