A Northwoods Almanac for 10/14 – 27,
2016
Sightings – First Frost
Our first autumn frost in Manitowish occurred on 10/9,
the latest date for frost that Mary or I can recall in our 34 years of living
here. In looking back through some of our records, in 1993, we had frost on
8/12, while our last frost of spring occurred on 6/21 that year. So, we had a
52-day growing season. In 1994, we had a mild frost on 8/3. In 1997, our first
frost was on 8/17. That same year, I wrote in my book A Northwoods Companion: Spring and Summer that “in the Northwoods,
one can expect a hard frost between mid to late August.” That assertion was
based on over a decade of consistently experiencing frosts within that
timeframe. We never could get a ripe tomato and always had to bring in trays of
green tomatoes to ripen because of mid-August frosts.
I wish I had long-term records that would give me
first-frost dates for Manitowish over a century – I’m curious if this was a
record late date for frost.
Chicken of the Woods (Sulphur Shelf – Laetiporus sulphureus)
Mary and I hiked the Pinkerton Trail
in the Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park on 10/2, and both of us kept
looking at one another and saying, “I’ve never seen so many mushrooms in my
life!” We’re still novices at identifying mushrooms, which is a good thing,
because we wouldn’t have gotten anywhere if we stopped at every species along
the way. One mushroom that we had no choice but to stop for was a brilliant
orange outgrowth of “chicken of the woods” blanketing an old yellow birch. It
was like a fluorescent flagman on a county road demanding that we stop.
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| chicken of the woods |
We’ve never eaten chicken of the
woods, but it’s reputed to be a choice edible that resembles chicken both in
taste and in texture. I’m glad no one
had cut off the large brackets on this one for their own use. This was a
megaflora – like seeing one of our megafauna such as an eagle or a bear – and
worthy of being seen by many people over time.
This fungus invades the heartwood of
living trees, eventually hollowing out the trunk and hastening the death of the
tree. On one hand, that’s certainly a loss. But on the other hand, it’s a gain
for those species that den in tree cavities, like American martens, fishers,
flying squirrels, raccoons, porcupines, and numerous bird species from barred
owls to wood ducks.
Other excellent mushroom discoveries
along the trail included a large bear’s head tooth fungus and an extensive
display of wolf’s milk slimemold.
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| bear's head tooth fungus |
Giant Water Bug
Mary also photographed a giant water bug (Lethocerus americanus) that alighted on a rock near her along the shore of Lake Superior. A
full two inches long, giant water bugs have very large foreleg pincers with
which they ambush underwater prey by grabbing them, then piercing their bodies
with their sharp beak, and finally secreting enzymes to dissolve the prey’s
body tissues and sucking them dry. Lovely. They’re the top invertebrate
predator especially in wetlands. They’re also known to bite when disturbed by
people and have earned the nickname “toe-biter.”
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| giant water bug with leash for size reference |
Esker or Crevasse Debris? Ice-block
Depression of Slumpage?
On 10/8, the Friends of Van Vliet
Lake hosted a talk and hike led by J. Elmo Rawling from the Wisconsin
Geological and Natural History Survey. Of the many slides Dr. Rawling
presented, our group was perhaps most intrigued by an animated video of the ice
margin advances and retreats of the Wisconsin Glacier from 31,000 years ago to
11,000 years ago presented in 500-year periods. To see the dynamic nature of
the glacier, go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHpyJzywBn4. You can also download from the WGNHS
website a set of 44 maps showing the position of ice in Wisconsin over that
period (http://wgnhs.uwex.edu/pubs/es056/).
We then hiked at the Van Vliet
Hemlocks State Natural Area where Dr. Rawling stopped us on top of what I had
always thought was an esker to explain that it was more likely formed by debris
that had fallen through a crevasse in the glacier. This was a possibility that
I’d never considered. An esker is a long, winding, often steep-sided ridge of stratified
sand, gravel, and small cobblestones that was formed by a stream running
through a glacier. If you want to build a gravel pit, look for an esker.
However, if a sinuous ridge in a woods is comprised
of a wide array of types and sizes of rock, from gravel to very large stones,
it more likely was formed by a crevasse on the top of a glacier. Here water
carrying many types of soil and stones tumbled down to the base of the glacier
and was deposited in a ridge.
A second
“aha” that I had was regarding the formation of the lakes in our area. The
Northern Highland is well known for having one of the highest concentrations of
kettle lakes in the world, some of which are really large like Trout at 3,816
acres, Fence at 3,555 acres, and Tomahawk at 3,392 acres. I’d always thought that nearly all of
our lakes were formed when ice blocks were left stranded at the edge of
melting glacial ice, and as the ice blocks slowly melted, sands and gravels
collapsed into the depressions, or “kettles,” creating kettle lakes and bogs. It
turns out, however, that many of our lakes were also formed by the collapse of
glacial material that was unevenly deposited. If the depression was deep
enough, and the water table high enough, the hole filled with water, and voilá,
we were given a lake. Another uncommon possibility is that a jumble of glacial
moraines may have dammed up water on all sides, and if the water table again
was high enough, a lake has remained.
A third
“aha” was the explanation of why the Driftless Area of southwestern Wisconsin
was never glaciated when glacial lobes to the east extended well down into
Illinois and Ohio and to the west extended far south into Iowa. The last
glacial advance traveled generally in a southwesterly direction and had to fill
up the Lake Superior basin first before it could arrive in present-day
Wisconsin. That was a very, very large hole to fill, and thus the glacial lobes
on either side which didn’t have to fill that hole, moved more rapidly
southward, skirting southwestern Wisconsin.
Green Heron Using Bread as Bait to Catch Fish
Watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Porp5v5lLKk. No catch and
release exhibited here! Now if a green heron is videoed baking the bread first,
then we’ll really have something to consider.
Mast
The word mast comes from the old English word “maest,” for nuts
of forest trees that accumulate on the ground. The word has long since been
expanded in meaning to include all fruits and nuts of trees and shrubs.
Good mast years only come now and again in a boom and bust cycle that ecologists
see as strategic. The thought is that trees and shrubs have “learned” over time
to prodigiously swamp their environment with their mast, effectively satiating
all the critters that predate upon their seeds, thus having enough seeds left
over to germinate and grow the following season. Boom mast years are then
typically followed by bust years, serving to starve out the abundance of
predators that fed so well the previous year. It’s a sort of economic war, with
mast used as the currency.
This fall I’ve noticed that beaked hazelnuts are having a bust year,
while winterberries (Ilex verticillata)
are booming. The woodbine around our home also have produced an abundance of
fruits, as have our crabapple trees. Our highbush cranberries, on the other
hand, seem to be doing just okay – not good or bad – so they’re biding their
time between the boom and the bust.
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| winterberries |
I’m uncertain how other shrub species like staghorn sumac, hawthorn, the
various dogwoods, and nannyberry are doing, but all the wildlife species that
depend on them surely know. In good years, chipmunks, squirrels, raccoons,
bears, jays, crows, woodpeckers, grouse, turkeys, et al, often get to the mast
first and putting on fat that will help them get through the winter.
Celestial Events
The full moon, often called the
“Hunter’s Moon,” will light up the night on Saturday, 10/15.
Look for the peak Orionid meteor shower during the
pre-dawn of 10/21 – 20 per hour is the average.
On 10/22, our average low temperature drops to 32°F for
the first time since April 22. The Minocqua area averages 182 days with low
temperatures at or below freezing – about half of the year.
To see planets in October, look
after dusk for Venus and Saturn very low in the southwest, and Mars also low in
the south-southwest. Before dawn, look for Jupiter low in the east. On 10/27,
look for Jupiter just below the waning crescent moon.
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