A Northwoods Almanac for 1/17-30, 2025
Otters Sliding and Playing
I recently photographed an otter slide near our home on the Manitowish River. He, or she, was running and sliding for quite a ways down the river, likely enjoying the perfect conditions of the light powdery snow on top of the ice.
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| Otter slide on the Manitowish River |
Otters clearly use sliding as a form of locomotion to get from one place to another, but do they also slide for the pure joy of it? A study done in 2005 on the Youghiogheny River in southwestern Pennsylvania confirms that while otters do slide for the practical purpose of travel, they also use sliding as a form of play (“Sliding Behavior in Nearctic River Otters: Locomotion or Play?,” S. Stevens and T. Serfass, Northeastern Naturalist, 2005).
The researchers set up remote video cameras and obtained a video of three otters sliding 16 different times down an incline, for a total of 53 seconds, each slide traveling two to five meters, and all in the same area. Clearly they weren’t going anywhere. They were also wrestling and scent-marking, which involved a “dance” in “which the otter treaded both back feet for approximately five to 10 steps while holding its tail in the air.”
The study authors note that play has been defined as “any behavior that does not directly serve the functions of food-getting, reproduction, safety from predators, or other immediate vital needs of the organism or the species.” The researchers, thus, summarize the study by saying “our observation of three river otters repeatedly sliding down an incline suggests that in some cases sliding is also a form of play behavior.”
So, there you have it – otters play. Now about that dance . . .
Endless Overcast Days?
This winter has often felt like the sun has deserted us, and that sunrises have become an endangered phenomenon. However, I’ve learned the hard way over time that what we think is going on environmentally isn’t always supported by the data. So, have we had an inordinate number of overcast days?
The easiest way for me to check that is to look at our solar panel data. We have 22 solar panels that we installed five years ago, and a software program graphs how much solar energy we produce every day. The program then summarizes our gains by the month, by the quarter, and by the year, allowing us to compare data over time
So, relative to overcast days this winter, yes, it has been quite overcast. In fact, this December was the least sunny of the last five years. But all Decembers are generally gloomy – it’s just a fact of life for living up here. We produce the least amount of solar power in December, in large part because the days are the shortest, but also because the sun prefers to hide behind clouds on most days.
To give you a sense of how gloomy it has been this winter, on the last six days of November, we produced only a hint of solar power, perhaps an hour or so total. Then from the beginning of December through the 23rd, 13 of those days the sun didn’t shine at all, and on another 5 of those days, the sun shone for perhaps half an hour. Only on one of those days did the sun actually shine for almost half the day. So, for 29 days in a row, we were almost completely entrenched in shadow.
Things perked up for the last 8 days of December, and on 12/30, we actually had one full day of sun, the only day of full sun in all of December (see December’s graph).
So, if you felt like there was no such thing as sunrises or sunsets during December, you were correct.
As of this writing on the evening of January 9, things are looking up. We’ve had two full days of sun so far in January, three days of about half a day of sun, two days when the sun made an appearance for maybe an hour, and two days of overcast. Not great, but we’ve already produced more electricity in January than we did in all of December.
Our lifetime revenue in saved electricity bills over the last 5 years is nearly $5,000. Utilizing tax credits, depreciation, and a Focus on Energy rebate, we will have paid back the cost of our system in two more years.
When I last looked at our propane furnace bill, there was no payback, and will be no payback – ever.
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| Our solar production over 5 years in Manitowish, WI |
Fire Scars
One of the blessings winter provides is how far one can see into the woods now that all the leaves are down. Mary and I commonly walk in the Frog Lake and Pines State Natural Area across the river from our home, and we have known for a long time that this was an area regularly burned by the Ojibwe prior to Euro-American settlement. Over the years, we’ve found major fire scars on numerous trees throughout the site, and a DNR study on one red pine along the lake noted that the tree began life in 1805 and had fire scars from 1833, 1846, 1855, 1864, 1877, and 1895.
Well, on a recent hike, we found additional trees with fire scars because we could see beyond all the hazelnut shrubs whose leaves usually block our view. In this case, we found a row of five smaller red pine all with similar size small fire scars on them. The scars were all facing south, meaning the fire most likely came from the north. I’ve written about this before, but as a reminder, as a fire passes through a woods, the fire often “eddies” on the backsides of trees and can sit there and burn while the rest of the fire continues forward. Thus, you can surmise the direction the fire was running by where the scar is on the trunk.
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| Fire scars on five red pines in a row |
Usually fires in our region come out of the south or west, because they most often occur in the spring before leaf-out, and it’s a warm wind blowing the fire along.
Evidence of historic controlled fire’s benefits and its crucial value to Native populations is documented and preserved in Ojibwe oral tradition. Low intensity ground fires cleared the understory and made conditions perfect for the growth of blueberries in particular. We often think that Native American tribes only used fire in the prairie country of southern Wisconsin, but Native tribes used fire extensively in the North Country as well,.
More on this in future articles.
Snowy Owl
In late December, Mary, Callie, and I traveled to Ashland to try and find at least one of the six snowy owls that have been reported in that area. After several fruitless (owlless) hours, and just as we were getting into the car to head home, Mary spotted one on the top of the Ashland post office. It soon flew across Hwy. 2 toward the lake, and we followed it to where it was perched on an abandoned building. Then it flew back to the post office where we were able to get a few photos with an iPhone of what is either a female or juvenile. What a beautiful bird!
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| Snowy owl on top of Ashland post office chimney |
On a World Scale, 2024 Hottest Year on Record
We are still moving in the wrong direction regarding climate change; fossil fuel emissions have increased to an all-time high and the 3 hottest days ever recorded occurred in July of 2024.
Between January and October, there were 24 weather/climate disaster events with losses exceeding $1 billion each affecting the United States – including 17 severe storms, four tropical cyclones, one wildfire and two winter storms – leading to at least 418 deaths, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data.
Worldwide, the top ten hottest years on record have happened in the last ten years, including 2024.
2025 is designated as the International Year of Glaciers’. The aim is to prioritize efforts to protect the Earth’s frozen regions, which are critical for regulating global temperatures.
Losing Winter
Along those same lines, a new study (“Indications of a changing winter through the lens of lake mixing in Earth’s largest freshwater system,” Eric J Anderson et al, 2024 Environmental Research Letters) shows that since 1995, winter is the most rapidly changing season in the Great Lakes region, growing warmer and wetter with less snow. The scientists found that winter is shrinking by about two weeks per decade on average across all five Great Lakes, and by three weeks on Lake Superior and Lake Erie. The Great Lakes also have lost an average of about 1.5 days of ice cover per year since 1995. That’s over 30 years, so do the math on that and that’s 45 days of ice cover.
Across the state, temperatures have warmed about three degrees and rainfall has increased about five inches, or 17%, since 1950, according to the Wisconsin Initiative on Climate Change Impacts.
Many folks, particularly those who hate winter, might be cheering all this. Very few people like extreme below zero cold or winters that last into May. But, may I simply say that the Northwoods winters are essential to who we are – it’s our personality – and we will not be the Northwoods if we lose our winters. So, while some may be tempted to be high-fiving these warmer, wetter, shorter winters, it will change what plants and animals live here. And with that will go what makes us the North Country.
BTW, that’s not hyperbole, not political, not opinion. Our house is burning, and we can stand at the front door and argue that that it isn’t really burning, or agree it is but it’s not our fault, or say that’s it’s always burned in some ancient era so who cares.
Or we can respond and try to put the fire out.
Celestial Events
Our days are growing longer now by 2 minutes every day. We’re up to 9 ½ hours of sunlight as of 1/26 – that’s 40% of the day. Not bad!
On 1/19, look in the southwest after dusk for brilliant Venus about 3° north of Saturn.
Our coldest days of the year occur from 1/20 to 1/29 – the average high is 21° and the average low -1°.
Thought for the Week
“I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it what I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.” – George Bernard Shaw
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