A Northwoods Almanac for 9/26 – 10/9 25

 A Northwoods Almanac for 9/26 – 10/9 25  

 White Pine Cone Bonanza

            We have numerous large white pines on our property, and this year a small army of squirrels have taken it upon themselves to drop literally hundreds of pitch-coated green cones onto the ground, making it hard to walk in our yard without smearing our shoes in pine pitch. 

            White pines produce cones that mature in the autumn of their second year and shed their winged seeds soon after, with the open, empty cones falling a few months later. The first-year female cones are initially very small and seldom noticed.

            Male pollen cones also grow on white pines and are the source of the clouds of yellow pollen we so often see in mid-June in the air and on the surface of backwaters and lakes. The male cones shrivel and dry as soon as the pollen is shed, and then fall, often covering forest trails. 

            The pollen grains that alight and form a film on lakes and ponds eventually sink to the bottom, accumulating in the sediments. The grains are almost indestructible and persist in recognizable form for thousands of years, making it possible for ecologists to infer the history of an area’s vegetation, and hence the regional climate, over many millennia.

            All that aside, I’m currently out raking up all the sticky cones, and I wonder if the red squirrels are pulling them apart and eating the seeds at the base of the cone scales, or if they stash them and wait for them to fully ripen. You’d think the sap would stick their teeth together and mat their fur into a gluey glob.

            What’s the purpose of all that pitch? Pitch, a resin, protects a pine tree from insect attack as well as seals up injuries to the tree to discourage rot. When an insect such as a beetle larva tries to burrow into the living cambium layer under the bark it will sever pitch tubes by accident. Pitch will ooze out and will physically push the larva right out the hole it had chewed though the bark. The pitch also has antibacterial and antibiotic properties, further protecting the tree from disease.

 

Frog Bay Tribal National Park

            A few weeks ago, Mary and I hiked the 1.7-mile loop trail in the 175-acre Frog Bay Tribal National Park (FBTNP), the first tribal national park in the United States. In total, FBTNP and the Frog Bay Conservation Management Area protect 300 acres, consisting of a large tract of at-risk boreal forest, over a mile of riparian corridor, nearly 120 acres of wetlands and freshwater estuary habitat, and almost 4,000 feet of undeveloped Lake Superior shoreline.

Frog Bay Map

            The property includes mature to old-growth boreal forest identified to be of Global Significance by the WDNR, and it provides views of five of the Apostle Islands including Oak, Basswood, Hermit, Raspberry and Stockton Islands.  

            The area has been historically important for the Red Cliff Tribe, but was inaccessible in recent history due to its private ownership. The Bayfield Regional Conservancy and the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa joined forces in 2012 to acquire and permanently protect the property for nature based recreation, for traditional/spiritual ceremony, and to further the understanding of the sacredness of all land.  

            The Conservancy worked with David and Marjorie Johnson, who purchased the land in the 1980s, to ensure its permanent protection, with the Johnson’s donating half of the value of the land. The remaining half came in the form of a Coastal Estuarine Land Conservation Program grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency. 

            The Johnsons were longtime neighbors of former Senator Gaylord Nelson and family. Nelson led the creation of the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, and the view from the Johnsons’ property includes the 33,000 protected acres comprising what is now called The Gaylord Nelson Wilderness within the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore.

            The loop trail leads through older white cedars and Eastern hemlocks, some of which are 30” diameter-breast-high (dbh), though most average around 24” dbh. Very few white pine occur on the property, presumably having been high-graded out at some point. Mature red oak are numerous, but the keynote of the site are its upland white cedars which, while not giants, appear relatively old and add substantially to the primitive feeling of the area.

old photo of me in Frog Bay Tribal Park by a white cedar

            Tribal vice-chairman Marvin Defoe said in an interview in 2012, “It’s an environment that is conducive to practicing solitude. I’m hoping that users of this park will practice the art of listening. Listen to the water. Listen to the trees. Listen.”

            The Apostle Islands, and Madeline Island in particular, were once the center of Ojibwe culture. Established in 1863, the historic 14,000-acre reservation became fragmented as original members lost their properties. Today, the tribe and its members hold 8,000 acres within the reservation that is one mile wide and stretches for 14 miles around the top of the Bayfield peninsula.

            

Apples Galore and the Legend of Johnny Appleseed 

            Over the years, Mary and I planted six apple trees on our property, three of which produce lots of apples, and the other three, well, not so much. 

            So, it’s applesauce-making time. Last year, we put up 39 quarts, so we’ll see how industrious we are this year. That’s a lot of work, but January smiles make it worth it.

            As kids, we were all told the story of “Johnny Appleseed.” However, he’s not fictional. He was a professional nurseryman by the name of John Chapman. Sometime around 1800, he started collecting apple seeds from cider presses in western Pennsylvania and began a trek westward, planting apples from the Alleghenies to as far as Illinois or Iowa.

            He sold or gave away to pioneers thousands of seeds and seedlings, primarily small cider apples, not the dessert and cooking varieties that we now see in grocery stores. Cider apples produce non-alcoholic cider, but also hard cider, a beverage that was a staple for pioneers who didn’t always have access to sanitary drinking water, or so they claimed.

            Champman wore flowing hair, bare feet, ragged trousers, an old coffee sack over his shoulders, and was known for his cheerful generous nature, his gentleness with animals, his knowledge of medicinal herbs, and his harmony with the Native Americans.

            He was a devout follower of the mystical teachings of the Swedish theologian Emanuel Swedenborg, proselytizing and distributing Swedenborg’s writings as he traveled. Chapman insisted on treating all animals with kindness – even mosquitoes and rattlesnakes – in keeping with the Swedenborgian doctrine that “the life of religion is to do good.”

 

Birds in Art 50^th Annual Exhibition

            Birds, in all their majesty, grace and beauty, connect us with the natural world. The world’s premier avian art exhibition, Birds in Art, occurs right here in Wisconsin at the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum in Wausau. The exhibit opens each fall on the weekend after Labor Day, but this year marks a milestone – it’s the 50th annual exhibition – and it features new paintings, sculptures, and works on paper created by some of the world’s most talented artists, all themed around the wonders of the avian world.

            Every year except one since 2001, I’ve been honored to lead a nature hike for some of the artists when they’re transported to Hazelhurst to spend an afternoon on the Woodsen-Yawkey-Hagge property on Lake Katherine. I usually take them to the Raven Nature Trail and spend a couple hours sharing with them what makes our area remarkable – our iconic birds, trees, mammals – and ask them to share similar thoughts from where they live. We also share our concerns about invasive species, habitat loss and climate change, recognizing the similar themes that keep us awake at night.

            This year I had artists from the Netherlands, India, California, Mississippi, New York, Ohio, Missouri, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, North Carolina, and Wisconsin on the hike, and what a treat it was to hear all of their perspectives from such diverse places.

            As for the art, there’s none better if you love birds. The exhibit is open until January 4, Tuesdays – Sundays.

            

Hawk Ridge Count – Blue Jays!

            An average of over 60,000 raptors and over 200,000 other birds are counted each fall at Hawk Ridge in Duluth. But while raptors are the soup du jour there, songbirds sometimes make a splash as well. On September 10, a record number of blue jays flew past Hawk Ridge – 15,280 – smashing the previous record and also establishing the new Minnesota state high count! 

Blue jay photo by Bev Engstrom

            Many folks are surprised to learn blue jays migrate, given that blue jays appear to remain at our Northwoods feeders year-round. But here’s the really surprising part: All aspects of blue jay migration remain poorly understood – there are very few long-term studies. Cornell’s “Birds of the World,” the definitive Bible on the natural histories of individual species, says blue jay migration is hard to pin down. For instance, “Blue jays that depart an area in autumn may be replaced by those migrating from farther north. However, distance traveled by migrants varies, and, in most areas, many jays are resident year-round; the proportion that migrates is probably not greater than 20% of the population even in northern parts of the range.” 

            Then it goes on to say: “Occasionally, breeding jays may be migratory one year, sedentary the next, then again migratory in a subsequent year.

            “Similarly, an adult jay that presumably has bred at one location may summer substantially farther south in subsequent years. Likewise, jays captured and marked as adults during winter have been recaptured substantially farther south in subsequent winters.”

            Add in this: “Both juveniles and adults may remain resident in winter in most of the range, yet individuals have been recorded migrating more than 5 years after being banded,” and one is left with this bottom line: Blue jays do whatever the hell they want.

 

Celestial Events

            For planet watching in October, look after dusk for Saturn high in the southeast. Before dawn, there’s a little more action with Venus very low in the northeast twilight and Jupiter rising in the northeast around midnight, then transiting to the east before sunrise.

            Sputnik I, the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth, was launched by Russia on 10/4/1957. Nearly 70 years later, around 12,000 satellites now orbit the Earth, with the U.S. responsible for over 8,000 of those.

            October’s full moon, the “Hunter” or “Falling Leaves” moon, occurs on 10/6. 

 

Thought for the Week

            In 1985, Paulo Coelho walked the 500-mile Camino de Santiago, the famous pilgrimage across Spain that pilgrims have been traveling since the Middle Ages. That trip was a turning point for him because until then he had spent his life searching for the secrets of the universe. But on that pilgrimage, he says he “realized that there are no secrets. Life is and will always be a mystery.” 

 

 

 

A Northwoods Almanac for 9/12 – 25, 2025

 A Northwoods Almanac for 9/12 – 25, 2025 

 

Sightings

            For over 40 years, Mary and I have walked the dikes at Powell Marsh Wildlife Management Area looking for birds and simply enjoying the beauty of the wetlands. On September 1, we had a sighting we’ve never had before – four great egrets foraging along the eastern shoreline of the Vista Flowage. We’ve seen individual egrets perhaps three or four times over all those years, but never four together.

             Great egrets have a wide-ranging global distribution, breeding throughout Asia to northeast China and as far south as Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and southern Chile. But they’re not a northern species, at least in North America. In Wisconsin, they breed along the Mississippi River from Burnett Co. south, and also in the southeast from Winnebago Co. south to Waukesha Co.

great egret range map

            They were once on the verge of extinction in the U.S. due to the wild feather fashion trade in the late 1800s that led to millions being slaughtered, but they’re recovered fully from that period with the advent of hunting regulations on migratory species.

            The great egret became the organizational symbol for one of the oldest birding groups in the United States, the National Audubon Society because of the decimation of the great egret and its critical need of protection.

 

Male Common Loons Declining?

            As always, I highly recommend everyone read Walter Piper’s website and blog (loonproject.org) for the latest and most thorough analysis of the common loon population in the Lakeland area. His “Loon Project” investigates the territoriality, breeding ecology, and population dynamics of common loons in the Upper Midwest. Most importantly it’s an ongoing long-term scientific study, which is what all wildlife studies need to be if we want to understand the big picture of their lives.

            Walter began studying loons in our area in 1993, and so has 33 years of data on 105 marked breeding pairs, chiefly in Oneida County. He began a second study of 110 marked pairs in north-central Minnesota (Crow Wing and Cass counties) in 2021. 

            He notes on his website, “Comprehensive statewide data come from Breeding Bird Surveys, which have been conducted by expert birders on fixed routes across North American since 1967. These data show that loon populations were on an upswing from 1967 until about 2010 in both states [Minnesota and Wisconsin], but have been falling sharply in the past decade and a half . . . The data collected by the Loon Project in northern Wisconsin since 1993 echo the pattern above; breeding success and population size rose in the late 1990s and early 2000s but are now in sharp decline.”

            In 2019, Walter reported that there were warning signs related to the survival and breeding success of loons in northern Wisconsin. His data showed that the loon population in northern Wisconsin had declined overall by 22% during the past quarter century. Wisconsin loon pairs were producing fewer chicks; chicks were growing more slowly; and chicks were dying at much higher rates now than 30 years ago, when his work began. 

            Walter’s analyzed the trend and made a population projection that the northern Wisconsin loon population was shrinking by as much as 6% each year, indicating that we will likely see noticeably fewer loons on northern Wisconsin lakes within the next five to ten years.

            Walter’s most recent blog posting (9/3/25 – “A Devastating Year for Males”) discussed his recent finding of the loss of five established male breeders on area lakes, and the subsequent slow replacement by unmated males on those vacated territories. He notes, “I have pointed out before that males are the limiting sex in loons. That is, males live shorter lives than females, and this tilts the adult sex ratio towards females. Put simply, males are in short supply, while there are ample females to fill breeding positions. Males have also been impacted by loss of water clarity. They, like chicks (and unlike females), are of substantially lower mass now than 20 years ago. As the ‘weak link’ in the population, males seem most likely to be the cause of further population decline.” 

            Walter worries what this could mean. “Does the loss and lack of immediate replacement of these males this past season signal the beginning of that downturn? I hope not.”

            Time will tell, again emphasizing the importance of having long-term studies. 

            The National Science Foundation provided funding for Walter’s work from 2003 through 2018. And between 2021 and 2022, the National Loon Center provided substantial funds. However, the Loon Project has no major source of funding for Minnesota or Wisconsin for 2026 and afterwards. If you’re looking for worthy environmental research to support, perhaps consider the Loon Project.

            

Passenger Pigeon Anniversary

            September 1 marked the 111th anniversary of the death of the last passenger pigeon, “Martha,” at the Cincinnati Zoo.  Here are the words of Margaret Fuller describing a flight of pigeons on the Rock River in Illinois in 1843:

            “Every afternoon [the pigeons] came sweeping across the lawn, positively in clouds, with a swiftness and softness of winged motion, more beautiful than anything of the kind I ever knew. Had I been a musician, such as Mendelssohn, I felt that I could have improvised a music quite peculiar, from the sound they made, which should have indicated all the beauty over which their wings bore them.”

             The last documented wild pigeon for which there is an extant specimen anywhere in the world is on display at Millikin University in Decatur, IL. The male passenger pigeon was shot in the wild near Springfield, Illinois, in March 1901. 

 

Wild rice 2025

            Annual wild rice production across the region is strongly linked to climate and weather events over the previous year, and last year, and this year, have not been good ones.

            “The 2025 season has brought a mix of conditions, including several notable storm systems,” said Kathy Smith, Ganawandang manoomin (she who takes care of wild rice) with the Great Lakes Indian Fish & Wildlife Commission. “A fast-moving windstorm in mid-June produced widespread wind damage and heavy rainfall across the upper Midwest. In late June, some areas saw 6-7 inches of rain in a short period, contributing to temporary high-water levels on seepage lakes.”

            According to the Great Lakes Indian Fish & Wildlife Commission, remote sensory imagery suggests that across northern Wisconsin the surface area coverage of wild rice is 18% less this year than last year’s crop. Very few traditionally good ricing sites are open this year for harvest due to poor crops.

            The Great Lakes Indian Fish & Wildlife Commission maintains the Annual Harvest Outlook webpage, which includes helpful information for harvesters and wild rice production conditions for some historic wild rice waters in Wisconsin. 

 

Nighthawks

            Nighthawks put on a show in our area on August 31. Numerous folks contacted me saying they were watching flocks of nighthawks near their homes. We saw a relatively small flock in Manitowish around 5 p.m.

            In Duluth, MN, over 10,000 were counted in the late afternoon and early evening passing over or near Hawk Ridge.

            Still, that wasn’t the best day for nighthawks at Hawk Ridge. On 8/22, one of the professional counters wrote this: “Hard to put any words down about today. The [nighthawk] flight began early, and large kettles of nighthawks formed along the ridge. As the cold front approached, the flocks coalesced into rivers of birds, overhead and inland. The nighthawk signal had been flashed! Thousands of these magnificent goatsuckers flowed against a steely gray wall of clouds as the front arrived. High altitude instability brought a few pop up showers that shifted nighthawks off the shore and back to the ridge in a flurry of shimmering wings. The action slowed after 3pm, but more were certain to arrive as the sticky summer evening arrived. An unforgettable day!”

            Indeed it was – their final count was 17,870!

            Nighthawks migrate a great distance between their breeding range and winter range, making their journey one of the longest migrations of any North American bird. Individuals become quite gregarious during fall migration with flocks of thousands occasionally occurring.

            Most will winter in South America, as far south as Argentina.

 

Honey!

            Mary and I extracted honey from our two hives on 8/31, and when all the work was done, we had 25 quarts, or 6.25 gallons, which weighs in at 77 pounds. This was our best year ever, and most impressive was that one of the hives produced over 90% of the honey - the other did quite poorly.

            So, how do bees make honey? My standard answer is that it’s magic, and I’m really not far off in saying that when you consider the actual process.

            When bees collect nectar, they use a long tongue, called a proboscis, that can slide down into the flower and suck nectar out like a straw. They store the nectar in a second stomach that doesn’t digest the nectar and basically serves as a carrying purse. The honey stomach can hold up to 70 mg of nectar and weigh almost as much as the bee itself.

            Honey bees also have tiny hairs on their bodies allowing pollen to stick to them, so they can carry both nectar and pollen while flying.

            When the worker returns to the hive with the nectar she has foraged, there will be a younger worker bee (a “house bee”) waiting. Her job is to suck the nectar out of the honey stomach of the forager. 

            Once the nectar has been transferred, the house bee will chew it for about 30 minutes, adding enzymes to break it down, forming a simple syrup. The enzymes also reduce the water content in the nectar. This makes it easier to digest and less likely to be plagued by bacteria while stored inside the hive.

            Once this process is complete, the worker will distribute the resultant syrup over the comb of the hive. This is accomplished by spitting up the nectar that she chewed for the past half hour. She will deposit this inside a cell in the honeycomb. Then she spreads the syrup out to maximize the surface area so that water can continue to evaporate from the honey syrup and make it thicker over time. The bees also help reduce the water content by fanning the honey with their wings.

            Bees need nectar and water to make honey, but they also need lots of high protein pollen in order to transform into adult bees. Pollen is a vital component for bee health in general. When bees arrive back at the hive with pollen caught in their hairs, it must be “processed” and then stored within the hive for later use as a protein source.

            Bottom line? I still go with “it’s magic.” 

 

Celestial Events

            On 9/19, look in the northeast before dawn for brilliant Venus less than one degree below the waning sliver moon. 

            The new moon occurs on 9/21.

            The autumn equinox takes place on 9/22. The sun will be directly over the equator. The next day, 9/23, the sun will rise at its nearest to due east, and set at its nearest to due west.

            And on 9/25, we’ll officially have less than 12 hours of sunlight, and night will now be longer than day (for the first time since March 16)!

 

Thought for the Week

            “We are the first generation to feel the effect of climate change and the last generation who can do something about it.” – Barack Obama

 

Please share your outdoor sightings and thoughts: e-mail me at johnbates2828@gmail.com, call 715-476-2828, snail-mail at 4245N State Highway 47, Mercer, WI, or see my blog at www.manitowishriver.blogspot.com