A Northwoods Almanac for 9/26 – 10/9 25
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.
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| 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.
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| 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 50th 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!
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| 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.”
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