A Northwoods Almanac for 1/2-15/2026
Christmas Bird Counts
I participated in two Audubon Christmas Bird Counts – the 126th year of the counts – beginning on 12/18 with the Minocqua count. Here the group tallied 24 species, a typical number, despite the mist and rain that morning. Most counters, however, felt the woods were abnormally quiet – the abundance of birds was well down.
For me, the keynote of this count was the finding of nine brown creepers, a species we struggle to find even one of on most count years (see more on brown creepers below).
The second count took place on 12/20 in the Manitowish Waters area, and we also tallied 24 species (the average over 33 years for us), though again the woods overall were quiet. The strong winds may have had a lot to do with that – high winds push birds into cover and away from searching eyes and ears.
The keynote of this count was the sighting of three predators: a northern shrike, a northern goshawk, and a merlin. The shrike appeared at our feeders in Manitowish, and he/she (the genders are identical) is still around, now perched at the top of a silver maple outside my office window as I’m writing this (12/26). Shrikes are masterful predators of small songbirds, so the large birds at our feeders, like blue jays and mourning doves, pay the shrike no mind. But the chickadees and nuthatches and goldfinches, well, I sure wouldn’t like to know something is perched nearby that is very capable of eating me, and there’s very little I can do about it other than be eternally vigilant.
northern shrike capturing a pine siskin, photo by Bev Engstrom
To date this winter has produced only small numbers of Canadian migrants. Evening and pine grosbeaks are visiting some feeders, but darn few. Bohemian waxwing flocks have frequented some crabapple trees, but again not many. Very small numbers of redpolls and pine siskins are scattered here and there, and there aren’t any purple finches or crossbills to be found.
This can change as the winter progresses and food sources deplete north of us. We’ll see what January brings us!
Brown Creepers
This quote describes perfectly the physical character of the tiny brown creeper: “The brown creeper, as he hitches along the bole of a tree, looks like a fragment of detached bark that is defying the law of gravitation by moving upward over the trunk, and as he flies off to another tree he resembles a little dry leaf blown about by the wind.” – W.M. Tyler, 1948.
“Inconspicuous” and “cryptic” serve also as descriptors. The creeper has no interest, no ego whatsoever, in preening out in the open, wearing brilliant colors to attract attention, or singing anything other than a high-pitched song that is hard to detect.
Nor does its behavior draw attention. Creepers are in endless pursuit of bark-dwelling invertebrates, doing so by beginning at the base of a tree trunk, climbing slowly upwards, and often spiralling around the trunk until they near the top. Their slow progress up a tree draws almost no notice, and then they fly to the base of a nearby tree and start over again. The creeper's short legs, long stiff tail, and long curved claws and toes are perfect adaptations to climbing nearly always upward.
I wonder if brown creepers are really quite numerous in the Northwoods but simply don’t register on our perceptual radars. They’re pretty much everywhere throughout North America, widely distributed in coniferous, mixed, and deciduous forests, from Alaska and Canada south to northern Nicaragua. They just don’t demand much attention.
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| brown creeper range map |
It wasn’t until 1879 that naturalists discovered the creeper’s unique habit of building its hammock-like nest behind a loosened flap of bark on a dead or dying tree. In fact, creepers almost always build their nests between the trunk and a loose piece of bark on a large, typically dead or dying tree. Thus, they favor forest stands with an abundance of dead or dying trees for nesting. But large live trees for foraging also are desired because creepers may be able to increase their energy intake by foraging on one large tree instead of numerous small ones. For example, in one study on douglas-fir forests in Washington, a creeper was determined to need to fly to 13 young trees or 3.3 mature trees to obtain the same number of spiders as are available on 1 old-growth tree.
They’re a year-round resident for us in the Northwoods, and we hadn’t seen one on our Manitowish Waters count until we were eating lunch in town and one of our participants spotted a creeper working its slow way up a red pine right out the restaurant’s window. In winter, they eat a variety of insects and larvae, spiders and their eggs, and ants, but rarely has one has been observed caching sunflower seeds. I’ve never seen one come to our sunflower feeders.
Bird Feeding
Northern winters are the greatest limiting factor for our bird populations. Among all of Wisconsin’s resident and overwintering bird species, winter mortality typically ranges from 10% to 50%, depending on species, age, and weather severity. However, that last factor – winter severity – is key for up here. The clearest example of this is to compare average Christmas bird counts from the southern part of the state to here. Over the last 33 years, we’ve averaged 24 species in our Manitowish Water count, while counts in the south typically exceed 50 species with sometimes as many as 97 species, and they tally a far greater abundance of birds.
Most Wisconsin birds are well adapted to the cold, but food availability creates a very thin margin of error for our northern birds. More than half of all birds born last spring won't survive to next spring. They’re inefficient foragers and take too long to open seeds or find shelter during storms.
Lots of factors conspire against adult survival, too. Ice storms coat seeds, extended severe cold snaps require greater calorie intake to stay warm, deep snow covers seeds and buds, short winter days and long winter nights constrict feeding times, and predators know where the action is – household feeders.
What to do? Supplemental feeding helps. Research shows that during severe weather, survival rates for birds with access to feeders are nearly double the rates of those without.
To maximize the help you can offer birds, feed sunflower seeds because they’re high in fat and protein (don’t bother with bags of mixed seed that have fillers like red milo that most birds ignore). Put out suet – just about every bird visits suet cakes, even chickadees. If you can provide a water source via a heated bird bath, well, you’ll be consider the best B and B in town (bird and bath). And if you grow low conifers near your feeders that provide cover from storms and predators, altogether you’ll have the best chance of attracting birds and helping them make it to spring.
Marge Gibson Wins Lifetime Achievement Award
If you’re not familiar with the work of Marge Gibson, you really should be because she’s one of a kind. Her work with raptors, particularly bald eagles, gained national recognition during
the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989. As the leader of the Eagle Capture and Assessment Team there, Marge conducted groundbreaking work in assessing and treating affected eagles, helping set the foundation for future oil spill wildlife response efforts.
Her training as a medical technologist, her understanding of each species’ biological history, plus her prioritization of low-stress handling – honestly, she’s a bird whisperer – has resulted in remarkable success in the rehabilitation of injured birds and their successful release back into the wild.
She has served as the President of the International Wildlife Rehabilitation Council (IWRC), and her dedication to education has taken her across the world, bringing the IWRC Basic Skills course to Turkey and Greece, where she trained both veterinarians and rehabilitators.
Marge’s legacy also extends well beyond the animals she has saved – she has shaped the
careers of countless rehabilitators worldwide.
She and her husband Don founded the Raptor Education Group, Inc. (REGI) in Antigo in 1990, which specializes in the rehabilitation of injured and orphaned native bird species, particularly raptors. REGI takes in anywhere from 800 to over 1,000 patients each year and provides educational programs to hundreds of people.
In 2025, Marge was awarded the highest honor in her profession, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Wildlife Rehabilitation Association. In 2020, she received the National Conservation Achievement Award from the National Wildlife Federation for her extraordinary contributions to conservation and wildlife.
I’ve been remiss in mentioning her awards in my column. Marge deserves all her accolades and more, and all of us in the Northwoods should applaud and support her work.
The Economic Value of Outdoor Recreation
From a recent analysis by the Outdoor Recreation Roundtable (ORR): “The single largest, most beneficial economic engine on federal land is not oil, not gas, not mining, and not timber. It’s outdoor recreation.”
ORR pulled together federal data from every major land management agency and found that Americans recreating on their federal public lands generate more wealth, more jobs, more wages, and more tax revenue than all extractive industries on federal lands combined.
· Outdoor recreation on federal public lands generates $128.5 billion every single year.
· It supports over 900,000 jobs and provides over $43.5 billion in wages.
· It pours nearly $6 billion in tax revenue straight into the Treasury annually.
Comparatively in a typical year, the entire market value of onshore federal oil and gas production hovers around $20 to 25 billion dollars. Recreation dwarfs it five to one.
The entire federal timber program yields far less – just $200 to 300 million in stumpage value each year. Million, not billion. On those same specific Forest Service lands, recreation generates $23 billion a year.
This is not to say extractive industries are unimportant. However, outdoor recreation produces more value, more jobs, more wages, more revenue, more long-term growth than extractive projects, is sustainable without leaving behind a clean-up, and promotes human health. It’s an economic powerhouse, anchors local small businesses, and is booming. We just have to recognize it both personally and politically, and act accordingly.
Thought for the Week
“Many people think that the best stage of life is childhood or youth. But I’ll tell you something: the best stage is when you start to think clearly. When you stop complaining, stop dramatizing, and start to truly appreciate everything you have: your body, your freedom, your loved ones, the simple fact of being alive. That’s when true happiness begins. And the best part is that it doesn't depend on age.” – Rafael Santandreu
