A Northwoods Almanac for 10/9 - 22/26
Bird Migration - Thousands of Robins
Every late September, a large flock of robins descends upon our property and gobbles down every berry on every tree and shrub we have (except for highbush cranberries, which they disdain for some reason). We’ve planted an array of fruits trees and shrubs (crabapples, mountain ashes, winterberries, elderberries, juneberries, chokecherries, nannyberries, and three species of dogwoods) to provide food for wintering birds, but the robins are like marauders who take what they want, and when there’s nothing left, leave town.
It’s frustrating, but who am I to tell the robins that don’t need the fruits as much as the wintering birds to come?
And prior to the robins appearing, a flock of cedar waxwings came through, as they do every mid -September preceding the robins, and took their fill.
I’ve planted another eight mountain ash trees in hopes of having so many berries that the robins and waxwings eventually leave too full to eat the entire crop.
Meanwhile over Hawk Ridge in Duluth on 9/28, 11,104 American robins crossed, as well as 6,537 yellow-rumped warblers.
Blue Jays Migrating
And then there are the blue jays. The counters tallied 65,000+ flapping over the ridge in August and September, with a daily high of 13,427.
Where are the blue jays going, and how far do they go? Well, surprisingly, it’s poorly understood. The distance traveled by the migrants varies, and, in many areas, most of the jays appear to be resident year-round. One researcher concluded that the proportion that migrates is probably not more than 20% of the population even in northern parts of the range, which is the Northwoods of Wisconsin and a little ways into Canada.
Big Bluestem (Andropogon gerardii)
Mary, Callie, and I hiked in an area of the Powell Marsh which was planted years ago with prairie plants. Big bluestem has really taken over, and it’s gorgeous! Big bluestem turns a golden yellow in late September, and when the flat light of a sunset hits it just right, it lights up in a blaze.
in the big bluestem
If you’re not familiar with big bluestem, it’s a very tall native perennial prairie grass that reaches up to ten feet. Many of the stems at Powell were around seven feet - well over my head.
Big Bluestem is the star component of the “Big Four” native grass species that characterize the tallgrass prairies of central North America (the other three are Indiangrass, switchgrass, and little bluestem.) It used to be abundant in native prairies, but cattle love it so much that some ranchers refer to it as “ice cream for cows.” It did best on lands where the seasonal grazing of migratory bison moved the animals around enough that it didn’t get overgrazed.
The main roots go 6 to 10 feet deep, and the plants send out strong, tough rhizomes, so it forms a very strong sod. It blooms in the summer and seeds into the fall with the inflorescence somewhat resembling a wild turkey's foot.
Big bluestem offers habitat for a host of insects, including many butterflies, all of which adds up to good habitat for birds, too.
Milkweed Seeds
Milkweed pods are breaking open around this time, sending hundreds of seeds out, each arranged on a silky filament so if the wind comes up, they can carry a long ways.
If you want to plant some seeds, this is the time. Most species of milkweed require their seeds to endure a period of cool weather, followed by the warm weather of spring before they will germinate (a process known as cold stratification). For this reason, milkweed seed is best sown in fall, and then all you can do is wait until spring for the magic to happen.
Popping Jewelweed Pods and Using the Stem Juice for Skin Rashes
Jewelweed seeds grow in an elongated capsule, which when ripe, bursts open at the slightest touch, delighting the child in all of us. The seed pods have five valves which coil back rapidly to eject the seeds in a process called explosive dehiscence, a fancy term for the splitting or bursting open of a closed structure. This reaction is where the name “touch-me-not” comes from; in mature seed pods, the seeds pop out easily, triggered by a light touch.
The juice of the leaves and stems is a traditional Native American remedy for skin rashes from poison ivy, a use supported by a peer-reviewed study showing that its effectiveness is likely due to the plant containing saponins (see the Journal of Ethnopharmacology, August 30, 2012, “The effectiveness of jewelweed, Impatiens capensis, the related cultivar I. balsamina and the component, lawsone in preventing post poison ivy exposure contact dermatitis”).
In the study, poison ivy was brushed onto forearms of volunteers in six locations (who would volunteer for this?) and exposed areas were treated with jewelweed extracts, fresh plant mashes, soaps made of plant extracts, water, even Dawn dish soap. Rash development was scored on a scale of 0–14, and jewelweed was found to be effective in reducing poison ivy dermatitis.
On the other hand, these studies also found that some individuals have a sensitivity to jewelweed which can cause a more severe rash.
The last time I had poison ivy, and/or touched stinging nettle, I applied jewelweed and while it had some effect, it was nothing dramatic.
But everyone’s different. Give it a try and see if it works for you.
Acorns!
Like last year, hiking along any trail this fall that’s lined by red oaks is like walking on a bunch of marbles - there are thousands of acorns littering the trails.
These heavy “mast” years typically occur every four years, but the trees apparently didn’t get the memo.
The deer, bears, squirrels, chipmunks, raccoons, turkeys, blue jays, grouse, wood ducks, woodpeckers, you name it, don’t mind at all.
Severe Drought Impacting Rivers and Lakes
The Manitowish River has been little more than a creek this summer due to the extreme drought in our area, but now it’s in flood as the Manitowish Waters chain of ten lakes is drawn down three feet six inches and emptied into the Manitowish. Comprising some 4,200 acres of surface water, that’s a lot of water from the chain of lakes to dump into a small river over the course of a few weeks. Thus the flooding.
This happens every fall to protect people’s piers. From an ecological standpoint, this is the exact opposite of when natural flooding occurs, which is in the spring as the snow melts and the ice goes off the lakes.
This year, however, the release may be more positive than negative given the extreme dearth of water in the main channel and the wetlands.
But given the super El Niño forecast to take place, it may bode poorly for next spring when the lakes have to be refilled again. A warmer winter means less ice cover for a shorter duration, as well as less snow, all of which adds up to greater early spring evaporation and less available snowmelt to flow into the rivers and streams to fill the lakes.
Now, no one knows what will actually happen this winter or spring - forecasts obviously aren’t absolutes - but I worry that this will be the way the spring goes.
I mention this as a warning to folks that given the drawdown, the likelihood of marginal snowmelt, and the continuation of our drought, there may not be enough water to refill the chain and, equally importantly, still maintain minimum water levels downstream.
This inability to fill the chain has happened several times over the last few decades, and the blame has been mistakenly assigned to the DNR and even the Tribes. Both have nothing to do with it. This is news to most folks, but the DNR does not really manage the Rest Lake dam. That authority was taken from the DNR in 2015 when the state’s budget-writing committee took control of the dam’s operating rules from the DNR and gave it to the legislature. That effectively ensured no major changes would be made to its management. Sen. Tom Tiffany inserted the item into a last-minute budget provision.
A MOU (Memorandum of Understanding, which is not legally binding) between the DNR and Xcel Energy, the dam’s owner, now governs its flow. MOUs are nearly nonexistent elsewhere in Wisconsin dam operations. The problem with the MOU is that it allows Xcel to only release 20 cubic feet per second (it used to be 50 cfs) over the dam in drought conditions while maintaining as close as possible full pools in the lakes.
The larger issue is that if the drawdown is inflexible - if it always has to be three and a half feet no matter the year - it creates for the chain, and the river, a constraint that can’t be overcome in a severe drought, and now in a super El Niño.
All to protect docks.
We’ll see how it goes and hope for spring rains.
Celestial Events
The new moon occurs on 10/10.
After dusk on 10/22, look for Venus three degrees below the waxing sliver moon.
The Orionid meteor shower will peak overnight from October 21 to 22 and shoot up to 20 meteors per hour under dark skies. The event is known for its bright, fast meteors, which can create vivid trains as they collide with Earth’s atmosphere.
The show appears to originate from the Orion constellation. While this year’s Orionids peak coincides with a luminous waxing gibbous moon, the orb will set a few hours before dawn, the perfect time for spotting the shower at its height.
“And Now it’s October”
the golden hour of the clock of the year. Everything that can run
to fruit has already done so: round apples, oval plums, bottom-heavy
pears, black walnuts and hickory nuts annealed in their shells,
the woodchuck with his overcoat of fat. Flowers that were once bright
as a box of crayons are now seed heads and thistle down. All the feathery
grasses shine in the slanted light. It’s time to bring in the lawn chairs
and wind chimes, time to draw the drapes against the wind, time to hunker
down. Summer’s fruits are preserved in syrup, but nothing can stopper time.
No way to seal it in wax or amber; it slides though our hands like a rope
of silk. At night, the moon’s restless searchlight sweeps across the sky.
- Barbara Crooker from Small Rain
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