A Northwoods Almanac for June 5-18, 2026

 A Northwoods Almanac for June 5-18, 2026  

 

A Very Birdy Late May!

            Each year, the Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin hosts the state’s largest bird conservation fundraiser, the Great Wisconsin Birdathon. A birdathon is like a walk-a-thon fundraiser, but instead of logging miles walked, each competing team logs species of birds seen in one day and receives donations based on how many species they see.

            A local team named the Up North Hammerheads, consisting of members of the North Lakeland Discovery Bird Club, participates yearly, and this May 18, the Hammerheads benefitted from good spring weather, which, to say the least, isn’t always a given. They began at the tribal entrance to Powell Marsh at 5:50 AM, and then zipped around the Lakeland area’s top birding hotspots throughout the day, primarily in Vilas and Oneida Counties, finding birds wherever they went, and ending in downtown Minocqua at 5:35p.m.  You would think the team would have been exhausted by then, but they were excited and triumphant when they realized they’d smashed their previous Birdathon records with a total of 114 species for the day! 

            Some Birdathon highlights from Elizabeth Stone, a member of the team, included: At Pipke Park in Presque Isle, three green herons flew as a trio over the ponds. On Vandercook Road in Arbor Vitae/Woodruff, a Tennessee warbler was found taking a bath in a puddle in the middle of the road. And, further down Vandercook Road, when the team stopped in a young aspen stand to look for “young forest birds”, they were amazed to spot a squadron of nine American white pelicans flying overhead! As the day drew to a close, the team realized they still hadn’t seen an indigo bunting, a relatively common Northwoods bird, and then, lo and behold, they found one on a lawn in downtown Minocqua.  

            Two additional sightings made the Vilas County Rare Bird Alert that day: A LeConte’s sparrow and a pair of Wilson’s phalaropes, both identified at Powell Marsh Wildlife Area. 

Wilson's phalarope

            Sarah Besadny, the team leader for the Hammerheads, added these highlights: 

- We saw all seven of the “Wisconsin” woodpecker species except the two rarer species - black-backed and American three-toed.

- We saw 19 species of warblers

- We spotted three shorebirds with long bills and worked as a group to determine if they were long-billed dowitchers or short-billed dowitchers … and landed on short-billed.

- While walking down to the bridge at Chewelah Lake to look for barn swallows (a reliable spot for them on our Birdathon route), we saw not only the swallows but a bobolink perched at the top of some grasses near the lake edge.  

            Sarah noted that perhaps the greatest highlight was simply “getting outside on a perfect birding day - not too hot, not too windy, not too buggy, the leaves hadn’t really popped yet, and no rain! The variety of birds you can see in one day, the flash of color from Baltimore orioles/indigo buntings/northern yellow warblers/American redstarts, the surprise “finds”, the joy of seeing the same species in the same spots year after year - what a treat!!”

            If you would like to reward the Up North Hammerheads for their conservation efforts, you may do so through June 30 at the link: https://charity.pledgeit.org/WIBirdathon2026.   

            Funds raised go to bird protection efforts in the Lakeland area, to important bird areas throughout Wisconsin, and to vital winter habitat for our Wisconsin birds in Central and South America. 

 

Calla Lily

            Calla lilies came into flower on 5/26 in Powell Marsh. The unique brilliant white "petal" (actually a spathe) acts as a silky hood for the real flower, which is a golden club of tiny clustered flowers. If you pick a calla lily, you’re picking a bouquet of flowers. 

            Wild calla grows low to the ground with smooth, long stemmed, parallel veined leaves. The glossy heart-shaped leaves arise from long creeping stems which can also float, and which help calla to form large clonal colonies. The often pure stands of wild calla grace a dark-soiled wetland with a candle flame of white. 

            Wild calla usually flowers in June in bogs and shallow water margins - you're in good habitat if the mosquitoes run you out before you can even look for the callas. 

            The fruit forms a clustered head of brilliant red berries like Jack-in-the-pulpit. It’s said that the seeds and rootstocks, when dried, can be ground into an "unpalatable" but nutritious flour. Eaten raw, however, the tubers are acrid, causing an intense burning sensation in the mouth. One source (Lyons and Jordan) says the rootstalk must be “roasted for several hours, and then dried for six months before being ground into flour.” Seems like a rather long wait! Better to enjoy the brief beauty of the flower than destroy it for such a questionable culinary return.

            While the origin of “Calla” is uncertain, it is believed to come from the Greek kalos, meaning “beautiful.”  

            

Pink Lady’s Slippers  

            We saw our first pink lady’s slippers (Cypripedium acaule) in flower on 5/28 in a bog along the bike trail in Manitowish Waters. They’re relatively common in bogs and mossy hummocks, but also in sandy pine woods throughout much of the Northwoods. The seemingly dissimilar habitats have two things in common - both are acidic and both lack nitrogen. In fact, nitrogen appears to be toxic to some orchids.

            

photo by Rod Sharka

Pink lady's slipper is the only species of the five lady's-slippers whose pouch opens by a lengthwise slit - the other lady's-slippers openings are circular. A pollinating bee enters the one-way slit and tries to obtain nectar near the bottom of the slipper (there isn’t any - it’s false advertising!). But to return the way it came in is difficult because of the incurved edges of the pouch. So, the pink lady's-slipper has devised two small “windows” high up in the back of the pouch which let light in. The bee is thus “encouraged” to move through a passage to the lighted opening. On its way, it deposits pollen on the stigma, and then picks up new pollen from the anthers, all before it can exit through the “window.”

            Cypridpedium means “slipper of Venus” - Venus was the mythic goddess who was born on Cyprus, inspiring the Latin name for a flower of beauty equal to Venus herself. 

            The pink lady's-slipper has the honor of being the state flower of Minnesota. 

 

FOY (First-of-Year) Canadian Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly

            Mourning cloak butterflies are typically our first butterfly of the spring, but I always look forward to seeing the emergence of the first Canadian tiger swallowtail. This year we saw our first one on 5/25.

            With a wingspan of three to four inches and their broad black stripes on a yellow background, they are a beauty to behold. 

photo by John Bates

            The males emerge first and often congregate in large numbers to replenish fluids lost during their time in a chrysalis over the winter. This may be on wet sand or soil, or on fresh scat. 

            

Noise

            “Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she had laid an asteroid.” - Mark Twain

            As the peak of summer season rolls in, so does all manner of noise, usually from machines purposely designed to maximize their bellowing  - Harleys come to mind, as well as souped-up pickups or ATVs. 

            Firecrackers can be the worst of noises because they’re so startling - there’s no incoming roar to prepare you like from an oncoming motorcycle. It’s just a sudden explosion that scares the wits out of you. 

            I was young once - I do vaguely remember! I, too, thought it cool then to peel out from stop signs and race around in motor boats making big wakes. 

            I was thoughtless. If it even occurred to me that my noise and boat wakes might distress others, I apparently didn’t care or thought it was no big deal. 

            The older I’ve become, the more I appreciate quiet - the silence of a lakeshore, a forest, a paddle on a river. There’s certainly sound, but it’s not noise. It’s wind in the pines, water lapping on sand, the spiraling song of a hermit thrush, the call of a barred owl at night. It’s the natural world speaking its myriad voices. 

            One of the most beautiful writings on the sound of wind comes from John Eastman in a piece titled “The Ghost Forest”: 

            “Pine is the larynx of the wind. No other trees unravel, comb, and disperse moving air so thoroughly. Yet they also seem to concentrate the winds, wringing mosaics of sound from gale weather - voice echos, cries, sobs, conversations, maniacal calls. With the help of only slight imagination, they are the receiving stations to which all winds check in, filtering out their loads of B-flats, and F minors, processing auditory debris swept from all corners of the sound-bearing world.”

            Sigurd Olson in his book Listening Point wrote, “As I sat there on the rock, I realized that, in spite of the closeness of civilization and the changes that hemmed it in, this remnant of the old wilderness would speak to me of silence and solitude, of belonging and wonder and beauty. . . I named this place Listening Point because only when one comes to listen, only when one is aware and still, can things be seen and heard. Everyone has a listening point somewhere. It does not have to be in the north or close to the wilderness, but some place of quiet where the universe can be contemplated with awe.

            Olson writes in his book The Singing Wilderness, “The wilderness sings because it contains so much silence.”

            Paul Gruchow in his essay “The Healing Values of Wilderness” says, “We feel things when we are silent, and what we haven’t felt, we haven’t known.”

            Noise drowns the world. Silence amplifies it. May we appreciate the quiet moments and learn to be listeners.

            

Celestial Events

            On 6/9, look low in the west after dusk for Venus right above Jupiter.

            Though summer solstice occurs on 6/20, the year’s earliest sunrises begin on 6/10, rising at 5:08 in the morning. This is 3 hours and 32 minutes earlier than our latest sunrises that occur around winter solstice. Note that without daylight savings time, the sun would be rising at 4:08 AM.

            The new moon occurs on 6/14 - the next full moon will be on 6/29.            

 

Thought for the Week

            Yes, we still need fossil fuels. But “renewables offer something fossil fuels never did: stability and sovereignty. There are no embargoes, price shocks, or tariffs.” - Selwin Hart, UN envoy.

            

 

A Northwoods Almanac for May 22 - June 4, 2026

 A Northwoods Almanac for May 22 - June 4, 2026 

 

Sightings: First-Of-Years (FOY) and Others

            Is there a better time of year than mid-May when the birds are all returning, the wildflowers are blooming, and the mosquitoes have yet to wake up? This column could just be a long listing of FOYs - there are so many! Here’s a sampling.

5/4: We had our FOY rose-breasted grosbeak appear at our feeders. This was early! We usually don’t see them until around Mother’s Day.

5/6: A Harris’s sparrow showed up at our feeders and stayed around for a week. Harris’s are very uncommon visitors and always an exciting event. They nest in far northern Canada, and their spring migration usually takes them further west than here. 

            John James Audubon named the Harris's sparrow after Edward Harris, an American amateur ornithologist and financial supporter of Audubon. Harris accompanied him on an 1843 expedition along the Missouri River where the species was collected. 

5/8: FOY ruby-throated hummingbirds appeared today for numerous people: Pat Schmidt in Hazelhurst, Mary Madsen in Presque Isle, and Marlene Rasmussen in Lac du Flambeau. 

            Pat noted that she has been keeping records since 2007 with an average date of 5/11. Her earliest date was 5/6 and latest date 5/13.       

            Marlene noted that she walked outside to put up her hummingbird feeder, and the hummer buzzed right up to her face. It apparently had been waiting rather impatiently! 

            Banding studies confirm that hummingbirds often return to the exact same location where they were hatched or have previously fed. If you’re not out there with the feeders ready, they’ll let you know. Folks talk about hummers looking in their windows if they haven’t put out the feeders early enough. They can live up to 9 years (a typical lifespan is 3–4 years), meaning the same individual may know you, and your property, quite well.

5/8: Mary heard our FOY killdeer in Manitowish.

5/8: On a hike in The Nature Conservancy’s Guido Rahr Tenderfoot Preserve on the Michigan border, I had an experience I’d never had before. A friend and I were measuring a massive old yellow birch that had died and broken off about 20 feet up when suddenly out of the hollow top of the tree a turkey vulture leapt out and flew to a nearby tree. She stayed nearby and appeared anxious, so we surmised she had to be sitting on an active nest within the birch. We walked away quickly to allow her to return to her nest, but it was a first for me - I would never have guessed a turkey vulture would be nesting in the hollowed out top of a giant yellow birch.

5/9: Mary Madsen in Presque Isle reported a FOY Baltimore oriole. 

5/9: I heard my FOY ovenbird in the Frog Lake and Pines SNA.

5/12: Wood ducks have been back for many weeks now, but Bev Engstrom captured a great photo of seven wood ducks perched close together in a tree. One doesn’t think of ducks as perching birds, but wood ducks commonly perch and walk on branches, utilizing sharp, hooked claws on their webbed feet to grip bark and branches. They also commonly forage in uplands and have a particular affinity for acorns. They possess an extremely expandable esophagus, enabling them to swallow large acorns. As many as 30 small acorns have been found in one wood duck’s esophagus, and 20 large acorns in another.

photo by Bev Engstrom

5/13: We have a pair of evening grosbeaks and a pair of pine siskins still visiting our feeders. The question is whether either will stay and nest. Both have nested here in the past, but they are wildly inconsistent in doing so. We also finally got our FOY hummingbird today.

5/13: On a walk near the Manitowish River, Mary and Callie heard our FOY parula warbler and redstart, indicating the neotropical migrants are returning!

5/14: As further proof that many of the neotropicals are back, I heard my FOY Nashville warbler, yellow warbler, and common yellowthroat, and saw my FOY barn swallows. BTW, Nashville warblers nest in Wisconsin only as far south as the middle of the state, so the name “Nashville” has nothing to do with its habitat or nesting range. It was first named by an ornithologist who collected the bird during migration in Nashville, TN.

 

Sparrows!

            As of 5/15, we have five species of sparrows visiting our feeders and/or singing in the wetlands below our house: swamp sparrow, white-throated sparrow, chipping sparrow, song sparrow, and white-crowned sparrow (we had a 6^thspecies - a Harris’s sparrow - but it left on 5/13). Oh, and dark-eyed juncos are technically sparrows as well (part of the passerine family Emberizidae), so add them to the list.

            We had fox sparrows and American tree sparrows a few weeks back, too, but both species have moved on to their northern nesting grounds. 

            So, it’s been a sparrowy spring - 9 species!

            Sparrows can be a bird watcher’s nemesis because of their often subtle differences. Lots of people frustratedly refer to them as LBBs - little brown birds - or LBGs - little brown guys. 

            Learning their songs makes IDing them easier. The white-throated sparrow’s clear, crystal notes are perhaps the easiest and are often notated as “Oh, sweet, Canada, Canada, Canada.”

            Several other sparrow species nest in our area and are worth learning: Lincoln’s sparrow, Savannah sparrow, clay-colored sparrow, and Eastern towhee (part of the passerine family Emberizidae like juncos). 

            Most city folks are extremely familiar with the ubiquitous non-native house sparrow, but we rarely see them here given our contiguous woodlands.

            I appreciate sparrows (when I’m not complaining about how hard they are to ID) for their adaptive coloration - they know how to fit in, an evolutionary skill gained over millennia from being a desired prey species. They’re typically species of dense shrublands or grasslands where matching the vegetation, and using the vegetation as cover, makes survival more likely. You have to admire their evolution into small cryptic birds that can melt into their environment.

 

Alligators? No, Yellow Water Lily Rhizomes

            An old friend sent me a photo of something floating on the water that from a distance could be imagined to be a small alligator. She laughingly said it looked like a sea monster. Well, we have neither sea monsters or alligators in the Northwoods. What we do have, however, are the spongy and huge perennial rhizomes of the yellow or white pond lily, likely dug up from the sediments by a muskrat or beaver. They’re often the diameter of a baseball bat and can be many feet in length. The black spots on the rhizome are the former attachments of the stalks of the pond lilies that rise to the surface with their leaves and flowers in the spring, and then die back in the fall.

contributed photo 

 

Why Do Most Songbirds Migrate at Night?

1- Daytime air is more turbulent, which wastes energy trying to buck the wind and stay on course. Nighttime air is more stable and smoother, making for a straighter flight with less energy burned.

2- Navigation at night using the stars is remarkably accurate.

3- Most birds feed during the day and not at night, so it makes sense to fly long distances at night and fuel up during the day.

            

Conservation Congress Results on Funding the DNR and the Stewardship Program

            At the recent Conservation Congress meeting held around the state, voters supported (75% to 20% with 5% no opinion) adding a permanent 1/8-cent state sales tax (0.125%) to help fund all fish and wildlife conservation programs. Of all funding mechanisms for our DNR, this makes the most sense by far. Everyone benefits from DNR policies protecting our lands, water, and wildlife - we all need to pay in to support the work. 

            Voters also supported (81% to 9% with 10% no opinion) legislation to reauthorize the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship program for at least 10 years with up to $1 billion in funding:

4485 yes, 489 no. All 72 counties voted yes, zero counties voted no.

            The legislature needs to hear the people on these issues and act accordingly. 

 

A Brief History of the Clean Water Act

            Before the Clean Water Act, there were virtually no regulations governing water pollution, leading to severe impacts on both human health and wildlife. In New York City, hundreds of millions of gallons of untreated sewage were dumped into the Hudson River daily, and Ohio’s Cuyahoga River famously caught fire multiple times in 1969 due to oil and industrial waste, as did rivers in Baltimore, Buffalo, Detroit, and Philadelphia. Massive fish die-offs weren’t uncommon, which also had profound impacts on birds.

            In October of 1972, our U.S. Congress authorized the Clean Water Act, which passed in the Senate by a vote of 74-0 (26 not voting) and in the House 366-11. Thirteen days later, President Nixon vetoed it at midnight out of a stated concern for “spiraling prices and increasingly onerous taxes.” 

            By 2:00 AM that same night, the Senate voted 52-12 (36 senators not voting) and the House voted 247-23 to override the veto. Ninety-six votes came from Republicans in the House override vote. The Environmental Protection Agency had just been established two years earlier via near unanimous votes, too, in both houses of Congress.

            It’s hard to imagine such bipartisan effort today even with such an obvious need as clean water. The Clean Water Act has been an environmental, economic, and aesthetic success ever since, with the cleaning of the heavily polluted Wisconsin River watershed serving as the best example of this success in Wisconsin.

            The Clean Water Act accomplished the following:

*Established the structure for regulating pollutant discharges into U.S. waters.

*Gave EPA the authority to implement pollution control programs such as setting wastewater standards for industry.

*Made it unlawful for any person to discharge any pollutant from a point source into navigable waters, unless a permit was obtained under its provisions.

*Funded the construction of sewage treatment plants.

*Recognized the need to address the critical problems posed by nonpoint source pollution.

            Unless you’re an old gray hair like me, you might think our nation’s water has always been protected, and that this law always was on the books. But it sure wasn’t, and it was only through intense public pressure and a bipartisan Congress that it was passed.

 

Celestial Events

            May’s second full moon, the “blue moon,” occurs on May 31. It’s the year’s most distant moon, and thus the smallest of the year.

            By June 1, we hit 15 hours and 30 minutes of sunlight.

 

Thought for the Week

            “We forget that nature itself is one vast miracle transcending the reality of night and nothingness. We forget that each one of us in his personal life repeats that miracle. - Loren Eisley

 

A Northwoods Almanac for May 8-21, 2026

 A Northwoods Almanac for May 8-21, 2026  

 

Sightings - First-of-Year (FOY) and Others

4/19: We heard our FOY leopard frogs. Their call is likened to snoring, but I think of it more as the rumbling sound my stomach makes when its feeling a bit too acidy, or if I haven’t eaten in a long while. This was very early for them to be singing - they’re usually an early May event. 

4/20: We found our FOY trailing arbutus in flower in the Frog Lake and Pines SNA.

4/23: We had our FOY pine warbler, a normal sighting for this time of the year, but then a male Baltimore oriole briefly appeared at our feeder. That’s super early for orioles, but he hasn’t been seen since then. So, I think this one rode the south winds of one of our many storms we had during that time and then likely regretted his decision.

4/19: We heard our FOY toads chorusing in the wetlands below our home. We also observed our FOY swamp sparrows, yellow-bellied sapsuckers, and ruby-crowned kinglets.

4/22: We saw our FOY mourning cloak butterfly flittering about. 

4/29: Our FOY dandelions appeared.

4/26: On a hike in Powell Marsh, we saw our FOY tree swallows, sedge wrens, and green-winged teals. That evening, we heard our FOY Wilson’s snipe winnowing over the wetlands below our house.

photo by Bev Engstrom

4/27: A pine warbler briefly visited one of our sunflower seed feeders, a very odd behavior for any warbler given that most warblers are almost entirely insectivorous. However, pine warblers are the only wood-warbler known to regularly consume seeds (often pine seeds or seeds at bird feeders) in any significant amount. Remarkably, they undergo seasonal physiological changes in their digestive system to allow for digestion of seeds.

4/28: We saw our FOY palm warbler. However, most interesting of all, we got to see the exceedingly brief mating of a pair of merlins. When I say brief, I mean brief. It was just a two second mounting of the female by the male accompanied by some high-pitched chittering, and then the male departed. He should have least bought her dinner.

 

Hibernating Butterfly?

            Mourning cloaks are one of our very few butterfly species that hibernate over winter. They’ve just spent six months nearly frozen in tree cavities, beneath loose tree bark, in wood piles, or in unheated buildings. But the cold is not a direct hazard to mourning cloaks – rather, it is the formation of ice crystals in their body tissue that can quickly be lethal. To keep from freezing, mourning cloaks reduce the amount of water in their blood by as much as 30 percent and then thicken it with a sugar solution of sorbitol, outdoing any antifreeze we humans put in our cars. Using electrical conductivity, biologists in Alaska found that mourning cloaks do not freeze until the temperature reaches -220°F. 

photo by Mary Burns

Once they emerge, they are short on fat and need to eat, so they often seek out running tree sap or rotten fruit. As the days become longer and warmer, they’ll mate and lay eggs for the next generation, living only a few weeks. Still, mourning cloaks win the award for greatest longevity among butterflies, living 10 or 11 months from last summer till now. 

Butterflies need body temperatures close to ours to fly. All of our spring-active butterflies have dark-colored bodies and wings to aid in solar heating their bodies. Watch for mourning cloaks basking, opening their wings and angling their bodies toward the sun, to increase their body temperature prior to flight. 

The mourning cloak is found throughout most of North America and Europe and in a broad band across central Asia. So, they don’t just announce spring in Wisconsin, but around much of the world.

 

World’s Oldest Loons Return Once Again to Seney 

            I write every year about these two loons, and as long as they live, I will continue to highlight their remarkable lives.

            On April 25, a female loon known as “Fe,” who was first color-marked as a breeding loon in 1990, was seen on one of the pools in the Seney National Wildlife Refuge in the U. P. She will thus turn at least 40 this summer given that loons seldom mate until they are at least 4 years old, and often not until they are 6. Fe was seen with an unbanded male, who was likely her mate from 2025, as they initiated a circling round of bill dipping and jerk diving, aspects of courtship involved in forming, or re-forming, a pair bond for the season.   

            Nearby on another pool, Fe’s former partner of 25 years, “ABJ,” was scouting for potential nest sites with his current companion, “Aye-Aye,” with whom he bred unsuccessfully last year. Although ABJ, who will turn 39 this June, hatched a record 32 chicks with Fe, since their split in April 2022 he has failed to produce other young, and she remains the only mate with whom he has ever sired young. 

            Wow - this proves loons live as long as 40 years!

 

Winter Severity Index 

            We evaluate the severity of winter by a host of personal measures; from how often we had to shovel, how hard it was to shovel, the condition of the roads all winter, whether we were able to do the winter activity(ies) we love, if we ran out of wood, how much LP cost, if the lakes iced up early or late, how long the winter actually lasted as felt by our individual cabin fever index, et al. It’s a subjective tally based on a mix of objective experiences.

            As a means of more objectively evaluating the severity of winter, the Wisconsin DNR uses the “Winter Severity Index” (WSI), which measures how winter weather impacts the survival of one of our most valued species, white-tailed deer. The values are obtained by adding one point for each day the temperature is colder than 0 degrees Fahrenheit and one point for each day the snow is 18 inches or deeper.

            The data are recorded from Dec. 1 to April 30. At the end of the season, if the points total less than 50, it's considered a mild winter; 50 to 79 is seen as moderate; 80 to 99 is severe; more than 100 is very severe.

            The 2013-14 winter was the most severe in state history, at 143 points. But recent years have brought more wildlife-friendly winters across the northern portion of the state, including WSI values of 55 in 2021-22, 69 in 2022-23 (though it was much higher in a few of the far northern counties like Iron, Ashland, and Bayfield), 10 in 2023-24, and 32 in 2024-25.

            This winter, one that represented something more “normal” for northern Wisconsin, the WSI for the southern part of our area was mostly in the moderate range via statistics from Dec.1 through the end of March. However, northern portions of Vilas and Iron County led the state with the highest severity scores from 88 to 99.

            Go just a little ways south into Oneida County, and the score drops quickly to around 43, and into Lincoln County, it hits 35. The rest of the state, despite a blizzard here and there, is even lower in the mild range.

            These generally mild conditions over the past decade and more have played a large role in allowing the statewide deer herd to increase. The most current estimate released by the DNR is a state record of 1.89 million deer, and very likely the largest the state has ever seen prior to records being kept. Check the attached chart: Compared to 2011, the deer population has grown 79% (there’s more data on the DNR's Deer Metrics page.)

            The increase isn’t all about weather, of course. It’s also about political decisions like ending the “Earn-a-Buck” regulations and early antlerless-only gun seasons in 2011.

            It’s important to also note that the WSI is very general - it isn’t a “be all and end all” tool. It doesn’t, for instance, take into account the “TDER” factors: timing, duration, extremes, and repeatability of snow and cold. It’s vital to understand when the snow and cold occurred, how long they occurred, how extreme they were, and how often they happened. 

            As with all things in nature, there’s complexity!

            April is traditionally the transitional period of time when many animals are on the brink of starvation, and spring can’t come soon enough. Now, “green-up” has begun, and with plants burgeoning and insects hatching, the threat of starvation has receded to mostly a fever dream.

 

What About China?

            One common objection to the U.S. taking the lead in climate action is: “But what about China? China is doing nothing!”

            Well . . . that turns out to not be true.

* Last year, China installed a full half of all the world's new wind and solar energy.

* Over the past two years, China installed more new solar power each year than the U.S. has installed in total across its entire history.

* China is the world’s largest producer and consumer of electric vehicles (EVs), controlling over 70% of global production and dominating the battery supply chain. China produces nearly two-thirds of the world's EVs. In 2025, over 50% of new car sales in China were electric (including battery electric and plug-in hybrids).

* As of late 2025, China has the world's largest EV charging network, exceeding 19 million total charging facilities (including public and private).            

            Still, China is currently the world’s largest annual polluter, responsible for over 30% of global greenhouse gas emissions. China emits significantly more than double the CO2 of the US and has been the top emitter since 2006, though its per capita emissions are much lower than the U.S. China's population is around 1.42 billion in 2026, over four times larger than that of the United States, which is approximately 347 million. Of note, however, is that China’s population is decreasing. 

            So, China is the world’s largest producer of emissions, which are the main cause of climate change, but it’s also the global leader in the production of green technologies from wind and solar power to electric vehicles.

            Meanwhile, the U.S. is attempting to increase its use of fossil fuels while blocking new wind and solar projects, and our CO2 emissions are ticking up.

            Climate change is a global problem, and progress in one place helps everyone - no country can fix climate change on its own. We’re all in this together, because we have to be. 

 

Celestial Events

            For planet watching in May, look after dusk for brilliant Venus low in the WNW and Jupiter low in the W. Before dawn, look for Saturn rising in the East and Mars extremely low in the ESE.

            The new moon occurs on 5/16.

            On 5/18, look after dusk in the West for Venus 3° below the waxing sliver moon.

            On 5/20, look after dusk in the West for Jupiter to have switched places with Venus and is now about 3° below the crescent moon.

 

Thought for the Week

            Annie Dillard: “There is no shortage of good days. It is good lives that are hard to come by. A life of good days lived in the senses is not enough. The life of sensation is the life of greed; it requires more and more. The life of the spirit requires less and less; time is ample and its passage sweet . . . How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”

 

 

A Northwoods Almanac for April 24 - May 7, 2026

 A Northwoods Almanac for April 24 - May 7, 2026  

 

Maple Sap to Syrup Chart

            Taps have been pulled, and the maple syrup season has come to a close for 2026. I don’t know how the season went overall across the state, but at least in our area the maple sugar content in the sap appears to have been down. That’s important, because the lower the sugar content in the sap, the more sap it takes to create a gallon of syrup.

            In my last column, I wrote about Bob and Terry Simeone in Land O’ Lakes who have been making maple syrup for 39 years. Over that time, they’ve learned how crucial it is to have a high sugar percentage of sugar in the sap. To illustrate this, Bob provided me the following chart showing how many gallons of sap it takes to make a gallon of syrup according to the sugar content:

1% sugar                     86 gallons

1.5% sugar                  58 gallons

2% sugar                     43 gallons

2.5% sugar                  36 gallons

3% sugar                    29 gallons

3.5% sugar                  25 gallons

4% sugar                     21 gallons

            Bob and Terry pull their taps once the sugar content goes below 2%, because it takes so much more sap, and time to boil the sap, to get the desired syrup. 

            This year, the first run of sap in Bob and Terry’s maple stand was just above 2%, and by April 5, the content was down to 1.5%, so they pulled their taps. In a good year, the sugar content will be above 3% in the first run, and remain relatively high until the weather warms to 60°, the magic number when the trees start to metabolize, or “wake-up” if you will, and the taste changes to something much less desirable.

            Interestingly, the sugar content is largely determined by the weather from the previous spring and summer. The warmer the temperatures during the previous growing season, the less sugar content there is the next year. Cloudier and cold summer weather can also lead to a lower sugar content.

            Current-year conditions matter, too. If there's too little snow, trees may struggle to absorb enough water during the early spring, negatively impacting sap production.

            More than anything else, however, climate change is the largest looming factor. In order for maple sugar sap to flow, temperatures need to freeze at night and thaw during the day, but these freeze-thaw conditions are changing. In a study done in Vermont, the annual number of unfrozen days has increased by about four days per decade since the 1970s, which has pushed the sugaring season earlier than it historically was. The University of Vermont’s Proctor Maple Research Center found that the average sugaring season in Vermont now begins 8 days earlier than it did 50 years ago. The first boil of the year for many sugarmakers used to be in March, but is now in February or even January. This also means that the sugaring season ends earlier than it once did.

            Bob says this is true for them as well in northern Wisconsin. Their last boil used to be in mid-April, and now they rarely make it into April at all. 

            This year though was more of a “normal” winter, and the sap run went into the second week of April. 

            There’s lots of variables in why a good or bad year occurs, and maple syrup producers still debate how it all works, so Bob rightfully warns me to be wary of exclaiming any “truths.”

            Still, in simplest terms, it boils down to this: no freeze, no sap, no syrup. By 2100, the region of maximum sap flow is predicted to shift northward by about 250 miles due to warming temperatures caused by climate change.

            

Sightings (FOYs - First of Years)

4/8: John Randolph reported seeing osprey on both of the Hwy. 47 nests north of McNaughton, a relatively early return for osprey given that they must have open water in order to fish and most of our local lakes were not open by this date.

4/9: Bev Engstrom in Rhinelander reported the first tree swallows.

4/10: Bev also reported the first yellow-rumped warblers appearing in our area.

photo by Bev Engstrom

4/11: Anne Small in St. Germain reported seeing the first hermit thrushes.

4/12: Mary and I saw our first shorebirds of the year - a pair of greater yellowlegs at Powell Marsh. Paul Strong in Hazelhurst reported seeing yellow-bellied sapsuckers at his suet feeder.

4/14: Spring peepers began their tumult in the ephemeral ponds near our home in Manitowish, as did wood frogs and chorus frogs. Earlier in the day, we saw our FOY northern flickers and yellow-rumped warblers along the Manitowish River.

4/15: We heard our FOY Eastern phoebe in Manitowish, and saw a northern shrike on Powell Marsh. Northern shrikes nest in the boreal forests of northern Canada, so this individual will be soon be on his or her way.

4/16: A FOY brown-headed cowbird appeared at our feeders in Manitowish. Given their reputation as brood parasites - they lay their eggs in the nest of many different species - it’s an occasion, along with the appearance of European starlings, that we don’t celebrate.

 

Ice-Off

            Woody Hagge reported that the ice went off 39-acre Foster Lake in Hazelhurst on 4/15, one day earlier than the 54-year average. The earliest date was March 20, 2012. The latest was May 7, 1996. 

            We checked 42-acre Frog Lake, which is a half mile from our house, and the water was ice-free on April 16. 

            We hit 73° on 4/16, so that early warmth and accompanying rain has led to a relatively quick melting of lake ice.

 

Wind Pollination of Tree Flowers

            The flowers of many wind-pollinated shrubs and trees are seldom noticed. They’re not showy, and they don’t need to be, because they aren’t trying to lure insects into conveying their pollen to a female flower. They use the wind.

            Many of these species are in flower right now. Maples, oaks, alders, birches, hazelnuts, and aspens are all examples of flowering plants that have evolved to flower before leaf-out so that spring winds can distribute their pollen. These species are the introverts of the plant world - they don’t produce quantities of nectar, don’t revel in producing large petals, and don’t care much at all about brilliant coloration. 

Aspen male catkins

            In the vast majority of these plants, female and male flowers are either on different plants or on different parts of the same plant, with the male flowers usually grouped in hanging or “grape-like” structures called catkins. Take a look at the long, hanging catkins of tag alders and hazelnuts which have their pollen easily shaken by air currents, or by your flicking them. Once in the air, the light weight pollen can reach distant female flowers.

Tag alder catkins

            This quiet and unassuming approach saves a lot of energy by not bothering to produce special rewards like nectar to attract pollinators. However, wind-pollination works best in places that are drier, because pollen won’t travel well if it rains all the time, or in places where forests are more sparsely inhabited, which offers space for the wind to more freely blow.

Northern red oak flowers

        

Homegrown National Parks

            “Homegrown National Park” is a unique initiative aimed at restoring and protecting America's biodiversity by encouraging citizens to plant native species on their own properties. Spearheaded by entomologist and conservationist Doug Tallamy. The initiative emphasizes the critical role that native plants play in supporting local ecosystems. By replacing traditional lawns or non-native plants with native vegetation, individuals can contribute to the regeneration of habitats for local wildlife, including birds, insects, and pollinators.
            The project calls on all of us to transform our yards, gardens, and even urban spaces into mini wildlife sanctuaries. Native plants are better suited to local soil, climate, and wildlife than non-native species, which can sometimes disrupt ecosystems by outcompeting indigenous plants.             Native plants also provide vital food and shelter for a variety of species, especially insects, which are the foundation of many food chains. By fostering these natural habitats, participants in “Homegrown National Park” can help restore some of the biodiversity that has been lost due to urbanization, agriculture, and climate change.

            It’s getting close to planting season. Think native.

            See https://homegrownnationalpark.org. 

 

Online Bird Migration Tools

            Weather surveillance radar (WSR) is an excellent tool for determining where birds are flying, how many birds are aloft, and in what direction, speed, and altitudinal strata they are moving. If you want to know when and from where birds are moving on any given night, use the website www.birdcast.org.

 

World Record Holder for Non-Stop Migration

            Migration is on, and while some birds only travel relatively short distances, a 4-month-old bar-tailed godwit, a small shorebird named B6, made history in October 2022, when it left the mudflats of Alaska and flew nonstop across the Pacific Ocean, landing on the shores of Tasmania, Australia 8,425 miles later. It didn’t stop, didn’t sleep, didn’t eat. It just endured 11 days of continuous wing-flapping flight making it the longest nonstop migration ever recorded by any animal on Earth.

            How do researchers know it never stopped and never ate? Godwits can’t swim and have no way to take off from the ocean surface. They also don’t feed while in flight, and the route it took never touched land.

            B6 averaged 765 miles every day, burned through more than half its own body weight in fat, and did it all on its very first migration, with no GPS to guide it over the ocean.

            One writer summed it up this way: “A bird the size of your fist crossing the world's largest ocean alone, guided by forces we are still trying to understand - this is not just a nature story. It is a reminder that the most astonishing things on Earth are often the ones we overlook.”

 

March Climate Data

            The average U.S. temperature for March was 50.85°F, or 9.35°F above the 20th-century average, ranking as the warmest March in the 132-year record. Over half the continental U.S. area, 1,432 counties, observed their single warmest March day on record (1950–present).

            Relative to rainfall, the U.S. precipitation average for March was 1.83 inches., or 0.68 inches below average, ranking eighth driest on record. The January to March period was the driest on record for the continental U.S. - less than 70% of average. This broke the previous record set in 1910.

            Meanwhile in the U.P. of Michigan, Yoopers have experienced near record snowfall. The record was set in 1978-79 of 390.4 inches in the Keweenaw - Delaware, MI to be exact. They have a chance of breaking that record yet this April in three locations: Herman, Calumet, or Keweenaw County. Herman was at 365 inches as of 4/12.. 

 

Celestial Events

            The first full moon of May (the Ojibwe “Flower Moon”) occurs on May 1. The full “blue moon” will occur on May 31.

            May 5 marks the midway point between spring equinox and summer solstice.

 

Thought for the Week

            “A river - with its attendant cascades, eddies, boils, and whirlpools - is the most expressive aspect of a natural landscape, for nothing else moves so far, so broadly, so unceasingly, so demonstrably, and nothing else is so susceptible to personification and so much at the heart of our notions about life and death. Across generations and around the globe, humans, we double-footed jugs of seventy percent water, have seen rivers as both our source and the way out of this world.”- William Least Heat-Moon