A Northwoods Almanac for July 3 - 16, 2026

A Northwoods Almanac for July 3 - 16, 2026  by John Bates

Bee-eating Birds

            Mary and I have been keeping bees for five years now, and most of what the bees do remains a sweet mystery to us. We realize we are little more than landlords who charge the bees rent via the theft of a portion of their honey.

            A few days ago, I was looking at our bee house (yes, we built a tiny house to keep our hives inside during the winter), and I noticed a nest of Eastern phoebes tucked into the eaves of the house. This led me to wonder if the phoebes could be eating “our” bees. 

Eastern phoebe

            Well, yes, they likely are eating the bees! In a study that examined 370 stomachs of phoebes, the researcher found 26% of their annual diet was from the huge insect order Hymenopetera, which is comprised of sawflies, wasps, bees, and ants. Apparently, phoebes can avoid issues with stings by quickly killing their prey by beating it to death (watch this video: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DXRzQmFDpg9/).

            Another study examined which birds prey on the Vespidae, a family of stinging wasps that includes yellowjackets. The study’s findings indicated that blue jays, Cape May warblers, yellow-bellied sapsuckers, Nashville warblers, and several flycatcher species eat Vespidae wasps. 

            Bird species that feed on the ground, such as American robins and eastern bluebirds, are likely to eat bees regularly, says Spencer Hardy, a bee biologist at Vermont Center for Ecostudies, “since many bees are ground nesters and on cool mornings can occasionally be found crawling around near nest sites.”

            Pamela D. Hunt, senior biologist for avian conservation at New Hampshire Audubon, thinks “that [bees and wasps] are usually killed outright in the process [of being captured] or shortly thereafter when the bird beats them against a solid surface such as a branch. Either way, bill length likely minimizes the chance of being stung.”

            Anecdotal reports suggest that tanager species, such as scarlet tanager and the more southern summer tanager, remove their prey’s stinger by wiping it off on a branch before consuming it.

            Yet other studies indicate Eastern kingbirds, who are masters at mid-air hunting, frequently target flying honey bees near apiaries and fields

            To round out the quick research I did on this, purple matins, Eastern wood pewees, and great crested flycatchers have also been seen catching bees in mid-flight. Northern cardinals apparently are even known to attack a hive to eat the adult bees. 

            So, should I worry that birds may be decimating our honey bees? Nope. A healthy queen honey bee can lay between 1,500 and 2,000 eggs per day during peak season, and an average hive holds 30,000 bees. I don’t think the phoebes, and any other birds in our yard, can make even a dent in the thousands of bees that live in our hive.

            What does kill honey bees is the amount of work they do. A female worker bee (all worker bees are females) lives 15 to 38 days in the summer, spending the first half of her life inside the hive cleaning cells, feeding larvae, producing wax, and supporting the colony.

            Then she becomes a forager, and for the final weeks of her life, she flies every day - thousands of trips - until her wings simply wear out and she dies from simply being used up. 

            

Sightings - Orchids, Spotted Salamander, American Bullfrog

            6/19: I found a stand of northern green bog orchids (Platanthera aquilonis), or possibly green bog orchids (Platanthera huronensis) - they look almost identical - in the Rhinelander area. They can grow almost two feet tall with 20 to 45 tiny flowers on their flower stalk, and aren’t in the least showy, that is unless you have a magnifying hand lens to see the intricacy of the flowers.

            6/20: The first fireweed came into bloom.

            6/24: We heard our first bullfrogs calling on Powell Marsh. They’re the largest frog species in North America, and also the last to sing of our nine species of frogs and toads. The “song” is unlike any song in nature that I have ever heard, and is usually described as a deep, reverberating “jug-o-rum” that slurs upward. The first time I heard one, I had no idea what it was, and I’ve never forgotten it since. 

            These guys are significant predators. The literature says their diet includes small birds (ducklings), mammals (rodents), crayfish, and juvenile frogs.

            6/26: Ken Larsen sent me the following email: “Last week, I moved a bag of potting soil and to my surprise, there was a large spotted salamander underneath, taking advantage of the cool, moist environment below.  Because of the large size, I assumed this was a female, since they are generally much larger than the males, and I carefully picked her up. Like most salamanders I have encountered, they are never aggressive, generally slow moving and are very cool and moist to the touch. I gently handled her for a few minutes before placing her near a pile of logs to provide her with a safe, alternative refuge. 

photo by Ken Larsen

                                                                        

            “I do not recall coming across a spotted salamander in this area previously, but I have handled a few of the seven species that are known to inhabit Wisconsin and are generally quite common – the blue-spotted salamander, the Eastern red-backed salamander and common mudpuppy.  I have yet to encounter the Eastern newt, four-toed salamander or Eastern tiger salamander, but I will keep looking.”                                                                                                        Spotted salamanders thrive in vernal pools and ephemeral wetland in mature forests throughout most of northern Wisconsin as well as a few counties in the southeast, but they also live throughout the eastern U.S. from Georgia to Maine. Researchers view spotted salamanders as a bioindicator species of ecosystem health - wherever they’re found, it indicates a high quality area worth protecting.

 

Deer Fly Mania

            I’ve just returned from an early evening hike accompanied by a small Air Force of deer flies doing their endless orbits around my head. I’ve written about the easy fix for these devils for many years, but the solution bears repeating - buy “Tred Not” Deerfly Patches. Each patch is a non-chemical, odorless, and disposable 2 inch x 6 inch double-sided, skin-colored adhesive patch that is placed on the back of your cap. Since deer flies are attracted to movement and always seem to seek the highest place, they rapidly land on the very sticky tape, and get stuck. 

            When your walk is done, you peel the tape off your cap, roll it up, and toss it in the trash. Easy peasy. 

            My record remains at 73 deer flies on one tape during one walk. And, oh, is it satisfying!

 

Hawkweeds

            By mid-summer, many roadside and field flowers come into bloom, some native, and some non-native. One common genus of flowers that has both native species and non-native species is hawkweed (Hieracium). Orange hawkweed displays red to orange ray flowers and is perhaps the most common and most invasive of the hawkweeds, favoring disturbed open ground. However, there are two other invasive hawkweeds, both of which sport yellow ray flowers - meadow hawkweed and yellow or tall hawkweed. 

orange hawkweed

            The native hawkweeds in our area, however, also exhibit yellow ray flowers - Canada hawkweed and rough or sticky hawkweed.

            The quickest way to know if you have a native or non-native hawkweed is to look at the leaves. The non-natives have mostly basal leaves (leaves only at the base of the plant), while the natives have leaves along the length of the stem.

yellow hawkweed, an invasive

            Pliny the Elder, the Roman scholar, naturalist, and naval and army commander, somehow concluded that hawks fed on the plants to improve their eyesight. How he came up with this idea is utterly unknown, but it may be linked to too much ouzo.

            Pliny wrote the encyclopedic Naturalis Historia, a thirty-seven-volume work, as well as six other works that in all totaled 102 volumes. Naturalis Historia tried to cover the entire field of ancient knowledge, based on the best authorities available to Pliny, and encompasses the fields of botany, zoology, astronomy, geology, and mineralogy. 

            Each book of the Natural History covers a different topic, and they remain the only surviving writing of Pliny’s. The encyclopedia is considered about 50% accurate, with the other half heavily taken from folklore, legends, and rumors. 

            He died suddenly in AD 79 at the age of 55 or 56 while attempting to rescue people during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.

             

Free Electricity in Australia 

            Starting July 1, Australians across a huge swath of the continent will begin getting three free hours of up to 24 kWh of electricity every afternoon - to charge their cars, run their dishwashers, or fill up a storage battery to run the house at night. The afternoon hours align with the periods of peak daytime solar generation when the Australian grid experiences a power surplus. 

            Now, in one large part of a continent, for one large part of the day, electricity will be too cheap to meter. That’s the future of solar in many parts of the world.

 

Celestial Events

            For planet-watching in July, look after dusk low in the west for brilliant Venus. And before dawn, look low in the east for Mars, and high in the south for Saturn.

            July 2 marks the mid-point of the calendar year.

            On 7/6, the Earth will be at its furthest from the Sun, at “aphelion” - 94.5 miles away - and 3.1 million miles more distant than at perihelion on January 3. The day will likely be very warm, amply demonstrating that it is the tilt of the earth, not the distance from the sun, that determines our seasons.

 

Thought for the Week

            “Write it in your heart that every day is the best day of the year. Live in the sunshine, swim in the sea, breathe the wild air. Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

 

A Northwoods Almanac for June 19 - July 2, 2026

 A Northwoods Almanac for June 19 - July 2, 2026  

The First Ripe Berries of the Summer

            We picked our first wild strawberries on 6/9. And so begins the delicious summer berry season, with Juneberries next to follow.

            I’ve quoted this before about strawberries, but it always bears repeating: “Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubtless, God never did.” - 17th-century English physician Dr. William Butler and popularized by Izaak Walton

            Many birds believe this as well. Strawberries are relished by a long list: ruffed grouse, wild turkey, red-bellied and red-headed woodpeckers, yellow-bellied sapsucker, northern flicker, eastern kingbird, blue jay, gray catbird, cedar waxwings, veeries, wood thrushes, brown thrashers, eastern towhees, northern cardinals, swamp and white-throated sparrows, and rose-breasted grosbeaks. 

            Then there are all the mammals, from mice to chipmunks to squirrels to snowshoe hares, and it’s lucky that any are left for the rest of us.

            

Dragonfly ID

            I find it difficult to identify many dragonfly species because of their very nuanced markings coupled with the occasional distinct differences between males and females and juveniles. 

            Two easy ones to identify are the adult male whitetail dragonfly and the chalk-fronted corporal dragonfly. The mature male whitetails have a strikingly all-white abdomen, while the chalk-fronted corporal has two broad, white “corporal” stripes on its thorax.

common whitetail dragonfly

            The whitetail is particularly territorial. Males display their white abdomens to establish dominance over intruding males, who lower their tails to signal their submission. Meanwhile, the female lays up to 1,000 eggs a day, and may mate every day or every other day. She strikes the water when she lays each egg while the male hovers above her to prevent intruders.

            The chalk-fronted corporals, on the other hand, are highly social and are often seen in large numbers along trails. I love seeing them out on Powell Marsh when the deer flies are doing laps around my head. They’ll pick them off one by one and eat them, and for that, I’m eternally grateful.

chalk-fronted corporal dragonfly

 

Turtles Laying Eggs, and Mammals Digging Them Up

            We saw our first painted turtles laying eggs on June 6^th, and snappers were not far behind. Snappers deposit on average 20 to 50 eggs into a 4 to 7-inch-deep hole, while painted turtles drop 4 to 8 eggs on average into a 3-inch-deep hole.

            Both females then tamp the dirt down over the nest and try to conceal the nest, but usually to no avail. Nearly all are dug up by raccoons, foxes, minks, or skunks, even thirteen-lined ground squirrels and moles, before the sun rises the next day, the scattered, wrinkled eggs looking like squished ping-pong balls. Nine out of 10 eggs never get a chance to incubate into a baby turtle and then hatch and run the gauntlet of survival to the nearest lake where they are met by yet more predators. Predation is more pronounced wherever more people live, because raccoons, in particular, do best around human habitation.

            I’m surprised any make it to adulthood. If a baby snapper does survive, it will be six years before he or she mates. Female painted turtles may take seven years until maturity.

 

Best Flower Fragrances of the Year

            Our three most fragrant wildflowers will all be in bloom in this period - wild rose, spreading dogbane, and common milkweed. 

 

Trumpeter Swan Cygnets Hatched

            Trumpeter swan eggs hatched in two locations we observed during the first week of June.  One clutch had six young, the other four. Turns out four to six is average, so these two pairs hit the median.

            Incubation takes around five weeks, so these trumpeters likely laid their eggs at the beginning of May. The chicks grow quickly, but won’t fledge for at least 3 months - so, first flights should be around the first or second week of September.

photo by Bev Engstrom

Goat’s Beard (Tragopogon pratensis)

            I like the name of this lovely yellow flower that we first saw come into bloom this year on 6/11. Tragos means “goat” and pogon means “beard.” “Beard” references the fuzzy seedhead that is produced after flowering, but the goat reference escapes me - maybe goats like eating it?

            The species name pratensis means “of the meadows.”

photo by John Bates 

            The foliage contains a bitter white latex that deters the consumption by mammalian herbivores.

            Another common name is “Jack-go-to-bed-at-noon.” The flower heads only open in the morning sunshine, and usually close by early afternoon, hence the name.

            The flower produces a fluffy ball that’s like a dandelion’s, only much larger. Each plant produces 100 to 850 one-seeded tiny fruits, each with a feathery umbrella to catch the wind.

            It’s a non-native, found across Europe (British Isles in particular) in fields and on roadsides. It’s not invasive around here to my knowledge, but other references say it can be aggressive and hard to remove.

            Beats me. I just know I see solitary flowers here and there, and I find them beautiful. 

 

Froghoppers - AKA Spittle Bugs

            Common names given to insects (and birds and fish and . . . ) can be, shall we say, creative, but right near the top of the list are the froghoppers.

pine spittlebug

            “Froghoppers” (family Cercopidae) got their name because of their wide, frog-like heads and bodies (you have to use your imagination), and their ability to make massive, powerful jumps to escape danger - they are said to jump hundreds of times their own body length!

            In their nymph stage, however, they are referred to as spittle bugs, an apt name given that the nymphs dwell within a foamy mass of aerated plant sap that could easily be construed as spit. The spit keeps them moist and insulated, and also conceals them from predators. Few predators would even think to wade through the glob of spittle in search of an easy meal!

            I know of two species in our area: the pine spittlebug, which is found in spittle masses above ground; and the Saratoga spittlebug, found in spittle masses below ground, on the roots of plants like sweet fern and blueberry and red pine.

            The spittlebug manufactures its spit by sucking juices from the host plant and mixing them with an ingredient from its abdomen. A clear mixture is then excreted, and air is blown through the liquid by a pump-like structure beneath the abdomen, producing bubbles one at a time until the liquid becomes a froth. 

            If you gently probe through the spit with your fingers, you will find the spittlebugs enjoying another day in a controlled environment. It's an unusual but apparently effective adaptation, though it doesn't offer the nymphs much of a view.

            Pine spittlebugs are not a significant problem, but the Saratoga adults feed on new shoots of red pines in particular, damaging the tissue with a toxic injection of saliva. Characteristically these pines look "flagged" with dead foliage, and may ultimately be killed.

            What to do about them? Well . . . nothing really. They’re harmless to people, and unless you’re growing a red pine plantation, you can just be entertained by yet another very odd evolutionary adaptation employed by insects to up their chances of survival.

 

The Iron County Bird Count

            Four years ago, a small group of birders in Iron County began conducting an annual spring bird count for the purpose of establishing a baseline for what birds breed in the county. The intent is to be able to compare future counts to these baselines to determine species that may be declining, remaining stable, or increasing. 

            This spring we counted birds on May 27 and 28 in a number of specific areas throughout the county that tend to be “hotspots.” These included a section of the Manitowish River, the Little Turtle Flowage, Gile Flowage, Saxon Harbor and Falls, the Saxon Sewage Treatment Ponds (yes, sewage treatment ponds are often hotspots for birds), Interstate Falls, and various backroads and backyards in varying habitats. 

            We observed 123 species, an excellent number, though our high was 137 in 2024, with our low last year of 114.

            Highlights included 22 species of warblers, our 7 common species of woodpeckers, and our 7 most likely nesting species of sparrows (white-throated, clay-colored, swamp, song, Savannah, house, and chipping - we missed Lincoln’s). Perhaps our most unusual songbird was a gray-cheeked thrush, which almost certainly was still in migration since none are known to nest in Wisconsin.

            We missed some relatively common birds like red-tailed hawk, American kestrel, black tern, brown creeper and golden-crowned kinglet, along with a number of duck species, but that’s pretty normal - it’s hit or miss on any given day.

            

Celestial Events

            The most important celestial event of this period is, of course, summer solstice, which occurs on 6/20. We’ll be the recipients of 15 hours and 44 minutes of possible sunshine. 

            The sunrise and sunset occur today (and yesterday actually) at their furthest north of the year. Today is also the year’s latest sunset, occurring at 8:53, which is 3 hours and 39 minutes later than the earliest sunset around winter solstice. The sun will continue to set at 8:53 until July 1, and then slowly begin setting earlier.

            Meanwhile, our sun will start rising later on 6/21, and our days officially begin growing shorter.

            The full moon - the “Strawberry/Rose Moon” - rises on 6/29, and is the southernmost and lowest full moon of the year.

 

Thought for the Week

            “If you stand still long enough to observe carefully the things around you, you will find beauty, and you will know wonder.” - N. Scott Momaday

 

 

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