A Northwoods Almanac for April 2 – 15, 2010
First of Spring Sightings
3/10: Sue Aitken on the Manitowish Chain reported the first Canada geese.
3/11: Jane Wierschem on Blue Lake in Minocqua reported seeing the first chipmunk.
3/14: Nancy Burns on the Manitowish Chain reported the first hooded mergansers.
3/14: Pat Schwai on Cochran Lake reported the first mourning cloak butterfly flitting along their south facing hill.
3/15: With temperatures around 60°, Ron Winter in Boulder Junction also reported seeing a mourning cloak butterfly and a silver-spotted skipper fluttering around his yard. He noted that some adult butterflies which hibernate fly around during a mid-winter thaw.
3/16: Jim Sommerfeldt on Middle Sugarbush Lake reported the first robin.
3/16: Nancy Burns on the Manitowish Chain reported the first common mergansers.
3/19: Sue Aitken on the Manitowish Chain reported the first buffleheads.
3/19: Jim Sommerfeldt on Middle Sugarbush Lake reported the first juncos returning.
3/21: We returned from a 10-day trip to North Carolina and noted immediately that “our” pair of bald eagles was sitting on eggs in the nest across the river from our house. We also saw our first red-winged blackbirds and grackles.
3/22: Mary and I observed our first rough-legged hawk of the year near Springstead.
3/22: Terry Daulton reported hearing sandhill cranes calling from a marsh in the Turtle Flambeau Flowage.
3/23: Dave Foster reported observing a pair of hooded mergansers in a wetland pool near their house in Natural Lakes, the earliest he has seen this species in the five years they've lived here.
3/23: Jim Sommerfeldt saw his first single American tree sparrow (we had two tree sparrows stay at our feeders the whole winter which was quite unusual).
3/24: Jane Wierschem on Blue Lake about five miles south of Minocqua reported that black bears are out. She had one hit her bird feeders, and then saw one in her front yard on 3/26 (see her picture).
3/24: John Randolph reported seeing seven male Buffleheads and a single loon on open water on the Wisconsin River north of Rhinelander.
3/24: John Werth reported seeing three loons on Maple Lake.
3/25: Pat Schwai on Cochran Lake wrote that “the lake opened up enough for waterfowl to land early this morning although large sheets of ice remain. My neighbors Frank and Nancy Sevcik saw two swans on the lake. My neighbors Sig and Mary Kaminski spotted the first 3 loons of the year. They seemed confined to a long "channel" of open water and by mid-afternoon were gone.”
3/26: Mary and I heard our first sandhill cranes of the year at Murray’s Landing on the Turtle Flambeau Flowage.
3/27: John Werth reported the first great blue heron of the year fishing on the Manitowish River.
3/27: On our first spring walk on the Powell Marsh dikes (usually we would be skiing the dikes on this date, but they’re dry now), we spotted several rough-legged hawks, dozens of geese and mallards, two sandhill cranes, four hooded mergansers, and two trumpeter swans. Most unusual of all, we came across the severed lower half of an ermine, the upper half likely carried off by a raptor. The ermine was still white, and thus an easy target when set against the all-brown landscape. Very early springs like this one can upset the timing that animals have evolved for changes in their pelage.
3/28: Fox sparrows appeared at our feeders in Manitowish, giving us three sparrow species feeding below our house - white-throated, tree, and fox. We also have a bevy of goldfinch and pine siskins, several purple finch, four evening grosbeaks, and dozens of red-winged blackbirds and grackles along with the usual array of woodpeckers, nuthatches, blue jays, mourning doves, and chickadees. After a relatively quiet winter for birds, we’re back in the seed-buying business.
3/29: We saw our first ring-necked ducks of the year at Powell Marsh, and later that day saw six sandhill cranes on the almost completely open Turtle Flambeau Flowage.
Swan ID
On 3/15, Jeff and Diane Zanski observed two large white swans landing on Squaw Lake. A few days later on 3/19, Phil Williams sent me photos of two swans that had arrived on the open waters of Rock Creek north of Winchester. We’ve had many others report swans in the general area, and as of this date, 3/29, it’s a very good bet that those reported have been trumpeter swans because only the trumpeters winter-over in our area. But migrating tundra swans were reported in large numbers this last week in southern Wisconsin, and a few of those will likely be migrating through our area, so swan identification becomes a much more difficult task now.
The easiest way to tell the difference is by voice. The trumpeter sounds like the very poor and loud effort of a first-time trumpet player, while the tundra sounds like a baying hound or a bit like honking geese. Visual identification, on the other hand, is very nuanced (if you can get close enough, look for the yellow spot on the bill of the tundra). I confess to still having problems easily telling the difference between the species. Dust off your bird guide (get Sibley’s if you need a new one), and see what I mean.
But whether tundra or trumpeter, don’t get so lost in the ID process that you forget to simply appreciate the stunning beauty of these birds. Trumpeter swans are the largest waterfowl species in North America, and when they fly close overhead, they’re a sight to behold.
Viewing the International Space Station
To view the ISS, as well as space shuttles approaching the ISS to dock, go to: www.heavens-above.com. When you click on the date of a visible pass, a chart shows the path of the ISS or the shuttle across the sky. It displays the exact path through the constellations that the satellite will travel while it is visible.
Another website: http://www.spaceweather.com/flybys/flybys.php?zip=53581 will also give you times and locations for the ISS and various satellites.
Here’s an example: On 4/10, look at 5:31 a.m. in the southwest for the ISS to appear. It will arc across the sky for 5 minutes, blazing like a very bright star at negative 3.0 magnitude, and then fizzle out in the northeast.
Drought and Fire Danger
It is dangerously dry in the woods right now, and no one should be outside burning anything until we get significant rain. The risk is simply too high.
Still, fire has always been a part of our natural ecosystem. On our sandiest soils, like the “jack pine flats” around Boulder Junction, fires occurred regularly, returning to the same area on average every 50 to 75 years. In fact, jack pines evolved specifically to take advantage of fires by producing seed cones that only open when temperatures reach 116°F. Their cones don’t drop off every year like other pine species, but hang on for up to 25 years awaiting a fire. One study reported up to two million jack pine seeds per acre waiting in reserve in unopened cones.
Historically, the smell of fire was always in the air over Wisconsin. From original surveying records, ecologists estimate that 178,000 acres once burned annually from natural fires (now only about 2,500 acres annually). However, in 1870 when settlement began in haste with the first railroad entering northern Wisconsin, there came a whole new era of fire. In 1871, the worst forest fire disaster in American history occurred, the Peshtigo Fire. Then for 60 years, fires were always burning somewhere in the Northwoods, creating the great era of holocausts that lasted into the 1930s. Only with the exhaustion of virgin timber, the abandonment of agricultural settlement, and the statewide commitment to fire control did the fires cease.
The fires were considered by most as positive, because settlers were needed to hasten the transformation from forests to fields, and fires cleared the land faster than any other tool. The Detroit Post depicted the devastating fires of 1881 that occurred throughout the Midwest as: [a] “chance for new settlers . . . Where the fires have raged the forests have been killed, the underbrush burned and the ground pretty effectively cleared. There are square miles and whole townships where the earth is bare of everything except a light covering of ashes; and other square miles where all that is needed to complete the clearing is to gather up a few scattered chunks per acre and finish burning them.”
In 1898, Filibert Roth described northern Wisconsin this way: “During forty years of lumbering nearly the entire territory has been logged over . . . In addition to this, the fires, following all logging operations or starting on new clearings of the settler, have done much to change these woods. Nearly half of this territory has been burned over at least once, about three million acres are without any forest cover whatever, and several million more are but partly covered by the dead and dying remnants of the former forest . . . Here are large tracts of bare wastes, ‘stump prairies,’ where the ground is sparsely covered with weeds and grass, sweet fern, and a few scattering, runty bushes of scrub oak, aspen, and white birch.”
In 1905, fires broke out in nearly every one of the 32 northern counties – 1,435 in all, and they burned over one million acres. The smoke was so bad that navigation was impeded on Lake Michigan.
Times have changed, of course. Since the 1930s the success of fire-suppression efforts has eliminated most of the wildfires. But when severe drought occurs, even the best fire-fighting efforts can be overmatched. We need rain, and lots of it. But until it arrives, please exercise the greatest caution with fire.
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