A Northwoods Almanac
for 12/11 – 24, 2015
Winter Solstice –
12/21
Eight hours and 39 minutes. That’s it for sunlight on
12/21. A pittance. This is as far south as the sun ever gets, and thus it’s
your longest noontime shadow of the year. Today, all locations south of the
equator have day lengths greater than 12 hours while all locations north of the
equator have day lengths less than 12 hours.
It’s all because Earth is tilted on its axis by
23-and-a-half degrees. The tilt of the Earth – not our distance from the sun –
is what causes winter and summer. On the solstice, the Northern Hemisphere is
leaning the farthest away from the sun for the year.
The good news, of course, is that on 12/22, the days
begin to get incrementally longer, and the nights shorter. But just to confuse
the matter a bit, the latest sunrise doesn’t come on the solstice. For
mid-northern latitudes, the latest sunrise won’t come until early January. And
perhaps you noticed that the earliest sunset time is already occurring – the
latest sunset times remain the same from 12/5 – 12/14. On 12/14, then, our
sunsets will start getting later.
One way or another – hooray!
Hal Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year: “Now we are on the last steep slope of
autumn with the winter solstice just ahead. The span of daylight is almost six
hours less than it was six months ago . . . The lesser voices are stilled, but
the throb of time and change beats beneath the sighing of the wind in the
hemlocks and the rush of the wind in the naked maples, the cold and wintry
wind. Restless, surging life has retreated to the root, the bulb, the seed and
the bud. Life sleeps in the egg, awaiting another spring . . . The wind may
howl and roar, but the earth and its insistencies of life whisper of time and eternities.”
Christmas Thoughts
Oh, what to
buy, what to buy. It’s ironic, if not utterly silly, that while I’m never sure
what to give to Mary and our two daughters for Christmas, I feel free to offer
you advice on what to buy for your loved ones. Such is the power of being the
one behind the keyboard.
Wooden
snowshoes (Iverson’s from the U.P.) – I still believe in the wood shoes over
the metal shoes. They’re far quieter, and I think, give better flotation in
deep snow.
Subscriptions
to magazines that inspire: Orion
magazine, Northern Woodlands magazine
(from Vermont), and Wisconsin Natural
Resources magazine
Books to help you appreciate, and yes, enjoy, winter: Life in the Cold: An Introduction to Winter
Ecology by Peter Marchand (now in its 4th Edition) and Winter World: The Ingenuity of Animal Survival by Bernd Heinrich.
Binoculars – good ones. Not hand-me-downs from 1953 that are scratched
and weigh a ton. Check Eagle Optics in Middleton, WI, for highest quality, best
prices, and best advice.
Spotting Scope – get carried away with seeing things up close! Eagle
Optics is your best bet again.
Clothing – all things wool. Try Smart Wool, Ibex, or Ice Breaker
clothing. We wear wool every day in the winter - it’s soft, non-scratchy, warm,
and looks great.
Old Birds
The world's oldest known seabird, a
female Laysan Albatross, was spotted at the Midway Atoll National Wildlife
Refuge on 11/19. She was first banded in 1956 by Chan Robbins, but has since
worn multiple bands as each wore away over time. She is estimated to be at
least 64 years old, but could actually be older.
She
hasn’t led an easy live either. She has raised as many as 26 chicks over her
lifetime. Breeding albatrosses also typically spend about half the year rearing
and feeding their young, foraging hundreds of miles out at sea for prey, so
that’s a lot of ocean to have explored over 64 years. Midway Atoll NWR is about
1,200 miles northwest of Honolulu and part of the Papahanaumokuakea (say this
fast five times) Marine National Monument.
The
albatross isn’t the only one living a long life. Chan Robbins, the
ornithologist who first banded it, is now 97 years of age.
Speaking of
old birds, a trumpeter swan first brought to Wisconsin as an egg gathered from
a nest in Alaska in 1988, is still with us. Now 27 years old, she is the oldest
known trumpeter swan.
Christmas Bird Counts
The
Minocqua Audubon Christmas Bird Count takes place on 12/17, while the
Manitowish Waters count takes place on 12/19. The Minocqua CBC has been conducted sporadically in
the past, the first time in 1962! The North Lakeland Discovery Center Bird Club
began to sponsor the Minocqua CBC in 2006, so this will be the tenth
consecutive year for the bird club and eighteenth year over the history of the
count. The Manitowish Waters count is now in its 23rd consecutive
year.
The center for
the Minocqua CBC is the intersection of Hwy 51 and 70 West and encompasses all
of the area within a 7.5 mile radius of the count center. The center for the Manitowish Waters count is the intersection
of Highways 51 and County W and also encompasses an area within a 7.5 mile
radius. Birds may only be reported that are observed within the count
areas.
Contact
Donna Roche (p-lanz@hotmail.com) if
you’re interested in participating in the Minocqua count, and give me a holler
(manitowish@centurytel.net) if
you’d like to help out on the Manitowish Waters count.
Donna and I are both looking in
particular for people to count the birds visiting their bird feeders on the
count days. We’ve found – surprise, surprise – that many birds prefer the good
life near people’s feeders in towns or backyards compared to eking out a winter
living in the surrounding forests where food is less reliable.
You don’t need to be an expert on
bird identification to participate. It’s really quite easy and warm – counting
is done from inside your homes.
Other
counts are taking place around the area. For folks counting
in Rhinelander, contact Vanessa Haese-Lehman at 715-369-3708 or markvanlehman@yahoo.com. In the Park
Falls area, contact Tom Nicholls at 762-3076 or nicho002@umn.edu. In the Phelps area,
contact Bill Reardon at 479-8055 or breardon@nnex.net.
Update on Snowy Owls
Ryan Brady, avian research scientist for the WDNR, reports that “There has been an incredible drop-off in
reports since the atypically large October influx. Roughly 87 Snowies had been
tallied across 40 counties in Wisconsin by Nov. 30, but 65 of those came during
the Oct. 15-31 period alone. Only a handful of new birds have been
reported over the last few weeks. Moreover, repeat sightings of those
early-arriving owls have been few.”
This doesn’t bode well. Ryan notes
that “an uptick in reports of rehabbed and dead owls suggests that a high
proportion of these birds, mostly juveniles hatched this summer, probably did
not survive the journey and died of dehydration or starvation.”
Tundra Swans Still on the Mississippi River
If you’re looking for a wildlife-inspired
road trip, consider going to see tundra swans by the thousands. Some 15,000 or
so tundras have been reported off Brownsville, MN's, viewing area along the
Mississippi with some spilling over into the DeSoto area in WI. The birds
typically remain until the river begins to freeze up, which given our warm
December so far, may not be for several weeks.
Loons Still
Migrating
Kathy and John Wilke in Phillips wrote to me on 12/2,
“We had some excitement on Dardis Lake (east of Phillips) late last Saturday
afternoon. The lake had frozen over the night before and a loon either
landed or was dropped on the ice by an eagle and could not take off
again. Our son-in-law, Peter Maslowski, ran out of the house and chased
the eagle off the loon. Our daughter Katie took these pictures. The
eagle came back and attempted to land on the loon but the loon held its beak up
to protect itself and the eagle left. The loon continued to call for help
but we did not want to go out on the thin ice to rescue it. Our grand daughter,
Grace, just kept saying, ‘Papa, that loon has to go home and be with it's
family.’ We walked back in the house (by this time it was dark) hearing the
loon cry for help-very sad. The loon was gone in the morning.”
Given
our very warm November and December with some lakes still open, juvenile loons
have hung around in Wisconsin and are still migrating. On 12/7, a birder
reported seeing 83 loons on Lake Kegonsa just south of Madison.
Sightings
Cherie Smith in Lake Tomahawk
shared a photo of a lone evening grosbeak visiting her feeders on 11/27. Cherie
noted how she had seen flocks of evening grosbeaks when she was a kid, but now
we’re lucky to see one or two a winter.
 |
| evening grosbeak range map |
We have a female cardinal visiting
our feeders. She’s skittish, but we see her nearly every day. We also
consistently have Bohemian waxwings eating crabapple right out the window from
my office – I’m watching them as I write!
Celestial Events
Pre-dawn is
the time now to see planets. Look for Venus and Mars in the Southeast, and
Jupiter high in the south. Saturn will join the crew in the last week of
December.
The peak
Geminid meteor shower occurs in the late evening of 12/13 into the early
morning of 12/14. The Geminids can produce 50 or more meteors per hour, in an
often multi-colored display with most being white, but some yellow, blue, red,
and/or green. So, they’re worth a look! They radiate out from the constellation
Gemini, near the stars Castor and Pollux.
Please share your outdoor sightings and thoughts: call me at
715-476-2828, drop me an e-mail at manitowish@centurytel.net,
or snail-mail me at 4245N Hwy. 47, Mercer, WI.
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