A Northwoods Almanac for 9/2 – 9/15/16
Sightings – Great Egrets, Nighthawks,
Loon Predation, Red-headed Woodpeckers
Sarah
Krembs reported seeing eight great egrets at Powell Marsh on 8/28. She noted
that they were “spending their time fishing a bit.” This is an excellent
sighting because great egrets, the organizational symbol for the National
Audubon Society, are quite unusual for our area. If you’re not familiar with these
elegant birds, that’s likely because in recent years, there have typically been
only 5 to 10 nesting colonies in the entire state, all well south of the
Lakeland area.
Why would any be
seen in our area at all? Following breeding, dispersing juveniles and perhaps
some adults are known to wander far beyond their typical breeding range, often into
Canada with peak numbers in August and September. Why they wander so far north
isn’t clear, but they’ll reverse course and begin heading to their wintering
grounds this month. Birds banded in Minnesota have been recovered in Alabama,
Louisiana, Texas, and Honduras, so they’ll be fishing this winter where it’s a
whole lot warmer than up here.
Howard
P. reported seeing many nighthawks migrating through the Minocqua area on 8/28.
Ron Winter in Boulder Junction sent me a beautiful photograph the same day of a
nighthawk that he said was “just resting and sleeping behind my house all day.”
Nighthawks migrate both day and night
but are most commonly seen in migration relatively low to the ground near dusk
and winging erratically while foraging for insects.
These birds are one of the last species to arrive in spring and one of
the first to depart in August, flying one of the longest migration routes of
any North American bird. They winter in Paraguay, Uruguay, Bolivia, Peru,
Argentina, Chile, and Brazil. As insect eaters, they have to leave our area
early to ensure they stay well ahead of killing frosts.
Zach Wilson, Iron County Land and Water
Conservation Specialist, noted the following in an email on 8/23: “We pulled
the last of the loon nest platforms from our Iron county loon and lake project.
It took me three years of trying to find the culprit that was predating the
loon eggs on the platform and finally we have some photo
documentation. Eagle. We actually have photos of the eagle landing on
the nest [on 6/02] and eating one of the eggs, then the loons returned and
continued incubation for two more days when the eagle returned for the final
egg. The good news of this story is that the loons re-nested and had one
chick from a natural nest. This was on Hewitt Lake.”
Tyler
Foster sent me several excellent photos of red-headed woodpeckers, a species
that is relatively uncommon these days. What makes the photos particularly
special is that Tyler is 10-years-old and noted in his email, “I love
photographing birds. My grandparents spotted a red-headed woodpecker at
their house in Woodruff in June of this year. When they told me I couldn't
wait to go up there. Since then we've seen 3 adults and 2 juveniles.”
Plasmodial Life
Slime molds bring out the junior high brains that still
linger in Mary and me. Poking these slimy things always makes us laugh and
chortle “ooohhh” and “Yuucchh”!
We led a hike
last week on one of the trails maintained by the Madeline Island Wilderness
Preserve, and there we found scrambled egg slime (Fuligo septica) (see the photo). Now this might not seem like too
much to you (or like nothing at all), but this was a rare find for us. We enjoy
these organisms because they are truly weird. Tom Clancy once wrote, “The
difference between nonfiction and fiction is that fiction has to make sense.”
And nothing proves this point more than a good slime mold. These creatures live
their lives as amoeba-like life forms called plasmodiums. They move around by
oozing their way across the soil or wood debris on the forest floor, foraging
on bacteria and other microscopic life as they go.
Here’s what one literature source says: “As long as food is abundant, these
slime molds exist as single-celled organisms. When food is in short supply,
many of these single-celled organisms will congregate and start moving as a
single body. In this state they are sensitive to airborne chemicals and can detect
food sources. They can readily change the shape and function of parts and may
form stalks that produce fruiting bodies, releasing countless spores.”
This kinda gives me the heebie-jeebies, and thus would make fine Grade C
horror movie material –“The Slime Mold That Ate New York City.”
But I find them fascinating, while not understanding them one whit.
Another of our favorites is wolf’s milk slime; with these, you get to puncture
little pink globes and make them ooze a Pepto-Bismol sort of fluid. Great stuff
if you’re in Junior High, or if you just never fully grew out of that time.
Mercer Bike Trail Opening
Mary and I biked in to attend the
ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Mercer Bike Trail. The efforts of bike trail
enthusiasts in our area have been just amazing. We can now bike on nearly all
dedicated trails from Mercer to Manitowish Waters to Boulder Junction to Sayner
to St. Germain. And there are more trails to come.
What I love most about these trails
is that they’re multi-use for every kind of non-motorized travel, from walking
and pushing a baby carriage, to skate-boarding and roller skating, to biking on
tricycles to recumbents. And they’re being used by people from little kids to
some of our most elderly citizens. Most people see them as a blessing to our
communities, and the extraordinary number of people utilizing these trails
proves how true that is.
Mushroom Mania
I led hikes and paddles over the
last two weeks on Madeline Island, in the Guido Rahr Jr. Tenderfoot Preserve,
and in the Franklin Lake State Natural Area, and hiked in Price County and in
Iron County with friends. Everywhere I went, there were mushrooms galore. All
the rain this summer has made for happy fungi. We’re still rank amateurs, but
we are having a great time trying to learn them all.
Bird Migration Is On
Our insectivorous birds – the
insect-eaters – are streaming out of the Northwoods in anticipation of the
first killing frost. Their ability to navigate their way to very specific
wintering locations, and then to return to the same nesting sites next spring
continues to astonish me. As an example of what I would consider the nearly
impossible ability of birds to navigate, a researcher in Great Britain captured
and banded two Manx shearwaters, a seafaring bird nesting off the coast of
Wales that never crosses land, and took them by train in a closed box to
London. He then flew them to Boston on a commercial TWA flight and released one
of them in Boston Harbor (the other had died enroute). The bird was discovered
back in its home burrow before dawn 12 days and 12 days later, almost 3,000
miles away. That’s an average flight across water of 240 miles per day.
Other studies underscore their
navigational gift. I bring this up not to try to explain it, but rather to
share my amazement, and to encourage you to appreciate the skill involved in
migration as you witness birds heading south over the next few months.
July 2016 Warmest Month On Record
Global mean temperatures in July 2016 were the warmest on record not
just for July, but for any month dating back to the late 1800s, according to
four separate newly-released analyses. A state of the climate report issued by
NOAA said that July 2016 was Earth's warmest month in records dating to 1880.
The average July 2016 temperature for the globe was 0.87°Celsius (1.5F) above
the 20th century average. This beat the previous warmest month on record set in
July 2015 which was 0.81°C above average.
Celestial Events
Tonight and tomorrow night, look for Venus
near the waxing crescent moon. By 9/6, we’re down to less than 13 hours of
sunlight and heading rapidly for autumn equinox on 9/22.
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