A Northwoods Almanac for March 30, 2018

A Northwoods Almanac for March 30 – April 12, 2018  by John Bates

Sightings – FOY (First-of-the Year)

3/9 Erika Lintereur captured a photo of a weasel dragging a rabbit back to its den on Hadley Dump Road in Mercer.  The weasel couldn't get the rabbit up part of the hill, so Erika stopped and moved the rabbit, and the weasel came right back to drag its prey into its den. 

photo by Erika Lintereur

 

3/12 – Rod Sharka sent me a photo of a young bobcat that has been roaming around the Land O’Lakes area. The photo was captured in his backyard. He noted, “It was obviously a young one with little experience in catching red squirrels.”

photo by Rod Sharka

3/18 - Linda Johnson reported her FOY red-winged blackbirds on the Tomahawk River.

3/21 – We returned home from a trip out west and saw an hour or two later our FOY robin in Manitowish.

3/21 – Loons are being reported on lakes in southern Wisconsin, so lakeshore owners in our area should soon start seeing loons flying scouting missions over their lakes.

3/22- Den Hill sent me a beautiful photograph he took in Florida of an osprey. Ospreys are not yet being seen in Wisconsin, but will be arriving as lake waters open. We typically see our FOY osprey around 4/15 on a nest along Hwy. 47 near McNaughton.

osprey photo by Den Hill

3/23 – We observed our FOY red-winged blackbird in Manitowish.

3/23 – Matt McMahon in Manitowish Waters reported his FOY American robin.

3/23 – Sarah Krembs in Manitowish Waters observed 12 trumpeter swans on the Manitowish River and captured a picture of what appeared to be a serious squabble between two of them. She also saw her FOY buffleheads and a common merganser.

photo by Sarah Krembs

3/23 – Ed Marshall in Lac du Flambeau photographed a small army of at least 60 common redpolls mobbing his feeders.

3/26 – Nancy Burns in Manitowish Waters reported hearing and observing a FOY sandhill crane flying over her home, which brings up the annual crane count. The annual survey of sandhill and whooping cranes now spans over 90 counties in six states of the upper Midwest (Wisconsin and portions of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, and Minnesota) and takes place on Saturday, April 14. If you’re interested in participating, go to https://www.savingcranes.org/education/annual-midwest-crane-count/ to find your local county coordinator.

            Data from this count has been collected for nearly all counties in Wisconsin since 1985, and today nearly 2500 volunteers participate. Mary and I have been involved in the count since the late 1980s and always have an interesting experience. I encourage you to participate!

March Crust Skiing, Mountain Biking, and Hiking

            March is a tough transitional month in the Northwoods, but there are ways to not only endure, but enjoy. We’ve gotten out our back-country skis and skate skis, and we’re skiing in the morning on lakes and wetland. And the skiing is remarkably good! We just park at a boat landing and ski along the shoreline, usually seeing no one and getting a view of the lakes from a totally different perspective.

            Or we mountain bike or hike the frozen snowmobile trails. Yeah, the trails are rough, often icy, sometimes muddy, but it’s another option. Most importantly, we’re outside in the real world, which is why we live here and not somewhere else.

             

Birds in Southern Arizona and Southern California

            Mary, Callie, and I recently spent three days with friends in far southern Arizona and another four days in San Diego, CA with our older daughter Eowyn, and we saw some fabulous birds! Particularly noteworthy in Arizona were the seven species of hummingbirds we observed – magnificent, rufous, broad-billed, violet-crowned, black-chinned, Anna’s, and Costa’s.

            In San Diego, the oddest sighting was of a greater flamingo in San Diego Bay, a bird that is said to have no accepted wild records in western North America. Flamingos spotted in the wild out west are considered possible escapees from aviaries or zoos. Zoos that keep flamingos usually clip their wings so they don't fly away, but because the Imperial Beach flamingo has been seen flying from one pond to another, rangers don't believe it came from a zoo.

The bird also has a leg band, which could've been given to it by a biologist researching wild birds. However, no one apparently has been able to read the tag, so the identity of the bird remains a mystery.

We were also treated to four species of terns (least, royal, elegant, and Caspian) and enormous numbers of waterfowl with the most numerous species being American wigeons, We had exceptional views directly down onto active nests of Brandt’s cormorants in La Jolla, and great views of little blue herons and both snowy and great egrets. We also had close-ups of cinnamon teals, and the usual challenges with sorting out and identifying shorebirds, though there was no misidentifying the many black-necked stilts and American avocets, as well as a few long-billed curlews. We also went a bit crazy trying to identify many species of gulls and sparrows, but there were so many other birds to observe that we simply focused on what we could figure out and didn’t spend time worrying about what we couldn’t.

Brand't cormorants photo by Callie Bates

Mary and I have organized spring (March) trips in the past to both southern Arizona and San Diego, and we’d love to do so again because the bird life is so exceptional. We hope to hook up with a sponsoring organization and offer one of the trips next spring.

Snowy Owl Migration

            A few weeks ago I received an email from an individual in southern Wisconsin wondering if snowy owls migrated in small groups. He had seen three flying relatively close together that morning.

            My initial reaction was to say absolutely not – I’d never heard of owls migrating in groups. But I waited to respond until I could do a little research, and lo and behold, snowies are known to fly in small groups, though quite uncommonly. Numerous snowies have been outfitted with satellite transmitters, and data from these owls have shown that individuals sometimes moved on similar dates and in the same directions, likely using similar routes during migration.

            But that doesn’t prove they fly in groups. This, from Cornell’s Birds of North America, does:

“There are numerous reports of Snowy Owls boarding ships at sea; e.g., during the irruption migration of winter 2013/2014 from the Great Lakes to the ne. U.S., at least nine Snowy Owls boarded a ship during a storm off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada. Apparently the owls stayed on board until arriving off the coast of Spain, France and eventually the Netherlands.”

Also, “About a dozen Snowy Owls boarded an ice-breaker vessel approximately 100 km out to sea in the Mackenzie River Delta, Northwest Territories, Canada, on 29 Sep 2008. The owls appeared on the ship rather suddenly and stayed approximately 12 hours. Photographs suggested most of the birds were young of the year.”

The “wild” in wildlife means we should expect the unexpected. This revelation of snowy owls occasionally flying together adds to my ever-growing list of “never say never” sightings and stories.

State Award!

North Lakeland Discovery Center naturalist Licia Johnson has been selected to receive the Wisconsin Association of Environmental Education Non-Formal Educator of the Year Award. Great to see “one of our own” recognized for exemplary work! Congratulations Licia!

Old-Growth Book in Print!

            After 15 years of research and general meandering around, I’ve finally published my book on the old-growth forests of Wisconsin. It’s titled Our Living Ancestors: The History and Ecology of Old-Growth Forests in Wisconsin (and Where to Find Them). It’s available through our website at manitowishriverpress.com, but should also be found very soon in local bookstores, galleries, and gift shops.

Celestial Events

            The full, blue moon occurs officially tomorrow night, 3/31, but it’s 100% full tonight as well.

            On 4/2, look before sunrise in the southeast for Mars and Saturn to be just one degree apart. We receive over 13 hours of daylight as of 4/5. On 4/7, look for Saturn to be about two degrees below the waning gibbous moon with Mars just another degree below it.

Thought for the Week

            To the question of why many of us can’t talk about climate change in a more intelligent and open manner, Barbara Kingsolver replied, “The short answer is that we believe we collect evidence and then use it to make up our minds, but in fact we make up our minds and then collect evidence to support our beliefs. Almost all of us work that way . . . The normal human decision-making process is mostly subconscious. We take in information only from sources we trust, whether that’s Rush Limbaugh or NPR or a church pastor or a co-worker. We make these animal decisions about who’s on our team, and then we pretty much believe what they say.”

Please share your outdoor sightings and thoughts: call 715-476-2828, e-mail at manitowish@centurytel.net, snail-mail at 4245N State Highway 47, Mercer, WI, or see my blog at www.manitowishriver.blogspot.com.

A Northwoods Almanac for 3/16 - 29, 2018

A Northwoods Almanac for March 16 – 29, 2018  by John Bates

Sightings

Mary and I spotted eight Canada geese on the Manitowish River below the Rest Lake Dam on 2/28, along with three trumpeter swans. The swans may have been representatives of those that wintered-over here, but the geese winter south of here, so they have just migrated back. Keep an eye on any open water now – waterfowl are returning!

Bald eagles are rebuilding their nests, and on average, should be incubating eggs by April 1. Mary and I have been watching the pair that nest across the Manitowish River from our house carrying large sticks to the nest.

            Ravens are also now beginning to nest, most often on south-facing ledges far from humans.

            On 3/4, Sarah Krembs in Manitowish Waters observed her first chipmunk of the year.

            On 3/10, Judith Bloom observed a dozen or so Canada geese plus some mallards in the open water at the far east end of Lake Minocqua just across from the entrance to the fish hatchery.

 On 3/11, Randy and Debbie Augustinak in Land O’Lakes photographed a barred owl successfully hunting from their bird feeder pole. They noted, “He swooped down on an unsuspecting vole, flew up into a nearby tree, and down the hatch it went! Surprisingly, the chickadees don’t seem to mind him hanging around.”

photo by Randy Augustinak

Snow Fleas

            Warmer winter weather always brings out armies of snow fleas, which appear as little more than tiny black specks on the snow. They are most often seen near the dark trunks of trees where one assumes they are enjoying a little more heat. Officially, they are called springtails and are not actually fleas, or even for that matter, technically insects.

In the summer, hundreds of thousands of springtails can populate one cubic meter of top soil, but since they live within the soil, they largely go unnoticed by people. In the winter, however, they can be easily spotted against the white backdrop of snow.

Springtails feed on decaying leaf litter and other organic material in the soil, and play a role in natural decomposition. So, they’re a “good” thing.

They can withstand bitter winter temperatures thanks to a glycine-rich antifreeze protein that binds to ice crystals as they start to form, preventing the crystals from growing larger.

Winter Stoneflies

            I received a phone call a few weeks back from a man inquiring about what kind of flying insect he was seeing out on the snow. I’m not an expert on insects, but from his description, my suspicion is he was seeing winter stoneflies. There are two families of winter stoneflies with oodles of species, so even if one had the insect under a microscope, it would be a challenge to determine the specific species. However, I’ve attached a photo of the most likely culprit – 

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            Stoneflies winter as larvae in streams. They’re almost always associated with clean, well-oxygenated water, and thus are commonly used as an indicator of a healthy creek or river.

            They’re adapted to the cold via the various sugars and chemicals they possess which provide them with an internal antifreeze. Why they have evolved to emerge during the winter is certainly open to speculation – are they crazy, for instance? –  but one reason may be that there are fewer predators in early spring like birds and bats, as well as fewer insect competitors to deal with. Still, it seems like the cons would exceed the pros.

            Many stoneflies are “shredders,” meaning as larvae, they feed on autumn leaves that have fallen into the water. But in late winter as emergent adults, some species don’t feed at all, while others feed on various liquids, algae, pollen, plant buds, or lichens.

            Some male winter stoneflies attract mates by drumming their abdomens against various surfaces, each species having its own beat, preferred location, and drumming surface. If a female likes the beat, she will drum back until they find one another. Once mated, the female lays up to a thousand eggs in the water, and the cycle begins again. So, it’s not only woodpeckers and grouse that drum to attract mates – so do stoneflies!

Pine Cone Willow Gall

            Last week, Mary and I were skiing when we stopped to check a map. Near the map post, we noticed a shrub with “pine cones” on the tips of many of its branches, something we have seen other years as well. The problem with our observation was that the shrub wasn’t a conifer, but rather was a willow, and willows don’t produce pine cones. My first thought was that it had to be an insect gall of some sort, but what kind? A little research later, I found that the gall is called the “willow pinecone gall” and is produced by the gall-midge Rhabdophaga strobiloides.

By cutting the gall apart, we could find a little larval “worm” nestled in the center of the cone. As spring comes on, the larvae will pupate and eventually hatch as an adult in May. The adult will fly away, but before doing so, the female will lay an egg on the tip of a branch where new willow leaves would ordinarily form from a terminal bud. The egg will hatch, and the larvae will burrow into the willow stem, triggering the plant to secrete growth hormones that alter how the leaves will grow. The leaves now layer themselves into a cone-like structure, a bit like an onion, and the larvae nestles into the center for the rest of the year, growing and shedding its skin through several instars.          

The mature larvae protects itself from freezing inside the gall by concentrating a glycerol antifreeze in the bodies, and if that works, it will emerge as an adult next May and start the process all over again.

Interestingly, there’s competition for these cozy winter apartments. Numerous other insect species can be found in the willow pinecone galls, including a parasitic wasp that raises its larva on the flesh of the midge larva.

Budding

Trees and shrubs are budding out. Pussy willows are what everyone notices first because even with sub-zero temperatures and a foot of snow on the ground, the buds will break. The willow flower bud is actually inside the fur coat of silvery hairs that insulate it against the cold. The hairs trap heat from the sun and warm the bud.

Willows are either males or females, and it’s usually the male pussy willows that emerge first, with the male stamens eventually warming sufficiently to produce pollen.

Of our three native maple trees, silver maples flower first, well before red maples, then sugar maples. The buds on the silver maples below our house are already swollen and seemingly ready to burst.

Camo

We still have a bevy of pine grosbeaks frequenting our feeders, and Mary noted that the juvenile and females are perfectly color-coordinated with the willow and alder shrubs they often are perched in. Their russet heads and gray bodies blend in perfectly.

Celestial Events

            The BIG event coming soon is, of course, spring equinox, which will occur on 3/20. But actually our days and nights will achieve equality on 3/17, and from now until late September, we will be blessed with more daylight than night.

            Spring equinox is, of course, mislabeled. Equinox is accurate, but “spring,” well, consumer advocacy groups could win a lawsuit on this one. Still, we typically see our first-of-the-year red-winged blackbirds and robins around the equinox, so these harbingers of the real spring are providing signals that spring is on the way. But will it be HERE on March 20? Of course not. And if you are complaining about its reluctance to truly arrive, then you need to have a consult with your memory doctor. This is the Northwoods – recall that it often snows in early May. So, patience is our calling, and while it’s hard to persevere, it’s northern weather that makes this the Northwoods.

Thoughts for the Week

            In the spring, I have counted one hundred and thirty-six different kinds of weather inside of four and twenty hours. – Mark Twain

            To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring. – George Santayana

Please share your outdoor sightings and thoughts: call 715-476-2828, e-mail at manitowish@centurytel.net, snail-mail at 4245N State Highway 47, Mercer, WI, or see my blog at www.manitowishriver.blogspot.com.