A Northwoods Almanac for September 14 – 27, 2018
Sightings: Monarch Butterflies and Sandhill Cranes Staging on Manitoulin Island, Ontario Mary, Callie, and I just spent a week in Ontario visiting Manitoulin Island and the Bruce Peninsula, both of which are located on far northern Lake Huron and Georgian Bay. On one of our days on Manitoulin Island, we did an exceptional three-mile hike along the shoreline of Misery Bay where we were rewarded in numerous ways, but perhaps most remarkably, we found ourselves in the midst of the monarch butterfly migration. A steady stream of monarchs passed by us throughout the late morning and early afternoon.
It’s one thing, of course, to intellectually understand that something happens, but it’s another thing altogether to experience it. We watched as they flitted this way and that, going three times the distance they would cover if they just flew straight. And we considered in amazement that they still had some 2,600 miles to go to reach the oyamel fir trees of Michoacan and Mexico states. The very fact that they only weigh about half a gram - 0.017 ounce – and they have the strength and resilience to fly all that way overcoming whatever the weather throws at them is truly astonishing.
We also found along the shoreline a number of dead monarchs, each having succumbed to some malady early in its migration. I wonder if there’s an estimate of how many monarchs begin migration and how many actually survive the flight.
Misery Bay is a 2,400-acre Provincial Park Nature Reserve that is famous for its alvar communities – expanses of exposed bedrock that appear as flat pavement with scattered boulders. These rare ecosystems are found only around the Great Lakes and Baltic Regions of Europe and Scandinavia, and Misery Bay is considered the best representative of these rare ecosystems in the world. Alvars support a large number of rare species, including 19 vascular plants, 3 species of lichen and mosses, 4 species of reptiles, and at least 9 species of insects.
I have to admit we knew virtually nothing about alvars before we arrived, but now we know that Misery Bay supports 7 different alvar communities. In fact, Misery Bay supports 20 different vegetation communities, as well as 448 species of vascular plants and 88 species of non-vascular plants. It’s a plant lover’s dream come true, and we just stumbled upon it through blind luck.
I should also note that a warbler migration was happening that same day, so between the plants, the butterflies, the birds, and the beauty of Lake Huron, our heads were on a swivel.
A few days earlier, we also were surprised to see many hundreds of sandhill cranes congregated in various farm fields. They were so numerous that we were seldom out of earshot of their bugling. Manitoulin serves as a staging area for sandhills prior to their migration, and by early October, many thousands will be present. And then one day, off they’ll go, nearly all headed for wintering sites in Florida.
One last series of fun statistics: Manitoulin Island is the largest freshwater island in the Great Lakes at 1,068 square miles, and, in fact, is the largest freshwater island in the world with 108 islands of its own. Lake Manitou, a lake on Manitoulin Island, is also the largest lake in a freshwater island in the world. And to take it even further, Treasure Island is the largest island in a lake on an island in a lake in the world. Got all that?
The island is a continuation of the Niagara Escarpment, which runs south from here forming part of the Bruce Peninsula on its way to Niagara Falls. Six Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) reserves are scattered around the island, and archaeological excavations have found a site dating back at least 9,500 years. A treaty in 1862 opened the island to settlement, but was not accepted by the native community, so a reserve was set aside and remains unceded. Called the Wikwemikong Unceded Indian Reserve, this is Canada’s only unceded reserve.
Sightings on Bruce Peninsula, Ontario: The Oldest White Cedars in Eastern North America and Rare Fen Plants
After three days on Manitoulin Island, we took a car ferry to the Bruce Peninsula with the idea of walking sections of the Bruce Trail, which runs along the Niagara Escarpment for 550 miles from Niagara Falls to Tobermory, Ontario. The trail is one of thirteen UNESCO World Biosphere Reserves in Canada, and is Canada’s oldest and longest marked hiking trail. We came in particular to view the ancient white cedars that cling precariously to the Niagara cliff-face. These dolomite vertical rock faces support what are arguably the oldest, most extensive, most intact, and least known old-growth forest ecosystems in eastern North America. “There is nothing like it in Canada,” writes Pete Kelly, co-author of The Last Stand: A Journey Through the Ancient Cliff-Face Forest of the Niagara Escarpment.“These cedar trees have been living on these cliffs for over 1,000 years, including two trees that sprouted from seed before the year 700 AD . . . The oldest of the living trees began life shortly after the death of Mohammed, the founder of Islam, and before Genghis Khan and the Viking colonization of North America.”
Researchers began random sampling on the Niagara Escarpment in southern Ontario in 1998. They created the “Niagara Escarpment Ancient Tree Atlas Project,” surveying numerous cliff areas and finding 73 trees older than 500 year in age, 22 trees over 700 years, and the oldest, a 1060 year-old white cedar at Lion’s Head on the Bruce Peninsula that germinated in 952 A.D.
That was just the beginning. Later research uncovered two cedar trees at Lion’s Head that sprouted from seed in 688 AD. And while that’s stunningly remarkable, the researchers also found a dead white cedar on Flowerpot Island on the northern end of the Bruce Peninsula that had lived for 1,890 years. Plus, they found pieces of wood at the base of the cliffs that started to grow about three-thousand or four-thousand years ago – woody debris that germinated before Tutankhamen was on the throne in Egypt.
Many of these gnarled, twisted, and stunted white cedars grow at an average of one inch of height every 15 years. Some older cedars have been calculated to be growing at less than one millimeter per year, making them the slowest growing trees on earth. One researcher commented that in the most extreme cases, they appear to be growing at only one cell width per year.
These cedars dance in a very delicate balance of life – the oldest simply can’t grow any faster or they risk losing their foothold to the heavy tug of gravity.
So, that’s why we came – just to be in the presence of these ancient trees, most of which are so small that no one even considered they could be old until the atlas project was begun.
We were also delighted to walk on level ground along boardwalks on two large fens. Each offered us up-close views of numerous flowers still remarkably in bloom on 9/9, including blue-green grass of parnassus (Parnassiaglauca), nodding ladies tresses orchid (Spiranthes cernua), smaller fringed gentian (Gentianopsis virgata), Kalm’s lobelia (Lobelia kalmii), and many, many more.
Juvenile Reddish Egret on the Bruce Peninsula, Ontario
Just to put the capper on what had already been a marvelous trip, we were told by a restaurant cashier on our last afternoon on the Bruce about the very rare sighting of a reddish egret in Oliphant, a tiny community just 30 minutes away from where we were staying. It was late in the afternoon already, and we were leaving early the next morning, but we looked at one another and said, “Why not?” So, we went looking for this bird, and, amazingly, we found it shortly after arriving in the general area. It was easy to identify because reddish egrets have a truly distinctive foraging behavior – they chase down fish by running through the water, spinning around occasionally, and spreading their wings to reduce glare on the water, then striking. It’s dramatic and entertaining!
This was the first reddish egret ever seen in Ontario, and only the third ever recorded in Canada. They’re found primarily in the Caribbean, but also along the Gulf Coast and Pacific coast from Baja California to Costa Rica. Reddish egrets are North America’s rarest heron/egret with only 15,000 to 30,000 known in the wild.
What this juvenile bird was doing in Oliphant, Ontario, is a secret only it will ever know, but these birds are known for their vagrancy and have been documented in Indiana, Illinois, and Ohio – I don’t know of any records for Wisconsin.
Burls
I’ve long been puzzled by what causes a tree to form a burl, those knobby, contorted growths on the sides of trees. I love to see burls, but woodworkers positively start salivating when they see one. What makes them so sought after is the way that the grain of the wood is generally twisted and deformed, producing what’s called “figure.”
One author describes it this way, “Visualize a normal grain pattern as parallel strands of yarn. A burl would be a ball of yarn. It’s as though the tree’s cells went haywire and decided to tie themselves into a knot.”
In burl formation, the tree’s growth hormones get disrupted when the metabolism of the tree is stressed by a virus, fungus, or bacterium, or perhaps by an insect or physical wound. One example is the crown gall bacterium. It carries within it a plasmid, which causes the tree to make special amino acids to produce the burl.
Burls do little if any harm to the tree. The xylem in the burl is still able to do its job of transporting water and nutrients, though its function may be diminished.
Cutting out burls does damage to a tree since it leaves large wounds that are likely to become infected. If a woodworker wishes to utilize a burl, it’s best to cut the whole tree, turn the burl into a bowl, and use the rest for firewood or boards.
Thought for the Week
Sightings: Monarch Butterflies and Sandhill Cranes Staging on Manitoulin Island, Ontario Mary, Callie, and I just spent a week in Ontario visiting Manitoulin Island and the Bruce Peninsula, both of which are located on far northern Lake Huron and Georgian Bay. On one of our days on Manitoulin Island, we did an exceptional three-mile hike along the shoreline of Misery Bay where we were rewarded in numerous ways, but perhaps most remarkably, we found ourselves in the midst of the monarch butterfly migration. A steady stream of monarchs passed by us throughout the late morning and early afternoon.
 |
| do you have any idea how hard it is to capture a picture of a flitting monarch in migration? |
We also found along the shoreline a number of dead monarchs, each having succumbed to some malady early in its migration. I wonder if there’s an estimate of how many monarchs begin migration and how many actually survive the flight.
Misery Bay is a 2,400-acre Provincial Park Nature Reserve that is famous for its alvar communities – expanses of exposed bedrock that appear as flat pavement with scattered boulders. These rare ecosystems are found only around the Great Lakes and Baltic Regions of Europe and Scandinavia, and Misery Bay is considered the best representative of these rare ecosystems in the world. Alvars support a large number of rare species, including 19 vascular plants, 3 species of lichen and mosses, 4 species of reptiles, and at least 9 species of insects.
I have to admit we knew virtually nothing about alvars before we arrived, but now we know that Misery Bay supports 7 different alvar communities. In fact, Misery Bay supports 20 different vegetation communities, as well as 448 species of vascular plants and 88 species of non-vascular plants. It’s a plant lover’s dream come true, and we just stumbled upon it through blind luck.
I should also note that a warbler migration was happening that same day, so between the plants, the butterflies, the birds, and the beauty of Lake Huron, our heads were on a swivel.
 |
| Mary Burns on the alvar |
A few days earlier, we also were surprised to see many hundreds of sandhill cranes congregated in various farm fields. They were so numerous that we were seldom out of earshot of their bugling. Manitoulin serves as a staging area for sandhills prior to their migration, and by early October, many thousands will be present. And then one day, off they’ll go, nearly all headed for wintering sites in Florida.
One last series of fun statistics: Manitoulin Island is the largest freshwater island in the Great Lakes at 1,068 square miles, and, in fact, is the largest freshwater island in the world with 108 islands of its own. Lake Manitou, a lake on Manitoulin Island, is also the largest lake in a freshwater island in the world. And to take it even further, Treasure Island is the largest island in a lake on an island in a lake in the world. Got all that?
The island is a continuation of the Niagara Escarpment, which runs south from here forming part of the Bruce Peninsula on its way to Niagara Falls. Six Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) reserves are scattered around the island, and archaeological excavations have found a site dating back at least 9,500 years. A treaty in 1862 opened the island to settlement, but was not accepted by the native community, so a reserve was set aside and remains unceded. Called the Wikwemikong Unceded Indian Reserve, this is Canada’s only unceded reserve.
Sightings on Bruce Peninsula, Ontario: The Oldest White Cedars in Eastern North America and Rare Fen Plants
After three days on Manitoulin Island, we took a car ferry to the Bruce Peninsula with the idea of walking sections of the Bruce Trail, which runs along the Niagara Escarpment for 550 miles from Niagara Falls to Tobermory, Ontario. The trail is one of thirteen UNESCO World Biosphere Reserves in Canada, and is Canada’s oldest and longest marked hiking trail. We came in particular to view the ancient white cedars that cling precariously to the Niagara cliff-face. These dolomite vertical rock faces support what are arguably the oldest, most extensive, most intact, and least known old-growth forest ecosystems in eastern North America. “There is nothing like it in Canada,” writes Pete Kelly, co-author of The Last Stand: A Journey Through the Ancient Cliff-Face Forest of the Niagara Escarpment.“These cedar trees have been living on these cliffs for over 1,000 years, including two trees that sprouted from seed before the year 700 AD . . . The oldest of the living trees began life shortly after the death of Mohammed, the founder of Islam, and before Genghis Khan and the Viking colonization of North America.”
 |
| white cedars clinging to the cliff face |
That was just the beginning. Later research uncovered two cedar trees at Lion’s Head that sprouted from seed in 688 AD. And while that’s stunningly remarkable, the researchers also found a dead white cedar on Flowerpot Island on the northern end of the Bruce Peninsula that had lived for 1,890 years. Plus, they found pieces of wood at the base of the cliffs that started to grow about three-thousand or four-thousand years ago – woody debris that germinated before Tutankhamen was on the throne in Egypt.
Many of these gnarled, twisted, and stunted white cedars grow at an average of one inch of height every 15 years. Some older cedars have been calculated to be growing at less than one millimeter per year, making them the slowest growing trees on earth. One researcher commented that in the most extreme cases, they appear to be growing at only one cell width per year.
These cedars dance in a very delicate balance of life – the oldest simply can’t grow any faster or they risk losing their foothold to the heavy tug of gravity.
So, that’s why we came – just to be in the presence of these ancient trees, most of which are so small that no one even considered they could be old until the atlas project was begun.
We were also delighted to walk on level ground along boardwalks on two large fens. Each offered us up-close views of numerous flowers still remarkably in bloom on 9/9, including blue-green grass of parnassus (Parnassiaglauca), nodding ladies tresses orchid (Spiranthes cernua), smaller fringed gentian (Gentianopsis virgata), Kalm’s lobelia (Lobelia kalmii), and many, many more.
 |
| grass of parnassus |
 |
| fringed purple gentian |
Just to put the capper on what had already been a marvelous trip, we were told by a restaurant cashier on our last afternoon on the Bruce about the very rare sighting of a reddish egret in Oliphant, a tiny community just 30 minutes away from where we were staying. It was late in the afternoon already, and we were leaving early the next morning, but we looked at one another and said, “Why not?” So, we went looking for this bird, and, amazingly, we found it shortly after arriving in the general area. It was easy to identify because reddish egrets have a truly distinctive foraging behavior – they chase down fish by running through the water, spinning around occasionally, and spreading their wings to reduce glare on the water, then striking. It’s dramatic and entertaining!
This was the first reddish egret ever seen in Ontario, and only the third ever recorded in Canada. They’re found primarily in the Caribbean, but also along the Gulf Coast and Pacific coast from Baja California to Costa Rica. Reddish egrets are North America’s rarest heron/egret with only 15,000 to 30,000 known in the wild.
What this juvenile bird was doing in Oliphant, Ontario, is a secret only it will ever know, but these birds are known for their vagrancy and have been documented in Indiana, Illinois, and Ohio – I don’t know of any records for Wisconsin.
 |
| reddish egret sitting in a fishing boat at Olipant |
I’ve long been puzzled by what causes a tree to form a burl, those knobby, contorted growths on the sides of trees. I love to see burls, but woodworkers positively start salivating when they see one. What makes them so sought after is the way that the grain of the wood is generally twisted and deformed, producing what’s called “figure.”
One author describes it this way, “Visualize a normal grain pattern as parallel strands of yarn. A burl would be a ball of yarn. It’s as though the tree’s cells went haywire and decided to tie themselves into a knot.”
In burl formation, the tree’s growth hormones get disrupted when the metabolism of the tree is stressed by a virus, fungus, or bacterium, or perhaps by an insect or physical wound. One example is the crown gall bacterium. It carries within it a plasmid, which causes the tree to make special amino acids to produce the burl.
Burls do little if any harm to the tree. The xylem in the burl is still able to do its job of transporting water and nutrients, though its function may be diminished.
Cutting out burls does damage to a tree since it leaves large wounds that are likely to become infected. If a woodworker wishes to utilize a burl, it’s best to cut the whole tree, turn the burl into a bowl, and use the rest for firewood or boards.
Thought for the Week
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