A Northwoods Almanac for 12/21/18 – 1/3/19
Manitowish Waters Christmas Bird Count
On 12/15, eleven intrepid birders fanned out in the Manitowish Waters area to count birds as part of the Audubon Christmas Bird Count. The morning began sunny and cold at 12°, but warmed to 40° by 11 a.m. It may have been the most comfortable Christmas bird count of any of the 25 we’ve done prior to this!
It may also have been the quietest.
Every participant commented on how few birds they’d seen or heard that morning. Our total number of individual birds were well below our average. Still, we somehow came up with 28 species, which is above our average of 25!
Quite unusual were sightings of a wood duck, a hooded merganser, and a red-breasted merganser – waterfowl are typically long gone by the time we do our count.
Conspicuous by their absence were birds like gray jay, bohemian waxwing, purple finch, both crossbills, and all raptors other than eagles. More unusual yet were the very low numbers of common winter visitors like pine siskins, common redpolls, pine grosbeaks, and American goldfinches.
Their relative paucity leads me to wonder about our conifer cone crop. I see very few cones on white pines, eastern hemlocks, balsam firs, and both spruces, so perhaps our dinner table is a bit bare for them. Time will tell, of course. They may simply be biding their time until they’ve run out of food further north and are forced to forage come south and visit our feeders.
Sightings: Weasel, Pileated Woodpecker, Basswood Seeds
Bob Collins dropped off a photo of a weasel chasing a gray squirrel around a tree on his property in Hazelhurst. While ermine are exceptionally quick and ferocious hunters, I wonder about their ability to catch a squirrel up in the trees. Squirrels are circus acrobats, the flying Wallendas of the rodent world, racing around in the branches, performing amazing leaps between trees, and leaping from trees to the ground. Can a weasel match their agility? I don’t know, but every article describing their diet includes squirrels, so perhaps they can win an arboreal chase. Their normal bill-of-fare, however, is more grounded and includes chipmunks, ground squirrels, insects, small birds, frogs and snakes.
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| photo by Bob Collins |
Bev Engstrom sent several superb photos of a pileated woodpecker in flight amply illustrating their marvelous size. Pileateds are the largest commonly seen woodpecker in North America and the sixth largest in the world. Roughly crow-sized, they’re 16 to 19 inches long, with a wing-span of 26 to 30 inches, and an average weight of 11 ounces.
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| photo by Bev Engstrom |
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| photo by Bev Engstrom |
Pileateds play a crucial role in forest ecosystems by excavating large nesting and foraging cavities that are subsequently used by a diverse array of birds and mammals, particularly secondary cavity users. These are the cavity nesters who are unable to excavate their own cavities, but utilize natural cavities or those already created by primary excavators like pileated, flickers, red-headed woodpeckers, and yellow-bellied sapsuckers. Secondary cavity users include bird species like wood duck, bufflehead, common merganser, common goldeneye, American kestrel, screech owl, saw-whet owl, tree swallow, red-breasted and white-breasted nuthatch, black-capped chickadee, and mammals like American marten.
Pileateds also are important in helping control some forest beetle populations because their diet consists primarily of wood-dwelling ants like carpenter ants and beetle larvae.
I’m told some folks still shoot them, thinking they’re harming a tree. Far from it, they’re performing surgery! They’re good guys, deserving of our admiration and protection.
Lastly, the seed-du-jour visible everywhere on ski trails this winter has been basswood. The pea-sized seeds hang on a stem from a narrow parachute-like structure – I think they look like little hang gliders. Basswoods, like all trees, are cyclical in their production of seeds, and 2018 looks like the year they chose to be celebratory.
Celestial Events – Days Now Growing Longer
Today, 12/21, marks the winter solstice. The sun is now its furthest south of the equator, providing us with only 8 hours and 39 minutes of day length. Or if you prefer, tonight we’ll have 15 hours and 21 minutes of dark. To mark the sun’s passage back north, try fixing a bit of tape to your window on which you’ve written the date.
The full moon – the Cold/Long Night/Popping Trees Moon – occurs on 12/22. This is the year’s northernmost full moon rise and the year’s highest altitude in the sky for a full moon.
The 22ndis also the peak Ursid meteor shower, a modest affair offering an average of 10 meteors per hour. Look predawn for the best show, though the light from the full moon will likely wash out most viewing.
Christmas day, 12/25, gives the gift of our first day growing longer since June 20 – hooray!
12/27 to 1/7 mark the year’s latest sunrises. Every morning look at 7:40 for the first rays of the sun. These sunrises are 3 hours and 32 minutes later than our earliest sunrises which occur in mid-June at 4:08 (5:08 Daylight Savings Time).
As of 12/30, our days begin growing longer by 1 minute/day – we’re starting to cook now!
On New Years’ Day, 1/1, we’ll be up to 8 hours and 45 minutes of daylight, or 36% daylight! Look before dawn for Venus just 1.3° south of the waning crescent Moon.
On 1/2, the Earth will be at perihelion, its closest orbital point to the Sun in 2019, a mere 91.4 million miles away. This proves that the distance between the sun and the earth has very little to do with the warmth on any given day. It’s all about the tilt of the Earth, not the distance to the sun. At perihelion, we’re 3.1 million miles (3.4%) closer than during aphelion, our furthest away point, which will occur this year on July 4.
Look for the peak Quadrantid meteor shower on 1/3. At 40 meteors per hour, this might be worth braving the cold for. Look also before dawn for Jupiter about 3° south of the waning sliver of moon.
Future DEET Alternative?
Yes, it’s winter and mosquito larvae are all under water, but it’s never a bad time to talk about natural controls. So, I’ve just learned that compounds derived from coconut oil have been found to repel some insects better than DEET, at least according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture bulletin published in September in the journal Scientific Reports. The study found that fatty acids derived from coconut oil had long-lasting insect-repelling properties against flies, ticks, bed bugs and mosquitoes. Note that the compounds extracted from coconut oil – notthe oil itself – were found as an effective repellent (so, don’t go slathering yourself with coconut oil this spring).
The USDA release says the coconut oil compounds out-performed DEET at repelling stable flies, and repelled bed bugs and ticks for two weeks, as compared with DEET's three days of effectiveness. However, the study notes that a much greater concentration of coconut oil acids are required to effectively repel mosquitoes as compared with DEET. Ah, well.
Solutions Needed!
Most social media feeds are filled with people complaining about various political problems without even attempting to discuss, or offer, solutions. I’m often guilty of that when discussing climate change, even though I know the key to fixing problems is offeringnew approaches and ideas, or examples of proven solutions. So, what can be done to alter the accelerating trajectory of climate change? Here are ten of the best ideas I’ve found, and all can be done without significant sacrifice:
· Expand renewable energies dramatically and slash our use ofcoal and oil as far as we can.
· Maximize vehicle fuel efficiency and the heating and cooling efficiency of all buildings.
· Invest heavily in existing/developing efficient energy technologies and industries.
· Plant trees and dramatically reduce tropical deforestation.
· Eat lower on the food chain and purchase all goods from sustainable sources - know what and from whom we’re buying.
· Reduce our consumption and waste of virtually everything.
· Educate all girls everywhere and reduce the world’s population through family planning.
· Read. Become well-versed in the issues. Trust the sciences.
· Support national and international climate change policies. Work for immediate change.
Kathleen Dean Moore writes: “People ask me, What can one person do? My answer is always: stop being one person. Join up with other people, brainstorm together—what are our skillsets, what are our challenges? Climate change can be such a lonely sorrow. No one talks about it, and you think no one is worried about it, but when you find your group, you’re really empowered . . . This is going to have to be systematic change and that takes community organizing and public action.”
Mary Oliver writes, “The world, moist and beautiful, calls to each of us to make a new and serious response. That’s the big question, the one the world throws at you every morning. ‘Here you are, alive. Would you like to make a comment?’”
Far be it from me to ever offer any change to a Mary Oliver quote, but I’d substitute “commitment” for “comment.” And climate change is where we need commitments.
Thought for the Week
Terry Tempest Williamswrites, “The world is holy. We are holy. All life is holy. Daily prayers are delivered on the lips of breaking waves, the whisperings of grasses, the shimmering of leaves.”Merry Christmas!All blessings on your coming New Year.
