A Northwoods Companion for July 26 – August 8, 2019
Update on Loons Foster Parenting a Mallard
I wrote in my last column about a loon pair that has adopted a mallard chick, and now the story has made it to the big time – they’ve been featured on national Audubon’s website (see https://www.audubon.org/news/a-mallard-duckling-thriving-and-maybe-diving-under-care-loon-parents).
To update the story, on July 13, Linda Grenzer took the attached photos of the now quite large mallard chick still grabbing a free ride on one of the adult loon’s back. And by the time you read this two weeks later on 7/26, I imagine the mallard will be nearly full grown! I wonder if it knows that the taxi service is supposed to come to an end.
The duckling has surprised everyone by eating small fish supplied by the adult female, though it is refusing larger fish offered by the adult male. This is remarkable given that mallards aren’t known to eat fish. This duckling is even diving for food, down at least a meter and for several seconds, a behavior also not associated with a dabbling duck like a mallard.
It’s an interesting nature/nurture question now – how much learned loon behavior will take precedence and overcome eons of mallard DNA? I’ll continue to update the story.
Loon Nest Failure
I’ve been paddling a number of undeveloped wild lakes in Vilas, Oneida, and Iron counties as part of a book project, and on nearly all of the lakes (22 so far), I’ve seen loon adults but no loon chicks. None. Nada.
I’ve wondered if I’m just unobservant, if the loon chicks are hiding which is certainly possible, or just what.
Loon research scientist Walter Piper apparently has noted the same thing on the loon nests his crew and his volunteers monitor in Oneida County. In his most recent blog (https://loonproject.org/2019/07/22/looking-hard-for-the-positive/), Walter writes, “Owing to a late ice-out, a lengthy period of black fly abundance,and perhaps other factors we have not yet detected – 2019 has been a dismal year for loon breeding in northern Wisconsin . . . Only about a quarter of our lakes have produced young in 2019; last year, it was over half.”
I’ve wondered if our very high water levels are having any impact. On all of the lakes I’ve paddled, the water levels have been exceedingly high, with shoreline shrub vegetation often standing in two feet or more of water. Could high water levels be drowning out most of the wetlands along shorelines, leaving nearly all uplands ringing the lakes, and thus making nest sites difficult to either find or maintain? I don’t know, but hopefully Walter will sort this out, and I’ll report whatever he surmises.
In the meantime, he notes something extremely unusual on the positive side of the coin: a loon pair in Oneida County hatched three chicks! Walter writes, “Only once in eighteen years of hatches – way back in 1995 – has the Bass Lake pair there even fledged two chicks. Never has any pair in our study area raised three chicks to fledging age. (Washburn Lake did hatch three in 1997; they fledged only one.)” Linda Grenzer again kindly supplied a photo of the triplets.
More Concern for Loons
Earlier this month the Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory at the University of Minnesota confirmed West Nile Virus as the cause of death in two of three dead loons from northeastern Minnesota.
WNV was first confirmed in Minnesota in 2002 and was documented as a cause of loon mortality in Minnesota as early as 2005. It is not uncommon for people, animals and birds to be exposed to WNV through mosquito bites, but some birds, like loons, crows and other corvids, are especially susceptible to the infection.
Sightings
Laura Menefee sent photos of common wood nymph butterflies nectaring on the flowers of a basswood tree she had planted twenty years ago. She noted that there were hundreds of these butterflies and thousands of tiny bees, all partaking in the fabulous fragrance of the flowers and their nectar.
Emily Koester in Sayner sent a photo of a rusty tussock moth caterpillar that she took while picking blueberries. Like so many caterpillars, this one is truly an odd-looking creature that would be hard for even the most imaginative of us to have dreamed up.
It’s a good year for milkweed flowers, and we’ve been seeing monarch butterflies everywhere. Jeanne Milewski emailed to say she had five monarch caterpillars working on a patch of milkweed near her house.
Sara Krembs in Manitowish Waters observed a chipmunk “running through the garden with something fluffy in its mouth . . . which turned out to be a freshly dead mouse! It then proceeded to tear off parts of the mouse and eat them.” It’s a surprise to many, but chippies are omnivores and will eat other animals on occasion.
Emerald Ash Borer – Hope?
In a November 2018 article in the Canadian Journal of Forest Research (“White ash (Fraxinus americana) survival in the core of the emerald ash borer (Agrilus planipennis) invasion”) researchers in southeastern Michigan inventoried ash stands and found that while 92 percent of green ash was dead, nearly 75 percent of white ash was still alive despite a near 100 percent colonization rate. While this study was done in 2015 and there are other contradictory studies, in the researchers’ concluding words, “some white ash populations may persist in post-invasion areas.”
So, there’s hope, and this strongly suggests we should not be cutting all ashes down as soon as the emerald ash borer appears.
Late July Flowers
Late July flowers in both uplands and wetlands are abundant right now. In uplands, look for flowers like Oswego tea (Monarda didyma) which attracts a wide variety of butterflies
and its cousin bee balm (Monarda pectinate) which is very attractive to native bees.
Everyone knows common milkweed, butbutterfly milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa), a mostly southern species, is also now in flower. And marsh milkweed (Asclepias incarnata), found in wetlands, is also flowering.Like common milkweed, both are an important food source for monarch butterfly caterpillars.
Indian pipe has come into flower in woodlands, as has shinleaf, while our roadsides are wild with flowers including common St. Johnswort.
Meanwhile, the wetlands are bursting with pickerelweed, watershield, and white and yellow pond lilies, among dozens of other species.
Mammatus Clouds
The wild storm that bypassed most of the Lakeland area but hammered areas south of here left behind some fabulous clouds as it departed the area. Drawn to the glow of the sunset, we went outside and saw much of the sky covered in” mammatus” clouds (derived from the Latin “mamma” meaning udder or breast). Mammatus clouds often drift up to 25 miles away from the parent thunderstorm that created them, and that had to be the case that night. A sky filled with these clouds indicates very strong thunderstorms nearby.
Rotten Bananas
We always compost our rotten bananas, but Sharon Lintereur in Lake Tomahawk hangs her very rotten bananas in her flower garden and has butterflies landing on them – she sent a photo to prove it! We’ve yet to try this, but it looks like a great idea.
Celestial Events
The peak Delta Aquarid meteor shower occurs during the predawn hours of 7/28 – expect around 15 to 20 meteors per hour.
The new moon takes place on 7/31.
In August, our days are growing shorter by 3 minutes a day – be sure to be getting out and enjoying this last month of long days. August 7 marks the midpoint between summer solstice (6/21) and autumn equinox (9/22).
Thought for the Week
“Happiness consists of living each day as if it were the first day of your honeymoon and the last day of your vacation. – Leo Tolstoy
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