A Northwoods Almanac for 3/6-19/2020
February – Dry and Sunny in the Northwoods
Mary and I are closely watching our solar system production, and February proved to be an excellent month for sunny days (see the chart), in stark contrast to January’s gloom. Our energy bill in mid-March should certainly reflect this fact, and we’re eager to see it – saving money when the sun shines is still a uniquely fun concept to us.
From 2/1 to 2/29, we generated 612 kilowatt hours (kwh) of electricity, which for the limited amount of daylight we receive every day in February, is very good. I checked our energy consumption in 2019 from 2/13 to 3/17, and it was 922 kwh. However, by the time we got into the longer days of summer 2019, we averaged much less use – a little over 700 kwh per month.
We don’t know, of course, what our solar production will be in June, but with 15+ hours of daylight, greater sunlight intensity, and a better angle on our panels, we should easily cover our monthly usage, with excess kwhs to sell back to Xcel. That’s the hope, anyway – I’ll keep you posted.
Migration Just Getting Underway
I’ve attached a chart showing how nocturnal migrants passing through the northern Gulf of Mexico region increase from the beginning of March until the end of May, with the peak occurring in late May. Over 2 billion birds will be on the wing through the Gulf region alone in the next three months. The grand total of birds estimated to be migrating into or through all of North America is over 4 billion, an absolutely staggering number.
In a 2018 study using cloud computing and data from 143 weather radar stations, Cornell Lab of Ornithology researchers estimated an average of 4 billion birds move south in the fall from Canada to winter in the U.S., while another 4.7 billion birds leave the U.S. to winter in the tropics. In the spring, 3.5 billion birds cross back into the U.S. from points south of our border, while 2.6 billion birds of those wintering in the U.S. return to Canada.
As expected, these statistics show fewer birds returning to their breeding grounds in the spring, but the researchers were surprised to find that the migrants arriving across the U.S. southern border had a remarkably high average return rate of 76 percent during the 5 years of the study (2013 to 2017).
Interestingly, the birds wintering in the U.S. had a lower average return rate of 64 percent. “Contrary to popular thought, birds wintering in the tropics survive the winter better than birds wintering in the U.S.,” says Andrew Farnsworth, co-author of the study. “That's despite the fact that tropical wintering birds migrate three to four times farther than the birds staying in the U.S.” Why? “Birds wintering in the U.S. may have more habitat disturbances and more buildings to crash into, and they might not be adapted for that.”
Birds Returning – Trumpeter Swans and Sandhill Cranes
Both trumpeter swans and sandhill cranes typically return to our area very early in our version of “spring,” so early that I often worry about their survival, though they obviously do fine every year without my fretting about them. I received numerous emails last week about trumpeters appearing on areas of open water, and while I’ve not received any contacts regarding cranes as of 3/2, they are already being reported in good numbers in southern and central Wisconsin.
Only 69 individual trumpeter swans were known to exist in the contiguous United States in 1935. In 1949, the Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service still considered the trumpeter swan as “the fourth rarest bird now remaining in America.”
Numbers have steadily increased with hunting protection, habitat conservation, and range expansion programs. The 2015 continental estimate of trumpeter swan abundance was 63,016, an increase of 28,213 swans since the 2010 survey. Trumpeter numbers in Wisconsin now exceed 5,000 due to the exceptional reintroduction success of the WDNR.
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| photo by John Bates |
Trumpeter Swans don’t have to migrate south to survive, needing only open water and sufficient forage – a good example of this is the small flock that winters-over on the Manitowish River between Sturgeon and Benson lakes every year. Most northern flocks, however, do move to ice-free waters, but migrate only short distances. These short-distance migrants begin departing their wintering areas to their nearby breeding areas in late February, and are considered to have fully departed by mid-March.
Lead and Swans
Lead poisoning from shot and fishing sinkers continues to be a source of mortality for trumpeters, killing swans as young as three weeks old. After a federal study estimated that between 1.6 and 2.4 million waterfowl died annually from swallowing lead shot, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) answered a hunters' petition in 1991 with a ban on the use of lead shot for waterfowl.
Twenty-six years later in January of 2017, after dozens more scientific studies, the USFWS issued an order to phase out all lead-based ammunition and fishing tackle on all 568 million acres of agency-managed lands and waters.
However, in March of 2017, this order was quickly reversed because the new Secretary of the Interior stated that “hunting and fishing [were] becoming activities for the land-owning elite.” Who knew conserving wildlife was elitest?
The ban on lead ammunition and fishing tackle was revoked on federal lands despite the estimate that 20 million wild animals still die every year from lead poisoning.
Lead shot and sinkers are ingested directly by swans and other waterfowl from bottom sediments while feeding, or when searching for grit on uplands. Lead is an equal opportunity killer wherever it is found – upland birds and mammals suffer as well. If you doubt that lead continues to kill wildlife, a tour of any of our local wildlife rehabilitation facilities will quickly alter that belief.
The science is all there on this issue despite what the non-science believers and the highly politicized will cry. California stepped forward and banned all lead ammunition for hunting any wildlife in 2019. Wisconsin, and the rest of the U.S., however, continue to resist this common sense and most basic of ethical stances – to protect life whenever and wherever possible from inadvertent harm. Today, with all of the available options for ammunition, there’s no justification, nor excuse, for this to continue.
Sandhill Crane Count
The Annual Midwest Crane Count is scheduled every year for mid-April with the thinking being that the cranes have concluded their migration by this date and are on their nesting grounds. The annual survey of sandhill and whooping cranes has grown since the early 1980s to include over 90 counties in six states of the upper Midwest (Wisconsin and portions of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, and Minnesota).
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| photo by Bev Engstrom |
In recent years in Wisconsin, over 8,000 sandhills were tallied in the 2018 count, over 11,000 in 2107, and over 10,700 in 2016. The lower number in 2018 is a reflection of a difficult day to count, not a decline in numbers. Weather plays a big part in the count. Blizzards, as you might imagine, are not conducive to counting birds, and over the years we’ve counted during a few of those with correspondingly poor results.
This year’s count occurs on Saturday, 4/18. If you’re interested in participating, for Iron County, contact Annie McDonnell (annie@discoverycenter.net); for Vilas County, contact Sarah Besadny (sbesadny@gmail.com), for Oneida County, contact Bob Dall (janbobdall@gmail.com), for Forest County, contact Nicole Shutt (nshutt@fs.fed.us); and for Price County, contact Karl Pilch (oldmilfarm@pctcnet.net).
Celestial Events
Daylight savings time begins on Sunday, 3/8, giving farmers an additional hour of sunlight for growing crops (and if you believe this . . . ) (I’m kidding, of course!).
The full moon – the “Sap Moon” or “Crust on the Snow Moon” – occurs on 3/9.
If you want to know where due west it, on 3/18, the sun will set 0.1° south of west, which is as close to due west as the sunset will get this year.
Look before dawn on 3/18 in the southeast for Mars less than one degree above the waning crescent moon. Jupiter and Saturn will be nearby as well.
Spring Equinox Earliest Since 1896!
The spring (vernal) equinox takes place in all time zones earlier this year than it has since 1896, occurring on 4/19. This year it happens almost 18 hours ahead of when it arrived in 2019.
Each year, the equinox is expected on March 20 or 21, but due to the fact the earth’s rotation takes 23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4.1 seconds, the uneven amount of days doesn’t fit exactly into a 24-hour per day calendar. The math has to even out somewhere, so here’s how it works, without getting too far into the mathematical weeds.
Pope Gregory created the Gregorian calendar in 1583, which factors in the 56 minutes and 4.1 seconds by including an extra day in February every four years as a leap year. However, an extra day every four years turns out to be too much time, and Pope Gregory accounted for this by saying that at the end of every century, the calendar will have to reset by skipping that leap year. Every 400 years, however, again because the math doesn’t quite work, it does not need to be reset and instead maintains the leap year. The year 2000 was a year that did not reset; therefore, it had an extra day, and now for the rest of the 21st century, our leap year equinoxes will be 43 minutes earlier than the prior leap year.
This is way too much math for my aging brain, but hopefully you get the gist of it.
Protect Your Woods for Tomorrow
The Wisconsin Initiative on Climate Change Impacts Forestry Working Group has just posted a new tool geared to forest landowners who would like to consider climate change and/or make their woods healthier and more resilient:
Thought for the Week
“To form a perfect conception of the beauty and elegance of these [trumpeter] swans, you must observe them when they are not aware of your proximity, and as they glide over the waters of some secluded inland pond. On such occasions, the neck, which at other times is held stiffly upright, moves in graceful curves, now bent forward, now inclined backwards over the body. Now with an extended scooping movement the head becomes immersed for a moment, and with a sudden effort a flood of water is thrown over the back and wings, when it is seen rolling off in sparkling globules, like so many large pearls. The bird then shakes its wings, beats the water, and as if giddy with delight shoots away, gliding over and beneath the surface of the liquid element with surprising agility and grace. Imagine, reader, that a flock of fifty swans are thus sporting before you, as they have more than once been in my sight, and you will feel, as I have felt, more happy and void of care than I can describe.” – John James Audubon, 1843
Please share your outdoor sightings and thoughts: e-mail at manitowish@centurytel.net, call 715-476-2828, snail-mail at 4245N State Highway 47, Mercer, WI, or see my blog at www.manitowishriver.blogspot.com.
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