A Northwoods Almanac for May 1-14, 2020 by John Bates
Most Lakes Now Ice-Free
Woody Hagge shared his ice-out data for 39-acre Foster Lake in Hazelhurst, and it turned out to be a very “average” year, at least according to his 44 years of observations. The ice lasted this winter for 142 days compared to his average of 140.7 days, and the ice went out on 4/17, lining up perfectly with the average of April 16.7.
Ice-up occurred on 11/27/19, with the average of 11/26.9 – right on the money, too!
And just for the record, the longest ice cover in his records occurred during the winter of 1995-96 – 178 days – while the shortest ice cover was the winter of 2015-16 – 109 days.
Earliest ice-up was 11/7/1991, with latest ice-up on 12/28/2015.
Earliest ice-out was 3/20/2012, with latest ice-out on 5/7/1996.
Woody’s records do reflect a very clear trend of later ice-up and earlier ice-out, despite the two late springs we had in 2014 and 2018.
It’s also important to note that Foster Lake is relatively small, and size matters when it comes to ice-out. Smaller and shallower lakes typically open up much earlier than larger, deeper lakes.
Shadow Boxing
This is the time of year when male birds readily attack their reflections on windows, side-view car mirrors, and anything else that might allow them to imagine an intruder in their territory. We watched a male bluebird attack our car’s side mirrors for a half hour once. Naturalist Bill Volkert appropriately refers to this behavior as shadow boxing, and the needed fix requires breaking up or distorting the reflection. A plastic bag placed over the car mirror works, while for windows, draping red flagging tape or ribbon in front of the glass does the trick. The sooner the better, too, otherwise some birds can get fixated on the past image of themselves and see it even when it’s no longer there.
A Poem for the Frogs Now Chorusing
Pandemonium
The frogs are chorusing tonight.
The peepers chime like ten thousand sleigh bells
rung by ecstatic Salvation Army volunteers.
Meanwhile, the toads trill at diverging pitches,
harmonizing in drones like a hall of chanting Buddhists.
All night they sing.
Whenever I wake up, they’re still there
in the dark and the damp
under the moon and stars
stagelighting their Dionysian debauch.
I have tried to sneak up on them
to witness the passion that has brought them,
and their thousands of generations before,
to these ephemeral ponds.
But even in their single mindedness,
they always hear me
and go stone quiet.
If I wait long enough,
one will give in to his need for a mate
and begin singing again.
Then the choral dam breaks,
and the din commences
because it must.
It’s a game of Russian roulette,
this fertilizing of eggs.
The bet is that the pools won’t dry up
before the great metamorphosis,
from fins to legs
from gills to lungs
from water to forest.
All this.
Then, without apparent discussion,
they agree to gather here again,
next spring,
when a south wind will warm air and water
triggering their tumultuous voices
like a thousand drunken guests at a lavish wedding party
breathing rapture in the dark spring night.
Winnowing Wilson’s Snipe
On4/25, I stepped outside after dawn and heard our first Wilson’s snipe “winnowing” over our house. The sound is hard to describe – it’s a haunting, vibrational “hu-hu-hu-hu,” and can be quite loud if the bird is near you. Winnowing occurs when either the male or female spreads out their tail feathers and dives at speeds up to 60 mph, the wind whipping through the feathers and creating the non-vocal hu-hu-hu.
The males arrive 10 days to two weeks before the females and begin winnowing immediately. Once the female arrives, she may mate with several individuals, then scrapes out a nest most often on a little hummock on the edge of a wetland. On average, she lays four eggs, but the literature says that once they hatch, a division of labor occurs, with the male usually leaving the nest with the first two of the hatched chicks, while the female takes last two. What if she only has three chicks? And which male decides he’s the Papa? Questions, questions, questions.
If you can locate one in the sky by listening for their winnowing, you can watch them do their dives, but the usual view one gets of a Wilson's snipe is when one flushes from wetland sedges in a rapid, zigzag flight while uttering a rasping “scaipe.”
You can also hear them out in a marsh repeatedly uttering a loud, “jick-jick-jick-jick.”
World's Oldest Loons
Loons recently returned to the Seney Wildlife Refuge in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and among them was a pair of loons that are documented as the oldest common loons on the planet. The male was banded as a young refuge chick in 1987, and in June he will turn 33. The female was first color-marked in 1990 as a successful mother, and because the youngest age of verified common loon reproduction is four, the female will be turning at least 34 this season.
These two long-term partners have been paired on the refuge since 1997, and over the past 23 years have produced offspring at a much higher rate than their refuge counterparts. However, prior to joining forces, the female was coupled to a different male for at least seven years. Consequently, in addition to being the oldest known loon, she is also the most productive, with at least 33 chicks who have successfully fledged from Seney.
March Climate Figures
In its monthly global climate summary, NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) reported that March was the second warmest on record going back to 1880, coming in only 0.15°C (0.27°F) behind March 2016.The crucial difference between this year and 2016 is that one of the strongest El Niño events on record was peaking in late 2015 and early 2016. El Niños spread warm water across the surface of the Pacific Ocean and send vast amounts of stored oceanic heat into the atmosphere. Most of the recent record-warm spikes from human-produced greenhouse gases have also occurred during an El Niño, so to get a March this warm without El Niño is noteworthy.
The most notable warmer-than-average temperatures in March were recorded across the eastern half of the United States, much of Asia and southern South America, where temperatures were 3.6 degrees above average or higher.
Powell Marsh Early Morning Hike
On April 26, Mary and I birded Powell Marsh with Artemis Eyster and Emily Hayne from Conserve School in Land O’Lakes, and we recorded 27 species in a couple hours. Notable were the two trumpeters swan building a nest, 11 sandhill cranes, 28 or more ring-necked ducks, and first-of-the-year green-winged teals, greater yellowlegs, tree swallows, swamp sparrows, and Savannah sparrows. The most unusual sighting, however, was of a solitary yellow-headed blackbird, which excited us no end.
Other Sightings – First-of-the-Years
4/14: We saw our first hermit thrush.
4/16: 10 fox sparrows were foraging under one of our feeders in Manitowish.
4/21: We saw our first yellow-rumped warblers, a flock of them, on the Manitowish River.
4/25: We heard our first Wilson’s snipe.
4/27: Mary Madsen on Twin Island Lake in Presque Isle has for several days had 20 trumpeter swans blaring away in their lovely imitation of novice trumpet players. Numerous other folks have sent me emails with photos of trumpeter swans on their lakes as well, indicating the trumpeter population is really doing well.
Celestial Events
May 4 marks the midpoint between spring equinox and summer solstice – we’re now receiving 14 hours and 30 minutes of sunlight. The peak Eta Aquarid meteor shower occurs before dawn on 5/5. The full moon rises on 5/7. Look on 5/12 for Jupiter and Saturn just few degrees north of the waning gibbous moon.
Thought for the Week
“Each of us feels that we are separate from our environment, an island of ego looking out through eyeholes. In fact, our lungs are in constant dialogue with the atmosphere, and with all the earthly plants and animals producing that atmosphere. This dialogue literally gives us life. Separation is illusory; atmospheric unity is truth. – Sparrow
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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