A Northwoods Almanac for May 29, 2020

A Northwoods Almanac for May 29 – June 11, 2020  by John Bates

Planting and/or Transplanting Wildflowers?

            Wildflowers bloom prodigiously in May and June, and many folks are tempted to transplant a few to their property. First thing to know is that the old wildflower law that protected plants such as orchids and trilliums was taken off the books in 1978. However, that doesn’t mean that you’re free to take plants on public properties. On state and federal lands, it’s illegal to take any plants or plant parts except for edible fruits, edible nuts, wild mushrooms, wild asparagus, and watercress. For that matter, collecting seeds from herbaceous plants such as grasses and wildflowers is not allowed without written authorization from the agencies.

To take plants from public lands is simply a form of poaching, so refrain!

It’s a different story though on private lands where, except for wild ginseng and endangered or threatened species, all other plants are unprotected and may be taken, transported or sold, with the exception of noxious weeds and nuisance weeds.  

So, say on your own land, you’d like to transplant some wildflowers from the woods into your garden, or you’d like to collect seeds and try to germinate them, or you’d just like to encourage more growth of the wildflowers in the woods. It’s perfectly legal. But the caveat is that it’s usually difficult to do. Perhaps easiest is encouraging more growth in the woods. Spring ephemeral flowers like trilliums, spring beauties, and bloodroot blossom in the short window between snowmelt and leaf-out in rich soil forests. Too much shade can inhibit their spread, so lightly thinning your woods will add some sunlight and usually increase growth. Just don’t overdo the thinning – too much sunlight in too big of gaps encourages plants like raspberries and invasive species.

Transplanting wild plants into gardens is another matter and usually very tricky. Many wild plants aren’t adapted to the full sun of a garden site, nor can they tolerate the stress of transplanting – I suspect more wild plants die in transplanting than make it. You have to mimic in your garden the same conditions in which the plants have been growing in the woods, and many ephemeral wildflowers have been growing in the same spot for decades, even centuries. 

Collecting and propagating seeds is the least injurious method, but spring ephemerals are very slow to germinate and flower, so you need a large dose of patience. Large-flowered trilliums germinate after their second winter and only flower after seven years growth. Same is true with false Solomon’s seal. If you want to try this, visit the Wild Seed Project for practical advice on raising native wildflowers from seed: https://wildseedproject.net

Seeds can also remain viable in soil for decades. Over the last three years, we suddenly have nodding trilliums growing on the edge of our south-facing wetland. Where in the heck did they come from? We’ve lived here 36 years. Was the seed always there, or did a bird airmail some seeds on their feet or through their digestive tract? We also have Virginia waterleaf now growing in a spot where we never planted it. So, sometimes there are simply gifts provided if you know how to identify the wild plants and not inadvertently cut them.

Then there’s the need to match soil types. Pink lady’s slippers grow in highly acidic soils – here’s a case where your soil can be too good! 

You also need to respect/honor the size of the population. Move plants only from a healthy population. If you only have a few of a particular plant, leave them be.

The most important thing you can do is to educate yourself about your site and about your plants by observing them and by researching them. Here are some great websites to peruse:

The USDA Plants Database (plants.sc.egov.usda.gov) has maps showing where a plant is native or introduced, and shows its current status.

The Native American Ethnobotany site (http://naeb.brit.org) offers extensive insight into how plants were used historically by Native Americans.

A collaborative effort between the herbaria of the UW-Madison and the UW-Steven's Point, along with most of the other herbaria located in the state of Wisconsin, contains information on the more than 2600 vascular plant species that occur in Wisconsin, including photos, distribution maps, specimen records, and more - see http://wisflora.herbarium.wisc.edu.

And the Lady Bird Johnson (remember her?) Wildflower Center (www.wildflower.org) has a Native Plants Database where you can search 14,510 native plants.

Loon Attack on Bald Eagle

You may have seen recent news reports on how a common loon killed a bald eagle in Maine by stabbing it in the heart with its beak, the first documented case of a loon successfully defending its nest by killing a bald eagle.

Around the time that story came out, I received a phone call from an old friend, Jim Moore, who lives on the Turtle Flambeau Flowage. Jim was watching a loon incubating eggs on a nest just offshore from his home when a bald eagle landed on the nest, forcing the incubating loon off the nest. In short order, the eagle, now perched on the side of the nest, but not yet eating the egg, was “dive-bombed” by a loon who flew straight at it and veered off at the last second before hitting the water next to the nest. The startled eagle responded by flying off the nest and perching in a distant tree, apparently never to return.

Jim wanted to know if I’d ever heard of a loon “strafing” an eagle about to predate on its nest. I never had and neither had a local loon researcher who has spent many years observing loon behaviors. So, I wonder if loons are more capable of defending their nests than we’ve given them credit for, or if these were just rare, anomalous events. 

Sightings and First-of-the-Years (FOYs)

Too many to detail, but Juneberries are in bloom along roadside edges and in more open areas. Sweet fern (Comptonia peregrina) is also blooming, though its male flower doesn’t resemble a blossom, but rather looks like the hanging catkin of a paper birch tree.

male sweet fern catkins, photo by John Bates

Toads are trilling, leopard frogs are grumbling, and eastern gray tree frogs are, well, I don’t know how to describe it – they sort of bellow out a very short trill. I’ve seen their call described as “melodious,” but this can only be a description from a person with no musical sensibility.

Dan Carney in Hazelhurst put in a water feature and tiny pond by his home several years ago, and, boy, does he get birds! On 5/22, he watched a Blackburnian warbler along with eight chestnut-sided warblers bathing in the pond. Dan also has a red-bellied woodpecker eating from a grapefruit that he puts out, something I’ve not heard of.

water feature at Dan Carney's house

Hummingbird Tongue – A Micropump!

            We have several wildly territorial ruby-throated hummingbirds fighting incessantly for control of one of our nectar feeders, despite three other feeders being available in other areas of our yard. They spar and spar, almost like a couple of supersonic fencers – you’d think they’d run out of energy long before they could ever get a good drink from the contested feeder.

            Our daughter, Callie, was watching them recently and got a fine picture of one of the males with its tongue extended, which led me to wonder how the hummer was actually moving the nectar from the feeder into its mouth. And, of course, it was way more complicated than I imagined.

male ruby-throated hummingbird sticking its tongue out, photo by Callie Bates

First off, a hummingbird's tongue can stick out as far as its bill is long. Then, well, I’m just going to quote the research directly: “As the bird sticks its tongue out, it uses its beak to compress the two tubes at the tip, squeezing them flat. They momentarily stay compressed because the residual nectar inside them glues them in place. But when the tongue hits nectar, the liquid around it overwhelms whatever’s already inside. The tubes spring back to their original shape and nectar rushes into them.

“The two tubes also separate from each other, giving the tongue a forked, snakelike appearance. And they unfurl, exposing a row of flaps along their long edges. It’s as if the entire tongue blooms open, like the very flowers from which it drinks.

“When the bird retracts its tongue, all of these changes reverse. The tubes roll back up as their flaps curl inward, trapping nectar in the process. And because the flaps at the very tip are shorter than those further back, they curl into a shape that’s similar to an ice-cream cone; this seals the nectar in. The tongue is . . . a nectar trap. It opens up as it immerses, and closes on its way out, physically grabbing a mouthful in the process.”

So, as another researcher describes it, “the tongue acts like a piston pump. As it pulls in, it brings nectar into the beak. As it shoots out, it pushes that same nectar toward the throat.”

            Got that? I’m not sure I do, but it only adds to the amazement we all have for the extraordinary flying machines we call hummingbirds.

Baltimore Orioles Nesting

We’ve have had two male Baltimore orioles and one female eating oranges for nearly two weeks at our home in Manitowish, a visit which occurs nearly every May, that is as long as we remember to put the oranges out. But we’ve never seen a nest or had oriole young visit our feeders in June or July. 

So, I was really pleased to see a superb photo by Bev Engstrom on 5/25 of a female Baltimore oriole coming out of her nest. Bev’s been producing great photos near Rhinelander for a number of years, and she shares her photos with many people. She noted that the female “spent many hours pulling fibers from the coconut liner on one of my hanging planters to build the nest.”

photo by Bev Engstrom

The nesting process works like this. The female arrives a number of days after the male, presumably giving him time to establish a territory. After she has been courted and has chosen her mate, she selects her nest site within the male’s defended territory. She then commences building her nest, and is usually the sole builder. Once she lays eggs, she is also the sole incubator.

            She usually places her nest near the tip of the outer branches of a tree, most often high off the ground and inaccessible. If you’ve never seen pictures of an oriole nest, the structure is gourd-shaped, bigger at the bottom than at top or middle, and hangs down from a few thin branches, or it’s held in the fork of two small branches, suspended by the rim. 

She builds her nest in three stages, using three different types of fibers. The outer bowl is built first of flexible and supportive plant, animal, or human-made fibers. “Springy” fibers are then woven into the inner bowl, which maintains its shape. Finally, downy fibers are used to line the nest. 

            Most nests are completed within about a week, which any professional weaver would be very proud of accomplishing. Their favorite nesting tree used to be American elms, but with the demise of elms, they now have broadened their neighborhood search to maples, cottonwoods, sycamores, birches, and oaks – usually larger trees.

If you’ve ever wondered why they’re called “Baltimore” orioles and not, say, Schenectady orioles, it’s because the bird was first illustrated and described by Mark Catesby in his Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands, published in 1731. Catesby named this bird the “Baltimore-Bird,” because its black and orange were the colors of the coat-of-arms of Lord Baltimore, whose family established the Maryland colony in the 1600s.

Celestial Events

            The full moon, the “Strawberry Moon,” occurs on June 5. On 6/8, look before dawn for Jupiter 2 degrees above the moon, and Saturn 3 degrees above the moon.

Thought for the Week 

“What day is it?” asked Pooh. “It's today,” squeaked Piglet. “My favorite day,” said Pooh. – A.A. Milne

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.