NWA for July 10, 2020

A Northwoods Almanac for July 10 – 23, 2020  

 

Sightings

6/22: Janet Vander Voort sent a photo of a saw-whet owl that flew in and sat on their picnic table while she was having lunch in Tomahawk. She noted, “It landed on the table two feet away from me and sat and looked at me for a couple minutes, like it had something to say!” Saw-whets are rarely seen - Mary and I have yet to see one in the wild - so, I find her experience remarkable!

saw-whet owl photo by Janet Bander Voort

6/27: Mick Toben sent me a beautiful photo of a big poplar sphinx moth that visited his property in Hazelhurst.

photo by Mick Toben

7/1: We’ve been watching purple finch and yellow-bellied sapsucker chicks being fed by their parents. The fledged young beg loudly and insistently!

7/2: A Virginia ctenucha moth visited us in Manitowish. We have no idea how to pronounce “ctenucha,” but we do know that it’s a beautiful moth, and we were grateful to see it. It was a “lifer” for us!

photo by John Bates

            By the way, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan each boast about 2,500 species of Lepidoptera, which includes butterflies and moths, of which perhaps 2,000 live in the Northwoods of Wisconsin. That’s a pittance compared to the 12,400 species of Lepidoptera that have been named across all of North America, of which only 830, or about 7%, are butterflies. That leaves a very large field of moths to try and learn, so be patient with yourself - it’s a lifelong endeavor that only a very few will ever come close to mastering. 

I haven’t counted how many Mary and I have identified over the years, but I’d be very happy if the number was all of 50. On the other hand, good friend Sarah Besadny in Eagle River has identified 341 species at her home in Eagle River! And what, you may ask, is her incredibly complicated technique? She simply switches her porch light on and goes out a little later and takes pictures. She then uses the Peterson Field Guide to Moth of Northeastern North America to ID the moths. That’s it! Oh, if she is stuck, she does consult a website out of Mississippi State U. - https://mothphotographersgroup.msstate.edu - but she says the Peterson guide is almost always sufficient.

Why study moths? Says Sarah: “They’re beautiful and the diversity is astounding. You can get a wide diversity right at your porch light and it’s so darn easy. Plus, they sit nice and tight to photograph.” 

I couldn’t agree more. They’re simply fascinating creatures to pay attention to, and there’s no need to be an expert. Just turn on your porch light and see what comes to visit.

Coincidentally, National Moth Week is from July 18 - 26! See http://nationalmothweek.org.

 

Monarchs

            From a number of reports I’ve seen, monarch butterflies appear to be only present in small numbers in the Northwoods. I’ve not seen any reasons for this decline, but I did see a paper published recently in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution that was investigating why Western monarchs, which overwinter along the California coast, have dropped to only about 1% of their estimated numbers in the 1980s. The study analyzed which chemicals were being found in milkweed and in what quantities. The researchers collected 227 milkweed samples from 19 sites across California’s Central Valley. After screening the samples for 262 pesticides, they found the plants contained 25 insecticides, 27 fungicides, 11 herbicides and one pesticide additive. On average, each plant carried about nine pesticides.

Five of the pesticides appeared in 80% of the samples, including in milkweed from national wildlife refuges and other protected areas. The chemical chlorantraniliprole, commonly applied to tree nut crops like almonds, pistachios and walnuts, appeared in 91% of the samples, with 26% of samples exceeding a toxicity threshold for monarchs. 

Since monarchs lay their eggs on the underside of milkweed leaves, and the larvae feed on the leaves until they pupate into butterflies, the biologists suspect that the presence of these chemicals is playing a role in their decline.

 

Shorebird Migration Has Begun, and Songbirds Have Quieted

I always find this hard to believe so early in the summer, but numerous shorebirds have already begun migrating south from their Arctic breeding grounds. Look in particular for solitary sandpipers, lesser yellowlegs, and lesser sandpipers, which according to DNR conservation biologist Ryan Brady, are the first to show up in our area.

Meanwhile, the dawn bird choir is heading into retirement for the year. Once nesting duties have been fulfilled, the territorial and reproductive imperatives rapidly shrink, leaving the birds little biological reason to sing. Some species, however, never get the memo and will sing all day, every day, the loudest and most persistent being the red-eyed vireo who will sing right up to when he migrates in early August.

For me, there’s a sadness in the morning air without the refrains of chorusing birds. A bit like the ephemeral nature of spring wildflowers, the window for birdsong opens and closes rather rapidly, and late July/early August mornings now become exercises in near silence.

 

Roadside Flowers

            Sun-loving perennial wildflowers are burgeoning along our roadsides and in our open fields. Many are non-native and considered weedy, though I always admonish folks to remember botanist Susan Knight’s definition of a weed: a weed is a plant without a press agent. 

Some of these non-natives are truly invasive and thus bad-actors, while others are content to play a minor role in pioneering the disturbed soils found along our roads. Note that the following list only covers full sun, open field/roadside, non-native invasives, and not aquatic or woodland invasives: St. John’s-wort, butter-and-eggs, common mullein, tall buttercup, birdsfoot trefoil, forget-me-nots, common speedwell, orange hawkweed, yellow hawkweed, ox-eye daisy, spotted knapweed, lily-of-the-valley, yellow and white sweet-clover, golden clover, tansy, Queen Anne’s-lace, orange daylily, field bindweed, crown vetch, chicory, curly dock, and sheep sorrel.

St. John's wort

heal-all

I realize that many of these species are very pretty, some smell exquisite, and more than a few are well appreciated by honey bees, and we are now proud beekeepers. Nevertheless, these plants are invasive. It’s your call on your land what you want to do about them. At a minimum, keep an eye on them. However, I recommend an earlier, more proactive response if you want to save yourself lots more work later on.

Look also for several common roadside plants that are “good” actors, native plants that perform worthy functions and rarely become invasive. These include common yarrow, spreading dogbane, fireweed, milkweed and heal-all. I should add, please take the time to inhale the gorgeous fragrance of a spreading dogbane flower. I think they’re near equals to milkweed flowers.

 

Loon Chicks Hatching Successfully on Second Go-Around

Walter Piper noted in his 7/3 “Loon Project” blog some optimism for loon reproduction this year despite the fact that 70% of the loon nests in his Oneida County study area had been abandoned in late May due to black flies. Most pairs did re-nest, and reports of successful chick hatchings were coming in. In his blog, he compared this summer’s poor reproduction to 2014, his worst year on record: “In both years, over 70% of all first nests were abandoned because of black flies, so this should be an apples to apples comparison. As of July 4th, 2014, 14 pairs had chicks - 18 chicks in all - and 40 pairs were still sitting on eggs. After many recent hatches this year, there are now 22 pairs rearing 31 chicks; 25 nests are still active. If we project the likely rate of chick production from the remaining nests this year, 2020 will produce about the same number of chicks (52) that 2014 did (51). Now 2014 was a weak year, so producing the same number of chicks as 2014 is no great shakes. But 2020 looks to have about 20% more chicks reaching five weeks of age than last year” (see https://loonproject.org/2020/06/27/blundering-males-and-black-flies/).

Time will yet tell, but all of this is to say that while this will be a poor loon reproduction year, things have turned around in a positive direction from the alarming start in May.

 

Celestial Events

            On 7/11, look before dawn for Mars about two degrees above the waning gibbous moon. Yes, but how far is two degrees, you ask? Your hand can be used as a measuring stick. Hold your hand out at arm’s length, and the width of the end of your little finger equals about 1 degree. So, two pinkies worth of width is two degrees. Hold your middle three fingers up, and their width equals 5 degrees. One fist width held at arms-length equals about 10 degrees. Spread your hand wide from thumb to pinkie, and that’s about 25 degrees. Folks with big hands may have to subtract a little, while folks with small hands might have to add a little.

            On 7/17, look before dawn for Venus about 3 degrees south of the now crescent moon.

            New moon occurs on 7/20. 

For planet viewing in general, look after dusk for very bright Jupiter and more modest Saturn, both in the southeast.

            Before dawn look for brilliant Venus very low in the east and Mars high in the southeast. 

 

Deer Flies

            I have only one thing truly useful to share about the current hatch of deer flies: run, don’t walk, to a sporting goods store that sells deer fly patches for your hat (or buy direct from https://www.deerflypatches.com). The patches are basically a fly paper you put on your hat, and then roll up and throw away when your hike or outdoor work is over. They work great, they’re harmless to the environment and you, and they use the little beast’s penchant for landing on your head. My record is catching 70 of them on my hat during a single hike. The option? Have 70 them racing endlessly around your head like enraged NASCAR drivers.

 

Thought for the Week          

            “Our well-being depends upon the accurate perception that we are small within the scale of the universe . . . To know the measure of our smallness is to appreciate our fundamental dependency upon wildness, upon the central alchemy of sun and water and soil that we can neither create, nor replicate, nor dominate . . . In acceding to what is vastly larger than ourselves, we are not diminished, but exalted. We assume then our rightful place in the magnificent whole of nature, indistinguishable from it.”  - Paul Gruchow