A Northwoods Almanac for 11/27 - 12/10 /20
Sightings: Townsend’s Solitaire!
On 11/16, we had a first in our yard in Manitowish - a Townsend’s solitaire appeared at one of our crabapple trees and remained for two days. This was a first because Townend’s solitaires are a western North American bird closely associated with high mountain country, and thus a rarity in Wisconsin.
I noticed it in the morning while watching pine grosbeaks feeding on the fruits of a different crabapple tree, and I wasn’t sure what it was. Mary and I have seen a Townsend’s solitaire only once, and that was several years ago in Arizona. The bird is all gray with a very noticeable white eye-ring, set off only by subtle, partially concealed buffy markings on the wings. On a gray morning in November’s somber gray and brown colors, it hardly stood out.
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| photo by Bob Kovar |
The bird wasn’t known to western scientists until it was first collected by John Kirk Townsend along the lower Willamette River, Oregon, in 1835. Townsend shot only a single individual, although this specimen proved sufficient for John James Audubon to honor Townsend in naming and describing the species in 1838.
Townsend's solitaires nest in the mountains on the ground beneath rocks, logs, or other sheltering overhangs, butthey spend their winter at lower elevations in juniper woodlands or other habitats that provide abundant fruit.
They characteristically perch on exposed treetops, which allows the holder of the feeding territory to announce his ownership and to scan for intruders, which he will then engage in a violent fight to defend his territory. For us, this habit of perching on outer branches made for perfect viewing of the solitaire - it wasn’t shy about sitting on open branches and allowing us to get good photographs.
Their diet out west in winter is well documented as almost entirely juniper berries. But during fall migration and for birds wintering in habitats other than juniper woodlands, their diet includes fruits like American mountain-ash, crabapple, winterberry holly, buckthorn, currant, serviceberry, hawthorn, chokecherry, bearberry, rose hips, sumac, poison ivy, honeysuckle, and elderberry, all of which are fruiting species we have in northern Wisconsin.
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| photo by Bob Kovar |
Why the bird visited us is a mystery, and where it has now gone is also unknown. We’re simply honored it somehow found a crabapple tree in tiny Manitowish, well over a thousand miles from its normal wintering range on the other side of the Rocky Mountains.
John Kirk Townsend - American Naturalist
The sighting of the Townsend’s solitaire inevitably led us to question why this species was named after Townsend. A Google search gave the answer. In 1833, at the age of 24, John Kirk Townsend was invited by the botanist Thomas Nuttall to join him on Nathanial Wyeth’s second expedition across the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. Along the way, Townsend collected a number of animals new to science including birds such as the mountain plover, Vaux’s swift, chestnut-collared longspur, black-throated grey warble, Townsend’s warbler, and the sage thrasher, as well as a number of heretofore unknown mammals (unknown, that is, to Euro-American scientists). Townsend, the “bird chief” on the expedition, also collected small rodents as excitedly as he did birds. One of the many species named after him is Townsend’s big-eared bat, a species that he found protected the men of the Hudson’s Bay Company by eating the dermestes beetles, also known as “hide” or “skin” beetles, which abounded in fur posts and often destroyed the fur pelts.
Townsend “collected” a few stories as well along the way. On one of his solo collecting excursions, he was chased across the Idaho landscape by an enraged grizzly bear.
On the Willamette River in Oregon, he spotted a California condor on the opposite shore, shot at it in order to collect it, but only wounded it. So, he stripped down naked, swam across the river and chased after it trying to club it into submission, apparently all to the enjoyment of onlooking Native American villagers.
After collecting a number of reptile specimens and placing them in jars of alcohol, he returned to the camp to find one of his companions had drank all of the alcohol from the jars, ruining months’ worth of work.
Yet another time, Townsend returned to his camp to find fellow naturalist Thomas Nuttall had eaten an owl Townsend had intended to preserve as a scientific specimen.
Apparently alcohol and food were in short supply.
On his return to Philadelphia four years later in 1837, he sold 93 birds he’d collected to John James Audubon who described them in his book Birds of America. Townsend ultimately supplied 74 of the 508 species Audubon discussed.
In 1839, Townsend published his own book, The Narrative of a Journey across the Rocky Mountains to the Columbia River and a Visit to the Sandwich Islands.
A little over a decade later, at age 41, Townsend died of arsenic poisoning. He had developed a formula used in taxidermy preparations, and arsenic was his “secret” ingredient. Today his name is best preserved in a few of the species he first described to the scientific world.
White-breasted Nuthatches
Mary recently noticed that white-breasted nuthatches coming to our feeders were more active at dusk than during the day. It turns out that in cold months, white-breasted nuthatches are especially gluttonous, caching seeds under bark and in other hiding places for later retrieval, a process called scatterhoarding. The pairs disperse their stores throughout their territory, remarkably only using each storage site once. The food is stored in bark crevices on the furrowed trunks of large trees and on the underside of branches, and is often covered with either a piece of bark or rotten wood, lichens, snow, or moss.
The nuthatches don’t necessarily go a long ways to cache their food. In one study, males and females both cached their food at a relatively similar distance, an average of 13 meters from a feeder and nearly six meters above the ground.
The literature says that the white-breasted nuthatch’s caching is most intensive early in the day and decreases later. So, if Mary’s observation is correct that the white-breasted nuthatches are more active near dusk, either the nuthatches haven’t read the literature or they’re eating the seeds immediately at the feeders to help them get through our lengthening nights.
Black Knot Fungus
November’s bare branches readily expose any irregularities on a tree. We have numerous black and choke cherries that now are showing signs of black knot (Apiosporina morbosa), a common but only occasionally fatal fungal parasite of cherry and plum trees. The fungus has a two-year life cycle in which it encircles the branch, cutting off transmission of nutrients, and ultimately killing the branch. As the fungus grows, it releases chemicals that make the tree grow extra large plant cells that result in swollen, woody galls. The galls are a velvety green the first year but after two years of infection the galls turn black and hard. The fungus releases its spores in the spring of its second year, starting the process all over again on other parts of the tree.
Black Bear Hibernation
Black bears should all be in hibernation by late November. The bears spent much of the early autumn eating excessively to fatten for hibernation, a process called hyperphagia, consuming 15,000 to 20,000 kcal per day. They also were drinking several gallons of water daily to process their large food intake and rid their bodies of nitrogen wastes.
As the fall transition period progressed, black bears became increasingly lethargic, resting 22 or more hours per day. Their heart rates fell from 80-100 beats per minute to 50-60 per minute, and sleeping heart rates fell from 66-80 per minute to less than 22 per minute.
Once into hibernation, studies of bears (from bear biologist Lynn Rogers) show that they live in a continuous dormant state but still use up to 4,000 kcal per day, mainly body fat. They don’t eat, drink, urinate, or defecate (warning: do not try this in your own home), and reduce their oxygen consumption and metabolic rate to a little as 25% of summer rates. Their breathing rate slows to once per 15-45 seconds, and their heart rate drops periodically to 8-21 beats per minute.
Sightings
Ice-up has occurred on many smaller lakes, including Echo Lake in Mercer on 11/18 as reported by Carne Andrews.
On 11/10, Kay and John Suffron reported seeing a flock of 30 or more evening grosbeaks at their feeders on Annabelle Lake in Presque Isle. She noted that this is the first time they’ve seen evening grosbeaks in the eight years they’ve lived there.
On 11/12, Rod Sharka reported a pair of cardinals appeared at his feeders on Palmer Lake near Land O’ Lakes. Now if they will only stay and raise some chicks next spring!
On 11/13, Linda Johnson in Woodruff spotted a gray catbird at her feeders. We had one visit our feeders, too, on 11/17. Both dates are quite late for a catbird, though given that they are fruit eaters, they do have the ability to stay later than many other birds.
In Manitowish, we continue to have a small flock of pine grosbeaks (6 individuals) and evening grosbeaks (up to 15) at our feeders, with the pine grosbeaks also focusing on our remaining crabapples. We haven’t seen this number of evening grosbeaks for decades, so we are thrilled to have them.
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| female pine grosbeak photo by Bob Kovar |
Celestial Events
As of 11/28, we’re down to nine hours of daylight. The full moon (the “Ice is Forming Moon”) rises at 100% illumination on both 11/29 and 11/30. A penumbral lunar eclipse occurs at 3:43 a.m. on 11/30, but I wouldn’t bother to get up to see it. A subtle dusky shading will occur on much of the moon for 30 minutes on either side of the maximum eclipse, but that’s it.
For planet-watching in December, look after dusk in the southeast for Mars, and in the southwest for Jupiter and Saturn. Before sunrise, look for Venus brilliant and very low in the southeast.
Thanksgiving
I’m thankful for a million things on Thanksgiving, but near the top of the list is the view out my window onto the wetlands and pines surrounding the Manitowish River. Barbara Kingsolver relates this feeling perfectly: “It’s a grand distraction, this window of mine . . . This window is the world opening on to me. I find I don’t look out so much as itpours in.
“What I mean to say is, I have come to depend on these places where I live and work. I’ve grown accustomed to looking up from the page and letting my eyes relax on a landscape upon which no human artifact intrudes . . . I consider myself lucky beyond words to be able to go to work every morning with something like a wilderness at my elbow.”
Thought for the Week
“The best way to know God is to love many things.” - Vincent Van Gogh
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