A Northwoods Almanac for 2/5/21

 A Northwoods Almanac for 2/5-18, 2021  

 

Otters and Ice

A note from Bob Kovar in Manitowish Waters on 1/29/21: “So I’m standing on the ice there, waiting for the full moon to rise the other night. I’m noticing snowmobile tracks dangerously close to where the Trout River runs silently underneath an unknowingly very thin layer of ice covered with snow, making it look just like the rest of the lake, thinking about how many people are just clueless out there as they race and roar, when all of the sudden I hear a knocking on the ice from underneath. With eyes wide open, I absolutely freeze to try and triangulate the knocking. As I’m trying to process the few things that could be swimming under there, knocking on the ice to get out - imagining some terrible event possibly unfolding - it gets louder and louder. All of the sudden this otter, using the top of its head, finally breaks a frozen layer out of one of its holes and pops out. While the hairs on my neck were slowly laying back down, it crawled out, rolled around on the snow, and started to groom its magnificent coat. It was nearly dark, and in such low light my much sought after perfect photo shot of an otter still eludes me. But I’m getting closer.”

otter photo by Bob Kovar

I once watched an otter chewing a hole from under the ice to keep it open, but I’ve never heard of an otter using its head as a battering ram to break a hole in the ice. Now granted, the ice was very thin on the river, making this a technique likely only employed in those conditions. But still, it’s one more example of animals adapting their behavior to a particular opportunity. 

What I still can’t fathom is how otters know where they are under the ice when chasing a fish, given that you have to stay oriented and be able to find the hole where you went in. Now otters can stay under water for 6 minutes or more, dive to 40 feet, and swim at up to 7 miles per hour, so perhaps they have enough time and physical skill to overcome a momentary discombobulation. But still . . .

They also don’t just stay on the same lake or river all winter and get to know every nook and cranny. Researchers say they travel circuits through lakes, ponds, and waterways around their home range sometimes as long as 20 miles, crossing land as well as water, because if they stayed in one place, they might deplete populations of their prey. So, they’re swimming in a lot of different lakes and rivers to find a meal.

It’s easy to follow otters during the winter because of their propensity for sliding on the snow, a track identification that no one can mistake. The perennial question is whether otters slide solely for the ease of travel, or whether they engage in play. Well, apparently both. According to a study published in 2005 in the Northeastern Naturalist, entitled “Sliding Behavior in Nearctic River Otters: Locomotion or Play” by Dr. Thomas L. Serfass, an international expert on river otter, river otters are sliding for reasons other than greater speed and efficiency. On one occasion, Dr. Serfass and his team captured video of three wild otters visiting a regularly used latrine site along the shoreline of a river in Pennsylvania. In five minutes and 49 seconds of video, the otters were seen sliding down a snow covered rock 16 times, leading Dr. Serfass to conclude, “Although river otters use sliding for locomotion, our observation of three river otters repeatedly sliding down an incline suggests that in some cases sliding is also a form of play behavior.”

One last thing that amazes me about otters is how they stay warm in water temperatures barely above freezing. Their fur is apparently the key. Biologists have calculated that in just one square inch of otter coat, there are around 400,000 hairs. An otter’s undercoat also interlocks with its outer guard hairs basically making it’s coat impenetrable. Then as otters dive into the water, whatever warm air has been held between the hairs is squeezed out of the coat in a mass of air bubbles rising to the surface, sealing the deal. These adaptations are the evolutionary summation of otters in the form we know them today, which have been living on this Earth for an estimated 7 million years. 

 

Sightings

            Lisa DeHorn sent me photos of a pair of pileated woodpeckers gracing their home in Hazelhurst. She noted, “They (the male particularly) have been fiercely guarding the three suet feeders in our yard. Downies seem to be allowed to dine at the suet feeders, but no hairies, nor red bellies are allowed!” 

pileated woodpeckers photo by Lisa DeHorn

Indeed, competition at winter feeders can be quite the opposite of a Disney movie. There’s a pecking order for members within a species, and a pecking order between species, as all of us know who watch our feeders. We exhort all of them to “just get along,” but much like we humans, they just won’t listen.

            Kay and John Suffron in Presque Isle sent a photo of a long-tailed weasel eating from their suet feeder.

long-tailed weasel photo by Kay Suffron

Dick Lemanski in Hazelhurst wrote on 1/25, “For the last few weeks, we have been treated to a flock of about a dozen pine grosbeaks, and about the same number of evening grosbeaks.  In the past several years, we have seen only two or three pine grosbeaks, and then only briefly, and no evening grosbeaks at all, so we feel blessed this winter. We keep our primitive feeding tray filled with black sunflower seeds, and both flocks show up shortly after first light. After that, they show up in small groups of three to ten throughout the day . . . But we have not seen a single redpoll whatsoever.  Strange, how the irruptions distribute themselves across the landscape.”

In Manitowish, unusual sightings include four pine grosbeaks, a common grackle, a tree sparrow, about 30 common redpolls, and now a flock of 8 turkeys every day, which is only the second time in all our years feeding birds that turkeys have waltzed in to our yard.

 

Great Backyard Bird Count 

The annual Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC) takes place from Feb. 12 to 15. During the 2020 GBBC, a total of 268,674 birders from 194 countries participated and counted 27,270,156 birds, including 6,942 species. The GBBC is an inter-organizational effort of the National Audubon Society, Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, and Birds Canada.

Participating is easy. Simply watch birds for 15 minutes or more at least once over the four days and report what you see. Then pick the best tool to use for sharing your bird sightings: If you are new to the count, try using the Merlin Bird ID app. If you have participated in the count before, try eBird Mobile app or enter your bird list on the eBird website on your desktop or laptop. 

This is citizen science at its best. These observations help scientists better understand global bird populations before birds begin their annual migration. 

When I saw a recent email encouraging participation in the GBBC, it got me thinking about how many species of birds Mary and I have seen out our windows or on our property over the last 36 years we’ve lived in Manitowish. So, I methodically went through our bird book and found 118 species that we can clearly recall. I suspect there are another 10 or more that we’ve seen that we just can’t quite picture in our minds, which once again reminds us how important good record keeping is, and how frequently we’ve failed at it. 

I got further carried away and then added the number of birds we’ve additionally seen in Iron County, and arrived at another 47, giving us 165 total for the county. Bruce Bacon, master bird bander in Mercer, has counted 202 species for Iron County, which just shows you what’s possible if you focus your attention on birds wherever you live. 

Mary and I have never been bird listers despite how often we have counted birds or coordinated counts for various organizations. But this was fun, so I summarized one further list – all the birds we’ve seen while birding in the Northwoods from Duluth to Marinette, and found we’d seen 224 species. 

The best rarities that we’ve see around our home over all these years were the Townsend’s solitaire we saw in December and a Eurasion tree sparrow back in May of 2013. The most remarkable rarities for Iron County were the brown pelican I saw flying back and forth on Mercer Lake in August of 2002 and the painted bunting that visited a friend’s feeders in the town of Powell in May of 2002. For the greater Northwoods, we’ve been lucky to see quite a few rarities: A Clark’s nutcracker at feeders south of Woodruff in January of 2018; a gyrfalcon in Sault St. Marie in February of 1995 and another on the Richard Bong Memorial Bridge connecting Superior to Duluth in February of 2001; numerous piping plovers at Whitefish Point Bird observatory in Michigan in May of 2013; a black-billed magpie in Minnesota’s Sax Zim Bog in February of 2001; and the incredible great gray owl invasion year in the winter of 2005-06 when we saw 22 great grays in just over two hours near Duluth. 

 

Cold Weather? 

            Our weather forecast for this weekend shows numerous days with highs of  around 0°,  which is pretty nippy! However, “severe cold” is always open to definition. I hearken back to the winter of 1995-96 when from Feb. 1-4, the low temperatures were all -45° or colder. I’m told Land O’Lakes recorded -62° (real temp, not wind chill) during that period. So . . . bundle up and buck up. This really isn’t “severe” for northern Wisconsin at all. Cold is part of how we define the Northwoods – we should welcome it despite our discomfort.

 

Celestial Events

For planet watching in February, look after dusk for Mars in the southwest. Before dawn, look for Venus very low in the southeast in the first half of the month – Venus will not be visible in the second half of the month. Jupiter and Saturn replace Venus, both also appearing very low in the southeast.

On 2/5, look before dawn for Venus just below Saturn. On 2/10, look again before dawn to see Saturn and Venus about 3° above the crescent moon. And on 2/11, look to the southeast horizon once again before sunrise to see Jupiter and Venus appear as bright dots and to almost be touching. 

We’re up to 10 ½ hours of daylight as of 2/17.

 

Thought for the Week

“Every morning I awake torn between a desire to save the world and an inclination to savor it. This makes it hard to plan the day.” - E.B. White