NWA 5/14/21

 A Northwoods Almanac for May 14 – 27, 2021  

 

Sightings

4/26: White throated sparrows returned to Manitowish.

4/28: We heard our FOY (first-of-year) broad-winged hawk. Their distinctive high whistle – tee-teeee on one pitch - is easy to learn. The male’s call is an octave higher than the females.

5/1: Zach Wilson, Conservation Specialist for the Iron County Land and Water Conservation Department, was fishing on the Turtle Flambeau Flowage and reported seeing a flock of white pelicans, perhaps 50 to 100 birds, fly into Horseshoe Bay.   

5/3: Dan Carney in Hazelhurst reported his FOY rose-breasted grosbeak. We spotted our first rose-breasted grosbeaks on 5/7 in Manitowish.

5/5: Ed Marshall in Lac du Flambeau reported a sharp-shinned hawk was lingering around his feeders. This is good news for about two seconds – it’s exciting to see a sharpie – but then the realization that the hawk is there to eat your songbirds changes your perspective.

5/7: Bob and Carolyn Kovar in Manitowish Waters have an eagle nest on their property that they’ve been watching for 40 years. Bob called today and thinks the nest failed, which would be the third consecutive year. Mary and I are also concerned that the eagle nest across the Manitowish River from our house has failed as well. Eagle chicks typically hatch by May 1.

            Bob contacted Ron Eckstein, retired DNR wildlife biologist and well-known eagle expert and bander, for his thoughts, and Ron said “the usual factors include weather events, adult inexperience, predation (raccoon, great horned owl), human disturbance, or death of one of the adults.” Which of these was the factor, however, is really hard to pin down. We’ll see if some clues turn up in the next week or so.

5/8: On a brighter note, Bob Kovar called to report two ruby-throated hummingbirds appeared in his yard. He’d put his feeders up earlier in the week, so they had some nourishment. We keep having hard frosts with lows of 24°, which is pretty tough sledding for hummers. 

5/7-9: Mary and I spent three days exploring wild lakes in Washburn County. We saw our FOY yellow warbler here, and in several locations, found blooming large-flowered trilliums, wood anemone, and bloodroot, which we rarely see in the sandy soils around our area. Leatherleaf was in flower in the wetlands, and Juneberry along the roadsides.

5/9: Bev Engstrom in Rhinelander spotted the first Baltimore Oriole – a female – that I’ve heard of this spring.

5/9: Three evening grosbeaks, a male and two females, appeared at our feeders in Manitowish.  Evening grosbeaks used to nest near us in the 1980s –the young would come to our feeders – but we haven’t had them nesting here for probably 30 years. What a delight it would be if a pair stayed and raised young!

5/9: Pat Schmidt on Silver Lake in Hazelhurst reported seeing her FOY ruby-throated hummingbird. She also noted the female loon on her lake had laid eggs the previous day, 5/8, but the loons were already being hounded by black flies. 

5/10: I heard my FOY ovenbird and Nashville warbler in the Beaver Creek Hemlocks near Springstead in Iron County.

5/11: A yellow-headed blackbird appeared at our feeders this morning, which is a rare sighting in our area, though not uncommon in the western part of the state and into Minnesota. 

            Bird migration remains slow due to our consistent cold temperatures and northerly winds, but with the 60° temperatures forecast for the latter part of this week, the birds should come streaming in – be on the look-out! For me, these last two weeks of May are the best weeks of the year with the peak blooming of ephemeral wildflowers and the return of neotropical migrant birds, not to mention (hopefully) the lack of mosquitoes.

 

Maple Syrup

            As a confessed addict of maple syrup, I like to find out how good the syrup season went every year. So, I called Bob Simeone, who lives near Land O’Lakes and has produced maple syrup on his property since the early 1990s, for his impressions of the season. Bob used to put in 1200 taps, but now has found his sanity and “only” does 250 taps. His overall take on the season was that it was good but short. It lasted only 3 weeks beginning around March 10, and ended when temperatures hit 60° and he had to pull his taps. A “normal” season used to average 5 weeks.

            His sugar content was average, starting on his first run at 2.8% and finishing on his third run at 2.4%. 

            Over the last 15 years, Bob notes that the season now starts 2 weeks earlier than in the past, the season ends quicker, and warm-up comes earlier. Still, Bob made 36 gallons of syrup, A Midas treasure if you ask me.

            

Ornate Box Turtles

            Ornate Box Turtles are an endangered species in Wisconsin, residing only in far southern counties, and they’re a species I’ve never seen and thus seldom think about. In Illinois, however, they’re a threatened species, and Sondra Katzen, the Director of Public Relations at the Chicago Zoological Society/Brookfield Zoo, sent me photos and a video of a recent survey made of these turtles. The survey took place in The Nature Conservancy’s 3,800-acre Nachusa Grasslands and marked the 15th anniversary of the longest and largest-ever health survey of box turtles in North America.

            The ornate box turtle was once found in nearly half of Illinois’ 102 counties, but are believed to now inhabit fewer than 10. The Nachusa Grasslands is one of the last remaining homes for the species, so folks from the Chicago Zoological Society and the University of Illinois Wildlife Epidemiology Laboratory, trekked there to find as many ornate box turtles as possible.

            What I found particularly interesting about this survey was that specially trained Boykin spaniels, fondly called “turtle dogs,” are used to find the turtles. It usually takes a biologist four or five hours to find a turtle, but the spaniels can sniff out 2.5 turtles per search hour, bringing the turtles back gently in their mouths to the researchers. The dogs are trained by scattering fiberglass turtles scented with bacon grease, which would probably work on some humans I know.

            Forty-four turtles were discovered, which were then given complete health examinations. The species can live into their mid- to late-50s, so the health of a box turtle can act a bit like a canary in a coal mine for assessing overall environmental health. Up to 70 percent of the turtles in a given year have often been previously evaluated which helps researchers understand how health indicators change over time. 

 

February Wolf Hunt Assessment

            The February wolf hunt was highly controversial for a host of reasons, but the impacts of the hunt were largely unknown. Wisconsin’s Green Fire, an organization made up of members with extensive experience in natural resource management, environmental law and policy, scientific research, and education, recently released an assessment of the hunt. 

            Key findings include: “During the February hunt wolves were removed primarily from core habitats on public lands where conflicts with pets, livestock or human safety are rare. Based on currently available information and our understanding of wolf populations and behavior, there is little evidence that the February 2021 wolf hunt will significantly reduce human – wolf conflicts.

            “Based on loss of bred females and alpha males, it is reasonable to estimate that 60-100 of Wisconsin’s wolf packs may lose all pup production due to the February hunt. If this impact is realized it will represent 24-40% of the expected reproduction from 245 known wolf packs outside of Indian reservations in Wisconsin.”

            To read the entire assessment, go to: https://wigreenfire.org/the-february-2021-wisconsin-wolf-hunt-a-preliminary-assessment/.

 

Doing Nothing to Manage Garlic Mustard?

            Compared to the prevalence of garlic mustard in southern Wisconsin, the Northwoods is doing rather well, but the worry of how to control it when and if it invades remains a concern. Garlic mustard is not browsed by herbivores, nor does it have any effective insect pests or diseases to keep it in check. If you’re not familiar with it, it often forms thick monocultures in forests, sometimes entirely eliminating native plants. 

            The usual process for control is to pull every plant one can before they go to seed, or use herbicides or fire, and then repeat that effort for at least 10 years running. However, a recently released decade-long study done by Cornell University researchers says that doing nothing is the best way to manage garlic mustard. According to Dr. Berndt Blossey, a Cornell University conservation biologist who specializes in invasive plants, pulling up large swaths of garlic mustard is both futile and actually worse than leaving it alone. 

            Blossey contends that deer abundance and non-native earthworms drive garlic mustard infestations, and that garlic mustard only establishes after earthworms have invaded a site for some years and deer then help to spread it. Where deer are excluded or greatly reduced in number, garlic mustard competes with native species, but doesn’t displace them.   

            The study shows that within ten to 12 years, garlic mustard becomes scarce as a species, while pulling garlic mustard actually prolongs its run. 

            This is, of course, controversial. See “Residence time determines invasiveness and performance of garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata) in North America,” Ecology Letters, (2021) 24: 327–336 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7839695/).

 

Celestial Events

            On 5/15, look in the west after dusk for Mars 1.5 degrees below the crescent moon. 

            We hit 15 hours of daylight as of 5/16. 

            The full moon – the “Flower” or “Planting” Moon – occurs on 5/26. This will be the year’s closest and largest full moon – 14% larger than normal. If you live in the western U.S., you’ll be able to see a total lunar eclipse. In our area, we’ll experience a partial eclipse beginning at 4:44 in the morning. The moon will set at 5:21 before we can see the total eclipse.

 

Thought for the Week

“I dream of a quiet man
who explains nothing and defends
nothing, but only knows
where the rarest wildflowers
are blooming, and who goes,
and finds that he is smiling
not by his own will.
                                    Sabbaths 1999 II ― Wendell Berry, Given