A Northwoods Almanac for June 25 – July 8, 2021
Dawn Chorus of Robins
Robins are so familiar to people that we tend to not pay attention to them – while also using them as a standard for measuring other bird sizes and songs. But I pay attention to them at 4:30 in the morning, pre-dawn, when I often first wake. Robins are usually the first to begin singing, and they engage in their “dawn song” which is distinctly different from the song they sing throughout the rest of the day. The regular song is a “loud, liquid song, a variable cheerily cheer-up cheerio” – more or less. Roger Tory Peterson says it’s a “clear caroling; short phrase, rising and falling, often prolonged.”
The dawn song, however, is a different animal. There’s often an intensity, complexity and duration to the songs that far exceed the “normal” songs of the day. Think of it as kind of similar to rush hour traffic – everybody’s in a hurry to be heard. And it’s not just robins. Eastern wood-pewees sing two songs (“pee-a-wee” and “pee-oo”) by day, but throw in an additional song at dawn - “ah-dee-dee”. Yellow warblers sing nearly a dozen different songs at dawn, but during the day sing a song different from their dawn songs. Some birds even add fast call notes (the short “chip” notes) to the middle of their songs.
But like just about everything in nature, the dawn-song generalization has many exceptions. Some species sing the same song at a similar rate all day, like the red-eyed vireo, while others start singing much later than dawn.
Then as sun rises, many birds slow their song production way down, likely because now that they can see well, they’re interested in foraging for food.
There’s lot of theories as to why birds sing so boisterously before dawn. The one that makes the most sense to me is that the males want other males to know they’re still alive, still on their territory, still maintaining their pair bond with a comely female, and don’t you forget it. The downside to this is that as July comes on, and the young have been raised and fledged, the males lose their testosterone-driven desire to be heard, and our dawns rise far more quietly. I find mid-July to be distinctly sad for just that reason despite the fecundity of our garden and the entire floral world.
Oh, and BTW, individual robins sing distinctively different songs such that if we paid enough attention we could differentiate individual robins from one another. “Each male robin,” says Donald Kroodsma in his book The Singing Life of Birds, “has a largely unique repertoire of caroled phrases that I can use to identify him as an individual.” I’ve never listened that closely, but I take Kroodsma’s word on it. For now, I just like to close my eyes and go back to sleep, cuddled with Mary, while listening to the robins’ proclamations.
Sightings: Bobcat Kittens, Green Herons, Male Pine Pollen Cones, Blue Flag Iris
*Patty Sevenz sent me photos on 6/20 of two bobcat kittens that she found in a family woodshed in the Powell Marsh area. They’re tiny and obviously quite young. Hartley Jackson’s classic book Mammals of Wisconsin says that “mating usually occurs in March . . . although rarely it is delayed to as late as June.” Bobcats, however, can breed year-round, so it’s hard to make an accurate generalization. Jackson continues, “After a gestation period of about 62 days, the blind furred young are born, from one to four in number, usually two. The eyes of the young open when it is 9 or 10 days old.” After about 4 weeks of age, the youngsters will begin to leave the den and eat solid food brought to them by the female. The two that Patty found look to me to only be a couple of weeks old, so they have yet to be weaned. In the meantime, Patty has installed a trail camera, and now has gotten photos of the mother entering the shed.
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| Bobcat kitten photo by Patty Sevenz |
The WDNR estimates 3,500 bobcats live north of Highway 64, but bobcats are found in all 72 Wisconsin counties and populations are expanding across much of their geographic range.
*Two weeks ago, I paddled Esox Lake in Bayfield County with good friend and ace photographer Bob Kovar, and we were treated to close sightings of green herons on three different occasions. I rarely see green herons, and I treasure those moments because these are beautiful birds! Their dark-streaked rufous neck, orange legs, and its extendable glossy greenish-black crest make the green heron particularly striking. Common names “shite-polk” and “chalk-line” reflect the bird’s habit of producing a stream of white defecation as it flies away from human disturbance. And most intriguingly, they are one of the few tool-using birds, able to use various baits to entice fish close enough to grab.
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| Green heron photo by Bob Kovar |
*Pine pollen rained down during the big winds we had last week, and shortly thereafter so did the male pollen cones that were the source of all that pollen. The cones now litter the ground, but most folks fail to notice them unless they’re plastered on their windshields.
All our conifers have male and female cones, but the male cones are much smaller, and most shrivel and fall as soon as the pollen has been shed. The pollen grains that fall on lakes form a temporary yellow film but soon sink and are incorporated into the sediments. What’s cool about them is that they are nearly indestructible, and form what are called “micro-fossils” which can persist unchanged for millions of years. The study of these pollen grains, a full-fledged science in itself, makes it possible to infer what the vegetation was in an area over many millennia.
*Finally, blue flag irises have been lighting up the wetlands. John Ruskin, an English philosopher in the 19thcentury, described the blue flag as “the flower of chivalry. It has a sword for its leaf and a lily for its heart.” I like that. Usually for the last word on such subjects, one turns to Henry David Thoreau. Thoreau, in his unfailing wisdom, felt the blue flag was “a little too showy and gaudy, like some women’s bonnets.” Ah, but what did he know?
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| Blue flag iris photo by John Bates |
Good News on Loon Reproduction This Year
From Judith Bloom on 6/11: We have “six nesting pairs of loons on Tomahawk Lake . . . and 2 have hatched chicks . . . And what is even more exciting, interesting, is that two of the new adult birds that we have been able to confirm bands on (one from each of two territorial pairs) are loons that were hatched and banded on Tomahawk Lake. One (Bird 1) is five years old and was hatched at the opposite end of the lake (Sunflower Bay) from where it has now successfully nested. The other (Bird 2) was hatched from the territory that Bird 1 now holds. Bird 2 now holds a territory at the opposite end of the lake from where it was hatched . . . I've been monitoring since 2008, and I am aware that one of the birds on the lake was hatched on Lake Mildred in 2002. He is a male in the territory nearest our home, has been very successful, and is a better parent than the two mates he has been with since we've been monitoring. But we've never been aware of birds that have been hatched on this lake and been able to establish/take over a territory on this lake. All confirmed through correspondence with Walter Piper. Amazing.”
Speaking of Dr. Walter Piper, he noted in his June 2nd blog that “after an early ice-out and a less severe black fly emergence than usual, both Wisconsin and Minnesota are seeing their first chicks” . . . and “we are seeing the beginning of a wave of earlier-than-normal hatches in both Wisconsin and Minnesota. Breeding productivity looks to be far better this year than in either 2019 or 2020. In light of my concerns about the Wisconsin population, I am relieved to see reproductive numbers bounce back up this year.” Good news!
Center for Conservation Leadership
Last week, Mary and I led several programs for the Chicago’s Center for Conservation Leadership (CCL), which was being housed by the North Lakeland Discovery Center in Manitowish Waters. The CCL chooses 12 motivated high school students from diverse backgrounds with a keen interest in the environment and a passion for the outdoors and brings them to the Northwoods for a month of field experiences. This is only a small part of a year-long program combining environmental education, leadership training and community service in an in-depth, field-based experience. The goal is to develop and empower the next generation of conservation leaders to understand the importance of human interaction with the environment and to take responsibility for its care and preservation.
Field-based programming with various instructors just over the last week included: forest management, water quality issues, paddling to and hiking in the Tenderfoot old-growth forest, bird banding, a Powell Marsh bird walk, a bog exploration, a geology and glacial overview of Wisconsin, a geology hike at the Van Vliet Hemlocks State Natural Area, a canoe trip and ecology study on the Manitowish River, a Lake Superior waterfall and geology tour, and a plant-based fabric dying workshop. They left on Monday for 10 days at Northland College and then they’ll be on to UW Stevens Point 10 days or so of additional field experience.
What a program! It’s transformational for those involved. Kudos to the NLDC for hosting the group and coordinating their first week of programming.
Sea Level Rise
According to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, sea levels have risen 6 to 8 inches around the globe in the past century. “Our best science, in the form of ever-refined global Earth models, suggests that this acceleration will continue over the next century and result in much higher rates of sea-level rise than we have yet experienced today,” said Keryn Gedan, a George Washington University researcher on the effect of climate change on marine ecosystems.
“It is important for coastal areas to prepare and plan for this eventuality.”
Celestial Events
The full moon was last night, 6/24, but it’s still nearly 99% illuminated tonight, 6/25.
Before dawn on 6/27, look for Saturn about 4° north of the waning gibbous moon. Pre-dawn the next day on 6/28, Jupiter will have switched places with Saturn and be 4° north of the moon.
As of 6/28, our days now grow one minute shorter every day.
On 7/5, the earth will be at aphelion, the farthest from the sun for 2021 – 94.5 million miles. Perihelion, when we were closest to the sun, occurred on Jan. 2 at 91.4 million miles.
Thought for the Week
A home is not simply a building; it is the shelter around the intimacy of a life. Coming in from the outside world and its rasp of force and usage, you relax and allow yourself to be who you are. The inner walls of a home are threaded with the textures of one's soul, a subtle weave of presences. If you could see your home through the lens of the soul, you would be surprised at the beauty concealed in the memory your home holds . . . Where love has lived, a house still holds the warmth. Even the poorest home feels like a nest if love and tenderness dwell there. – John O'Donohue
Please share your outdoor sightings and thoughts: e-mail me 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.
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