A Northwoods Almanac for 12/24/21

 A Northwoods Almanac for 12/24/21 – 1/6/22   

Ice Sounds

            During our Christmas bird count, Mary and I stood by a lake and listened to the lake ice sort of gurgling or chortling – it’s hard to describe these sounds! – as it expanded and contracted. With dropping temperatures, lakes can make some very wild noises. But it can happen, too, on a sunny day, as things warm up fast and the ice cracks, generating some other crazy noises.

            John Downing, a limnologist and director of the University of Minnesota Sea Grant program, was recently quoted in the Duluth newspaper saying a 10-degree increase in air temperature can cause a mile of ice to expand by 2 feet. Conversely, a 10-degree drop can cause it to contract 2 feet. “That creates an enormous amount of pressure, then something gives way, and that’s what causes the noise,” Downing said.

            Downing compared ice on a lake to the skin on a drum, with noise amplifying all along the drum or lake. The noises can be low like a bass drum or higher like a snare drum, or to me, sometimes sound like a bunch of singing freshwater whales, the first of their kind. 

 

Manitowish Waters  Christmas Bird Count

            We conducted the 29^th annual Manitowish Waters Audubon Christmas Bird Count on 12/17, one day after the Minocqua count had to be cancelled due to the crazy winds and ice.  We got lucky with a relatively clear, but cold morning with only a modest wind. 

            I don’t have the final tally, but it was a relatively slow day with modest bird numbers. We observed 23 species with the only rarity being a lone American robin happily singing away. Notable also were two observations of dark-eyed juncos, a ground-feeding species that usually winters south of here where the snowpack is less substantial.

            Notable also, but not unusual, were the 18 trumpeter swans on a relatively small stretch of the Manitowish River. We usually have a good number of swans that winter here despite their ability to easily migrate. What always intrigues me is how they find enough to eat in the Manitowish River. Trumpeters are a very large bird – 20 to 30 pounds – and that takes a lot of aquatic plants, nearly all of which have died back in the fall, to keep them going over our five months of ice-up on most of the river.

            Another notable species we found during the count were the 23 cedar waxwings that were flocking around our house. We often get bohemian waxwings in the winter, but the cedars usually wander south of here. 

            And finally, notable for their lack of presence were purple finch, evening grosbeak, northern shrike, gray jay, and brown creeper.

            Over the years, we’ve tallied 69 species, many of which were one-time rarities, but our average for any given count is usually about 24 species. It’s a very hard and long winter life here for a bird, so those we that do stay have remarkable adaptations and perserverance. 

 

Kissing Under Mistletoe

            Why is it a tradition to kiss underneath mistletoe, a parasitic plant that attacks living trees and can even kill trees? Mistletoe sends its tiny roots into the bark’s cambium layer and siphons off water and nutrients, weakening the tree to the point where it can kill the tree one limb at a time. This doesn’t happen very often, and in fact an argument can be made that mistletoe does much more good than it does harm by providing a source of healthy berries for birds and a place for nesting within its dense foliage (mistletoe’s other name is “witch’s broom”). But still, couldn’t we have come up with a more appropriate plant to symbolize love?

            Well, the plant has actually been used as a symbol of fertility for centuries, because it grows even during the winter. “It's life in the midst of what seems to be death,” writes one author. The Romans even used it as a representation of peace and love, hanging it over doorways.

            So, somehow over the ages, the tradition has continued, and mistletoe is still hung up in homes at Christmas where young men and women have the privilege of kissing under it, plucking each time a berry from the bush. When the berries are all plucked, the privilege ceases, or so the tradition goes.

 

The Battle of Midway and the Worlds’ Oldest Known Banded Bird

            When I was a boy, I read everything I could about World War II, and I remember exulting in one of the most significant naval battles of the war, the Battle of Midway. Just six months after Pearl Harbor, the U.S. Navy defeated an attacking fleet of the Japanese Navy, sinking four Japanese aircraft carriers and a cruiser in what was considered by historians as “the most stunning and decisive blow in the history of naval warfare.” Nearly 3,400 soldiers from both sides were lost that day. 

            What I exult in today, however, is quite the opposite from all that death and destruction. The 2.4 square-mile Midway Atoll now serves as a national wildlife refuge administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as part of the larger Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument. In total, over three million individual birds from 20 different species utilize the refuge for nesting and rearing their young, including 70% of the world’s population of Laysan albatrosses.

            Among that population is a Laysan albatross first identified and banded in 1956 after she had laid an egg. Female Laysan albatrosses aren’t known to breed before age 5, indicating that this bird could have hatched as late as 1951, but possibly earlier. Well, “Wisdom,” as she is known, returned once again to Midway this November. This makes her at least 70 years old in her life-journey, and thus she wears the crown as the world's oldest known wild, banded bird.  

Wisdom and her mate

            Albatrosses only lay one egg, and normally take a year off from parenting between chicks. So, it’s estimated that Wisdom has laid between 30 and 36 eggs in her lifetime. In 2018, her chick that fledged in 2001 was observed just a few feet away from her current nest, marking the first time a returning chick of hers has been documented. 

            No one knows how old can albatross can live, because Wisdom continues to live! For comparison sake, in our Northwoods area, the oldest known living birds that I’m aware of are a 35-year old common loon in the U.P.’s Seney National Wildlife Refuge, and a 33-year old bald eagle.

            A U.S. Geological Survey study found that the Midway Atoll and Pacific islands like them could become inundated and unfit to live on during the 21st century, due to increased storm waves and rising sea levels. If it comes to that, what an utterly sad and unnecessary end it could be to Wisdom’s life.        

 

Snowy Owl Update

            As of December 15, an impressive total of 114 snowy owls has been tallied in 45 Wisconsin counties. This count approximately doubles that of each of the past three winters but falls short of the 176 recorded by this date in 2017, keeping in line with the notion that irruptions (periodic influxes) tend to occur every 4 to 5 years. 

            

White Christmas?

            Last week, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released white Christmas probabilities across the United States, basing them on the most recent 30 years of climate data. The projection revealed broad decreases compared to just a decade ago and “are consistent with the reality of long-term warming.” NOAA’s criterion for a white Christmas is one inch of snow on the ground on the morning of Dec. 25.

            An analysis of  NOAA’s white Christmas data in the 25 biggest U.S. cities found declines in most of them. A separate analysis found 64 percent of the 2,000 locations in NOAA’s database exhibited decreases in their white Christmas chances.

            In the 1980s, 47 percent of the country had snow on the ground on Dec. 25, with an average depth of 3.5 inches. But, by the 2010s, the snow cover extent was just 38 percent, with an average depth of 2.7 inches.

            Here in the Northwoods, we are blessed to have snow on the ground and a beautiful upcoming white Christmas.

 

Later Ice-Ups 

            With our crazy warm and wild storm day on 12/16, the Manitowish River opened up once again, and while not ice-free, it’s flowing quite fast. As you may know, there’s been a long-term decline in first-ice since the 1860s, and Lake Mendota in Madison, one of the most-studied lakes in the world, provides some of the best data to demonstrate this. It’s one of 514 lakes in the northern hemisphere with long-term data on ice cover. World-wide, northern lakes are icing up later in the year and becoming ice-free earlier in the year. In Mendota’s case, duration of average annual ice cover has declined by over a month since the 1860s.

Thought for the Week

            In thinking of Christmas trees and nature: “The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see nature all ridicule and deformity, and some scarce see nature at all. But to the eyes of the man [person] of imagination, nature is imagination itself.”– William Blake

 

Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays! 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

 

A Northwoods Almanac for 12/10/21

 A Northwoods Almanac for 12/10 – 23, 2021 

 

Ice-Up

            Woody Hagge notified me that Foster Lake, a 39-acre lake in Hazelhurst, froze-over on November 26. Woody has been keeping records of ice-on and ice-off on Foster Lake for 46 years, and this year’s ice-up was one day before the 46-year average of 11/27. 

            Woody noted that he thought the long, warm autumn would have pushed the ice-up date later, but November turned cold, as it should, and the ice formed slightly earlier than expected. Foster’s water level is down 7.5 inches from last year at ice-up, so perhaps a little less water volume helped the process along.

            Long-term ice-up and ice-out dates are easily seen and understood, and provide key indicators of climate change. Since the late 1990’s, average ice-up on Foster Lake has steadily moved nearly four days later in November. 

 

Snowy Owl Update

            As of November 22, 18 snowy owls had been found in 14 Wisconsin counties

But as of December 1, at least 72 of these unique birds had arrived in 30 counties across the state from Green Bay to downtown Madison. 

            Two snowies were tagged with tracking devices in Wisconsin during previous winters as part of Project SNOWstorm, and one of them, a fourth-year female caught in February 2020 near Waupun, WI, was recently heard from. Her data points show that she returned north in April 2020 to nest in arctic Canada. But that winter, rather than coming south, she migrated further north and spent the winter on sea ice, likely hunting waterbirds. She then nested last summer on Baffin Island, but now appears to be headed south for this winter, last “checking in” near James Bay in Quebec.

            I’ve written before that the forested Northwoods is poor habitat for snowies, because they live and hunt in open habitats like fields, grasslands, and beaches. If one does appear in our area, it’s almost always near an airport, in a wide-open wetland, or along a large lakeshore. One year, a snowy even spent some of the winter in a cemetery in Ironwood, MI.

 

Trumpeter Swans

            We were walking along the Manitowish River recently and observed a good number of trumpeter swans loafing on the river. This isn’t unusual at all – most winters a cadre of swans can be seen in the open water below the Rest Lake dam, or in the open river waters along Benson Lake Rd. 

            Trumpeter swans have burgeoned in numbers over the last 30 years. Trumpeter swans in Minnesota are an example of such increases, with an original reintroduction goal of only 15 breeding pairs in 1966. Those efforts failed, but future revised efforts succeeded, and a new interim goal of 500 individuals was set for 2001. Well, things really took off from there, and in the most recent North American survey in 2015, the Minnesota population was estimated at more than 17,000.  Estimates of their population growth rate is as high as 20 percent annually since 2000.

            Wisconsin’s trumpeter population was reintroduced in 1989, and was ultimately so successful that trumpeters were removed from the Wisconsin endangered species list in 2009. Numbers are now estimated to be over 6,000. 

Trumpeter swan and cygnets, photo by Bev Engstrom

            Restoration occurred in other states as well, and since those early efforts, the population of interior trumpeter swans has far exceeded original population objectives, numbering 27,055 in the latest (2015) North American Swan Survey.

            Interestingly, however, there’s not a great deal known about the ecology of these swans, given how new they are to the Upper Midwest. Remember, these swans were raised from eggs taken from trumpeter nests in Alaska – their DNA is not specific to our area. So, beginning in 2019, researchers equipped swans in Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Manitoba with GPS-GSM transmitters affixed to neck collars with 2-character alpha-numeric codes. The objectives of the study are to evaluate migration patterns, local movements, habitat use, genetics, and survival of trumpeter swans in the re-established interior population.

            I bring this up not only because so many of us enjoy seeing trumpeters these days, but because the location of a swan captured and tagged for this study on the Little Turtle Flowage on 7/22/21 – swan “5P” – is now near St. Louis, MO, likely enjoying a warm drink and an abundance of food.

            It’s fascinating to consider the confusion these swans must experience when it comes to migration. There’s no long-established migratory route that they all follow. It seems more like it’s a scattershot, every swan for him or herself. Why do some swans remain the winter on the Manitowish River, while the one that bred on the nearby Little Turtle Flowage, now migrates all the way to Missouri? When will the swans all gather in a confab and discuss the pros and cons of various routes and destinations, and vote on the best migratory path? How does this happen, or will it necessarily happen at all?

            Beats me, but their beauty is unexcelled, so anything to do with swans always captures my attention.

 

Snowshoe Hares

            Our 12” snowfall on 12/5 and 12/6 made a lot of snowshoe hares happy, because now they no longer stand out against what was a rather spotty brown and white landscape. Hares are only one of 21 species of birds and animals worldwide that molt from summer brown to winter white. The timing of their molt is essential to their survival, thus the impacts of climate change through the reduction of snow cover has consequences. When hares that switch from brown to white in autumn or white to brown in spring don’t match the actual color of the landscape, predators take note. 

snowshoe hare changing color, photo by John Bates

            So, research is taking place in numerous locations to try to quantify what this means now, and will mean in the future. A University of Wisconsin study comparing Wisconsin hare populations in 1980 to 2014 demonstrated an obvious northward shift in their distribution with the current decreased duration of snow cover identified as the principal contributing factor. Snow cover duration less than 110 days appears to be a threshold below which hares face local extinction.

            The far larger issue in this is that the annual duration of snowpack is projected to decrease by 29 to 35 days by midcentury and 40 to 69 days by the end of the century, leaving the fate of the population of snowshoe hares in northern Wisconsin up in the air.

            Continued changes in winter weather will continue to impact other northern species as well – hares are just one example. 

 

October Temperatures

            According to NOAA's October 2021 global climate summary, Earth's average surface temperature in October was 1.60 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the twentieth-century average of 57.2 degrees F. That makes it the fourth-warmest October in the 142-year record. 

            Unusually high October temperatures were present across much of northern Canada, parts of the northeastern contiguous U.S., north of the equator in South America and Africa, and south-central Asia. The unusually warm temperatures contributed to the warmest October on record for Northern Hemisphere land areas. Only a few scattered locations were cooler than average, most notably the tropical Pacific Ocean, where La Niña was underway.

            Octobers today are nearly two degrees F warmer on average than they used to be.

 

Celestial Events

            The year’s earliest sunset is occurring right now on 12/10 – 4:13 in the afternoon. The sun begins to set one minute later on 12/12, this for the first time since June 23^rd.

            The Comet Leonard, the brightest comet of the year, will be visible for a couple of weeks in December as it shoots past us some 21 million miles away on 12/12. Leonard will look like a round, hazy speck with its tail pointing straight up. The comet is seen in the early morning, so look high to the northeast around 5 a.m. Later in the month it will slowly sink in the eastern sky and appear a little after sunset in the southwest. 

            The peak Geminid meteor shower occurs on the night of 12/13 through the predawn of 12/14. They average from 50 to 100 per hour, so it might be worth the shivering to take a peek.

            Everyone knows the astronaut who first set foot on the moon – Neil Armstrong – but do you know the last astronaut to set foot on the moon? It was Eugene Cernan on 12/14, 1972.

            December’s full moon occurs on 12/18. Called the “Cold” or “Long Night” or “Popping Trees” moon, it will be our most distant and small full moon of the year.

            Between 12/19 and 12/22, the sun will reach the year’s lowest altitude above the horizon. At only 20.7° above the horizon, it will be 46.9° lower than its altitude during summer solstice. 

            Which brings us to Winter Solstice, and I say hooray to that! The solstice occurs on 12/21, giving us our shortest day of 8 hours and 39 minutes and longest night of 15 hours and 21 minutes. Our days begin to grow longer on 12/23, but only in seconds. It won’t be until 12/30 that we start to gain a minute more per day of daylight.

            And on a personal note, on 12/11, I turn 70 years old (a celestial event of sorts in my world), which as nearly everyone who has turned 70 knows, is impossible since my brain says I’m still 27. I first began writing this column in June of 1990, so you’ve all wasted a lot of time reading this stuff over the last 31 ½ years. But I sure appreciate it.

 

Thought for the Week

            We have often heard that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. This is usually taken to mean that the sense of beauty is utterly subjective; there is no accounting for taste because each person's taste is different. The statement has another, more subtle meaning: if our style of looking becomes beautiful, then beauty will become visible and shine forth for us. We will be surprised to discover beauty in unexpected places where the ungraceful eye would never linger. The graced eye can glimpse beauty anywhere, for beauty does not reserve itself for special elite moments or instances; it does not wait for perfection but is present already secretly in everything. When we beautify our gaze, the grace of hidden beauty becomes our joy and our sanctuary. – John O’Donohue, from his book Beauty: The Invisible Embrace

 

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.