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 29th 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
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