A Northwoods Almanac for July 8, 2022

 A Northwoods Almanac for July 8 – 21, 2022  

 

Sightings – Dragon’s Mouth Orchids and Virginia Rail

            On 6/20, Mary, Callie, and were walking a dike on Powell Marsh when Mary spotted a rose-purple flower about 30 feet away in the bog vegetation. We trained our binoculars on the plant and discovered it was a dragon’s mouth orchid. And then as we began to scan around the area, we found numerous patches of dozens of the orchids, proving for the umpteenth time how important it is to stop and look around slowly, both nearby and at a distance. 

dragon's mouth orchid, photo by Rod Sharka

Dragon’s-mouth typically grows on a bed of sphagnum moss around bog lakes. The tongue of the orchid has fleshy yellow bristles, which I suppose to some creative soul was what they imagined a dragon’s tongue to look like. The genus name Arethusa comes from the river nymph of classical Greek mythology. She was the daughter of Nereus who fled from her home in Arcadia beneath the sea and came up as a fresh water fountain on the island of Ortygia in Syracuse, Sicily.

We also heard the calls of a Virginia rail, though despite our best efforts, and only being perhaps 10 to 15 feet away from where the calls were coming, we could never find it. Here’s how Sibley’s Field Guide to Birds describes the calls: “Wheezy, pig-like, descending and usually accelerating series of grunts – wep wep wep wepwepwepwepppprrr.” Got it? Try googling it – it’s worth hearing.

 

Mosquitoes Are More Drawn to Flowers Than People 

            June and mosquitoes go together like the proverbial horse and carriage, and this June was no exception. Mary and I rarely lead any hiking trips during June for the simple reason that mosquitoes attract far more attention than anything we can say or do – we learned long ago that we’re no competition for mosquitoes.

            However, there is a kinder side to mosquitoes, in fact, a side that provides significant value to the natural world. The primary food of mosquitoes is flower nectar, not blood. The female mosquito only seeks a blood meal for the protein when she’s laying eggs. Otherwise, she, like all the males, feeds only on flower nectar. 

            So, it turns out that mosquitoes transfer pollen from flower to flower as they feed on nectar, just like bees and butterflies do. Which plants they visit and how much pollen they disperse are poorly understood, but nocturnal creatures like mosquitoes may be just as important as day-time pollinators.

            In 1913, John Smith Dexter first reported that mosquitoes pollinated orchids after Ada Kietz, a researcher in Michigan, noticed a mosquito that had pollen stuck to its head. Dexter investigated and found other mosquitoes bearing pollen, specifically from a blunt-leaved orchid that was blooming nearby.

            Mosquitoes provide other ecosystem values. Their larvae grow in water and consume microorganisms such as algae while contributing to aquatic food chains by serving as food sources for fish and birds. And if a mosquito survives to adulthood, it flies away from its aquatic habitat where the adults are eaten by birds, bats, frogs and other insects. Adult mosquitoes that die (or are eaten and excreted) then decompose, turning the microbes they consumed as larvae into nutrients for plants, completing another important ecological function.

            Nevertheless, mosquitoes are also the worlds’ deadliest animal, carrying devastating diseases. The worst is malaria, which still kills 2.7 million people every year. Other mosquito-borne diseases include dengue fever, yellow fever, West Nile, Zika, and encephalitis.

            However, not all of the 3,500 or so mosquito species worldwide (yes, there are over 3,500 species) are responsible for spreading pathogens – only about 100 are. In the continental United States and US territories, over 200 types of mosquitoes live, but of those 200, only about 12 types spread germs that can make people sick (see the 1,300-page Mosquitoes of the World by Yvonne-Marie Linton, Richard Wilkerson and Daniel Strickman for everything, and more, that you ever wanted to know about mosquitoes).

            So, mosquitoes are a two-headed beast – an important pollinator and a killer, not to mention the immense annoyance they create via their whining and biting.

            All of this begs the questions as to what we should do, if anything, about them. Mosquito pesticides are broad-spectrum, killing all insects, and often killing those who eat insects – birds – in their wake. A better solution is to eliminate sources of breeding habitat around our homes like buckets of standing water, etc. But in the watery world of northern Wisconsin – Vilas County, for instance, is one-third water (16% lakes/rivers and 18% wetlands) – the larger landscape will always offer thousands of acres of ample habitat. There’s no “getting away” if you want to spend time in the woods. Mary and I live on the Manitowish River alongside hundreds of acres of floodplain and wetland, all of which absorb spring floods and provide habitats for countless wildlife species, as well as literally millions of mosquitoes. 

            The bottom line: We have to grin and bear it. It’s a hard lesson, but at least we can temper our anger by remembering how important mosquitoes are as pollinators, or trying to  while we’re attempting to kill the twenty that just got in the car when we opened the doors.

 

Mid-summer Roadside Flowers – Bird’s-foot Trefoil

            Roadside flowers proliferate in July and August, offering colorful accompaniment to most drives. However, many of the flowers we see along our roadsides are non-native, and some are invasives. Bird’s-foot trefoil (Lotus corniculatus), for instance, produces lovely yellow, pea-like flowers that sprawl low in the disturbed soils and gravels along our highways. It was introduced to the United States for livestock forage and erosion control and grows well in the Midwest. It’s problematic, however, in prairies and disturbed open areas, where it forms dense mats that shade and choke out native vegetation.

photo by John Bates

            The good news is that it’s a legume, so it fixes nitrogen, improving the soil. And honey bees forage on it, both for pollen ,which is fed to larvae in the hive, and for its nectar.

            So, here’s an instance where an introduced species is ecologically invasive but feeds livestock, bees, and creates better soil. Like many things, then, it’s not simple – there’s good and bad depending on what lens you’re looking through.

            

Crane Reproduction?

            On recent hikes on Powell Marsh, Mary, Callie, and I have counted 10 or more sandhill cranes, which is nothing unusual, except for the fact that among the pairs we have yet to see any young (“colts” they’re called because of their long legs). 

            Sandhills return to our area in early April, and are usually on nest by the end of the month. Incubation is around 30 days, so chicks should be seen by the end of May or early June, with an average clutch of two chicks, the second chick hatching a day or two after the first one. 

            We’re now at the end of June, and chicks should be easily visible, given that by the end of their first month of life, they’re half-grown, and by 40 days, they’re almost full-grown.

            I’m concerned that our cold spring may have impacted the crane’s reproductive success, but adults don’t begin breeding until they are at least two years of age, so it may be that we we’re seeing young, non-breeding adults. I hope that’s the case, but I have no data to support either my observations or my concern. I’d be interested to hear from others what they are seeing.

 

Bird Flu Killing Caspian Terns on Lake Michigan Islands

            Wildlife biologists have recently found whole colonies of Caspian terns dead on islands in Lake Michigan. As of 6/29, the Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza – bird flu – has killed at least 1,476 adult terns, which are listed as threatened in Michigan and endangered in Wisconsin.

            Sumner Matteson, a friend and an avian ecologist with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, said what he found on an island off of Wisconsin’s Door Peninsula was horrific. “[I’m] seeing hundreds of dead birds scattered in a line before me with others dying among those. It's a feeling of helplessness, knowing that here's nothing, absolutely nothing, you can do for those birds.” 

            Sumner said he’s never seen anything so traumatic in his 42 years on the job – an estimated 64% of the adult Caspian terns in Wisconsin are dead. He added, “Absolutely devastating. Catastrophic. It's going to take years for the Wisconsin population to recover.” 

            Caspian terns nest very close together in colonies, making this air-born disease easily transmittable, but why Caspian terns are being hit so hard by avian influenza, while other close-nesting seabirds have not experienced the same kind of devastation, is baffling to the scientists. There have been deaths among ring-billed gulls, pelicans, and others, but not at the rate of Caspian tern deaths, with one exception, double-crested cormorants (a 6/21 report from Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts said hundreds of dead cormorants were washing up on shore, along with some eiders and shearwaters).

            It’s unclear what, if anything, can be done to help the birds. And the summer has a long ways to go.

 

Supreme Court Limits EPA’s Power to Combat Climate Change

            On 6/30, the Supreme Court sharply cut back the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to reduce the carbon output of existing power plants, 

            Chief Justice John Roberts wrote, “Capping carbon dioxide emissions at a level that will force a nationwide transition away from the use of coal to generate electricity may be a sensible ‘solution to the crisis of the day,’ but it is not plausible that Congress gave EPA the authority to adopt on its own such a regulatory scheme.”

            Justice Elena Kagan, writing for the dissenters, countered: “The Court appoints itself — instead of Congress or the expert agency — the decisionmaker on climate policy. I cannot think of many things more frightening.”

            The court was considering the powers granted by the Clean Air Act, which was written decades ago, before climate change was widely recognized as a worldwide crisis.

            Now it’s up to Congress to act plausibly and pass legislation to cap carbon dioxide emissions. With higher seas, fiercer wildfires and other consequences of climate change apparent, the world is already in unprecedented territory. 

            The United States is the world’s second-biggest annual emitter of greenhouse gases, and is responsible for a greater portion of historical emissions than any other nation. To reverse that, the U.S. hoped to lead by example to convince other countries to cut emissions and help the world keep warming under 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit).

            Regardless of the ruling, the United States is moving away from coal, as the chief executives of electric utilities pledge to abandon this dirtiest of all fossil fuels. “We don’t really see that there would be any immediate impact on our transition plans,” said Vicky Sullivan, director of climate policy at Duke Energy. “We still plan to transition out of coal by 2035 and we don’t see the Supreme Court’s decision having a material impact on that.”

            U.S. coal production dropped 35 percent between 2015 and 2021, according to the Energy Information Administration, and now only represents 21.8% of U.S. power generation.

One source contends that 357 coal-fired power plants have shut down, with 173 remaining.

 

Celestial Events

            Our year’s warmest high and low temperatures occur between 7/8 and 7/28, with an average high of 78° and a low of 55°.         

            The full moon – the “buck in velvet” or the “thunder” moon – occurs on 7/13. The moon will be at perigree, the closest of the year at 221,993 miles, and thus will be the largest of the year.

            For planet watching in July, it’s all happening before dawn. Look for Venus, Mars, and Saturn all in the east-northeast, and Jupiter in the east. On 7/15, look for Saturn 4° above the waning gibbous moon, and on 7/18, for Jupiter 2° above the moon.

 

Thought for the Week

            Each season has its own light and almost each hour of the day. Spring dawns sparkle with clarity, and May’s midday light is tinged with green, subtle as the green of new leaves . . . Now it is a shimmering tent, ripped in vast gashes from time to time by an afternoon thunderstorm, briefly clean and blue, then that smothering tent again. Late July, tending toward August, hot summer, tending toward Autumn. You see it even in the shadows – warm gray-green shadows.-  Hal Borland,  Sundial of the Seasons

 

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.