A Northwoods Almanac for 12/23/22 – 1/5/23
Sightings – Merlin, White-throated Sparrow and Tree Sparrow, Cardinals, Robin, Tufted Titmouse, Bohemian Waxwings, Ruffed Grouse and More and More Evening Grosbeaks
Unusual birds at our feeders in Manitowish include a pair of cardinals, a white-throated sparrow, a tree sparrow, 60+ evening grosbeaks, a northern shrike in late November but not seen since, and a merlin which appeared on 12/14 and scared the bejeesus out of the rest of the birds. And just now as I was writing this article (12/16 at 10 a.m.), at least 40 bohemian waxwings suddenly descended on the crabapple tree outside my office window – wow!
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| photo by Eowyn Bates |
Jason Schultz and Greg Bassett both report a pair of red-headed woodpeckers at their feeders in Oneida County. Each pair nested on their property this summer, but so far haven’t migrated south. Typically, red-headeds winter only as far north as central Wisconsin, so this is quite uncommon.
Red-headed Woodpecker populations have declined in most regions that support the bird, and the species is now listed as a species of special concern in Wisconsin, and as a threatened species in Canada and several U.S. states. Apparently, they can remain north in mild winters if acorn mast is plentiful. But this year’s acorn crop wasn’t particularly robust, and if whatever acorns we have are covered by heavy snow, I’m surprised any would remain.
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| range map for red-headed woodpeckers |
Pat Perkins in Springstead observed an American robin on 12/15 along Hwy. 182. Robins, another unusual winter sighting for our area, though robins commonly winter not too far south in central Wisconsin.
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| range map for American robin |
Rich Robertson in Boulder reports he has over 100 evening grosbeaks at his feeders.
A tufted titmouse is currently visiting a feeder north of Mercer. This is only the second record of a tufted titmouse in Iron County – the first record was in 1995. Tufted titmice are a species I expect we’ll be seeing more of as climate change continues to heat up.
Bruce Bacon in Mercer has had up to nine ruffed grouse coming in to his feeders as well as eating high-bush cranberries in his yard.
Rough-legged Hawk Migration
Rough-legged hawks are a true Arctic species, nesting in far northern Canada and Alaska, but in winter, they migrate south to wherever there is open ground or only a light snow covering. We usually only see them in spring and fall migration, but if our snowfall comes late, sometimes a few individuals hang around open areas to hunt small rodents, their favorite menu item.
Typically, however, they winter well south of here in snowless, open areas reminiscent of their tundra summer haunts, including pastures, marshy areas, and wet meadows – we last saw one in late November hovering over the wetlands of Powell Marsh. They’re well adapted to open country, and hunt from the wing, hovering in the breeze or in updrafts above hills and cliffs.
I bring them up because of a recent finding regarding the migration routes of rough-legs that were outfitted with remote-tracking GPS devices. Since 2014, researcher have deployed 114 of these devices on rough-legged hawks, and have collected over 300,000 GPS or Argos location fixes. Past observational work on the wintering grounds has found adult females winter farther north on average than adult males, a pattern exactly opposite that found in most other bird species. This pattern would suggest adult females migrate shorter distances than adult males, but why this pattern exists remains unknown.
What caught my attention was the migration map of an adult female they named “Dorothy” that was captured at Goose Pond Sanctuary near Madison last winter. The GPS date showed that Dorothy summered along the eastern coast of Hudson Bay in northern Quebec, roughly 1,175 miles from Goose Pond. However, her fall migration flight was directly across Lake Superior, which is very unusual for large hawks who normally soar southward on thermals coming off land. On 11/8, after spending the previous night on Caribou Island, Dorothy proceeded to make an incredible 114 mile open-water crossing and touched down on the Keweenaw Peninsula after the 4.5 hour journey.
I’ve attached the map showing her movements around and across Lake Superior.
As a sidenote, a separate research study suggested that rough-legged hawks use the ultraviolet signal of vole urine, which they can see, to identify choice foraging areas.
Nature never ceases to amaze me.
Wintergreen (Gaultheria procumbens)
Several columns ago, I identified five species of northern plants that hold onto their bright red fruits over the winter – sumac, winter holly, partridgeberry, wintergreen, and highbush cranberry. Let’s look at wintergreen, a species very common in our sandy Northwoods soils. Wintergreen has a low to the ground (2 to 6 inches), creeping, woody stem which bears three green and glossy oval leaves that exude a wintergreen fragrance when crushed. In July, waxy nodding, bell-like white flowers with five teeth hang hidden beneath the leaves. The leaves are evergreen, and appear light green when young, but turn dark green and leathery as they grow older. The round red 5-celled fruits ripen in the fall and remain on all winter. They are distinctive simply by their taste, possessing a delightful, soft wintergreen flavor.
The berries are said to be nutritious, and deer, bear, grouse, chipmunks, and mice are said to eat the berries and often the leaves, but given how often the berries and leaves are still intact in the spring, the plant can’t be a favorite.
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| wintergreen |
We often partake of either the berries or leaves, and a particularly good combination is blueberries and wintergreen berries. Interestingly, the flowers also taste of wintergreen.
Wintergreen oil (methyl salicylate) can be distilled from the leaves, but it takes one ton of leaves to produce one pound of oil, an effort hardly worth the human trouble and the harm to the woods. As a boy, I remember using a wintergreen tincture to rub on our sore muscles after a football or basketball workout. We smelled good, if nothing else.
Commercial wintergreen oil is synthetic these days, but came originally from yellow birch trees, not from the humble wintergreen plants. According to Henry Gibson’s 1913 book, American Forest Trees, about a hundred small sapling yellow birch trees were required to be chopped and ground to produce a quart of oil. Sold by the quart to country storekeepers, it would make its way in turn to wholesale druggists who would refine it and use it for flavoring in candies, medicine, and drugs.
Wintergreen usually grows in large colonies, because it vegetatively reproduces by underground stems that send up shoots. The evergreen leaves are well adapted to the desert-like environment of winter with their waxy waterproof leaves that retain water.
Neltje Blanchan said of wintergreen in her 1901 book Nature's Garden, “When the July sun melts the fragrance out of the pines high overhead, and the dim, cool forest aisles are more fragrant with commingled incense from a hundred natural (sources) . . . the wintergreen's little waxy bells hang among the glossy leaves that form their aromatic carpet. On such a day, in such a resting place, how one thrills with the consciousness that it is good to be alive.”
Historical accounts say the Ojibwe made the leaves into a beverage too, commonly boiling water whose purity they were unsure of and flavoring it with plants like wintergreen, black cherry, and Labrador tea.
Celestial Events
Well, winter solstice has come and gone, and we’re moving at an absolute snail’s pace toward more daylight. But on the move we are, and by 1/3, we’ll daily be receiving one minute more of daylight. By 1/18, we’ll be gaining two minutes per day, and by 2/14, our heart’s will be warmed not only by Valentine’s Day, but also by three minutes more per day of sunshine. And then around spring equinox, from 3/12 to 3/25, we finally reach our maximum gain of 3 minutes and 15 seconds of sunshine every day, something surely to look forward to.
From 12/27 to 1/7, our latest of the year sunrises stall at 7:40 a.m., a full 3 hours and 32 minutes later than our earliest sunrises around summer solstice. Then, on 1/8, the sun will rise one minute earlier. And spring will be here in a jiffy, which if you believe that, I have a counselor recommendation for you.
The best night for viewing the Quadrantid meteor shower will be on 1/3 to 1/4. However, a nearly full moon will drown out our viewing until the moon sets shortly before dawn on the 4th – look then for the best, but brief, period for viewing. At peak, they can produce up to 100 meteors per hour.
The full moon arrives the night of 1/6.
I should note that our long dark nights of December and January are ideal, though very cold, for viewing stars. The unaided human eye can see stars as faint as 6.5 magnitude, which translates to 9,096 stars being visible from Earth. However, we see only half of the night sky, so divide by half, and we can see around 4,500 stars on our darkest nights with no light pollution. In cities like Chicago, visibility is reduced to stars with magnitudes of 2.5, which amounts to only 35 stars on the best of nights.
Use a good pair of binoculars, and now 100,000 stars come into view. And with a three-inch telescope, 5 million stars can dazzle your eyes.
Every star we see belongs to the Milky Way galaxy. We can see stars 6,000 to 8,000 light-years away – think of that.
Thought for the Week
“The stories we tell literally make the world. If you want to change the world, you need to change your story. This truth applies to individuals and institutions.” – Michael Margolis
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