A Northwoods Almanac for March 17-30, 2023

 A Northwoods Almanac for March 17-30, 2023  by John Bates

 

Chickadees Singing  

            Despite the snow continuing to fall this March, male chickadees have begun singing their two-parted song: “Sweet-ee, Sweet-ee” or simply, “Fee-bee, Fee-bee.”

            But the scientific literature says that the black-capped chickadees’s song is far more complex that this with at least 16 different kinds of vocalizations : “Fee-bee; Faint fee-bee; Gargle; Subsong; Chick-a-dee; Begging dee; Broken dee; Variable see; Hiss; Snarl; Twitter; High zee; the Contact note, or tseet; the Flight or Restless note, the Distress call, and the Squawk.”

            And other studies say there’s more to their songs yet. “High-ranking males sing more during the dawn chorus than low-ranking males; bachelor males sing more than paired males; and birds provided with supplemental food sing more than non-supplemented birds.” 

photo by Bev Engstrom

            These songs are sung extensively at dawn during the breeding period, and are also produced in aggressive daytime countersinging exchanges – kind of a version of the sing-offs on the television show “The Voice.”  

            The singing is territorial and to maintain pair bonds or produce new ones, though chickadees are remarkably monogamous over time. Of 94 pairs observed over 10 years in a Massachusetts study, only 15 divorces occurred, while 79 (84%) stayed together. Another study in Ontario had similar results: of 49 pairs studied over 8 years, there were 11 instances of divorce, while 38 (78%) other pairs remained intact.

            Females who did divorce then paired with males of higher dominance status than their previous mate, and were more likely than females of intact pairs to have had extra-pair young in their nest prior to divorce – tsk tsk! 

            All is not perfect in the intact pairings either. In other studies, “extra-pair young” accounted for 9 to 17% of nestlings from monogamous couples. The researchers call this “mixed reproductive behavior.” Humans, of course, have stronger words for it.

            Still, statistically, the chickadees have us beat in their faithfulness to one another. Perhaps we could learn a thing or two from them.

 

Northern Lights

            Numerous folks reported seeing exceptional northern lights on the evening of 2/25. To our great disappointment, we failed to see them, having been engrossed in good books that night. 

            That’s not unusual for us. I admit that I often don’t take the time to look at the night sky, particularly in the winter when it’s cold out there, and I’m happy to be sitting warm in a comfortable chair. I get lazy – the stars will be there tomorrow night, right? 

            My failure to appreciate the grandeur of the night sky reminds me of a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson: “If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown!”

            It’s easy to become inured to that which is there every day, viewed as “common,” and to thus lose our sense of astonishment and awe because of a lack of rarity. Even though I know better, I’m still very susceptible to losing my sense of awe when in the presence of something I see every day and perceive as “normal.” I need to reawaken my mind to the night sky, and by doing so, not miss the northern lights when they next magically appear.

            BTW, Aurora Borealis was the name given to the phenomenon in 1619 by Galileo Galilei after the Roman goddess of dawn, Aurora, and the Greek god of the north wind, Boreas. While Galileo was brilliant in so many ways, he had the misconception that the auroras he saw were due to sunlight reflecting from the atmosphere. It wasn’t until 1902-1903 that Kristian Birkeland, a Norwegian physicist, concluded from his “terrella experiment” that auroral light was caused by currents flowing through the gas of the upper atmosphere.

 

Goose Adoption by Trumpeter Swans?

            Trumpeter swans are well-known for being quite aggressive to other waterfowl that have the audacity to land in their territory. I’ve watched a trumpeter launch off the water like a giant white fighter plane and zero in on a few geese who were minding their own business on the other side of a lake, but who now took off in panic and were not to be seen again. The trumpeter with its seven-to-eight-foot wingspan is the largest waterfowl in North America, and an aggressive one presents a truly frightening spectacle to an intruder.

            Male trumpeter swans are most aggressive when their mates are incubating eggs. In one study, male trumpeters were responsible for 92% of the goose chases, while males and females chased the same number of ducks. Males also chased common ravens, ospreys, belted kingfishers, and even a bear, a beaver, and a moose.

photo by Bev Engstrom

            On the other hand, after nesting season, foraging swans are often accompanied by other waterfowl, including geese and most ducks. 

            I bring all this up because I received a call from Terri Ross on the Manitowish River who has been watching a Canada goose foraging with a flock of trumpeters both late last fall, and now this spring. Since trumpeters are just now returning to our area and are not yet on nest, I’ll be curious to see if the goose continues to be tolerated by the swans. If so, we may have a goose that was adopted by a swan family - but time will tell. 

            I’ve received several calls and emails in early March from folks informing me that trumpeters have returned to the open creeks or rivers near them. They are truly early migrants, and some even winter-over here without migrating, so it’s not surprising they are returning this early.            

            If you don’t know the inspiring restoration story of trumpeters, in 1929, the National Park Service began a survey to determine the population status of trumpeters and found 31 swans in Yellowstone Park in Wyoming, 26 on the Red Rock Lakes in the Centennial Valley of Montana, and 12 others in the surrounding region. Only 69 individuals were thus known to exist in the contiguous United States, though unrecorded flocks also inhabited parts of Alaska and Canada. Trumpeters nested in Wisconsin until the late 1880s when they were extirpated.

            That was it, and ornithologists had little hope for their continuing existence in the lower 48 states.

            In response, in 1935, Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge was created in Montana to protect the small remnant there. 

            Over decades and through an array of concerted efforts to reintroduce trumpeters into their original range, the interior population recovered, with 3,700 counted in 1968, and by 2015, more than 63,000. However, trumpeters are still missing from nearly two thirds of their original range.

            In Wisconsin, over 6,000 were counted in 2019, while Minnesota boasts over 30,000!

 

Migration Beginning!

            Mary and I were in Madison from March 8-11, and sandhill cranes were pouring in along with robins and red-winged blackbirds, as well as a host of waterfowl species. 

sandhill crane and mallards photo by Bev Engstrom

            In typically snow-covered Manitowish, on average, we see our first robins and red-wings around the spring equinox on March 21, while various species of waterfowl, in particular Canada geese, are also trickling in wherever open water presents itself.

            Of course, I need to note that I’m writing this on Sunday, March 12, while watching another 10 or more inches of snow that have fallen overnight and throughout the day. It’s been a very warm but very snowy winter, and continues to be. We should have quite a potential for flooding if a spring melt occurs rapidly. 

            It’s admittedly very hard this time of year to look out the window and perceive the snowfall as beautiful. But as the saying goes, “If you choose not to find joy in the snow, you will have less joy in your life but still the same amount of snow.” So, do the best you can to find whatever pleasure you can in it. It’s always a long winter up here, and we’re called to honor it.

 

Celestial Events - Spring (or Vernal) Equinox!

            The March equinox marks the sun’s crossing above the Earth’s equator, moving from south to north. Surprisingly, the sun rises due east and sets due west at the equinox no matter where you live on Earth. But even though spring equinox shows up on our calendars on March 20, we actually experience equal times of day and night a few days earlier on March 17.

 

Other Celestial Events

            The new moon occurs on 3/21. Look after dusk on 3/22 for Jupiter just above the waxing sliver of a moon. And then on 3/24, look after dusk for Venus just above the moon.

            We hit nearly 12½ hours of sunlight as of 3/26.

 

Thought for the Week

            “Watch birds for a while, and you see that different species do even the most mundane things in radically different ways. We give a nod to this variety in expressions we use to describe our own extreme behaviors. We are owls or larks, swans or ugly ducklings, hawks or doves, good eggs or bad eggs. We snipe and grouse and cajole, a word that comes from the French root meaning “chatter like a jay.” We are dodos or chickens or popinjays or proud as peacocks. We are stool pigeons and sitting ducks. Culture vultures. Vulture capitalists. Lovebirds. An albatross around the neck. Off on a wild goose chase. Cuckoo. We are naked as a jaybird or in full feather. Fully fledged, empty nesters, no spring chicken. We are early birds, jailbirds, rare birds, odd birds.” – Jennifer Ackerman in The Bird Way