A Northwoods Almanac for October 27 – November 9 , 2023

 A Northwoods Almanac for October 27 – November 9 , 2023   

Sightings: Common Mergansers, Snow Buntings, White-crowned Sparrows, Dark-eyed Juncos, American Robins, Blackbirds, Golden Tamaracks

Sondra Katzen shared some photos of nearly two dozen migrating common mergansers enjoying a stopover on Oxbow Lake in Presque Isle in mid-October. Migrating waterfowl numbers peak in late October to mid- November as they head south.

photo by Sondra Katzan

On 10/16 while out on Powell Marsh, Mary and I saw our first flock of snow buntings on their southward migration. Keep an eye out along roadsides for a flock of birds that are distinctive for their black and white markings in flight – no other small birds has such big white wing patches.

            As of 10/20, white-crowned sparrows and dark-eyed juncos continue as the most numerous species appearing at our sunflower seed feeders. White-crowned sparrows most commonly nest at or near the tree line in the far reaches of Canada and Alaska, so they’ve already made a long flight by the time they reach our feeders.

dark-eyed junco photo by Bev Engstrom

            Robins have found their way to our property, too late to eat all of our mountain ash berries – the cedar waxwings beat them to those – but chowing down now on our crabapple crop. Hopefully, they’ll move on soon, leaving a good portion of the crabapples for the pine grosbeaks and bohemian waxwings we hope to attract to our yard  this winter.

            And finally in bird news, large mixed flocks of blackbirds– starlings, grackles, red-winged blackbirds, and rusty blackbirds – are wheeling their way through our area as they head south, too.

In the plant world, tamaracks are at peak smoky gold as of 10/20, and will soon be dropping their needles. Tamarack is an Algonquin word for “wood used for snowshoes.” The wood is flexible yet tough, and lent itself well to this use in northern regions where ash, another wood commonly used for snowshoe making, wasn’t readily available.

Mary’s grandfather, John Nutter, whose home we live in now in Manitowish, logged in this area in the 1920s, and talked of cutting loads of tamarack for shoring up mines in the U.P. The flexible wood could give a little without breaking when the mine soils shifted.

 

Leopold’s “The Last Stand” – The Porcupine Mountains

            Mary and I recently hiked and camped for three days in the Sylvania Wilderness Area and the following week for another three days in the Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park. These are the two best sites left in all of the Upper Midwest for old-growth upland forest, and for tree nerds like us, they offer a bit of heaven.

44" dbh eastern hemlock

            The “Porkies” contain 35,000 acres of remnant old-growth hemlock-hardwoods, by far the largest stand (Sylvania includes about 15,000 acres of remnant old-growth). For comparison, in Wisconsin, we don’t even have one square mile (640 acres) of remnant upland old-growth. So, that begs the question of how the Porkies got saved. 

It was a concerted effort by many people over a long period. In the early 1920s, P.J. Hoffmaster, the first chief of state parks in Michigan, identified the Porcupine Mountains as a location for a possible state park. In 1928, a petition was then made for the area to become a national park, but the Great Depression stalled the talks, and the advent of World War II effectively halted park development across the nation. Fearing loss of the virgin forest, in 1940, Raymond Dick organized the “Save the Porcupine Mountains Association” to protect the property from commercial mining and logging, and to preserve it as a park. 

But with the beginning of World War II, immense pressure came to bear to cut the remaining forest to support the war effort. And here Aldo Leopold stepped in with an essay in 1942 he titled “The Last Stand.” He wrote, “Sometime in 1943 or 1944, an axe will bite into the snowy sapwood of a giant maple. On the other side of the same tree, a  crosscut saw will talk softly, spewing sweet sawdust into the snow with each repetitious syllable. Then the giant will lean, groan, and crash to earth: the last merchantable tree of the last merchantable forty of the last virgin hardwood forest of any size in the Lake States. With this tree will fall the end of an epoch . . . 

“There will be and end of cathedral aisles to echo the hermit thrush, or to awe the intruder. There will be an end of hardwood wilderness large enough for a few day’s skiing or hiking without crossing a road. The forest primeval, in this region, will henceforward be a figure of speech . . .  

“Finally, there will be an end of the best schoolroom for foresters to learn what remains to be learned about hardwood forestry: the mature hardwood forest. We know little, and we understand only part of what we know.”

His essay continues at length to extoll the many virtues of conserving this last large slice of pre-European forest, and apparently it played its part. In 1944, the Michigan State Park Division began the acquisition of an area in the Porcupine Mountains for its scenic value, public recreation and for the preservation of a part of the last remaining large stand of virgin hardwood-hemlock forest in Michigan. The Michigan Legislature then, in an extra session, appropriated $1 million dollars for the acquisition, and that same year, the state purchased 46,000 acres.

            Today the Porkies are the largest of Michigan’s state parks, encompassing over 59,000 acres, of which 35,000 acres are old-growth. Most of the park is legally designated as a Wilderness Area and is recognized as a National Natural Landmark.

 

Try This Quiz

On 9/28, the Wisconsin Senate’s Committee on Financial Institutions and Sporting Heritage voted 3-2 to reject four of Gov. Tony Evers’ five Natural Resource Board nominees, apparently because they didn’t like their responses on wolf management. So, they fired them.

Why all the hullabaloo about wolves by the Senate? Is it a crisis like one committee member who said the nominees didn’t recognize “the devastation that wolves have done to people of the 29th district”?

Well, the DNR had received 31 verified complaints of wolf depredations by the end of July this year, affecting 18 producers. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported Wisconsin saw the lowest number of farms with wolf conflicts in 15 years. 

So, the math says something quite different.

Then on 10/17, the Senate advanced a bill to require the DNR to set a strict statewide population goal for wolves. This was done in response to the state’s proposed wolf management plan that seeks to maintain the state’s population level at a flexible goal of 800 to 1,200 wolves. It’s important to note that the plan refers to the numbers as a guidance rather than a fixed goal.

Why a flexible goal? And why have it be a guidance that could potentially allow additional flexibility? Simple. Conditions change from year to year, and any agency, or business for that matter, needs the ability to adapt their management to inevitable changes that may be larger than one can anticipate. Think Covid as an example of a human issue that required extraordinary adaptive measures.

Management rules and regs change every year for nearly every species of wildlife that is hunted or fished. This is normal. Expected. Rational. Why? Because populations go up and down based on changes in habitat, weather extremes, over or under harvesting, etc. 

Back to the reputed “devastation.” A fellow writer recently put out a quiz for folks to test their knowledge on the actual impacts of various predators in our state – see how you do:

Question 1: Rank bears, bobcats, coyotes, wolves and two-legged hunters by the deer they killed in the Northwoods during 2020.

Answer: Humans killed about 54,000 Northwoods deer that year; followed by coyotes, 36,000; bears, 27,000; bobcats, 22,800; and wolves, 18,000. In other words, wolves claimed 11.4% of that deer kill. 

Question 2: Rank deer, elk, bears, turkeys, geese and wolves for their percentage of the  appraised $1.5-plus million in agricultural property damage inflicted in Wisconsin in 2022. 

Answer: Deer caused 71% of those damages, followed by bears, 10%; geese, 8%; elk, 4%; wolves, 4%; and turkeys, 3%. 

Question 3: Which large predator caused the most nuisance complaints in Wisconsin during 2022?

Answer: The DNR handled 872 complaints involving black bears last year, and it trapped and relocated 109 of them. The agency handled three “human safety/nuisance” complaints involving wolves. 

Question 4: Which animal kills more North Americans, wolves or black bears?

Answer: Since 1900, wolves have killed four people and black bears, 79. Two of the wolves were rabid. No wolf attack on a human has been confirmed in Wisconsin in modern history.

Question 5: What do Wisconsinites in wolf range want for wolf numbers?

 Answer: A DNR sociological study in 2022 found more Northwoods support for wolves than against: 33% of wolf-range residents wanted the same wolf numbers as recent years, 27% wanted fewer, 22% wanted more or many more, 12% said “I don't know”, and 7% wanted zero.

            So, to recap:

            Wolves are not the main predator of deer. It’s people, coyotes, bears, bobcats, then wolves.

            Deer cause 71% of all the agricultural property damage in Wisconsin. Wolves 4%.

            Black bears are by far the major source of human/nuisance complaints in WI.

            Wolves are a very small concern for human safety.

            Finally, most people in the Northwoods feel fine about their current population, and thus do not agree that wolves are “devastating” our life here in the North. 

 

Celestial Events

            The full moon, variously known as The Hunter’s Moon, the Changing Season Moon, or the Falling Leaves moon – occurs on 10/28.

For planet-watching in November, look after dusk for Jupiter in the east and Saturn in the south-southeast. Before dawn, look for Venus brilliant in the southeast.

On 11/5 look before dawn for the peak South Taurid Meteor Shower.

November 7 marks the mid-point between autumn equinox and winter solstice.

 

Thought for the Week

“Above all, do not lose your desire to walk. Every day, I walk myself into a state of well-being and walk away from every illness.” – Søren Kierkegaard

 

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.