A Northwoods Almanac for 8/2- 8/15/2024 by John Bates
World’s Most Productive Loon Breeds Again
From the Seney National Wildlife Refuge: “Fe, the oldest documented Common Loon, hatched two chicks last week . . . the young were, at minimum, Fe’s 41st and 42nd offspring, extending her record for the species. Most of her prior chicks were begot with her long-term consort, ABJ, during their quarter-century partnership, but since their split in spring 2022, Fe has produced young in two of three breeding seasons. Prior to first coupling with ABJ in 1997, she hatched at least seven chicks with a color-marked male known as Dewlap.
“The qualifiers attending Fe’s age and lifetime productivity are necessitated by her initial banding in 1990 as a successful mother, when she was at least four years old, the threshold for Common Loon reproduction. As her earlier life history in the 1980s is a mystery, Fe could well be older than 38, and with more than 42 progeny to her credit.
“One of Fe’s 2024 young perished, from an unknown cause, within days of hatching . . . of the roughly one in five [loon chicks] who do not live to fledge from Seney in the fall, most disappear early, when as downy buoyant corks they are most vulnerable to predators and other antagonists . . . Across 35 years of monitoring Fe has – assuming her second chick makes it to autumn – fledged 86% of her offspring.”
Stable Wolf Population in Michigan’s U.P. Over Last 14 Years
The 2024 winter wolf population survey estimate from the Michigan DNR found a minimum of 762 wolves in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. “This year’s survey findings are statistically consistent with our wolf population surveys for the past 14 years,” said Brian Roell, the DNR’s large carnivore specialist. “When a wild population reaches this stable point, it is typical to see slight variations from year to year, indicating that gray wolves may have reached their biological carrying capacity in the Upper Peninsula.”
In other words, Michigan’s U.P. wolf population has achieved an equilibrium between availability of habitat and the number of wolves that habitat can support over time.
Wild Roses, Boneset and Spotted Joe-Pye-Weed
I paddled Upson Lake in northern Iron County on 7/20 and was impressed by the abundance of wild roses along much of the shoreline. Mid-to-late July offers three of the most beautiful wildflower fragrances in the Northwoods: Wild rose, common milkweed, and spreading dogbane. Walking by an abundance of any of these with a slight wind to dance the perfume your way and that’s about as close to heaven as one can get.
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| Wild rose, photo by John Bates |
I also spied an array of boneset along a beaver dam that was holding back about three feet of water on the lake, water that is on its way down a short unnamed creek into the Potato River. Boneset (Eupatorium perfoliatum) has always intrigued me because of its name. Was it really somehow used in the treatment of broken bones? In Mary Siisip Geniusz’s remarkable book Plants Have So Much to Give Us, All We Have to Do Is Ask, she states that “boneset’s chief virtue is that it is specific to the periosteum tissue around the outside of a bone. When a bone is broken, this tissue may be cut. For the bone to regrow properly, this tissue has to be mended, and this plant helps the body do that.”
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| boneset, photo by John Bates |
John Eastman in his book Swamp and Bog writes, “It reportedly became one of the most effective relief medicines during nineteenth-and early twentieth-century flu epidemics.” And it was used a treatment for “breakbone” fever, now called dengue fever, which was characterized by severe pain in the joints.
Boneset is also known as “shield and lance plant” because of the way the leaves appear to be pierced by the stalk, the stalk acting as a “lance” to pierce the leaf’s “shield.” See the photo.
Joe-Pye-weed (Eutrochium maculatum) got its name as the Anglicized version of an Algonquian medicine man named Zhopai who used a combination of Joe-Pye and boneset to cure typhoid fever (read the full story of Zhopai in Plants Have So Much to Give Us, All We Have to Do Is Ask). Joe-Pye usually rises six or more feet tall on wetland edges and produces 9 to 22 tiny pink to purple flowers in a flat-topped cluster.
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| Joe-Pyne weed, photo by John Bates |
Eastman notes that numerous Native American tribes “regarded the flowers as good-luck charms, especially effective for winning at gambling.” So, next time you head off to the casino to lose your mortgage money, try taking a bouquet of Joe-Pye along and see if that helps. You never know!
The Invisible Present
UW Limnologist John Magnuson coined the phrase “the invisible present” to describe how we’re often unable to make sense of the present if we don’t have accurate data from the past. He was referencing environmental changes that happen outside of speeds and timeframes that go unperceived: A glacier retreating, a river or lake slowly losing fish, effects of DDT on songbirds, forests changing, loons declining, and on and on.
Because our time scale is so short – our lifetime – and our memories are so fallible, we are limited in our ability to notice changes, and even more limited in interpreting cause-and-effect relationships. The changes are hidden to us – they’re invisible.
Magnuson said in order to make the present visible, we need accurate historical memory via long-term research, and the longer, the better. The longest continuous environmental record in the world is of the flowering date of cherry trees in Kyoto, Japan. From 812 AD to the present, 1212 years of data, the cherry blossom time series shows the average peak bloom date was relatively stable for about 1,000 years, from about 812 to 1800. But then, the peak bloom dates slope abruptly downward, revealing a shift earlier and earlier in the spring. In 2023, the peak cherry blossom happened on 25 March — the earliest date since recording began.
Here in the Northwoods, Magnuson, along with many other scientists, was trying to answer broad questions like what is normal for a lake? What are average water levels, dissolved oxygen, various nutrient concentrations, fish populations, etc.?
All of us non-scientists ask the same sort of questions: Weren’t there more birds at my feeders last year? It seems rainier this year – is it? Is it rainier than a decade ago? Boy, the mosquitoes are terrible – are they worse than ever? What about ticks – were they even here 20 years ago? Seems like there were more fish here a decade ago – is that true?
The problem with most scientific research is that it’s on a 3-year grant cycle for someone’s PhD or on the length that meets the requirements of a grant funder. A short timeframe is only a snapshot, and incapable of answering long-term questions. For instance, water levels are still high on lots of lakes in our area – is that normal? Well, yes! UW Trout Lake Limnology Lab has long-term data on lake levels showing that on average we go through 13-year cycles of high and low water (see the graph). We had very low water levels beginning in the early 2000s through 2012, but then our precipitation increased and water levels quickly shot back up. The result has been a dieback of many shoreline shrubs and trees, and an alteration of emergent and submergent aquatic vegetation that isn’t adapted to such continuous high water.
Bottom line: We can’t understand historical change nor predict future change without long-term research. Without it, it’s like trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle without the reference picture.
Swamp Candles, A Native Loosestrife
Swamp candles or bog loosestrife (Lysimachia terrestris) has come abundantly into flower, lighting up many wetland edges. Unlike purple loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria) which often completely takes over a wetland, swamp candles are native and have no aspirations to conquer their plant neighbors.
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| Swamp candles, photo by John Bates |
Herein is the problem with common names. The two species are unrelated. A rose may be a rose by any other name, but not so with loosestrifes.
The name Lysimachia was given in honor of Lysimachus, a bodyguard to Alexander the Great. Legend has it the Lysimachus pacified a raging bull by waving a branch of loosestrife in front of it, the plant being known for its calming properties over 2,000 years ago.
According to more recent folklore, swamp candles were still said to have soothing powers over animals, leading people to tie a branch of the plant to the yoke of oxen to make them easier to handle.
July 21 and 22 Were The Hottest Days Ever Recorded on Earth
Global temperatures hit the highest levels in recorded history on Sunday, July 21, and then were bested on July 22. On those days, triple-digit temperatures in the western United States fueled out-of-control wildfires, while around much of Antarctica, temperatures were as much as 22 degrees Fahrenheit above normal.
The historic days come on the heels of 13 straight months of unprecedented temperatures and the hottest year scientists have ever seen. The average temperature for the year is almost certain to exceed 2.7 Fahrenheit above preindustrial levels – surpassing what scientists say is the threshold for tolerable warming.
Celestial Events
For planet watching in August, look after dusk for Venus very low in the west-northwest and Saturn rising in the east-southeast. Look before dawn for Mars and Jupiter both high in the southeast.
The new moon occurs on 8/4.
The midway point between summer solstice and autumn equinox takes place on 8/6.
The famous Perseid Meteor Shower averages 60 meteors per hours and occurs from 8/10 to 8/13 with the peak during the predawn on the 12th. The meteors are colorful, frequently leave persistent trains, and tend to strengthen in number as late night deepens into the wee hours before dawn, so make a point of getting up early. The shower is often best just before dawn.
On 8/14, look for Mars just north of Jupiter in the early morning hours.
Thought for the Week
“Everything depends, of course, on whether you think landscape is dead matter or whether you think it is a living presence.” – John O’Donahue
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