NWA 1/8/16

A Northwoods Almanac for 1/8 – 1/21/2016 

Ice-Up – Finally!

            The Manitowish River below our home iced-up on 12/29, a very late date for the river. I had thought I might be able to paddle on New Year’s Day, but thankfully, no. 

            As for the late ice-up on many of our lakes, Foster Lake in Hazelhurst finally froze on 12/28. Woody Hagge sent me a summary of the 40 years of data (1976-2015) that he has collected on Foster. This year’s 12/28 ice-up is eight days later than the previous latest ice-up date – 12/20/1998. The 12/28 date is 32 days later than the average ice-up date of November 26. As result, the 40-year average ice-up date for Foster moved 0.8 days to November 27. At 39-acres with a maximum depth of 38 feet, Foster Lake is broadly representative of many of the modest-sized lakes in our area, though there are many other factors influencing ice-up beyond the size and depth of a lake.

Woody noted that Foster had 265 days of open water in 2015 from ice-out (April 7) to ice-up (Dec. 28), a startling 41 more days of open water than the average. That moved the 40-year average days of open water one full day to 224.6 days.

            Trout Lake, the largest natural lake in our area at 3,816 acres and 117 feet of maximum depth, iced-up on 1/4, the latest date since they began keeping records in 1981.

Wolves and Moose on Isle Royale

            The wolf population on Isle Royale has completely collapsed. Three wolves were counted as of September 2015, one of which was a pup that had so far survived to the age of eight months, but which was visibly deformed. The other two were middle-aged or older adults, likely mated, and both closely related.

            For wolf haters, this is good news. For the actual community of life on the island, it’s terrible news. Wolf predation has been minimal since 2012, and the two prey species that wolves depend on have responded by rapidly growing in population. The number of moose has doubled to 1,250 in 2015, while active beaver colonies have also doubled. At what point these populations exceed their carrying capacity and crash from starvation is unknown.

Prey species need predators – plain and simple and undebatable. Unless, of course, one approves of decimation of the food base – balsam fir in the case of moose, and a wide array of tree and shrub species for beavers – with the resulting coup de grâce of starvation when the moose and beaver overwhelm their range.

            The issue of whether to import wolves onto the island remains in limbo. The National Park Service has begun an Environmental Impact Study (EIS) which won’t be completed for at least two more years. The issue has high stakes because Isle Royale is the last place on Earth with a forested ecosystem, a wolf population, and moose population, none of which are exploited by humans.

While moose are thriving on Isle Royale, they are declining precipitously on the Minnesota mainland. Since 2006, the number of moose in Minnesota is down roughly 60 percent from a high of 8,840. An aerial survey by the state Department of Natural Resources puts the number of moose in Minnesota at 3,450 – down about 20 percent from 2014 but above the tally from 2013, the year the agency halted hunting of the animal.           

              On the mainland, moose have been dying due to a number of causes. Moose fall prey to wolves and bears, but there’s no indication that their predation has grown. Instead a tiny predator may be more the cause. Brainworm, a nematode parasite carried by deer but not harmful to the deer, has expanded into Minnesota’s moose territory. One-third of the adult moose radio-collared by the Lake Superior Band of Chippewa on their Grand Portage reservation have died of brainworm.

Studies have also connected winter moose deaths to a warming climate. Moose are highly sensitive to heat, and when it’s hot in the summer, they tend to lie in cool damp places and pant instead of eating, resulting in a weakened animal going into the winter.

              Another mortality factor is winter ticks, which attach themselves in late fall, then feast on the moose throughout the winter. Large infestations, which can reach as many as 50,000 on a single animal, can kill a moose. The moose scratch off their fur when trying to remove the ticks and get hypothermia.

              In New England, it’s much the same story. In 2014, the winter tick outbreak was so bad that more than half of the 22 collared moose calves in New Hampshire died. In Maine, 22 of 30 calves collared that year died, as well as ten adults, which are usually hardier than young animals. Sadly, 2015 has been more of the same. In Maine, 21 of the 35 moose calves collared by scientists are dead.         In New Hampshire, all but 7 of the 27 moose calves collared are dead. So far, all but one of the dead moose studied in New Hampshire and Maine have been infested with ticks with many also suffering from anemia due to blood loss.

December Weather

            This December was warm and dark. WJFW in Rhinelander reported that only three days out of the entire month were partly sunny or sunny. December was also the warmest month on record since 1887 in Milwaukee, and the second warmest for Madison.

             The abnormal warmth has impacted birdlife. More birds that normally migrate south have been hanging around the Northwoods. Ryan Brady in Bayfield reported on 1/1 that three gray catbirds have been seen in the area, along with a brown thrasher, a horned lark, a red-winged blackbird, and a Harris’s sparrow. It may be that a few individuals every year are sick/injured/unfit in some manner or another and are unable to migrate. In normal winter years, they would have died by now, but with our unusual warmth, perhaps these few have been able to live longer into the winter.

Celestial Events

            January 7^th marked the last day of our latest sunrises. The sunrise in Minocqua had been stalled at 7:40 a.m. for 12 days, but today, 1/8, the sun rose one minute earlier, the first time since June 11^th. Back then it appeared at 4:08 a.m. (5:08 using daylight savings time), and stalled for 11 days until 6/20 when it began rising one minute later. So, it has been nearly six months since we’ve seen the sun rising earlier every day! By 1/13, our days will be growing in length by two minutes per day – get out the sunglasses!

            Today, 1/8, look later in the evening for Venus stacked right on top of Saturn. Pre-dawn on 1/9 may be easier viewing – look in the low southeast. As for planet viewing in January, look after dusk for Jupiter rising in the east. Before dawn, look for Venus, Mars, and Saturn, all low in the southeast.

            The period from 1/6 to 1/26 marks Minocqua’s average coldest days of the year, combining the average coldest high temperatures (21°) with the average coldest low temperatures (3°).

            The new moon occurs on 1/9.

           

Christmas Bird Counts

            Christmas bird counts were conducted in Minocqua on 12/17 and in Manitowish Waters on 12/19. The surprise for both counts was the exceptional amount of open water we encountered. But even with so many lakes and rivers open, nearly all waterfowl had left for the comparatively balmy south. The Minocqua counters did find a large flock of common mergansers with a few hooded mergansers and mallards sprinkled in. And a small flock of Canada geese were resting below the Rest Lake Dam on the Manitowish River, but that was it for waterfowl.

photo by Jim Schumaker

            The Minocqua count garnered 27 species, the Manitowish Waters count 22 species, fairly typical numbers for our area. The biggest surprise for the MW count was a yellow-bellied sapsucker, while the Minocqua counters found some pine siskins, which are quite rare this winter, at least so far.

Our oldest daughter, Eowyn, lives in San Diego and mentioned that a Christmas count there garnered a mere 220 species, the fourth-most diverse count of more than 2,400 recorded in the western hemisphere. Humane soul that she is, she didn’t rub it in too badly. But if anyone needed some quantifiable data on the difference for wildlife between a winter in the Northwoods of Wisconsin and a winter along the Pacific Ocean near the Mexican border, there you have it.

            This was the 116^th year of Christmas bird counts. In 2014, 2462 count circles were covered; 1888 in the United States, 460 in Canada, and 114 in the Caribbean, Latin America, Bermuda, and the Pacific Islands. 72,653 people participated, with 62,211 in the field and 10,442 watching feeders.

A total of 2106 species were counted, roughly one-fifth of the avian taxa on Earth. In the United States, 655 species were tallied – Matagorda County-Mad Island Marsh in Texas led the way with 234 species. The Super Bowl winner, however, was a count circle in Yanayacu, Ecuador, where a mind-boggling 529 species were counted. For comparison, in Wisconsin, 109 counts were conducted, with a count circle in Madison the high at 92 species.

Sightings

            Pine and evening grosbeaks have been very hard to find so far this winter – we’ve yet to see a single one. However, Lauri and Mitch Myers in Mercer have both species at their feeders, while Sarah Krembs in Manitowish Waters had several pine grosbeaks appear at her feeders on 12/27. She sent me some fine pictures of both genders.

photo by Sarah Krembs

            Donna Stone sent a photo of a red-headed woodpecker that appeared at her feeders near Rhinelander on 1/3. Red-headed woodpeckers remain very uncommon in our area and are a blessing to be seen during the winter.

photo by Donna Stone

Reflections

“I suspect that the mind, like the feet, works at about three miles an hour. If this is so, then modern life is moving faster than the speed of thought, or thoughtfulness.” – Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: A History of Walking

NWA 12/25/15

A Northwoods Almanac for 12/25/15 – 1/7/16  

Around Christmas and into the New Year, we are asked to think more deeply about what really matters to us, what it is we wish to honor, and then to commit ourselves to actions. I wrote the following essay while thinking about how blessed we are to live in this area, and what our obligations are to reciprocate that blessing.

Landcestors

Scottish, Welsh, English, German, French, Dutch – McPherson, Montgomery, Baetz, Suydam, Dugdale, Holcombe, Michaux, and a blizzard of other names – that’s me. Basically, I’m a mutt. To be sure, such thorough blending in America isn’t unusual, but it can leave one feeling not without a country, but like someone without a culture. I’m continually envious of those who can trace their lineage back along a relatively clear path (though there’s always a rogue uncle or aunt who went “off course”). I’ve no clear ancestral celebrations or festivals that I can attend every year, no cultural songs to sing, dances to dance, art to make, architecture to visit, recipes to repeat. All in all, I have little to reconnect to and no real cultural values to embrace. Unless, of course, I wish to follow them all, in which case I would be a multi-house-divided and not home much.

To add further sand to my cultural desert, I have no particularly strong religious lines – I’m not Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, or even Christian – so I can’t honor Ramadan, have a bar mitzvah, revel in Buddha Day, or even truly appreciate Easter with a sense of “those are my people.” We went to four different churches when I was young, and by the time I left for college, we ended up in the fifth – agnostic. I now define myself as “spiritual,” which offers, like my ancestry, traditions galore, but no binding path.

I fell into the American melting pot, or at least all of my ancestors did. I’m diced into so many pieces that I’m like a conglomerate rock, a bunch of cultural debris loosely cemented together. The choice from there is whether I wish to continue to be randomly stuck together with other cultural bits in a disharmony, a jumble of fractured pieces, or if I want to find a way to become a fusion, an integration of those pieces.

For that integration to happen, however, we mutts need a touchstone, a way to connect to a personal lineage.

I think I’ve found a way. In a conversation, Tim Fox, an archaeological technician in the Oregon Cascades, called himself a “landescendant” of the area in which the Kalapuya Indians lived near his home in McKenzie Bridge, Oregon. I was struck powerfully by the term. Tim felt the way I did as a European mutt – he described himself as a culturally lost soul. But he believed there was another way to be personally connected to the past which didn’t require a bloodline linkage to the people who had lived there. His love of his home ground, his fascination with the historic use of the land, gave him what he called the sense of being a “landescendant.” He was linked to the past, and all the ancestral people who had lived there, via his reverence for the land itself. They all shared a common home and an honoring of the land.

Tim said this while we were standing at the junction of two creeks on an ancient campsite of the Kalapuya, a fact he discerned by the evidence on the ground – shards of jet black obsidian. The chips came from someone who had made tools from the obsidian, a volcanic glass that can be fractured into exceptionally sharp blades, a material so valued that the various tribes traded for it up and down the West Coast and even into the Midwest. Why the flakes were there and not somewhere else was historical speculation, but by reading topographical maps, Tim knew that an obsidian cliff-face was twenty miles away. The easiest way for the Indians to get there from their home in the Willamette Valley would have been to follow these creeks up to the ridgelines where the trees would be thinner and walking more effortless. He held the chips out to us and said, “Hold an artifact in your hand, you have a short story. Leave it on the ground, you have an epic novel – you have the interaction of people and place.”

He then went on to explain many of those interactions – what the Kalapuya ate, how they hunted, what they wore, how they collected plants.

We all want to be part of such an epic novel. We want connections to a line of people, as well as to the contours of land and water. As a mutt, my blended past may have its own epic qualities, but my story lacks a binding thread, an overall weave. Giving yourself to a place, marrying it, pledging your life to it, brings one into a long line of people who enacted their love for the same land. One joins a circling tradition of storytellers and explorers, seekers and seers, believers and doers.

Tim’s work in the archaeology of the McKenzie River area places him in that circle, as I hope does my work as a naturalist in the Northwoods of Wisconsin. I try to live as closely as I can to the traditions of knowing the plants and animals, their habits, life histories, interconnections, interdependencies, and future possibilities. While Tim and I don’t directly depend on these species for sustaining our lives’ physical needs as our landcestors did, we still feel a powerful connection to the land and a profound desire to be a part of the natural community of life.

I belong here, tied to Wisconsin’s Northwoods, because of the relationships I have tried to create with the land and the water, the plants and the animals. Though an Ojibwe or Sioux may still have very mixed emotions about my European presence on what was their ancestral land and water, I hope they can see me instead as a “landescendant,” by dint of my love for this place, too. I work every day to honor this place and all those who came before me on this land, a fact I don’t think is lost on the ancestors of this site.

The Native tribes and I may not share a bloodline, but we share a landline, a riverline, a birdline, a treeline, a deerline.

I joyfully jump into this melting pot of landescendants, and bid all others who live in a place they love, too, to make their leap. To love a place deeply, peacefully, consciously, as intertwined and integrated as we can be whatever our genetics, can be a tradition that we begin now and can carry on. While our bloodlines may appear to separate us, there are other lines by which we can live in unity, lines by which we can find common ground as humans tossed together in a time and place.

As a mutt, the landescendant line avails itself to me if I invest the time and love to earn it. Then, perhaps, I may be someone who becomes a worthy ancestor to generations of landescendants to come.

NWA 12/11/15

A Northwoods Almanac for 12/11 – 24, 2015

Winter Solstice – 12/21

          Eight hours and 39 minutes. That’s it for sunlight on 12/21. A pittance. This is as far south as the sun ever gets, and thus it’s your longest noontime shadow of the year. Today, all locations south of the equator have day lengths greater than 12 hours while all locations north of the equator have day lengths less than 12 hours.

          It’s all because Earth is tilted on its axis by 23-and-a-half degrees. The tilt of the Earth – not our distance from the sun – is what causes winter and summer. On the solstice, the Northern Hemisphere is leaning the farthest away from the sun for the year.

          The good news, of course, is that on 12/22, the days begin to get incrementally longer, and the nights shorter. But just to confuse the matter a bit, the latest sunrise doesn’t come on the solstice. For mid-northern latitudes, the latest sunrise won’t come until early January. And perhaps you noticed that the earliest sunset time is already occurring – the latest sunset times remain the same from 12/5 – 12/14. On 12/14, then, our sunsets will start getting later.

          One way or another – hooray!

          Hal Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year: “Now we are on the last steep slope of autumn with the winter solstice just ahead. The span of daylight is almost six hours less than it was six months ago . . . The lesser voices are stilled, but the throb of time and change beats beneath the sighing of the wind in the hemlocks and the rush of the wind in the naked maples, the cold and wintry wind. Restless, surging life has retreated to the root, the bulb, the seed and the bud. Life sleeps in the egg, awaiting another spring . . . The wind may howl and roar, but the earth and its insistencies of life whisper of time and eternities.”

Christmas Thoughts

            Oh, what to buy, what to buy. It’s ironic, if not utterly silly, that while I’m never sure what to give to Mary and our two daughters for Christmas, I feel free to offer you advice on what to buy for your loved ones. Such is the power of being the one behind the keyboard.

            Wooden snowshoes (Iverson’s from the U.P.) – I still believe in the wood shoes over the metal shoes. They’re far quieter, and I think, give better flotation in deep snow.

            Subscriptions to magazines that inspire: Orion magazine, Northern Woodlands magazine (from Vermont), and Wisconsin Natural Resources magazine

Books to help you appreciate, and yes, enjoy, winter: Life in the Cold: An Introduction to Winter Ecology by Peter Marchand (now in its 4th Edition) and Winter World: The Ingenuity of Animal Survival by Bernd Heinrich.

Binoculars – good ones. Not hand-me-downs from 1953 that are scratched and weigh a ton. Check Eagle Optics in Middleton, WI, for highest quality, best prices, and best advice.

Spotting Scope – get carried away with seeing things up close! Eagle Optics is your best bet again.

Clothing – all things wool. Try Smart Wool, Ibex, or Ice Breaker clothing. We wear wool every day in the winter - it’s soft, non-scratchy, warm, and looks great.

Old Birds

          The world's oldest known seabird, a female Laysan Albatross, was spotted at the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge on 11/19. She was first banded in 1956 by Chan Robbins, but has since worn multiple bands as each wore away over time. She is estimated to be at least 64 years old, but could actually be older.

            She hasn’t led an easy live either. She has raised as many as 26 chicks over her lifetime. Breeding albatrosses also typically spend about half the year rearing and feeding their young, foraging hundreds of miles out at sea for prey, so that’s a lot of ocean to have explored over 64 years. Midway Atoll NWR is about 1,200 miles northwest of Honolulu and part of the Papahanaumokuakea (say this fast five times) Marine National Monument.

            The albatross isn’t the only one living a long life. Chan Robbins, the ornithologist who first banded it, is now 97 years of age.

            Speaking of old birds, a trumpeter swan first brought to Wisconsin as an egg gathered from a nest in Alaska in 1988, is still with us. Now 27 years old, she is the oldest known trumpeter swan.

Christmas Bird Counts

            The Minocqua Audubon Christmas Bird Count takes place on 12/17, while the Manitowish Waters count takes place on 12/19. The Minocqua CBC has been conducted sporadically in the past, the first time in 1962! The North Lakeland Discovery Center Bird Club began to sponsor the Minocqua CBC in 2006, so this will be the tenth consecutive year for the bird club and eighteenth year over the history of the count. The Manitowish Waters count is now in its 23^rd consecutive year.

            The center for the Minocqua CBC is the intersection of Hwy 51 and 70 West and encompasses all of the area within a 7.5 mile radius of the count center. The center for the Manitowish Waters count is the intersection of Highways 51 and County W and also encompasses an area within a 7.5 mile radius. Birds may only be reported that are observed within the count areas.

            Contact Donna Roche (p-lanz@hotmail.com) if you’re interested in participating in the Minocqua count, and give me a holler (manitowish@centurytel.net) if you’d like to help out on the Manitowish Waters count.

           Donna and I are both looking in particular for people to count the birds visiting their bird feeders on the count days. We’ve found – surprise, surprise – that many birds prefer the good life near people’s feeders in towns or backyards compared to eking out a winter living in the surrounding forests where food is less reliable.

           You don’t need to be an expert on bird identification to participate. It’s really quite easy and warm – counting is done from inside your homes.

            Other counts are taking place around the area. For folks counting in Rhinelander, contact Vanessa Haese-Lehman at 715-369-3708 or markvanlehman@yahoo.com. In the Park Falls area, contact Tom Nicholls at 762-3076 or nicho002@umn.edu. In the Phelps area, contact Bill Reardon at 479-8055 or breardon@nnex.net.

Update on Snowy Owls

            Ryan Brady, avian research scientist for the WDNR, reports that “There has been an incredible drop-off in reports since the atypically large October influx. Roughly 87 Snowies had been tallied across 40 counties in Wisconsin by Nov. 30, but 65 of those came during the Oct. 15-31 period alone. Only a handful of new birds have been reported over the last few weeks. Moreover, repeat sightings of those early-arriving owls have been few.”

           This doesn’t bode well. Ryan notes that “an uptick in reports of rehabbed and dead owls suggests that a high proportion of these birds, mostly juveniles hatched this summer, probably did not survive the journey and died of dehydration or starvation.”

           

Tundra Swans Still on the Mississippi River

            If you’re looking for a wildlife-inspired road trip, consider going to see tundra swans by the thousands. Some 15,000 or so tundras have been reported off Brownsville, MN's, viewing area along the Mississippi with some spilling over into the DeSoto area in WI. The birds typically remain until the river begins to freeze up, which given our warm December so far, may not be for several weeks.

Loons Still Migrating

           Kathy and John Wilke in Phillips wrote to me on 12/2, “We had some excitement on Dardis Lake (east of Phillips) late last Saturday afternoon. The lake had frozen over the night before and a loon either landed or was dropped on the ice by an eagle and could not take off again. Our son-in-law, Peter Maslowski, ran out of the house and chased the eagle off the loon. Our daughter Katie took these pictures. The eagle came back and attempted to land on the loon but the loon held its beak up to protect itself and the eagle left. The loon continued to call for help but we did not want to go out on the thin ice to rescue it. Our grand daughter, Grace, just kept saying, ‘Papa, that loon has to go home and be with it's family.’ We walked back in the house (by this time it was dark) hearing the loon cry for help-very sad. The loon was gone in the morning.”

            Given our very warm November and December with some lakes still open, juvenile loons have hung around in Wisconsin and are still migrating. On 12/7, a birder reported seeing 83 loons on Lake Kegonsa just south of Madison.

Sightings

           Cherie Smith in Lake Tomahawk shared a photo of a lone evening grosbeak visiting her feeders on 11/27. Cherie noted how she had seen flocks of evening grosbeaks when she was a kid, but now we’re lucky to see one or two a winter.

evening grosbeak range map

           We have a female cardinal visiting our feeders. She’s skittish, but we see her nearly every day. We also consistently have Bohemian waxwings eating crabapple right out the window from my office – I’m watching them as I write!

Celestial Events

            Pre-dawn is the time now to see planets. Look for Venus and Mars in the Southeast, and Jupiter high in the south. Saturn will join the crew in the last week of December.

            The peak Geminid meteor shower occurs in the late evening of 12/13 into the early morning of 12/14. The Geminids can produce 50 or more meteors per hour, in an often multi-colored display with most being white, but some yellow, blue, red, and/or green. So, they’re worth a look! They radiate out from the constellation Gemini, near the stars Castor and Pollux.

Please share your outdoor sightings and thoughts: call me at 715-476-2828, drop me an e-mail at manitowish@centurytel.net, or snail-mail me at 4245N Hwy. 47, Mercer, WI.