A Northwoods Almanac for August 6, 2021

 A Northwoods Almanac for August 6 – 19, 2021  by John Bates

 

Storms and Blowdowns

            Last week, some very strong thunderstorms knocked down a lot of trees throughout much of our area. These are always heartbreaking events, because we come to love “our” trees for all that they do for us, from offering shade to beauty to birdlife to even fruits and nuts that we can pick. 

            I’ve written in this column before about the ecological values of blowdowns, but here’s a reminder. We usually describe a major blowdown as a disaster, but portraying a blowdown this way fails to account for the long-term. Individual trees are always dying, and averaged over 100 years, the total mortality of trees in a forest that hasn’t been hit by a massive storm will be very nearly the same as the one that was hit by one. That’s the long view. 

tip-up mound/blowdown photo by John Bates

            Still, a blowdown can take a lot of trees out of a forest. So, does a blowdown decrease the conservation value of a forest? If we narrowly see a forest as merely a collection of old trees, then “yes.” But the answer is “no” if we broadly see a forest as a functionally intact natural ecosystem, a place where all natural processes are at work. Death and life always intermingle dynamically in forests, with some trees perhaps dying young and “too soon” while others may withstand centuries of changes all around them. That’s simply the way of it. 

            This is a hard concept to wrap our arms and hearts around. Seeing huge old trees snapped off after a storm, or uprooted and scattered like straws, feels devastating. The heart hurts, and for a long time. But if we can divorce ourselves from the immediate visual impact, remembering that forests are a complex jumble of young and old and everything in between, and then envision a vibrant future, perhaps we can live more readily with the change. 

            But it will never be easy. The heart always holds sway over the intellect, and so we need to emotionally accept change as best we can, and then ask that our hearts deeply inform our rational thinking. 

            Here’s what my good friend Bob Kovar in Manitowish Waters had to say after the storm last week: “After surviving a thousand windstorms in its thick and leafy lifetime, a huge oak, the Ancient One, fell without a sound in the furious winds of the storm the other night. It is a sad realization when our elders, the most dignified beings among us, the ones stories are written about because even though they have never gone anywhere they somehow have seen IT ALL and survived to tell us and teach us about these things (if we ever take the time to listen), that even these majestic creatures are mortal. On the way down, it grabbed hold of its closest neighbor, the Great Pine, hugging it with such force as it took its last gigantic breaths in the wind and the lightening and the driving rain that the Great Pine came up by its roots trying to save its oldest friend with whom it had shared a million stories of eagles and squirrels and raccoons and full moons and snowstorms and this one family with all their little kids running circles around their feet. During the ceremonial autopsy yesterday morning, I noted the Ancient One had hollowed around the base over the decades, a decay in body that only spoke to the implausible strength of character it must have had to hold up a thousand tons of solid wood for so many decades, so magnificently, without ever uttering one word of complaint.” 

 

Bryozoa

            On 8/1, I paddled a wild lake by the name of “Dry Lake”, which thankfully remains quite wet because Mary and I are leading a paddle trip today, 8/5, for the North Lakeland Discovery Center. Dry Lake has more bryozoa than any other lake I've ever been on. These organisms look like an alien creature, or someone’s brain gone bad, but they indicate good water quality and are utterly harmless. I’ve written about them before, but if you don’t remember, each one is an extremely odd, but fascinating colony of “moss-animals”. The blobs resemble a stiff, clear-gray Jell-O that is actually 99 percent water, and is firm and slimy at the same time to the touch. The surface of the mass is divided into tiny rosettes, each containing 12 to 18 “zooids”, and if you could look through a microscope underwater, you’d see that the zooids have whorls of delicate feeding tentacles that sway slowly in the water and capture food. 

bryozoa - Dry Lake - photo by John Bates

            Massive colonies can be as big as basketballs, although typical sizes are less than a foot. The colonies form on submerged logs, twigs, even wooden dock posts. They feed on small microorganisms, including diatoms and other unicellular algae, and amply demonstrate how amazing, and odd, this world can be.

 

Sightings – Pileateds, Monarchs, Red-headed Woodpeckers, Swimming Eagle

            Gordy Moscinski sent me a photo of a log feeder that he hangs beneath his suet cage to make it easier for pileated woodpeckers to feed. He notes, “I even stuff the holes with suet. The log cut flat on top catches the crumbs or cleans the beak.” 

photo by Gordy Moscinski

            Steve Sash on Pine Lake in the Town of Oma sent me photos of some folks in Oma who are raising monarch butterfly caterpillars. Steve says, “So far as of today, 7/26, they have released 306 adults with the ratio of males to females 54% to 46%. They raise them in a cage to increase survivability of the caterpillars and eggs. Ants seem to like the eggs, parasitic wasps inject eggs into them and kill caterpillars, stinkbugs suck body fluids out of them and who knows what else kill them. Probably 280 of the caterpillars were removed from the 4 foot by 4 foot raised bed patch in their back yard (pictured). That to me is a simply amazing concentration of butterflies. They have been raising them for 3 years.”

            I asked him to describe how they do this, and here’s his response: “The 4'x4' raised bed box is where the milkweeds are growing from which they harvest the caterpillars. A cage that the caterpillars are raised in is from Petco.com. It is called a Zilla Fresh Air Screen habitat for Reptiles (large) ($80). Modifications to the cage have to be made to be successful. A wood lattice should be attached to the top inside of the cage for the caterpillars to hang from when they are making their cocoons. Caterpillars cannot attach to the screen material for some reason. The air holes on the left rear screen needs to be plugged to prevent small caterpillars from escaping. We put water bottles with milkweeds in them to feed them. Milkweed should be fresh and not wilted. Caterpillars removed from swamp milkweed do not do well if their diet is changed from swamp milkweed to the upland milkweed, and we don't recommend taking caterpillars from swamp milkweed.” 

            I’ve attached a couple photos to help everyone picture this.

            Dan Lucas sent me this note: “Yesterday, I observed two red-headed woodpecker young. Wow! Coloration is mottled but you can see the red beginning to appeared on back of head. About 2/3s of full-sized parents. They were plump and appeared healthy. I am not certain but it seems the parents would “hide” seeds in tree crevices for young to find, or the young were following a parent-created “pecked” opening in tree for food?”
            I was curious about Dan’s reference to the parents “hiding” seeds in tree crevices. I wrote about red-headed woodpeckers doing this several months ago, but just as a reminder: Red-headed woodpeckers are “one of only 4 of 198 woodpecker species that commonly store food, and the only woodpecker known to cover stored food with pieces of wood or bark . . . Caches insects (particularly grasshoppers), acorns, and beechnuts, breaking them to fit natural cracks and crevices in posts, in cavities of partially decaying trees, or under patches of raised bark . . . Hammers acorns into crevices so tightly that other animals (e.g., blue jays) cannot remove them.” So, were the parents training the chicks to learn how to store food? Almost certainly.

            Al Toussaint sent me this email on 7/22: “Our neighbor came running over yesterday, worried about the eagle he saw swimming far out from shore here on Lake Alva. The sight was something I have seen before while  fishing in Alaska. The usual cause there was the bird sinking its talons into a fish that was too large for the eagle to get off the water. Unfortunately, here on Alva, it also could have been the result of far too many encounters between eagles and our loon family. However, the too big fish reason appeared to be the case. We motored out to watch the eagle, and it flew off onto a shoreline pine. When we approached the spot where the eagle flew from, we found a large, very white, very dead fish that had sunk to the bottom, its swim bladder likely punctured when bird grabbed it. The encounter ended with eagle spending a good amount of time perched in the tree drying its wings.”
            And Mary Jo Oyer in Mercer sent me this: “I saw this yearling cub when I went out on our deck this evening. It looked like it was pretending to be a bear rug. A few minutes later I didn’t see it through my window, so I went back out, and it was smelling my flowers. I think it could smell the allium, as it smells like an onion. I went back inside and grabbed my camera. It walked by our Packers garden flag as it left. I chuckled and told my husband, “Normally I am a Packers fan, but tonight I love ‘da Bear!” Haha!”

 

photo by Mary Jo Oyer

Celestial Events – The Perseids!

            The Perseid meteor shower runs from August 8 – 14, but peaks on the late evening of the 11^th with the best time from midnight to dawn of the 12^th. They average 60 per hour, or one per minute. Dark skies align well with the meteor shower in 2021, with the new moon occurring on 8/8. The meteors emanate from bits and pieces streaming from Comet Swift-Tuttle, which slam into the Earth’s upper atmosphere at some 130,000 miles per hour.

            So, grab a reclining lawn chair, some blankets, and give yourself an hour of observation, because meteors come in spurts with lots of lulls. Plus, it takes your eyes nearly 20 minutes to become fully adapted to darkness. Finally, give yourself a wide-open sky to observe if you can, because the meteors will be streaking across the sky from many locations. 

 

Wake Boats – Ban Them

Wake boats scour bottom sediments harming plant life and spawning grounds, stir up sediments creating murkier water and reintroducing phosphorous and other nutrients into the water promoting algal blooms, the waves erode shorelines, impact anglers and kayakers and pontooners, and on and on. Rather than continue with all the reasons why wake boats should be banned from all but our very largest and deepest lakes, just go to https://lastwildernessalliance.org. 

The science is robust on this issue. For two comprehensive resources, see: http://www.trpa.org/wp-content/uploads/2010-WI-Dept-of-Natural-Resources_UW-Boats-effects-on-ecosystems. Also see a lengthy report put out by citizens in Presque Isle: https://piwi.us/CMS/files/2021/Condition%20Report_%20Presque%20Isle%20Hazardous%20%20Wake%20Ordinance.pdf. 

            Due to space constraints, I’m going to jump to heart of the matter, which is the “what can be done” question. Towns can enact ordinances banning wake boats. Towns already ban motor boats from many undeveloped lakes in our area, and have enacted ordinances restricting water skiing, jet skis, hours of operation, and more. So, towns should be able to ban wake boats.

The lakes in our area are primarily small and shallow kettle lakes – 88% of Oneida County lakes are less than 25 feet deep, while 50% of Vilas and Oneida County lakes are less than 10 acres. We are also a globally important area for our concentration of lakes, which the Northern Highlands American Legion State Forest says draws 2 million visitors to our area every year.

            Let’s cut to the chase. There’s limits on virtually everything allowed in this world, from speeds on our roads, to zoning laws saying where one can build and in what manner, to allowable air/water/noise pollution, to how much harmful additives can be placed in our food,  etc. There’s a point where someone’s “rights” exceed that which the vast majority are willing to tolerate. When do our responsibilities for protecting these pristine lakes outweigh an individual’s right to do as one pleases? We’re there now.

 

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.

 

A Northwoods Almanac for July 9, 2021

 A Northwoods Almanac for July 9 – 22, 2021  

 

Sightings – Bobcat, Loon Chicks, 

            Bill Draves sent me this note on 6/26: “Canoeing South Branch of the Presque Isle River up from Mallard landing off Highway 64 in national forest. First time seeing a bobcat while canoeing. Seemed about 3 feet long.  Big enough for a little adrenaline rush. Not having been that close before, got out my bear spray and then thought to myself, ‘I really should figure out how to use this sometime.’”  😊

bobcat photo by Bill Draves

            He then added, “First baby loon hatched on Carlin Lake in our 25 years here, out on water today.”

            Speaking of loon chicks, Judith Bloom on Tomahawk Lake wrote on 6/27: “So, of the six nesting pairs I mentioned to you  previously, four now have hatched chicks. Two pairs have hatched 1 each (including the one in the photo) and two pairs have hatched 2 each. For certain one of the other two pairs has not been successful. We have confirmed they are off the nest with no chicks. Interestingly, in that pair we now have a new "Bird #3" identified with bands and confirmed with Walter Piper that is a 5 year old male hatched on Horsehead Lake in 2016. As for the last pair of the six (which is the "new") pair on the lake, we are not certain of their results just yet. So, so far we have six hatched chicks on Tomahawk which is pretty good.”  

loon photo by Judith Bloom

 

Purple Finches

            For the second consecutive year, we have a yard full of purple finches, who are now bringing their chicks to our feeders. We must have close to two dozen individuals, along with a few pine siskins and rose-breasted grosbeaks who are also bringing their young to the feeders. 

            The male purple finches vary somewhat in the intensity of their color, the older males appearing to be more “dipped in raspberry” than the younger males. Apparently, the red pigment comes from a substance called “echinenone,” which is metabolized from many plant sources, but particularly from red fruits.

            A purple finch’s song is complex, rich, and often long-winded. The literature says there are three types of songs in adult males: a Warbling Song, a Territory Song, and a Vireo Song. Look them up if you want to try and distinguish them. Females sing too; in fact, the female song can last 1 to 2 minutes and may be given from the nest. 

            This morning, 7/5, we watched a purple finch chick try its hardest to get an adult to feed him/her, but with no success. I imagine the adults are communicating that it’s time for the  chicks to figure it out for themselves – hunger has a way of doing that.

            BTW, it’s quite common for songbird adults to feed their fledged chicks for several weeks after they’ve left the nest, but there’s still a lot that’s unknown. For example, the authoritative guide on birds in North America is Cornell’s Birds of the World, and for the development of purple finch chicks, it has this to say:

            “Fledge 13–16 days after hatching. Young . . . remain in the vicinity of the nest site during the first week after fledging.”

“Growth - No information.”

“Association With Parents : Both parents feed fledglings for an undetermined duration.”

“Ability To Get Around, Feed, And Care For Self: . . .  ability to care for self is unknown.”

female and male purple finch at our feeders in Manitowish

            I think we sometimes believe that everything is known about our more common species, but that is simply not true as evidenced by the above “no information,” “undetermined,” and “unknown” statements. This quote from Albert Einstein broadens this well beyond our lack of knowledge about even common species: “One thing I have learned in a long life: that all our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike. We still do not know one thousandth of one percent of what nature has revealed to us. It is entirely possible that behind the perception of our senses, worlds are hidden of which we are unaware.”

 

Canada Goose Population Increase Since 1970

            Canada goose populations have certainly soared in recent decades, and not without controversy. A 2014 study documented trends in resident and migrant Canada goose populations in North America from 1970 to 2012 and found that the “overall Canada goose population increased 4.5 fold from 1.26 million in 1970 to 5.69 million in 2012.” Interesting, too was the massive increase in resident, rather than migratory, geese: “Most of this overall increase was due to a 15.6-fold increase in the population of resident geese (from 0.25 to 3.85 million), especially during the 1990s when the population increased at a mean annual rate of 12.7% . . . Resident geese comprised 68% of the total Canada goose population in 2012 compared to 41% in 1990 and 20% in 1970.” 

            Here in the Northwoods of Wisconsin, the Canada goose population was quite small in the 1970s, so much so that the DNR frequently captured geese from overpopulated areas in central and southern Wisconsin and released them up here. I remember in the mid-1980s seeing a family of geese in Mercer near the school, and folks were stopped along the road excitedly photographing them. I was excited, too, because geese were that uncommon.  

            Things have changed – geese are everywhere now. I don’t know of a similar study to the one above quantifying the goose population specifically for the Northwoods, but I’ll bet it’s a similar increase, though our long winters prevent most geese from attaining resident status. 

            For the entire state, the Wisconsin Waterfowl Breeding Population Survey has been conducted for 46 years, and from the last survey conducted in 2019, researchers estimated a population of 171,407 Canada geese, 71% above the long-term (46-year) mean. Hard to believe, but when the Endangered Species Act was passed in 1973, the giant Canada goose numbers were so low that they received serious consideration for listing.

            The best way to reduce numbers around your property? Eliminate or greatly reduce lawn grass, a favorite food for geese. And consider the creation of a shrub/tree buffer zone, which is the key to lakescaping. The vegetation will create a zone that Canada geese won't cross to reach your lawn, a major plus for those of you desiring to keep goose droppings off your property. The buffer zone will also reduce your lawn by one-third to one-half, providing the extra benefits of limiting the attendant fertilizer, herbicide, and pesticide inputs.

 

Deer Flies

            Deer fly populations peak in July, and few things are as annoying as the deer fly NASCAR races that often commence around our heads as soon as we go outside. And if they bite, it really hurts, and some folks are quite allergic to the bite!

            So, every year I share this simple solution – wear a deer fly patch on your hat or bike helmet. Deerfly patches are 2” by 6” strips that are two sided and attach to the top of your hat. Basically, they’re duct tape on the side that sticks to your hat and fly paper on the other side. Since deer flies love to attack the top of one’s head, they are quickly caught on the fly paper. Voila! When you’re done with your hike or bike ride, you simply peel the strip off your cap or helmet, and toss it in the trash.  

            This morning (7/5), I took a quick walk on Powell Marsh before the heat of the day set in, and in a half hour, I had 19 deer flies stuck to my ballcap, which, although I try to honor all life, made me rather gleeful. 

            The patches have no chemicals, no odor, nothing greasy to rub or spray on your skin, and since deer flies are not deterred by any repellant, this is the only solution. “Tred Not Deerfly Patches” are available at most sporting goods stores or via their website: https://www.deerflypatches.com.

 

Wild Parsnip

            While I’m on the subject of painful species, I was alerted recently to a stand of wild parsnip growing in Manitowish Waters near the corner of Hwy. 51 and Cty. W. Wild parsnip is a serious invader, because it contains furocoumarins which can make skin sensitive to light. This condition, known as phytophotodermatitis, causes severe burns and large blisters which can last for weeks. So, it’s a plant that absolutely needs to be eradicated whenever and wherever found – it already clothes many roadsides in southern Wisconsin and in other states. One of the many “last things” we want up here is yet another invasive plant, much less one that causes severe burns, so remove it without hesitation. However, rubber gloves, long sleeves and long pants must be worn if hand-pulling this plant.

 

Bog Logs, Sundews, and Orchids

            I love paddling undeveloped, wild lakes for many reasons, but one of the best reasons is for the remarkable communities of plants that can be found on old tree trunks splayed in the water (bog logs). I’ve never seen a study quantifying the number of years it takes for establishing a bog log, but it undoubtedly takes many decades for these communities to thrive.

            We’ve found dozens of species on these waterlogged logs, but what stands out for me are the carnivorous plants like sundews and pitcher plants, along with several species of orchids. On two recent paddles, the sundews were just coming into flower as were the pitcher plants.

            Seven species of sundews are native to North America, with Northern Wisconsin typically supporting just two species of sundews – roundleaf sundew and spoon-leaf sundew, though two other rare species may also be found.

            Charles Darwin was utterly enamored with sundews, so much so that he wrote a friend a year after he had published his origin of species, “I care more about Drosera [the Latin genus name] than the origin of all the species in the world.” Quite a statement by the father of evolutionary theory.

            Sundews capture insects via a highly specialized leaf that is covered with dozens of hair-like filaments that each sport a sticky gland at its tip. The droplets glisten like dew that fools insects into thinking the plant is covered with nectar. In they come, land, and out . . . well, there is no out. They are stuck! The sundew then very slowly curls around the prey and secretes digestive enzymes that takes days to dissolve the insect, the nutrients of which supplements the sundew’s ability to also photosynthesize. 

            During one of the above paddles, we found numerous damselflies stuck on the sundews, something we’d never seen before. I was able to gently pull a number of them away from a certain slow death and release them back into the air. I know sundews have to eat, too, but I felt they should concentrate on mosquitoes and deer flies and leave the beautiful damselflies alone.

 

Rose Pogonia Orchids

            We were also seeing hundreds of rose pogonias on these paddles when I was alerted by a member of our group to an all-white rose pogonia, a rare color morph. That was a first for me!

not the best photo, but good enough for reference

            Rose pogonia orchids ordinarily sport dark magenta on the outside of their lip with a yellow or white center and a fringed tip (“pogon” is from the Greek meaning “beard” in reference to the bristles on the surface of the lip). The colorfully exotic lip and the flower’s fragrance serve as the commercial advertisement for bumblebees to explore for nectar. However, rose pogonias produce little or no nectar, so it’s all a ruse to get bumblebees to enter the flower, pick up pollen,  and distribute it. If bumblebees could sue in flower court for fraud, I’m sure they would.

            Orchids produce large sticky masses of pollen called pollinia that are attached to either side of the flower’s column. The pollinia attach to an insect when touched, and the entire mass of pollen is then transported to the next flower. The transfer of such a large quantity of pollen is thought to help ensure that effective pollination will take place.

rose pogonia on Mirror Lake in the Guido Rahr Tenderfoot Preserve

            Once pollinated, orchids produce the tiniest seeds of any flowering plants in the world, with a typical seed pod containing hundreds of thousands of minute seeds. The seeds are incredibly light, so they may travel long distances on the wind. But when they finally settle somewhere, the seeds have no food reserves, and thus require an immediate partner to provide them nutrients. 

            Enter fungi living in the soil. The fungi enters the seed and provides the nutrients required for germination and growth. No native orchid – none – can germinate without first partnering with a fungi. Over the course of an orchid’s lifetime, they maintain this relationship with fungi. So, this is why orchids are very difficult to transplant – they need the mycorrhizal fungi to be wherever they’re transplanted in order to survive. 

 

Celestial Events

            After dusk on 7/11, look for Venus 3 degrees south of the waxing crescent moon and Mars just a little lower at 4 degrees south of the moon. The next early evening, 7/12, look for Venus to be resting nearly on top of Mars, just a half degree above it. Venus is by far the brighter of the two at -3.9 magnitude.

            As of 7/13, our days are now growing shorter by two minutes every day.

            Saturn will rise late in the evening in the east-southeast around 10 p.m. Jupiter will rise about an hour later also in the east-southeast. If you’re up incredibly early, look to the southern sky by about 4 a.m. and you’ll have a solid view of both planets.            

 

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.

 

A Northwoods almanac for June 25, 2021

 A Northwoods Almanac for June 25 – July 8, 2021  

 

Dawn Chorus of Robins

            Robins are so familiar to people that we tend to not pay attention to them – while also using them as a standard for measuring other bird sizes and songs. But I pay attention to them at 4:30 in the morning, pre-dawn, when I often first wake. Robins are usually the first to begin singing, and they engage in their “dawn song” which is distinctly different from the song they sing throughout the rest of the day. The regular song is a “loud, liquid song, a variable cheerily cheer-up cheerio” – more or less. Roger Tory Peterson says it’s a “clear caroling; short phrase, rising and falling, often prolonged.” 

            The dawn song, however, is a different animal. There’s often an intensity, complexity and duration to the songs that far exceed the “normal” songs of the day. Think of it as kind of similar to rush hour traffic – everybody’s in a hurry to be heard. And it’s not just robins. Eastern wood-pewees sing two songs (“pee-a-wee” and “pee-oo”) by day, but throw in an additional song at dawn -  “ah-dee-dee”. Yellow warblers sing nearly a dozen different songs at dawn, but during the day sing a song different from their dawn songs. Some birds even add fast call notes (the short “chip” notes) to the middle of their songs. 

            But like just about everything in nature, the dawn-song generalization has many exceptions. Some species sing the same song at a similar rate all day, like the red-eyed vireo, while others start singing much later than dawn. 

            Then as sun rises, many birds slow their song production way down, likely because now that they can see well, they’re interested in foraging for food. 

            There’s lot of theories as to why birds sing so boisterously before dawn. The one that makes the most sense to me is that the males want other males to know they’re still alive, still on their territory, still maintaining their pair bond with a comely female, and don’t you forget it. The downside to this is that as July comes on, and the young have been raised and fledged, the males lose their testosterone-driven desire to be heard, and our dawns rise far more quietly. I find mid-July to be distinctly sad for just that reason despite the fecundity of our garden and the entire floral world.

            Oh, and BTW, individual robins sing distinctively different songs such that if we paid enough attention we could differentiate individual robins from one another. “Each male robin,” says Donald Kroodsma in his book The Singing Life of Birds, “has a largely unique repertoire of caroled phrases that I can use to identify him as an individual.” I’ve never listened that closely, but I take Kroodsma’s word on it. For now, I just like to close my eyes and go back to sleep, cuddled with Mary, while listening to the robins’ proclamations. 

 

Sightings: Bobcat Kittens, Green Herons, Male Pine Pollen Cones, Blue Flag Iris

            *Patty Sevenz sent me photos on 6/20 of two bobcat kittens that she found in a family woodshed in the Powell Marsh area. They’re tiny and obviously quite young. Hartley Jackson’s classic book Mammals of Wisconsin says that “mating usually occurs in March . . . although rarely it is delayed to as late as June.” Bobcats, however, can breed year-round, so it’s hard to make an accurate generalization. Jackson continues, “After a gestation period of about 62 days, the blind furred young are born, from one to four in number, usually two. The eyes of the young open when it is 9 or 10 days old.” After about 4 weeks of age, the youngsters will begin to leave the den and eat solid food brought to them by the female. The two that Patty found look to me to only be a couple of weeks old, so they have yet to be weaned. In the meantime, Patty has installed a trail camera, and now has gotten photos of the mother entering the shed.

Bobcat kitten photo by Patty Sevenz

            The WDNR estimates 3,500 bobcats live north of Highway 64, but bobcats are found in all 72 Wisconsin counties and populations are expanding across much of their geographic range.

            *Two weeks ago, I paddled Esox Lake in Bayfield County with good friend and ace photographer Bob Kovar, and we were treated to close sightings of green herons on three different occasions. I rarely see green herons, and I treasure those moments because these are beautiful birds! Their dark-streaked rufous neck, orange legs, and its extendable glossy greenish-black crest make the green heron particularly striking. Common names “shite-polk” and “chalk-line” reflect the bird’s habit of producing a stream of white defecation as it flies away from human disturbance. And most intriguingly, they are one of the few tool-using birds, able to use various baits to entice fish close enough to grab.

Green heron photo by Bob Kovar

            *Pine pollen rained down during the big winds we had last week, and shortly thereafter so did the male pollen cones that were the source of all that pollen. The cones now litter the ground, but most folks fail to notice them unless they’re plastered on their windshields. 

            All our conifers have male and female cones, but the male cones are much smaller, and most shrivel and fall as soon as the pollen has been shed. The pollen grains that fall on lakes form a temporary yellow film but soon sink and are incorporated into the sediments. What’s cool about them is that they are nearly indestructible, and form what are called “micro-fossils” which can persist unchanged for millions of years. The study of these pollen grains, a full-fledged science in itself, makes it possible to infer what the vegetation was in an area over many millennia. 

            *Finally, blue flag irises have been lighting up the wetlands. John Ruskin, an English philosopher in the 19^thcentury, described the blue flag as “the flower of chivalry. It has a sword for its leaf and a lily for its heart.” I like that. Usually for the last word on such subjects, one turns to Henry David Thoreau. Thoreau, in his unfailing wisdom, felt the blue flag was “a little too showy and gaudy, like some women’s bonnets.” Ah, but what did he know?

Blue flag iris photo by John Bates

 

Good News on Loon Reproduction This Year

            From Judith Bloom on 6/11: We have “six nesting pairs of loons on Tomahawk Lake . . . and 2 have hatched chicks . . . And what is even more exciting, interesting, is that two of the new adult birds that we have been able to confirm bands on (one from each of two territorial pairs) are loons that were hatched and banded on Tomahawk Lake. One (Bird 1) is five years old and was hatched at the opposite end of the lake (Sunflower Bay) from where it has now successfully nested.  The other (Bird 2) was hatched from the territory that Bird 1 now holds.  Bird 2 now holds a territory at the opposite end of the lake from where it was hatched . . . I've been monitoring since 2008, and I am aware that one of the birds on the lake was hatched on Lake Mildred in 2002.  He is a male in the territory nearest our home, has been very successful, and is a better parent than the two mates he has been with since we've been monitoring. But we've never been aware of birds that have been hatched on this lake and been able to establish/take over a territory on this lake. All confirmed through correspondence with Walter Piper. Amazing.”

            Speaking of Dr. Walter Piper, he noted in his June 2^nd blog that “after an early ice-out and a less severe black fly emergence than usual, both Wisconsin and Minnesota are seeing their first chicks” . . . and “we are seeing the beginning of a wave of earlier-than-normal hatches in both Wisconsin and Minnesota. Breeding productivity looks to be far better this year than in either 2019 or 2020. In light of my concerns about the Wisconsin population, I am relieved to see reproductive numbers bounce back up this year.” Good news!

 

Center for Conservation Leadership

            Last week, Mary and I led several programs for the Chicago’s Center for Conservation Leadership (CCL), which was being housed by the North Lakeland Discovery Center in Manitowish Waters. The CCL chooses 12 motivated high school students from diverse backgrounds with a keen interest in the environment and a passion for the outdoors and brings them to the Northwoods for a month of field experiences. This is only a small part of a year-long program combining environmental education, leadership training and community service in an in-depth, field-based experience. The goal is to develop and empower the next generation of conservation leaders to understand the importance of human interaction with the environment and to take responsibility for its care and preservation.                      

            Field-based programming with various instructors just over the last week included: forest management, water quality issues, paddling to and hiking in the Tenderfoot old-growth forest, bird banding, a Powell Marsh bird walk, a bog exploration, a geology and glacial overview of Wisconsin, a geology hike at the Van Vliet Hemlocks State Natural Area, a canoe trip and ecology study on the Manitowish River, a Lake Superior waterfall and geology tour, and a plant-based fabric dying workshop. They left on Monday for 10 days at Northland College and then they’ll be on to UW Stevens Point 10 days or so of additional field experience.

            What a program! It’s transformational for those involved. Kudos to the NLDC for hosting the group and coordinating their first week of programming.

            

Sea Level Rise

            According to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, sea levels have risen 6 to 8 inches around the globe in the past century. “Our best science, in the form of ever-refined global Earth models, suggests that this acceleration will continue over the next century and result in much higher rates of sea-level rise than we have yet experienced today,” said Keryn Gedan, a George Washington University researcher on the effect of climate change on marine ecosystems.

“It is important for coastal areas to prepare and plan for this eventuality.”

 

Celestial Events

            The full moon was last night, 6/24, but it’s still nearly 99% illuminated tonight, 6/25. 

            Before dawn on 6/27, look for Saturn about 4° north of the waning gibbous moon. Pre-dawn the next day on 6/28, Jupiter will have switched places with Saturn and be 4° north of the moon.

            As of 6/28, our days now grow one minute shorter every day.

            On 7/5, the earth will be at aphelion, the farthest from the sun for 2021 – 94.5 million miles. Perihelion, when we were closest to the sun, occurred on Jan. 2 at 91.4 million miles.

 

Thought for the Week

            A home is not simply a building; it is the shelter around the intimacy of a life. Coming in from the outside world and its rasp of force and usage, you relax and allow yourself to be who you are. The inner walls of a home are threaded with the textures of one's soul, a subtle weave of presences. If you could see your home through the lens of the soul, you would be surprised at the beauty concealed in the memory your home holds . . . Where love has lived, a house still holds the warmth. Even the poorest home feels like a nest if love and tenderness dwell there. – John O'Donohue      

 

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.

A Northwoods Almanac for June 11- 24, 2021

A Northwoods Almanac for June 11- 24, 2021  

 

Sightings – Black Bear Olympic Swimmer, Cedar Waxwings, Moths, Frogs

5/27: Doug Denning who lives near Lake Tomahawk sent me this amazing and perplexing email: “On Sunday May 16 around noon, from our cabin deck, we spotted a large animal swimming a couple of hundred yards in front of our cabin. A friend of ours looked through binoculars and confirmed it was a large black bear. The bear appeared to be headed to shore but stopped and turned in the opposite direction and started swimming in circles. Dozens of times the bear appeared to head to shore but each time would resume swimming in circles. He eventually moved to the center of the lake but would always resume swimming in circles. The bear was in 50-60 feet deep waters. My wife contacted several agencies asking for advice in how to help the bear. Eventually she contacted a wildlife rescue member in Rhinelander who told her that we should try to use our boat to prod the bear to shore. Our pontoon boat had engine problems and we had hesitated in using it until there was no other option. After the bear had been swimming for about three hours we did go out and, along with slapping oars and moving toward the bear, the bear finally made it back to shore. The bear was very large. It shook off water and waddled back into the woods, and it seemed fine. The bear was in the water swimming for at least three hours!”

            Doug, of course, was looking for an explanation for this, and I had none. So I emailed three friends who are retired DNR wildlife managers or technicians with a lot of experience with bears, and they had no explanation either! Jeff Wilson and Terry Daulton did share a story of a fellow scientist who encountered a bear off Saxon Harbor on Lake Superior. “He was fishing 5-8 miles off the harbor, and he circled the bear with his boat (at a safe distance) and then left.  He was bewildered as it was headed straight north towards Canada.  He doubts the bear survived unless it turned back towards shore . . . We have seen them swim across small lakes, and they can swim from island to island in the Apostles (documented by radio telemetry).”

            So, could it have been escaping bugs, or disoriented due to age or injury or being pepper sprayed, or just out for a swim, or . . .? Any thoughts?

5/29: Cedar waxwings returned to our property today. They were eating blossoms in one of our crabapple trees. Their return provides the annual sign for me that spring is over and summer has begun, because cedar waxwings are usually our last breeding bird species to return, and Memorial Day weekend is when they nearly always appear. They may initiate egg-laying in early June but peak in the third or fourth week of June, coinciding with the availability of summer-ripening fruits. Relatively unique to them, waxwings arrive in flocks and stay in flocks, exhibiting a lack of territoriality during the breeding season which is very uncommon among birds. Watching a pair share food beak-to-beak while sitting next to each other on a branch is one of the most endearing sights in the bird world – I hope you’ve all seen this.

photo by Bev Engstrom

6/1: We heard our first-of-the-year Eastern gray tree frogs. If you’re not familiar with their “song,” and calling it a song is a huge stretch, listen for a staccato, very short blast of sound coming not from the water but from low in a shrub or a tree near water. 

6/4: Rob Tobin in Lac du Flambeau sent me a beautiful photo of a luna moth that was hanging on his screen porch. Luna caterpillars favor paper birch, so planting birches is one way to try and lure luna moths to your property.

photo by Rob Tobin

6/4: Speaking of moths, we live next door to the Ding-A-Ling restaurant in greater downtown Manitowish, and this morning Guy Ullman came over to say he had a big moth that he found while starting to unfurl their American flag. It turned out to be a gorgeous cecropia moth! These guys are big, with a wingspan up to 6 inches. Their caterpillars feed on tamaracks, so consider planting a few if you want to have a chance of attracting one.

6/5: Mary and I did the second round of the frog survey we do every year for the DNR, and our best stop of the night was at Whitney Lake where we heard five species – spring peepers, American toads, Eastern gray treefrogs, green frogs, and bullfrogs. I have to admit, however, that the highlight of the survey had nothing to do with frogs, but rather with hearing at least three different whip-poor-wills on a road off County W. This site was clear-cut a number of years ago, and while now growing up, it still supports a consistent population of whip-poor-wills, nighthawks, and woodcocks, all of which do well in open habitats. Our only concern was that we didn’t hear any nighthawks this time, but a five-minute stop isn’t enough to conclusively say whether a given species is present or absent.

6/6: Snappers and painted turtles began digging nests and laying eggs. One painted turtle was in our yard, its face against a fence, apparently stymied as to how to get around it. So, I picked her up and moved her close to our gravel driveway which over the years has been the site for many turtle nests. Snappers will lay 10-96 (average 25) spherical eggs while painteds will lay 4-20 (average 8) elongated eggs. The statistic that always wows me is that 5% to 10% of turtle eggs survive to hatch, and then maybe 1% to 3% of those will live to become adults. Turtle eggs and turtle hatchlings feed a lot of other animals! 

snapper laying eggs below one of our windows

 

White Flowers!

            We’ve planted a lot of native woody shrubs and trees on our property, and every spring and early summer we’re treated to a succession of white flowers. It begins with Juneberry trees (Amelanchier) and from there we get pear flowers, plum, strawberry, apple, pin cherry, chokecherry, black cherry, crabapple, blueberry, highbush cranberry, nannyberry, mountain ash, pagoda dogwood, red-osier dogwood, and downy arrowwood. Our white roses will soon come into bloom, too, and though not native, we love them.

            

nannyberry flowers at our home

The flowers on nearly all of these species came and went quickly, I suspect due to our dry weather. 

highbush cranberry flowers below our home

            On the wildflower side of things, in the last few years, both nodding trilliums and large-flowered trilliums have popped up on our property. How and why they’ve appeared we don’t know, but we’re sure appreciative. 

 

Powell Marsh Viewing Platform

            We have walked the dikes and watched birds on Powell Marsh for over three decades now, and never get tired of the beauty and diversity of the place. In recent years, a duck blind and viewing platform was built along the shore of the main overlook pool. This is a memorial to Rene Jonas’ son, Ezekiel John Jonas (Zeke), who lost his life on August 1st of 2013. He had a strong passion for the outdoors and the Powell Marsh in particular, and he would hunt there regularly. 

            The family worked with Michele Woodford and Eric Kroening from the DNR to bring the project to completion over a few years, and they would like to thank everyone who contributed financially to the memorial fund, and also to family and friends who assisted in the construction.   

            The platform is handicap-accessible and open to the public, and the family’s hope is that the project will help many people to enjoy all of the beauty that the Powell Marsh has to offer. I agree - it’s a great blind to sit in and watch birds, or to simply enjoy the peace of Powell’s enormous wetland community of life.

            Rene wanted to honor her son’s life and not have him be forgotten. I can’t think of a better way to have done that. Her efforts, along with the efforts of everyone else who helped, should be gratefully applauded. 

            The blind is easily accessed from a small paved parking lot just to the east of the main overlook parking area.

Jonas family at the blind, photo by Rene Jonas

Redstarts!

            Mary and I led a bird hike in Iron River, MI, on 5/26, and the bird of the morning was the American redstart. This little dynamo sings and sings – one source says the male sings up to 6 times per minute, and thus 300 to 400 times an hour. That’s a lot of crooning, and what’s interesting, and maddening about it, is the number of song variations this conspicuous little orange and black warbler generates. Here’s how Cornell’s “Birds of the World” describes the song: “Song consists of repeated, evenly spaced notes or phrases, which vary both within most individuals over time, and among individuals within local population. Different songs may be transcribed as see see see see, tsit tsit tsit tsit, tsee tsee tsee tsee, tsee-bit tsee-bit tsee-bit tsee-bit, tsita tsita tsita tsita, wee-see wee-see wee-see wee-see, tsee tsee tsee tseeo, or tsee tsee tsee tsiee, etc. (given here arbitrarily as 4-note songs).” 

            Got that? Suffice it to say, this can be a very hard bird to learn by ear because it has so much to say.

            I think of the male as the “Halloween” bird because of its orange-on-black plumage, but the plumage of first-year males resembles that of the female (light gray on head, gray to olive green on back, and whitish below with pale yellow patches on tail, wings, and sides), which adds to the visual complexity of this species.

            Look for its brightly colored tail “flash patterns,” which the redstart displays while fanning its tail and drooping its wings, or while flushing prey from vegetation.

 

Forget-me-nots (Myosotis oblongata) – Forget About Them!

            Just a FYI - these lovely little flowers are endearing but highly invasive. They’re currently spreading throughout our property, and we’re not sure how to knock them back other than by pulling them, which is a lot of work. The plant reproduces through spreading stolons (runners) and abundant seed production.

            Forget-me-not is native to Africa and was introduced to American gardens for its beauty and simplicity, but it can out-compete native growth and disrupt a healthy biodiversity. Forget-me-not is on the invasive plant list in several states, including Wisconsin. There is a native forget-me-not (Myosotis laxa) that is somewhat rare in Wisconsin, so one should be aware of this. However, we’ve never seen one.

            If you have this plant in your yard, pull it out no matter how sad it is to harm such a pretty little thing. 

 

CO2 Highest in Over 4 Million Years

            With levels not seen in over 4 million years, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that measurements of carbon dioxide (CO2), the chief human-caused greenhouse gas, averaged 419 parts per million at Mauna Loa, Hawaii, for the month of May. That’s 1.82 parts per million higher than May 2020 and 50% higher than the stable pre-industrial levels of 280 parts per million. 

 

Thought for the Week

            “Whether you actually do anything bad, like wreck a piece of land or throw garbage out the window, if you don’t understand where you are, and be in some active relationship to it, then that is neglect . . . [Your relationship to nature] has to be a love affair with real grace, a sense of quality between yourself and the community of plants, animals, the climate, rocks, everything.” – Greta Ehrlich

 

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.