A Northwoods Almanac 2/19/10

A Northwoods Almanac for Feb. 19 – March 4, 2010

Firewood

            At this time of year, Mary and I always scrutinize our woodpile to make sure we’ll have enough wood to make it to May (which still may not actually mark the end of the heating season). We usually burn somewhere between four and five full cords of wood, and we’re thankful to have an efficient wood stove that squeezes out the most BTUs.

            But it wasn’t always energy efficient to burn wood. America once operated almost entirely on an exceptionally inefficient wood-based energy economy. Heat for homes, energy for industry, and fuel for transportation in 18^th century colonial America were all wood-based. Fireplaces in homes were extremely large – up to ten feet wide and four feet deep. While this greatly saved on the cutting and splitting of logs, since one could easily lay a 7-foot-long log on the fire, as much as 90% of the heat went up the chimney. Such practice was accepted then because of the perceived “inexhaustible” supply of wood. As Francis Higgeson wrote of living in New England in 1630, “Here is good living for those that love good fires . . . Nay, all Europe is not able to afford to make so great fires as New England.”

Estimates of firewood used per family in a typical 18^th century home vary widely, but all fall within the range of 20 to 60 cords. Peter Kalm, a Swedish botanist, wrote in 1772, “[Wood was] really squandered away in immense quantities day and night all winter.”

Benjamin Franklin invented the fuel-efficient Franklin stove in 1742, but it was too expensive for the average settler to purchase. Plus, it took far more time to chop up the wood into smaller lengths, so the stoves weren’t adopted widely until the 1820s, and then mostly in urban environments where wood shortages had begun to appear. Both smaller fireplaces and the Franklin stove brought consumption down in the 19^th century to 10 to 20 cords per family, which meant every fireplace still required 10 to 20 acres of woods, given that an acre of woods typically produces about 0.5 to 1 cord of wood per year.

The price of firewood in cities became particularly high due to transportation costs. In 1806, wood cost $1.25 a cord inland in Maine, $2.50 a cord on the coast, and $6 to $8 a cord when transported to Boston. Fuelwood became scare in the more populated areas along the East Coast, starting perhaps the first discussion of energy policy in the U.S. when Noah Webster proclaimed in 1817: “We must either reduce the annual consumption [of wood] within the limits of the annual growth, or that time will arrive when we must search the earth for fuel.” Little did he know of the bigger energy picture to come in the next two centuries.

To show how prevalent and wasteful the use of firewood was, until 1890 much more wood went into fireplaces and stoves than was used in construction of houses. Total fuelwood consumption across the Northeast and Midwest peaked in the 1870s at about 90 million cords per year, but even as late as 1919, over 45 million cords were still consumed per year.

Coal-burning stoves became more common in the 1830s, and eventually displaced wood as the major source of fuel in the 1880s. Soon after, we began our energy journey into two new “inexhaustible” energy sources – natural gas and oil.

Now, nearly 200 years later after Webster’s prescient words in 1817 (the world’s population then is estimated to have been 1 billion), our energy policy fears have escalated because non-sustainable gas and oil have no annual growth like wood, and the world now contains over 6.7 billion people who utilize energy in ways and amounts Webster could never have imagined.

And everyone wants more. 

That’s the big picture. For now though – the little picture – we just want our wood to hold out to May.

Food Caching and Early Nesting in Gray Jays

Gray jays are the earliest nesting songbird in the Northwoods, laying eggs as early as mid-February, although most clutches are laid between early March and mid-April.                        Nesting when the snow remains deep and sub-zero temperatures still prevail at night seems nonsensical, but like everything else in nature, it reflects an evolutionary compromise that works to these birds’ ultimate advantage. Whereas most birds and mammals are struggling to just find food during March, the gray jay is sitting pretty because of the food caching it did during autumn. Gray jays are able to store food that won’t rot for long periods of time because of the remarkable composition of their saliva. Whereas most spit is slippery in order to enable food to slide down one’s throat, the gray jay’s spit coagulates on contact with the air. Gray jays mix the plentiful food of autumn with their saliva to form a glue-like mass that they can store in bark fissures, knot holes, and in clusters of conifer needles. Coupled with their superior memory, which allows them to find most of these caches months later in the depths of the winter, they have then, in effect, cupboards full of food that they only they know exist. Thus, they can begin nesting, a highly energy-intensive labor, before any other songbirds.

Still, it’s quite cold in March, so the gray jays also have evolved the ability to construct a very well insulated, deep, and bulky nest quite unlike the see-through, bare twig nests of their cousins the blue jays. By using fur and feathers to cradle their eggs, their eggs remain warm enough to incubate. In fact, if you have gray jays near your home, put out some cotton balls, grouse feathers, or facial tissue for them – they’ll readily accept your generosity for the construction of their nests, a fact researchers use to help them when they need to locate gray jay nests.

Gray jays utilize one last critical behavioral component to permit them to nest so early. While they often raise three to four chicks, usually no more than one of them is permitted to spend the next winter with them. Researchers think the strategy has evolved because trying to support the entire family throughout the winter would potentially overwhelm their cache supplies and cause them all to starve. The weaker individual juveniles that are aggressively chased away in the fall often survive the winter by catching on with another gray jay pair whose nesting failed.

Bobcat Sightings

Bob Hart’s bobcat picture in my last column generated numerous responses. Pat Schwai on Cochran Lake sent me several pictures of a bobcat that came into her yard: “Neither of our cameras really caught the detail even though the critter was only 12 feet away. But in our defense, trying to crack open the door and hold the camera steady while our dog was going bonkers was a challenge. The bobcat seemed completely unfazed by Zoie's ferocious barking, although it did briefly turn its head in our direction. The cat was within pouncing distance of two feeders . . . Before "nature could take its course" in front of my eyes, my husband went out to shoo the cat away. Instead of running away from the house, it jumped onto and ran the length of our deck before heading into the woods.”

Chomingwen D. Pond in Minocqua wrote that a bobcat has been around the south shore of Lake Shishebogama this winter: “Most recently, I glanced out the window Wednesday morning, Feb. 3, to see it tussling with a gray squirrel. (A black and possibly another gray escaped.) When it got the squirrel's head in its mouth, it sat up and apparently bit the squirrel's head or neck until the squirrel stopped thrashing. Then some minutes later it stood up and trotted off into the woods, the squirrel's body hanging from its mouth.  Not a pleasant thing to watch, but as Mel Ellis (naturalist at the "Milwaukee Journal" "eons" ago) said, ‘The first law of life is not 'Survival of the fittest' but 'to give up life for the sake of other life.'"

Karen MacGregor on the Pike Lake Chain wrote that when skiing at the Round Lake Wilderness Area a few weeks ago her brother identified some bobcat tracks. Her question was: Are there a lot of bobcats here in the Northwoods?

             The WDNR estimates the state’s bobcat population by looking at harvest numbers and data from the winter furbearer track survey. Their analysis suggests that fall population size increased from about 1,500 to about 3,100 during the 1990s and early 2000s, but the population appears to have stabilized and declined slightly in recent years. The 2009 fall population estimate was 2,100 total bobcats in Wisconsin.

Other Sightings

Elinore Sommerfeld wrote: “We occasionally see fox on our property, but we've had 3 sightings in 2 days! I've never seen them on our road, but yesterday, I saw a pair trotting down the road ahead of me. They casually kept an eye on me and eventually peeled off into the woods. On the same stretch of road today, a single fox headed towards me.  Even as I kept approaching it and making noise, it kept coming till it was within 50 feet of me before heading into the woods. And this afternoon, on our property, about 1/2 mile from where I saw the others, we saw a fox roaming the woods.” Fox mate in January and February, so perhaps these fox had other more important things on their minds than the presence of a human.

 Joyce Brundage in Mercer e-mailed that on a 17 degree morning, while watching the snowmobiles on the trail in front of her house and fisherman on the frozen lake out the back window, a robin flew into the tree by her front window.

Mitch Mode forwarded a picture of a Cooper’s hawk tearing apart a mourning dove in his yard in Rhinelander. The red eyes indicate the bird is an adult.

Northern Lights

Numerous people have asked me why we haven’t seen any northern lights for what seems like a very long time. Well, on Feb. 8, we received the following e-mail from the Aurora Forecast Website: “After 3 years of no auroral alerts, this is to let you know that you are neither forgotten nor dropped from the list. The first solar flares of the new solar cycle have now begun to produce auroral activity.  The effects of one of these flares will be arriving today . . . it is good to know that the sun is awake again.”

To subscribe to the Aurora Alert mailing list at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, click on  http://www.gi.alaska.edu/mailman/listinfo/gse-aa . The Aurora Forecast page can be viewed at www.gedds.alaska.edu/AuroraForecast/

Celestial Events

            On 2/25, look for Mars about 5° north of the waxing gibbous moon. We hit 11 hours of daylight on 2/27 The full moon occurs on 2/28. Called by some Native American tribes the “Hunger Moon,” the name reflects the great difficulty that many animals have in surviving the last few months of winter.

A Northwoods Almanac 2/5/10

A Northwoods Almanac for 2/5 -18, 2010

Sightings

Mary and I frequently showshoe in the Frog Lake and Pines State Natural Area, which rests across the Manitowish River from our home. On 1/31, we came across two very interesting tracks. One was made of three parallel lines in the snow. The middle line, tough unclear, looked like a grouse track. Our best interpretation is that a male grouse drooped its wings during a display, his wing tips dragging in the snow on either side of him as he walked along trying to impress a female.

The other track was a gutter-like pathway through the snow, about a foot wide, and running a short distance between a number of old-growth white pines and cedars. Along the path was the very obvious scat of porcupines, which looks like elongated sawdust pellets. We looked into the trees, and the more we looked at a “burl” on one of the pines, the more it took the shape of a fat porcupine. The other clue to the porkie’s presence were dozens of white cedar branches laying on the ground, obviously snipped off by some critter. I don’t know if porkies have a particular affinity for cedar, but they were certainly doing some serious pruning.

Birdlife was practically nil on this hike except for a few chickadees, but perhaps some of the irruptive finches that have been so elusive this winter are finally starting to show up. On 1/22, David Foster reported seeing two pine grosbeaks on the ground in his driveway and a small group of them a few days earlier just up the road, both on McCullough Lake in Natural Lakes, northeast of Boulder Junction. Then on 1/30, David reported seeing small numbers of redpolls and pine siskins for the first time this winter season at his feeders, mingled with the goldfinches.  

At our feeders in Manitowish, the one bird of considerable note was a merlin which appeared on 2/1. Our daughter Callie was the only one home at the time when she heard a rapid knocking on one of our windows. She came into that room and saw a small raptor hunkered on a branch right next to our largest feeder. She got a very close look at it before it flew and clearly could identify it as a merlin, which I believe is the first merlin we’ve ever seen in the winter up here. I suspect the knocking sound was either a bunch of birds scattering from the feeder and hitting the window as the merlin sailed in, or the merlin itself trying to capture a bird against the window.

Pine Barrens 

Mary and I hike in the Frog Lake and Pines State Natural Area because it represents one of the oldest white and red pine stands left in the state. The uncut portion of the site is totally dominated by pines, with numerous pines showing large fire scars at their base. The trees appear even-aged for the most part with some scattered very large pines, meaning that most of these pines began growing during the same period, and likely after a major fire.

I find the uncertain history of this stand  particularly intriguing. The site may well have been a pine barrens at one time, at least according to an article from Richard Vogl, a botanist, published in 1971 and titled “Fire and the Northern Wisconsin Pine Barrens.” He wrote, “The Manitowish River Barrens . . . occur on a series of scattered sand flats around the headwaters lakes, [and] become extensive in the vicinity of Boulder Junction where they stretch north to Grassy Lake, south to Trout Lake, and west to the Trout River, surround most of the Manitowish Waters chain of lakes, and end downstream near Manitowish in extreme eastern Iron County. The bracken-grasslands, frost pockets, and openings that once existed or still occur around the springs and streams that feed the Manitowish headwaters lakes, extending north to the Michigan border and south almost to Star Lake, are included as part of the Manitowish Barrens.”

Frog Lake SNA is situated a half-mile south of Manitowish on Hwy. 47/182, so it’s right at the edge of where Vogl believes the barrens ended, and thus it may have been a barrens at one time. Pine barrens are akin to oak savannahs in the southern part of the state, and were described by botanist John Curtis in 1959 as “true savannas, in that the dominant plants are grasses, forbs and shrubs, with a scattered stand of trees. The most usual tree is jack pine, although red pine may be the main species in unusual cases . . . The outstanding feature of the groundlayer in the pine barrens is the extraordinary development of shrubs . . . the blueberry . . . is of even greater importance.”

Vogl considers other areas within our locale to also have been barrens: “Additional barrens occurred on the Bear River upstream from where it joins the Manitowish River. They occupied reddish sandy benches and flats adjacent to the river and between and around the Lac du Flambeau chain of lakes, extending east of Fence Lake and south to Squirrel Lake in Oneida County. Most of these barrens are now gone with only coppiced oaks, decadent open-grown jack pines, scattered red pine stumps, lakeshore stands of red pine, large juneberry bushes, and dry openings remaining in a closed or planted forest.”

Pine barrens once covered 2.3 million acres, or 7% of Wisconsin’s presettlement landscape, but today these pine savannas with scattered large trees (2 to 8 per acre) are extremely rare because of fire control. Forest fires occurred on these barrens regularly, with return intervals to the same site of 50 to 75 years. It’s very likely that Native American tribes regularly used fire in these areas to maintain game habitat and enhance fruit and berry crops.

Barrens also were associated with the upper Wisconsin River in the vicinity of Land’O’Lakes and Conover. In Oneida County, barrens were associated with the Wisconsin and Tomahawk Rivers. Openings once spread in the vicinity of the Squirrel and Tomahawks Rivers from Pine Lake, Swampsauger Lake, and the now Willow Reservoir east beyond Hazelhurst and Bearskin Lake. 

Those of us who live on these sandy soils today don’t need to be told how nutrient-poor and droughty the soils are – our struggles to grow a garden prove it!

  

Bobcat

Bob Hart forwarded a photo he took on 1/6 of a bobcat hunting close to his deck on the Pike Lake Chain. He still saw the bobcat hunting in his yard as of 1/29, apparently trying to clean up the squirrel population, though I suspect if there were any snowshoe hares or cottontails in the vicinity, they were being given a run as well. Any muskrats, chipmunks, mice, voles, shrews or other small critters that ventured above the snow may also have regretted the day.

Wintering Golden Eagles in Wisconsin

Every summer I get calls from folks saying they just saw a golden eagle, when in fact they actually observed an immature bald eagle. It’s an easy mistake to make if you aren’t aware of the dark plumage of the young balds. And since golden eagles don’t breed in Minnesota or Wisconsin – to spot one, Wisconsin residents typically must travel 1,000 miles west – it’s usually a default assumption that a dark eagle in our area automatically means an immature bald eagle.

Well, that’s an assumption that doesn’t hold true in the winter. In the last decade, consistent reports have filtered down of goldens wintering along the Mississippi River, especially in the Wabasha, Minnesota area. So, six years ago, the National Eagle Center in Wabasha organized a volunteer survey program to count golden eagles using the coulees and bluffs along the river from Red Wing, MN to LaCrosse, WI. And this year the January survey found 85 golden eagles and 635 bald eagles. 

  What makes the golden’s presence along the Mississippi so compelling and mysterious is that no one knows the breeding origin of these wintering golden eagles, nor does anyone have any information about their migration routes or their habitat use and timing during the winter. Far from being off-course loners, these birds are turning out to be part of a population of 100 or so consistent visitors who make their home in the state from November through March.

Golden eagles are a threatened species in Canada, although not in the U.S. An estimated 10,000 to 15,000 pairs nest in the lower 48 states, so the ones in Wisconsin are a small subset of the total population. While bald eagles are large fish-eating birds that live close to water, sport white heads, and lack leg feathers at the base of their legs, golden eagles hunt mammals and reptiles, live in hilly, dry countrysides, and have completely feathered legs. Their name comes from the dull bronze feathers on the backs of their heads.

Last March, one of the wintering golden eagles on the river was equipped with a radio transmitter after being caught in a leg-hold coyote trap. Researchers expected that the bird came down from nesting grounds in northern Ontario near Hudson Bay, but when the bird migrated in the spring, it ended up above the Arctic Circle where no one expected it would go. Researchers are hoping this winter to capture and equip three more goldens with transmitters to help determine their migration routes and timing.

Very small numbers of goldens are usually seen during spring and fall migration in our area, typically at hawk-watch sites like Hawk Ridge in Duluth, the Great Lakes Visitor Center in Ashland, and Brockway Mountain in Copper Harbor, Michigan. 

Celestial Events

Today, 2/5, marks the average halfway point between ice-up and ice-out according to Woody Hagge’s 33 years of ice data on Foster Lake in Hazelhurst. On February 7, we become the recipients of 10 hours of daylight, and by 2/17 we will receive 10.5 hours of sunshine. The new moon occurs on 2/13.

A Northwoods Almanac 1/22/10

A Northwoods Almanac for January 22 – February 4, 2010

Wood Frogs on Ice – Sleeping Beauties

Whenever we’re out snowshoeing, I’m always amazed to think that a wood frog (or a spring peeper, chorus frog, or Eastern gray tree frog) might be buried in the leaf litter right beneath the tree we’re passing. Wood frogs in particular have been heavily studied because of their remarkable capability to withstand winters all the way to the Arctic Circle, the only frog to do so. 

Two-thirds of their body fluids freeze, their hearts stop, their breathing stops, their brain functions stop. Kept “warm” by the snow and leaf cover, their actual body temperatures drops to between 21° and 30° Fahrenheit during the entire winter. 

They’re dead. 

Except for the fact that come spring, they restart their hearts and then head for the nearest ephemeral pond to breed. 

If water froze within our cells, it would expand as it froze, tearing the cellular membranes, bursting blood vessels, and killing us. Actually, we’d never get anywhere near that cold before dying – if our core body temperature drops below 82°, we usually die of hypothermia.

The wood frog freezes selectively. About one-third of its bodily fluids remain liquid, including some water within its cells. They accomplish this by pumping glucose from their livers into their blood as they begin to freeze, raising the glucose concentration in their blood stream to more than 50 times that found in a human diabetic. Ice crystals still form, but now first in its body cavities and around the organs, which then draws some water from the cells inside its organs. This further concentrates the glucose within the cells, creating an antifreeze that can withstand temperatures down to 20°F. The glucose also bind the molecules of water together, preventing the cells outside the organs from dehydrating and shrinking during freezing, so that the cells that do freeze are unharmed.

Using a sugar to prevent freezing isn’t unusual – the antifreeze we use in our vehicles is ethylene glycol, a form of a sugar alcohol similar to glucose.

Like Sleeping Beauty the wood frogs wait for a kiss, but in their case it’s the kiss of the spring thaw. They then also thaw, working from the interior out, the heart thawing first, then the brain, and only at the end, the limbs. Amazingly, the process only takes several hours, and the frogs then hop away none the worse for wear.

Researchers have done MRIs on living frogs, and have been able to observe the entire process of their freezing and thawing, replicating how it happens in nature. They have spent a great deal of time trying to understand this process because of the potential applications to humans. Every day in the United States, twelve people die for want of transplant organs. Every year nearly 50,000 people wait for a heart transplant, but only about 3,000 get one, in large part because doctors have only five or six hours from the time the donor heart is removed until in must be implanted in the recipient. If doctors had 24 hours instead of six by chilling a heart like the wood frog does, many more people could receive transplants. 

Another application would be to buy time for people after they experience a severe injury in a car accident or a wartime wound. Without oxygen, our heart cells begin to die in 20 minutes, and our brain cells last just 5 minutes without oxygen. 

If a wood frog can stop its heart and its breathing for 8 months while in hibernation in Alaska, and can then restart itself like a car that’s been sitting in a garage, perhaps we can figure out how to do so for just one day and save thousands of lives.

Goldfinch Populations

The population of goldfinch at our feeders has steadily increased all winter, and stands now at around 50. While goldfinch nest here in the summer, and many of those nesting birds remain here for the winter, many others migrate. And of those that migrate, many don’t go to one place and settle down for the winter, but rather will move to different locations throughout the winter. So, numbers will fluctuate at your feeders as the winter progresses.

Sightings

  While evening grosbeaks continue to be hard to find this winter, on 1/7, Jim and Tally Schuppel on the Pike Lake Chain had 20 evening grosbeaks come to their feeder, while Jeff Newton near Presque Isle has had a flock about 50 to 60 strong coming to his feeders every day for weeks. He noted, “There are so many that they can empty the feeders about every three days.” About 20 years ago, this used to be the norm for evening grosbeaks. I recall many people, including Mary and I, griping about how much food the evening grosbeaks consumed. On occasion we were known to wish there weren’t quite so many of them! Today, of course, that’s all changed. The evening grosbeak population nationwide has dramatically declined, and it’s uncommon for someone to get a large flock like Jeff is experiencing.  

Dave Gammon in Woodruff reports he has had a bobwhite quail coming to his feeder since November. Northern bobwhites, of course, don’t belong here at any time of the year. Most likely, the quail was an escapee from a flock raised by a bird hunter to train his hunting dogs in the fall.

 Laurie Timm on Witches Lake has observed a solitary male pine grosbeak coming in to her feeders since December 28^th, one of the only reports I’ve received of pine grosbeaks in the area.

Several weeks ago, Jeff Richter from Mercer reported seeing a kingfisher on the Manitowish River near Benson Lake. Kingfishers winter as far north as central Wisconsin, but obviously must have open water in order to catch fish. Though we usually have some open water in the Northwoods every winter, sightings of kingfishers in the area are quite uncommon.

At our feeders in Manitowish, we finally had our first flock of pine siskins appear on 1/16, and a week earlier on 1/9, we had a small flock of bohemian waxwings visit our crabapple trees. We also had a Cooper’s hawk sail by our feeders on 1/10. Since they typically winter only as far north as central Wisconsin, we rarely see a Cooper’s up here.

Jane Wierschem on Blue Lake south of Minocqua sent me a photo of a squirrel who visited their feeders several times this summer. It’s a black squirrel with a bright orange tail, a combo I’ve not seen before. Black squirrels are a color phase of gray squirrels, and relatively common in our area. But a gray squirrel with a red tail is an anomaly. In doing some research on this, I did find one description of gray squirrels that said, “There are rare instances of a reddish colour phase and some animals may also have a combination of colours, for example a black body with a red tail.” So apparently, this combo has been seen elsewhere on occasion. I’d appreciate and e-mail from anyone who has seen this combo before– perhaps this is more common than I am aware.

Groundhog Day or Imbolc

Though we focus our modern day energy on groundhogs on February 2^nd, the date actually marks the approximate halfway point between winter solstice and spring equinox, heralding the return of light. This day was known variously in ancient cultures as Imbolc, Oimelc, Candlemas, and the Feast of Brigid. 

For pagans, Imbolc was the celebration of the first promise of spring, and the return of the Goddess known as Brigid in Ireland. If the weather was warm at Imbolc, it was interpreted to mean that winter would return. 

The Christian feast of Candlemas occurs when candles are blessed for religious use during the coming year. This festival commemorates the ritual purification of Mary forty days after the birth of Jesus. By the middle of the 5th century, candles were lit on this day to symbolize the association of light with Christ.

The ancient Scots looked on Candlemas a bit more meteorlogically. According to Scottish folklore about Candlemas:

“Should Candlemas be fair and clear,

There’ll be twa winters in the year.”

“Twa,” means two, thus, if the weather is sunny and clear, and any animal, including a hibernating groundhog could see its shadow, that bodes another month or more of winter.

This year, February 3^rd actually marks the halfway point between winter solstice and spring equinox.

Celestial Events

On 1/29, look at dusk for Mars about seven degrees north of the gibbous moon. 

The full moon occurs on 1/30. Called the “Wolf” or the “Frost in the Teepee” moon by some Native American tribes, this will be the largest full moon of the year because the moon will be at its closest to the Earth (221,576 miles) of any time during 2010.

Nature, Science, and Spirit

“We find ourselves in a new movement of thought. In a movement where, through science and through the searching of our hearts, everything has become mysterious. Science has led us from knowledge to knowledge, but also from mystery to mystery. Mystery alone can lead us on to true spirituality, to accept and be filled with the mystery of life in our existence.” – Albert Schweitzer

A Northwoods Almanac 1/8/10

A Northwoods Almanac for Jan. 8 – 21, 2010

Christmas Bird Count Results

            The Christmas Bird Counts in Minocqua (12/19) and in Manitowish Waters (12/20) were relatively quiet in terms of total numbers of birds, but both counts still found a good number of species given that this is the Northwoods in December. The Minocqua count tallied 22 species with good numbers of bohemian waxwings (134!) and wild turkeys, as well as four red-bellied woodpeckers, a southern species still quite uncommon in the Northwoods.

            The Manitowish Waters count tabulated 27 species, but with average to relatively small numbers of nearly every species compared to previous years. Winter finches other than goldfinches were scarce and remain scarce.

            One way to measure the difference between northern and southern Wisconsin in terms of winter intensity and the effects on wildlife is to look at the Christmas Bird Counts. For instance, the Madison Bird Count tallied 93 species and 27,046 individuals. By comparison, we found, as noted above, 22 and 27 species in our two counts, and only 809 individuals in Minocqua and 978 individuals in Manitowish Waters (counts take place in a 15-mile diameter circle wherever the counts are done).

            So, winter temperature matters. Snow depth matters. Ice cover matters. We have at least 150 bird species typically nesting in Wisconsin’s Northwoods during the summer, but of those nesting, only some 26 species may be seen in representative numbers during an average northern winter. And of those, many are still very uncommon (for example: northern goshawk, evening grosbeak, boreal chickadee, spruce grouse).

Clearly, Madison’s count is bolstered by the number of people who feed birds and by their higher number of people involved in the count. Perhaps if we had thousands of people feeding birds within our count circles, and a hundred more counters, we’d get higher numbers of individual birds and a few more species, too. But despite the additional free lunches, I suspect most birds would still find the prospect of survival up here very daunting and wisely glide south a few hundred miles where the living is typically far easier.

            This was the 110^th annual Audubon Christmas Bird Count making the Count the longest continual wildlife-monitoring program in the world. Scientists rely on this remarkable trend data to better understand how birds and the environment are faring throughout North America – and what needs to be done to protect them. Data from this citizen science program has provided the basis for numerous peer-reviewed scientific studies.

Celestial Events

            The sun rises at 7:39 a.m. today, one minute earlier for the first time since June 11, 2009. Looking ahead, our earliest sunrises of 2010 will first occur on June 11, rising at 5:08 a.m. That’s something to look forward to!

            On average, the coldest days of the year occur from 1/16 to 1/20 – we average a high of 18°F and a low of -1°F.

            At dusk on 1/18, look for Jupiter about five degrees south of the waxing crescent moon.

            For planet watching in January, at dusk Mars rises in the northeast, Jupiter is well up in the southwest, and Saturn rises in the east before 11 p.m. At dawn, Mars is low in the west, and Saturn is still well up in the south.

Sightings

            Woody Hagge in Hazelhurst sent a picture of a gray squirrel eating a blue jay (see the photo). I’m not surprised at the squirrel eating the jay, but I do wonder how it came by it. Blue jays are very smart, and I’d be surprised if the squirrel was able to catch it. Perhaps the jay hit a window and was stunned long enough for the squirrel to make an easy capture. Or perhaps this squirrel was tops in its class in hunting skills and took the jay in a fair fight.

            On 12/24, Sue and Al Drum in Presque Isle reported a flock of 15 to 20 evening grosbeaks feeding regularly at their home. Evening grosbeaks have been virtually absent so far this winter, so it’s good to hear that a few are present.

            A northern hawk owl is being seen in Rhinelander in the vicinity of Hwy 17 and CTH W, most often on the west side of the road, and just north of that intersection. Northern hawk owls are rare visitors from the muskegs of northern Canada, so named because their long, rounded tail, perched appearance, and flight resemble a small hawk. This one appears to be hunting for rodents along the roadway and hopefully won’t be hit by a vehicle.

            On 12/29, John Bie in Woodruff reported a varied thrush at his feeder (see the photo by Betsy Bie). That’s the second report of a varied thrush in our area, the other coming from Lake Tomahawk.

One Way to Avoid Hibernation

            On 12/21, Gloria Johnson in Woodruff wrote: “This morning I had my Peace Lily plant in my kitchen sink giving it a bath and a good watering. Out jumped a cute little green tree frog [Eastern gray tree frog]- probably about 1 1/2 inches long. It jumped to the counter, then to the floor, then it started climbing up a counter stool and found a spot on the leg to "hide." My husband grabbed a tupperware container and we got it in there safely. I called the Wildlife Center here in Minocqua and Mark Naniot said he'd take it. Mark said it must've been eating well because it looked nice and healthy. That plant had not been outside this summer - so it must've come in on another that was.”

            This little frog avoided the usual winter trials and tribulations that many frogs must undergo. Eastern gray tree frogs usually hibernate a few inches down in the forest duff, where their body freezes. They avoid death by removing water from their cells, which freezes between the cells but without harm to the cell structure. They then pack their cells with glycogen that serves as an antifreeze, allowing them to safely ride out the winter. This same strategy, called extra-cellular freezing, is utilized by trees in northern Canada to survive temperatures down to -80°F.

Winter Walking Paths

            Mary and I frequently ski the Mecca Trail in Mercer because it’s well groomed and maintained by the local ski club, it’s close to home, and it’s a community-friendly trail. By community-friendly, I mean the trail policy is versatile – it allows people to bring their dogs, it’s got easy loops for families with children, it has skating loops for those looking for a work-out, it has a snowshoe trail, and it has a large warming cabin with picnic tables for people to gather and talk after skiing or snowshoeing.

            While skiing the trail last week, we met a couple from Madison who were skiing with their dog, and they couldn’t say enough about how much they appreciated having a place where they could take their dog with them.

            Meeting them brought home for us the recurring vision of every small northern town having a plowed winter walking path for its residents and visitors. It’s a long winter up here, and to enjoy it, we all need to get outside, breathe fresh air, get some exercise, and be amidst the beauty with which we’re blessed. Skiing, snowshoeing, and snowmobiling are the typical recreational options available, but those options all present their own limitations, one of which is that lots of folks have dogs that need the exercise just as much as they do, and dogs usually aren’t welcome on those trails. More importantly, there are also lots of people that would just like to take a walk when they get home from work, or elderly or less mobile people that need a safe and quiet place to briefly get outside without vehicle traffic. And there’s a genuine need for people just to see one another along a path and be able to stop and talk.

            So, here’s a vote for every town board and every chamber of commerce to work together to create a plowed loop trail (or two!) for walkers and dogs and kids and the disabled and folks that work all day, all of whom just need a chance to get out and breathe. And while we’re dreaming, make at least part of the loop lit, so that the folks who don’t get home from work until after dark would have a place to walk as well.

Why should the chambers get involved? I suspect an array of tourists might also utilize the trails, helping to bring a little more income into our towns.

Many towns have bike trails that could partially be plowed. But if there’s no public land that could easily be used, perhaps a private landowner would permit placement of a trail loop on their land as a means of giving back to their community.

            I know one thing – if kids and dogs could vote, it would be unanimous and done tomorrow.

Nature, Science, and Spirit

            “The most beautiful and the most profound emotion we can experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead.” – Albert Einstein from The World As I See It