A Northwoods Almanac for 8/21/20

 A Northwoods Almanac for August 21 - September 3 , 2020  by John Bates

 

Honey!

            Mary and I began the adventure of beekeeping with two hives in May. Three-and-a-half months later on 8/16, we extracted 40 pounds of honey, a modest amount, but given how much we learned over the last three months, we felt well-rewarded. 

The ecology and democracy of honeybees astonishes us, and no statistic knocks our socks off more than this: for every one pound of honey, honeybees visit two million flowers. So, for our 40 pounds of honey, 80 million flowers were visited. Many flowers were revisited of course, so how many individual flowers this represents is unknown. But consider that this number doesn’t take into account the approximately 50 pounds of honey every beekeeper has to leave in each hive for the bees to eat over the winter. So, “our” bees likely visited at least 100 million flowers this summer so far, and we’re a tiny bee operation. 

The average honeybee flies 15 to 20 flights per day and carries back to the hive from one-third to one-fifth of its body weight in pollen every trip, while an average hive contains at least 10,000 bees, and up to 60,000 bees. So, if you do all the math, the two million flower visits/pound figure doesn’t seem so crazy.

In an average hive, 58% of the bees forage just for nectar, 25% forage exclusively for pollen, while the rest collect water, propolis (a glue-like substance secreted by some plants), or bring back a combination of pollen and nectar. 

Adult bees only live an average of five to six weeks, three of which are spent initially inside the hive in a variety of roles including being “nurse” bees for emerging larvae, carrying nectar from incoming foraging bees into the hive and pre-digesting it, packing pollen into the hive cells, building the wax comb, capping honey-filled cells, cleaning the hive (carrying dead bees out is just one task), guarding the entrance to the hive against intruders like bumblebees and hornets, and eventually beginning orientation flights so they know where to go to find flowers. 

Once a worker bee finally begins its duties as a foraging bee, she only lives for 10 to 21 days, and then dies of old age. We’ve had to get used to the number of dead bees around our hive which at first alarmed us, but now we know it’s just the natural order for them. Wintering bees will live up to six months or more because they don’t have to work so hard or be eaten by predators in the summer.  

I would love to be able to analyze our honey and see what flowers became part of it. The literature says bees may visit 200 or more species depending on the availability in an area. 

It’s all remarkably complex, and we’re still just scratching the surface in understanding their behaviors. The bees do all the work. If we help them to live in the hives we provide, we get to share (steal might be the better word) some of their summer’s work, and what a sweet reward it is. 

 

Sightings

Very few of us have nesting red-headed woodpeckers on our property, but Greg Bassett in Hazelhurst has had a pair for the last two years. He sent me an update on 8/4: “We now have mom and dad and their two woodpecker contributions to the redhead population. After roundtrip after roundtrip by both mom and dad to our suet feeder for a couple of weeks (or more), they have now brought their babies to the feeder . . . The two babies are as big as the redhead we think is Mom . . . The nest in that tree must have been a very tight fit the last week or so when they all needed to be inside it to stay out of the rain storms. So now we can watch them as they get fueled up for their trip to wherever they go for the winter. Hopefully they will grace us with their presence again next spring!”

Pat Harkin sent me this note on 8/7: “I was sitting in my boat at the dock on Squirrel Lake and had a unique experience with a female hooded merganser . . . It was swimming about 75-100 feet offshore, and it appeared with a dark egg size object in its bill. It proceeded to shake its head vigorously and occasionally the object would fall into the water. It would quickly recapture this object and continue to shake it. It repeated this behavior while swimming closer to shore . . .

“The bird then returned to deep water and again had a large dark brown object in its bill. I asked my wife to retrieve my binoculars from the car to get a better look. With the binoculars I could clearly see that the merganser had a large crayfish in its bill. I then observed that the merganser was holding the crayfish by its legs and shaking it. The merganser then captured the crayfish from the water by the legs and again shook it vigorously until the legs detached. This continued until I couldn’t see any legs or claws on the crayfish, and it tipped its head up, opened its bill, got it in its bill and with difficulty gobbled it down. I could see a large bulge in its throat as it swallowed the legless crayfish.                                                                                                                “At 73 years of age and a lifelong hunter, fisherman and trapper, I had never heard of or seen a merganser learn to ‘disarm’ a crayfish meal. I’m curious if you have heard and/or observed anything like this.” I certainly haven’t observed this, but it makes sense to not eat the pincers!

Sarah Krembs in Manitowish Waters sent the following: “We've had a family of pileateds coming to the suet feeder the last few days. There are two very large babies. In the picture where the two are on the tree, the juvenile is on the left. His little red hairdo looks a bit thinner, and that's about the only way you can tell he's still a baby. OTHER THAN THE FACT that he is such a beggar! The babies make this constant sort of raspy grunting noise . . . I finally figured out what they are saying . . . The secret code is: "FEED ME, FEED ME, FEED ME!

“The poor parent is busy filling her [crop] . . . with suet and then the closest baby gets a snack . . . I swear, they are just like human teenagers. They might look like adults, but they sure have a lot to learn about being self-sufficient.” 

Angie Fox sent me a great photo of a northern tooth, or shelving tooth, mushroom (Climacodon septentrionale) that she came across while taking a big tree limb into the woods as part of her work at Nicolet College.

Northern flickers are now gathering along roadsides to forage for ants - look for a woodpecker with a white rump in flight.

Common nighthawks have begun their migration. Look for them near dusk flying low and erratically over open areas or along roads. Their long, angled and pointed wings, along with a white bar on the underside of their wings makes for easy identification.

This is the time of year for orbweaver spider webs to be commonly seen in the early morning with the sun pouring through their dewy webs. Due to their poor vision, the orbweavers have to sit in or near their webs to feel their captives caught in their webs. I love seeing their dozens of webs strung every morning in the wetland alders and willows below our house.

Leaves are turning, particularly in flooded wetlands and lakeshores where trees and shrubs have been stressed by high water all summer. Many of the silver maples below our house have already turned red and are dropping their leaves, while numerous alders have apparently died or are in some form of senescence. 

            Hummingbirds are tanking up at nectar feeders and will soon be migrating, with the males departing well before the females and juveniles. Cornell’s Birds of North America says that “Overland migration of individuals from northern latitudes in North America is nearly synchronous with peak flowering of jewelweed (Impatiens capensis), suggesting this flower is an important nectar source during this time and may influence the timing of migration.” That’s intriguing. We have many jewelweeds in flower all around our property, and the hummers are constantly nectaring in them. I’m curious to see if on our property there’s a correlation between the hummer’s departures and the decline of jewelweed flowers.  

            Speaking of hummers, Ron Winters sent me a photo of hummers practicing perfect social distancing at 6 centimeters on one of his feeders. Our hummers never cooperate like this, try as we have to teach the males to share and leave everyone alone. 

            Finally, turtleheads are now in flower in the wetlands, while various species of goldenrod are blooming in the uplands. These are last flowers of summer and the harbingers of autumn.

 

Weather Stats

July 2020 tied with July 2016 as the second-hottest month ever recorded for our planet, according to a report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Only July 2019 was hotter, but only by a tiny fraction of a degree. “The July 2020 global land and ocean surface temperature was 1.66 degrees above the 20th-century average of 60.4 degrees, tying with 2016 as the second-highest temperature in the 141-year record,” NOAA said. 

July 2020 also marked the 44th-consecutive July and the 427th-consecutive month with temperatures above the 20th-century average, according to NOAA.

It was also very warm in the far north, as Arctic sea ice extent for July 2020 was the smallest in the 42-year record, 23% below the 1981–2010 average, according to an analysis by the National Snow and Ice Data Center. 

It's also the hottest year on record across a large portion of northern Asia, parts of Europe, China, Mexico, northern South America, the Atlantic, and the northern Indian and Pacific Oceans. 

 

Red-eyed Vireos

            Now that it’s late August, I think we’ve heard the last singing of red-eyed vireos, the most prodigious songster in the Northwoods. Called the “preacher” bird because of the male’s non-stop, monotonous singing, Bradford Torrey in 1889 had this to say about its speechifying, “I have always thought that whoever dubbed this vireo the ‘preacher' could have had no very exalted opinion of the clergy”. 

The adult male begins singing 30 to 35 minutes before sunrise and continues into late afternoon, no matter the heat index, singing up to 85 songs per minute, or an average of about 40 songs per minute. One researcher, Louise de Kiriline Lawrence, counted 22,197 songs by a red-eyed vireo over a 14-hour-day. Donald Kroodsma, author of The Singing Life of Birds, writes that only the whip-poor-will sings more songs per minute. Kroodsma counted the songs of one whip-poor-will over a 9-hour-night and estimated he heard 20,898 repetitions of the same phrase, enough to make him feel like he couldn’t get it out of this head the next morning.

Even though red-eyed vireo songs sound pretty much the same to me, individual red-eyed vireos don’t just sing one song - each has a large repertoire of phrases that are used alone or in combinations to form between 20 to 50 songs.

However, by the end of July, the male’s singing usually ceases by late morning, and by now he’s getting ready to migrate at night most often to the Amazon basin of South America flying either around or directly across the Gulf of Mexico.

 

Celestial Events

            On 8/28, look after dusk for Jupiter 1.4 degrees above the waxing gibbous moon. The next night, 8/29, look for Saturn in almost the same spot, but 2 degrees above the moon.

            September’s full moon occurs on 9/2, the Harvest/Acorn/Leaves Changing Color Moon.

 

Thought for the Week

“Bees do have a smell, you know, and if they don't they should, for their feet are dusted with spices from a million flowers.” - Ray Bradbury

 

Please share your outdoor sightings and thoughts: e-mail 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.

 

Stitching Continents Together: The Phenomenon of Bird Migration, 8/3/20

A Northwoods Almanac for August 7, 2020

A Northwoods Almanac for August 7 - 20, 2020  by John Bates

 

Of Wooly Bears and Life

Bob Kovar in Manitowish Waters sent this to me, and though it’s long, I thought it was worth sharing in its entirety because it speaks to so many things:

“Everyone knows how hard it is to grow vegetables here in the North - deer and other ravenous critters require fences or other drastic countermeasures, and big trees need to be pruned or cut down to allow enough sunlight into the garden. To avoid this dilemma, I have been growing tomatoes and peppers on my south-facing dock for many years, where my plants enjoy bright sunlight from dawn till dark. Like any good farmer taking pride in their work, I have several flowerpots planted to add color and beauty to the whole affair and to encourage the vegetables to grow as well-adjusted members of a larger community. When people venture by in their boats, there are many compliments muttered by people who know not how their voices carry on water about my giant tomato and pepper plants. 

“But the real oohs and ahhs are saved for my flowers. In each flowerpot, I plant several yellow giant marigolds and surround them with an assortment of begonias and impatiens. By the beginning of August, my flowers are several feet tall standing atop and gracefully hanging over the edges of their pots in proud cumulus clouds of color. 

“Now everyone knows deer won’t eat marigolds, and for many years I never had ONE plant on my dock touched by a deer during which time I grew to appreciate my genius for planting such a repellant flower there. That is until about four years ago. 

“One morning, much to my dismay, one of my flowerpots had all of the marigolds chewed to the nub. The next day, all of my other flowerpots had the same sad fate. On the third day, all of my flowers in all of my pots were gone. Now the first year this happened I just figured that some rogue deer had luckily called my bluff, and it was a one-time event. The second year, however, dispelled this new myth as the same thing happened again at the beginning of August. And the third year, despite me trying to train my golden retriever to become a stalwart defender of blossoms big and small, the same thing happened again. And woefully, despite pulling out all of the stops and waking before dawn and hiding in the woods starting in mid-July so as to scare the daylights out of my keen adversary thus sending it into the deep forest forever, the same thing happened again last year. 

“Now, I never did see the culprit in any of these years, but I was smart enough to know, with as much certainty as can be had by guessing and by goshing, that this animal had to be incredibly smart to outwit the likes of me. It HAD to be an animal with a long neck I surmised given the length of flower stems in the middle that were eaten to oblivion. A deer, maybe a goose (but there were never any goose droppings on the dock), maybe a beaver tired of popple and willow opting now for the thick lusciousness of the giant marigold trunks, or a muskrat trying to make a new start as a wedding planner . . . I had no idea. 

“So, like I do when I have no answers about so many things in this life, I called my good friend John Bates last year, and we assumed, inferred, calculated, pondered, guessed, predicted, deduced, inferred and opined like we were THE foremost experts in all matters of dock flower disappearance. But of course, we never came up with anything better than ‘Maybe we should put a trailcam out there?’ 

“Not the worst idea, but my ingrained human being privilege got the better of me and I concluded without a shred of evidence it had to be a deer. A very smart and sneaky deer in a cloaking device. I was the judge and jury and some deer was the problem - end of story.

“Well, yesterday (8/2), I walked down to the dock for the morning watering. I had long forgotten about the mystery of the disappearing flowers partly because I am now 65 and I don’t remember such things until they mysteriously happen again for the first time, and you have to give a guy a break what with pandemics, grandchildren, red squirrels, assorted hornet nests and mice in the garage taking up many of the most important hours in my days of late. As I emerged onto the dock, there it was - one of the flowerpots had been half-eaten alive. I cursed that deer -LOUDLY. I bent down to pick up the beautiful bodies of dead flowers scattered on the dock to pay them homage and administer their last rites before their burial at sea and Lo! and Behold! A wooly bear caterpillar! It was devouring a begonia leaf. In the two minutes I watched, it ate the WHOLE leaf! I was so focused on this one marauding insect, I didn’t realize that there was an entire platoon ambushing this one flowerpot. 

wooly bear caterpillar

    “I picked them off one by one, 40 in all, and threw them into the river where they floated motionless and where, I assumed, they would meet their rightful punishment of death by hungry sunfish. A few fish did snap at them, but then quickly spit them out. Moments later, realizing they were neither going to drown or be eaten alive, to my horror the platoon began swimming back to shore, now an understandably angry wiggling armada of death. I LEAPT into the water and started to grab them and throw them into my half-filled watering can, that would sadly have many less flowers to tend to in the coming mornings if this battle was lost. It turned out that upon further inspection of all of my flowerpots, there was more like a brigade of wooly bear caterpillars attending this flowerpot bender, and war, unfortunately, had to be declared to try and save the world down there on that dock. Suffice it say, as it is with any hostility, there were no real winners, but there sure were a lot of losers. In the fog at the end of that epic battle, I wondered if any of it was worth it.

“The moral of course is that it was my own silly bias that led me to make a false accusation, without a shred of evidence, against a whole community of critters, while for years another party was the miscreant doing the deed. Unless of course, the Woolly Bear caterpillar just happened to be in the wrong place at the right time this year. Who knows for sure? We human beings struggle with knowing what is real and what isn’t, don’t we? Usually because we either aren’t patient enough or, more likely, we may be blind as a bat or deaf as a board. Sometimes you just need to be humble and willing to wait long enough, years if it requires, to allow the right answer to show itself.”

 

Wild Lakes

            I’m working on a book that celebrates the last undeveloped, wild lakes of northern Wisconsin, which is really just an excuse for me to wander around and paddle lakes I’ve always wanted to explore. So, I’ve been paddling quite a number of lakes in the last few weeks, and I’d like to share just two of them with you - Mineral Lake, a 227-acre lake in Ashland County and McKinley Lake, a much smaller 48-acre lake in Forest County. 

Mineral Lake is one of the largest undeveloped lakes left in the state, and I had the whole lake to myself on a beautiful late morning despite its reputation as a popular walleye lake. This is bedrock country, so boulders and rock faces lined much of the shoreline. The surprise moment there for me was discovering scattered purple-fringed orchids along one of the shorelines, a species I rarely see. 

purple-fringed orchid photo by John Bates

McKinley Lake, east of Eagle River, offered a more intimate experience, and one loaded with floral highlights. Numerous old logs laid undisturbed in the water, clothed over the years by mosses and then bog plants, chief among which were hundreds of round-leaved sundews. I doubt I’ve ever seen so many sundews, and all were just about to flower. The carnivorous sundew attracts diminutive insects like mosquitoes with its attractive rosy coloration and its sparkling fluid-tipped tentacles, and traps them in the viscous droplets. The leaf gradually folds over the captive in 10 to 15 minutes, and then secretes an enzyme to digest the insect. I love that one late 19th century naturalist referred to the sundew as a “bloodthirsty little miscreant”, no doubt while he was having steak for dinner. 

round-leaved sundews, photo by John Bates

 

Fireworks - Enough Already 

It seems a number of people don’t realize July 4^th and its attendant fireworks is over. To make matters worse, it seems that the explosive thunder of fireworks now available to the public has vastly multiplied, so we now have the combination of people setting off extraordinarily loud fireworks day and night with no calendar end in sight. 

The result - “KABOOM” “KABOOM” - is the night sound many now hear rather than the hooting of owls, the wail of loons, or the yipping of coyotes. A few nights ago we even had some folks at the wilderness campsite downriver from our house setting off ear-shattering pyrotechnics as the full moon was rising. Why they didn’t perceive the disconnect between camping in a wilderness area and shooting off explosive fireworks is an unanswerable question. 

So, what’s the issue above and beyond my enjoyment of quiet? Pretty simple - the impacts on wildlife from fireworks are real, as well as the impacts on those who live and work here full-time. How real? Let’s allow Marge Gibson, the internationally-respected wildlife rehabilitator at the Raptor Education Group in Antigo, to make it clear: 

“It is a rare moment indeed when anyone hears me use the word “hate” and yet here it is. At this moment in time, I hate the 4th of July. Not what is stands for, but what is has become. I hate fireworks. I hate the crazed people that race around the pristine lakes and wild spaces of the northland, treat our landscape like their personal playground and have no sense of responsibility or consideration for what they are destroying.

“Last night we admitted yet another 5.5-week-old eaglet that jumped or fell from his nest in a resort town. We also admitted a cygnet Trumpeter Swan, and today . . . I have a message that loons in another resort town have abandoned their chicks, one chick reported to be huddled under a pontoon boat in shock.

“The day is young, and most fireworks have not yet begun for this actual day of “celebration”. Reality is the explosions and reckless behavior began at least a week ago and will continue through the end of July at a minimum. My reality is my wildlife center will fill with abandoned, injured and terrified wildlife all because of those that chose to think that in “this” playground they can do anything they want and then leave it broken to those of us that live here.

Another treat ... I get to shoulder all the financial responsibility for our patients as well.”

            I asked Marge for permission to print this, and in her response on 8/3 she noted: “Can you imagine, we have 750 patients here, thirty-two of which are eagles.” 

Marge Gibson with an adult bald eagle

As a birdwatcher, I notice in July and even into August that many birds are still raising young, or feeding young that have just fledged, or sitting on a second clutch of eggs, and when we create the thunderclap of fireworks in our yards and parks, do we even consider the impact on birds? As for mammals, just talk to any pet dog - nearly every one of them is petrified. What do folks think occurs for fox, deer, snowshoe hare, et al? 

From my standpoint, we need to celebrate our independence day in a manner that honors life, and not in some thoughtless competition to produce the loudest explosions that honor the sounds of war but fail to honor the place in which we, and wildlife, live. 

Years ago in this column, I suggested the formation of a group to be called the “Majority for Silence,” a take-off from the “Silent Majority” we heard so much about in 1980s politics. 

Apparently it’s time to dust the idea off again.

 

Thought for the Week

            The first words my daughter ever read were words printed on a spine of a book. I was there. It was evening. She was four years old. She ran her fingers along the spine of the book and sounded out the syllables and suddenly put them together into words and her mother and I sat there agape and my heart shivered and our daughter turned and grinned and nothing was ever quite the same. - Bryan Doyle, “Grace Notes”

 

Please share your outdoor sightings and thoughts: e-mail 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.

 

NWA July 24, 2020

A Northwoods Almanac for July 24 - August 6, 2020  by John Bates

 

Comet NEOWISE

On July 15, Mary and I were able to get fine views of comet NEOWISE about 10:30 at night. Using our binoculars greatly enhance our view, so I recommend using a pair. Over the next few nights, look in the northwest after dusk about 25° above the horizon, or just below the Big Dipper. The comet is now a faint third magnitude object and is growing dimmer. 

Comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) was discovered on March 27, 2020 by the Near Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, aka NEOWISE, which was launched by NASA in 2009. 

Comet NEOWISE won’t be visible again from Earth until around the year 8,786, so unless you expect to live another 6,700 years, you might want to take a look now.

 

Record High Temperatures in the Great Lakes

The waters in the Great Lakes are heating up with surface temperatures of all but Lake Superior rising to about 70° F and nearing or passing record highs. Lake Superior’s average water temperature reached 55.8 degrees on July 8, over 6° above normal. The other lakes also are 6° to 11° above their average water temperatures for this time of year. 

The unusually warm water is a reflection of high temperatures over the Great Lakes region in recent weeks. While great for swimming, the excessively warm waters can trigger environmental problems like blooms of blue-green algae. 

 

Solar Energy in the Northwoods

Mary and I began generating electricity from our 22 solar panels on 12/17/19, and while we were told we could expect to generate about $985 worth of electricity annually, we really didn’t know if that would be true. To see how we’re doing, I looked up our production so far. As of 7/20, we’ve generated 4.91 MWh (4,910 kWh), or at current rates, about $565 of electricity. In June, we generated 959 kWh, our best month so far, with our best day providing 46.5 kWh.

So, was the solar company accurate? Dividing their estimate of $985 by 12 months comes to $82 per month. In 7 months-time, therefore, we should have generated $574, which is just about what we’ve done. 

We generated more electricity than we used on our last three months of bills, but we needed to buy electricity from 12/17 through 4/17. So, it looks like over a year we’ll be buying electricity four months out of the year, about break-even in our use and production for four months, and generate more than we need for four months. 

The question we always get is, “What’s your payback?” Utilizing the present tax incentives and laws, we should pay the initial cost back in 7 years or so. Pretty darn good I think, but it all depends on how much electricity one uses every month - some folks will pay their investment back sooner, some later. After that, it’s clear sailing!

 

Ovenbird Nest

            While hiking a trail on 7/8 in The Nature Conservancy’s Tenderfoot Preserve, a bird shot out from out from under my feet. I never saw it, but the friends I was with noticed it, and when we looked down, there was an ovenbird nest right next to where I’d stepped. 

Now, ovenbirds are familiar to many folks who walk in our northern woods because of their very loud, insistent song that sounds like “Teacher, teacher, teacher, TEACHER,” or as I prefer, “Pizza, pizza, pizza, PIZZA.” But seeing this cryptically colored, olive-brown bird that blends so well with the forest understory is another matter altogether. Ovenbirds mostly forage on the ground for leaf-litter insects, so they’re particularly difficult to see on the forest floor despite their boisterous songs which one would think would signal their location.

An even more difficult task is finding one of their exceptionally well-concealed leaf nests. In all the years Mary and I have been birding, we’ve never found a nest, a reality shared by most birders. The nest resembles a dome-shaped oven with a roof made of leaves. So, unlike nearly all other bird nests which are shaped in a horizontal cup and open to the sky, the ovenbird nest has a roof and opens parallel to the ground. The nest is also placed in deep forest leaf litter and then covered with leaves, so it’s basically invisible when looking down on it.

I peered into the nest and found four eggs! This was surprising given that ovenbirds are a neotropical songbird, migrating to Central and South America in mid-to-late August. They arrive in northern Wisconsin in mid-May, quickly set up territories and breed. Research shows the female typically builds her nest within six days of arrival, then incubates eggs for ten days, with hatching occurring often by the end of May and into early-to-mid-June. So, a nest with four eggs on July 8^th is quite late in the game. 

But perhaps this female’s first nest failed, or possibly she was attempting to raise a second brood, but research shows that to be a rarity.

Who knows? There’s always far more mystery in the woods than there are answers, and anyone who tells you different doesn’t spend enough time in the woods to be talking. 

 

Sightings

Bruce Spangenberg in Eagle River sent me photos from early July of a dragonfly feasting on a grasshopper it caught at the St Germain Flea Market. He noted, “It is sitting on a vendor table with musky lures and took about ten minutes to consume the grasshopper.” Grasshoppers are every bit as big and much heavier than most dragonflies, proving the dragonfly’s reputation as an amazing predator.                                                                                                                              Mary and I ran our DNR frog survey route in western Vilas County on July 15, and we heard the two expected frogs at this time of the year - green frogs and bullfrogs - and no others. But listening for frogs after dark at ten different sites presents other experiences that won’t show up in the frog data. One of our sites is on Little Crooked Lake, and in order to get to the boat landing where we park and listen, we have to drive Bear Lake Road. In recent years, the DNR did a clearcut along this road, and now in the cutover we always look and listen for three dusk and night-flying birds - whip-poor-wills, nighthawks, and woodcocks. We weren’t disappointed. In fact, at separate locations, we were able to watch one woodcock and two different nighthawks just sitting on the road, quite unphased by our bright lights illuminating them 20 feet away. We were so enthralled we forgot to take pictures! This was the third or fourth year we’ve had this experience, and I’m still perplexed as to what they’re doing sitting on the road. If it was a cold night, I could understand their soaking up heat from the blacktop, but it was 62°. If it was springtime when woodcocks strut on the ground before launching their remarkable courting flights, that would make sense. But it was mid-July and courting is kaput. So . . . we added this to our ever-increasing list of observations without a clear explanation. Sometimes all you can do is say thank-you.

Fireweed, Oswego tea, wild bergamot, butterfly weed, and marsh milkweed are all in flower, and all are loved by butterflies and bees. Jewelweed is just now coming into flower, and area hummingbirds will immediately be seeking nectar in every one of their orange, tubular flowers.

Fireweed photo by Mary Burns

Aquatic flowers have come into their own - every lake and river is now, or soon will be, a painter’s palette of color. Water levels remain exceedingly high on many area lakes with shorelines and beaches inundated. The high water has impacted many aquatic plants including wild rice which struggles to do well in deeper waters. Some plants, however, appear to be thriving, like watershield. This is where long-term records are helpful, so we can understand what our lakes support - what is “normal” - during droughts, during average years, and during high water years, so we can manage our responses appropriately.  

On 7/19, Mary, Callie, and I hiked the Hidden Rivers Trail at Fisherman’s Landing on the edge of the Turtle Flambeau Flowage. This two-mile-long trail has two loops, and a gorgeous spur trail onto a peninsula jutting into the Flowage. Much of the trail runs through relatively mature forest, and I think it ranks as one of the prettiest trails we have in our region. I mention it because it seems underutilized, and while I’d personally rather not share the trail with lots more people, it’s well-deserving of more appreciation than just ours.

 

Celestial Events

            The peak Delta Aquarid Meteor Shower occurs before dawn on 7/28.

            On 8/1, look for Jupiter 1.5° north of the waxing gibbous moon. 

On 8/2, look for Saturn 2° above the moon. 

The full moon occurs on 8/3.

            And now, as of early August, our days are growing shorter by 3 minutes every day.

            

Thought for the Week

            “Animals live in certain ways, and when you pay attention to their ways, what they like, what they are most comfortable with, that’s when you go down a few layers deeper . . . My job is to catch some of them, but the larger pleasure isn’t the money, it’s the literature of their lives, so to speak . . . You never get to the end of knowing about them. There’s always something new that the books and Websites and grizzled old veterans of the woods don’t know. That’s a good thing to remember. Whatever you know beyond the shadow of a doubt out here, you don’t . . . So we’ll just walk and talk quietly. You ask anything you want and tell me anything you see, and I’ll do the same. We’ll be quietly companionable. Two students in the biggest school there is.” - a conversation between an old trapper and a young boy in Martin Marten by Brian Doyle.

 

Please share your outdoor sightings and thoughts: e-mail 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.

 

 

 

NWA for July 10, 2020

A Northwoods Almanac for July 10 – 23, 2020  

 

Sightings

6/22: Janet Vander Voort sent a photo of a saw-whet owl that flew in and sat on their picnic table while she was having lunch in Tomahawk. She noted, “It landed on the table two feet away from me and sat and looked at me for a couple minutes, like it had something to say!” Saw-whets are rarely seen - Mary and I have yet to see one in the wild - so, I find her experience remarkable!

saw-whet owl photo by Janet Bander Voort

6/27: Mick Toben sent me a beautiful photo of a big poplar sphinx moth that visited his property in Hazelhurst.

photo by Mick Toben

7/1: We’ve been watching purple finch and yellow-bellied sapsucker chicks being fed by their parents. The fledged young beg loudly and insistently!

7/2: A Virginia ctenucha moth visited us in Manitowish. We have no idea how to pronounce “ctenucha,” but we do know that it’s a beautiful moth, and we were grateful to see it. It was a “lifer” for us!

photo by John Bates

            By the way, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan each boast about 2,500 species of Lepidoptera, which includes butterflies and moths, of which perhaps 2,000 live in the Northwoods of Wisconsin. That’s a pittance compared to the 12,400 species of Lepidoptera that have been named across all of North America, of which only 830, or about 7%, are butterflies. That leaves a very large field of moths to try and learn, so be patient with yourself - it’s a lifelong endeavor that only a very few will ever come close to mastering. 

I haven’t counted how many Mary and I have identified over the years, but I’d be very happy if the number was all of 50. On the other hand, good friend Sarah Besadny in Eagle River has identified 341 species at her home in Eagle River! And what, you may ask, is her incredibly complicated technique? She simply switches her porch light on and goes out a little later and takes pictures. She then uses the Peterson Field Guide to Moth of Northeastern North America to ID the moths. That’s it! Oh, if she is stuck, she does consult a website out of Mississippi State U. - https://mothphotographersgroup.msstate.edu - but she says the Peterson guide is almost always sufficient.

Why study moths? Says Sarah: “They’re beautiful and the diversity is astounding. You can get a wide diversity right at your porch light and it’s so darn easy. Plus, they sit nice and tight to photograph.” 

I couldn’t agree more. They’re simply fascinating creatures to pay attention to, and there’s no need to be an expert. Just turn on your porch light and see what comes to visit.

Coincidentally, National Moth Week is from July 18 - 26! See http://nationalmothweek.org.

 

Monarchs

            From a number of reports I’ve seen, monarch butterflies appear to be only present in small numbers in the Northwoods. I’ve not seen any reasons for this decline, but I did see a paper published recently in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution that was investigating why Western monarchs, which overwinter along the California coast, have dropped to only about 1% of their estimated numbers in the 1980s. The study analyzed which chemicals were being found in milkweed and in what quantities. The researchers collected 227 milkweed samples from 19 sites across California’s Central Valley. After screening the samples for 262 pesticides, they found the plants contained 25 insecticides, 27 fungicides, 11 herbicides and one pesticide additive. On average, each plant carried about nine pesticides.

Five of the pesticides appeared in 80% of the samples, including in milkweed from national wildlife refuges and other protected areas. The chemical chlorantraniliprole, commonly applied to tree nut crops like almonds, pistachios and walnuts, appeared in 91% of the samples, with 26% of samples exceeding a toxicity threshold for monarchs. 

Since monarchs lay their eggs on the underside of milkweed leaves, and the larvae feed on the leaves until they pupate into butterflies, the biologists suspect that the presence of these chemicals is playing a role in their decline.

 

Shorebird Migration Has Begun, and Songbirds Have Quieted

I always find this hard to believe so early in the summer, but numerous shorebirds have already begun migrating south from their Arctic breeding grounds. Look in particular for solitary sandpipers, lesser yellowlegs, and lesser sandpipers, which according to DNR conservation biologist Ryan Brady, are the first to show up in our area.

Meanwhile, the dawn bird choir is heading into retirement for the year. Once nesting duties have been fulfilled, the territorial and reproductive imperatives rapidly shrink, leaving the birds little biological reason to sing. Some species, however, never get the memo and will sing all day, every day, the loudest and most persistent being the red-eyed vireo who will sing right up to when he migrates in early August.

For me, there’s a sadness in the morning air without the refrains of chorusing birds. A bit like the ephemeral nature of spring wildflowers, the window for birdsong opens and closes rather rapidly, and late July/early August mornings now become exercises in near silence.

 

Roadside Flowers

            Sun-loving perennial wildflowers are burgeoning along our roadsides and in our open fields. Many are non-native and considered weedy, though I always admonish folks to remember botanist Susan Knight’s definition of a weed: a weed is a plant without a press agent. 

Some of these non-natives are truly invasive and thus bad-actors, while others are content to play a minor role in pioneering the disturbed soils found along our roads. Note that the following list only covers full sun, open field/roadside, non-native invasives, and not aquatic or woodland invasives: St. John’s-wort, butter-and-eggs, common mullein, tall buttercup, birdsfoot trefoil, forget-me-nots, common speedwell, orange hawkweed, yellow hawkweed, ox-eye daisy, spotted knapweed, lily-of-the-valley, yellow and white sweet-clover, golden clover, tansy, Queen Anne’s-lace, orange daylily, field bindweed, crown vetch, chicory, curly dock, and sheep sorrel.

St. John's wort

heal-all

I realize that many of these species are very pretty, some smell exquisite, and more than a few are well appreciated by honey bees, and we are now proud beekeepers. Nevertheless, these plants are invasive. It’s your call on your land what you want to do about them. At a minimum, keep an eye on them. However, I recommend an earlier, more proactive response if you want to save yourself lots more work later on.

Look also for several common roadside plants that are “good” actors, native plants that perform worthy functions and rarely become invasive. These include common yarrow, spreading dogbane, fireweed, milkweed and heal-all. I should add, please take the time to inhale the gorgeous fragrance of a spreading dogbane flower. I think they’re near equals to milkweed flowers.

 

Loon Chicks Hatching Successfully on Second Go-Around

Walter Piper noted in his 7/3 “Loon Project” blog some optimism for loon reproduction this year despite the fact that 70% of the loon nests in his Oneida County study area had been abandoned in late May due to black flies. Most pairs did re-nest, and reports of successful chick hatchings were coming in. In his blog, he compared this summer’s poor reproduction to 2014, his worst year on record: “In both years, over 70% of all first nests were abandoned because of black flies, so this should be an apples to apples comparison. As of July 4th, 2014, 14 pairs had chicks - 18 chicks in all - and 40 pairs were still sitting on eggs. After many recent hatches this year, there are now 22 pairs rearing 31 chicks; 25 nests are still active. If we project the likely rate of chick production from the remaining nests this year, 2020 will produce about the same number of chicks (52) that 2014 did (51). Now 2014 was a weak year, so producing the same number of chicks as 2014 is no great shakes. But 2020 looks to have about 20% more chicks reaching five weeks of age than last year” (see https://loonproject.org/2020/06/27/blundering-males-and-black-flies/).

Time will yet tell, but all of this is to say that while this will be a poor loon reproduction year, things have turned around in a positive direction from the alarming start in May.

 

Celestial Events

            On 7/11, look before dawn for Mars about two degrees above the waning gibbous moon. Yes, but how far is two degrees, you ask? Your hand can be used as a measuring stick. Hold your hand out at arm’s length, and the width of the end of your little finger equals about 1 degree. So, two pinkies worth of width is two degrees. Hold your middle three fingers up, and their width equals 5 degrees. One fist width held at arms-length equals about 10 degrees. Spread your hand wide from thumb to pinkie, and that’s about 25 degrees. Folks with big hands may have to subtract a little, while folks with small hands might have to add a little.

            On 7/17, look before dawn for Venus about 3 degrees south of the now crescent moon.

            New moon occurs on 7/20. 

For planet viewing in general, look after dusk for very bright Jupiter and more modest Saturn, both in the southeast.

            Before dawn look for brilliant Venus very low in the east and Mars high in the southeast. 

 

Deer Flies

            I have only one thing truly useful to share about the current hatch of deer flies: run, don’t walk, to a sporting goods store that sells deer fly patches for your hat (or buy direct from https://www.deerflypatches.com). The patches are basically a fly paper you put on your hat, and then roll up and throw away when your hike or outdoor work is over. They work great, they’re harmless to the environment and you, and they use the little beast’s penchant for landing on your head. My record is catching 70 of them on my hat during a single hike. The option? Have 70 them racing endlessly around your head like enraged NASCAR drivers.

 

Thought for the Week          

            “Our well-being depends upon the accurate perception that we are small within the scale of the universe . . . To know the measure of our smallness is to appreciate our fundamental dependency upon wildness, upon the central alchemy of sun and water and soil that we can neither create, nor replicate, nor dominate . . . In acceding to what is vastly larger than ourselves, we are not diminished, but exalted. We assume then our rightful place in the magnificent whole of nature, indistinguishable from it.”  - Paul Gruchow

A Northwoods Almanac for 6/26/20

A Northwoods Almanac for June 26 – July 9, 2020    by John Bates

 

Moth Sightings 

“Wisdom begins in wonder,” wrote Socrates, and if you take time to look closely at moths and butterflies, you’re in for a world of wonder. In the last few weeks, numerous folks have sent us photos of beautiful moths they’re seeing on their property. I’ve attached photos of each moth for this column, but if they don’t all get published, just do an internet search to ID them.

Sarah Krembs sent a photo of a Polyphemus moth (Antheraea polyphemus) being eaten by a robin. Polyphemus moths are huge with up to a 6-inch wingspan, and have a large “eye” on each of their hindwings presumably to frighten would-be predators. Polyphemus, you may recall from Greek mythology, was the one-eyed giant son of Poseidon.

Mary Burns took a photo of a maple looper moth (Parallelia bistriaris) on the River Trail in Manitowish Waters. She kept pointing at this incredibly cryptic moth in the leaf litter, but I never could see it until we got home and I looked at the picture.

Sarah Besadny in Eagle River sent us photos of both a luna moth (Actias luna) and a Columbia silk moth (Hyalophora columbia). The pale green coloration of a large luna moth is just exquisite – I’m not sure one could ever see a more beautiful moth. Having said that, the Columbia silk moth, in the same genus as the cecropia moth, could give the luna moth a run for its money in a beauty contest.

 

Jennifer Heitz sent a photo of a rosy maple moth (Dryocampa rubicunda), which looks like a pastel painter went wild with yellow and pink. The caterpillars of the rosy maple moth do eat maple leaves, so if numerous, they can cause some defoliation though it’s rarely an issue.

Bob Kovar sent a photo of a cecropia moth (Hyalophora cecropia), a gorgeous red, brown, and white moth with a 4-to-6-inch wingspan.

And Nancy Atwater sent a photo of a Virginian tiger moth (Spilosoma virginica), an all-white moth with a few minute brown spots on its wings. 

And since all moths and butterflies have to come from caterpillars, I took a photo of what I believe was a rusty tussock moth caterpillar (Orgyia antiqua nova) that was wandering across our deck. This little guy has four “white brushes” protruding from its back, reminding me of the horse-hair plumes Roman soldiers wore on their helmets.

 

How Are Moths Different From Butterflies?

While moths and butterflies both belong to the order Lepidoptera, they differ in a number of physical and behavioral ways. Behaviorally, nearly all moths are nocturnal while nearly all butterflies are diurnal (active during the day). While resting, butterflies usually fold their wings above them, while moths flatten their wings against their bodies or spread them out like an airplane.

Physical differences abound, too. Moths are fat and fuzzy; butterflies are slender and smooth. If you examine their antennae, moths have feathery or comb-like antennae, while butterfly antennae are thin rods with club-shaped tips. Wing colorations really contrast: butterflies typically sport more vibrant colors while night-flying moths are dull – colors don’t help much in the dark! But there are day-flying moths that are exceptionally colorful – think luna moth and cecropia moth. 

Another difference occurs in their pupal stage between the larva and adult stages: moths make cocoons wrapped in silk while butterflies form hard, smooth chrysalises.

But as with virtually everything in nature, exceptions are the rule. So, my advice is to get a couple good ID books. I recommend Moths and Caterpillars of the North Woods by Jim Sogaard, and Butterflies of the North Woods by Larry Weber, both produced by Kollath-Stensass Publishing in Duluth, MN. Perfect for novices, both provide references to the most common species we’re likely to see in our area.

 

The Warmest May On Record        

May 2020 was the planet's warmest May since record keeping began in 1880, according to NOAA and NASA. NOAA rated May as tied with 2016 for warmest May on record, while NASA put May 2020 ahead of May 2016 by 0.06°C. Minor differences in rankings often occur between NOAA and NASA, due to the different techniques they use to handle data-sparse regions such as the Arctic.

The year-to-date period of January-May ranks as the second warmest such period on record, just 0.06°C behind the record set in 2016. NOAA projects that 2020 has a 99.9% chance to rank among the five warmest years on record, and a 49% chance of being the warmest year ever on record. 

 

Orange Rust Fungus and Eastern Tent Caterpillars

Wendi and Peggi Home sent me a note last week after being on a walk in Boulder Junction and noticing an orange growth on the wild raspberry plants along the roadside. Peggi was familiar with its invasive, destructive nature from living in New York State and tending a berry garden, so they took the time to cut it out from this particular patch. They were curious what it was, so I forwarded their email on and Brian Hudelson at the Plant Disease Diagnostics Clinic at the UW-Madison responded.

He wrote, “This is orange rust caused by the fungus Gymnoconia peckiana (also known as Authuriomyces peckianus). You are quite right that this is an aggressive fungus and can spread very readily. Removal of the plants, roots and all, and destruction of this material (burying or burning) is the best option for management. I checked on host range and it appears that black raspberry and blackberry are suspectible, but not red raspberry. Strawberry and blueberry are also not hosts.”

            I’ve attached one of Wendi’s photos of the orange rust, so you can be on the lookout for this fungus and destroy it if you find it.

Also of note, eastern tent caterpillars are hatching and feeding on host trees in our area, including among others, cherry, apple and crabapple trees. These guys form white silken tents in the fork of branches. Although the tents are unsightly, eastern tent caterpillars are a native insect and rarely cause long-term damage – even completely defoliated trees will put out new leaves within a few weeks.

If you want to remove them, it’s best to do so in the early morning or evening when the caterpillars are inside the tent – they leave their tents each morning to feed during the day before returning at night. Insecticides aren’t necessary. You can kill them by soaking them in soapy water or sealing them in a trash bag. Don’t prune the branches or burn the tents (this is the voice of experience talking), because you can do more harm than good. 

 

Molt Migration 

Family units of Canada geese and their goslings are common this time of year, but every so often I still see large flocks of geese going, going, . . . well, somewhere, but the why and where has always been a puzzle. Bill Volkert, retired naturalist at Horicon Marsh and expert birder, studied Canada geese for a good part of his career, and he wrote a few weeks ago about the phenomenon of their molt migration. He noted that the non-breeders began flocking up in mid-May and that these are the geese that make all of the noise in spring since the breeding adults are very quiet while nesting and tending young.

Since giant Canada geese don't begin to nest until they are 2 to 3 years old
and the migrant geese that nest in Hudson Bay don’t mature until 3 to 4 years of age, a large proportion of geese are non-breeders. 

Here’s the rub. Canada geese, like other waterfowl, go through a complete molt, meaning that they will lose their flight feathers and be unable to fly for at least three weeks in mid-summer. The non-breeders need to get to a place where they can access food while they molt, but they also need to reduce the pressure on local food resources needed by the older birds and their young. So, these birds begin to form flocks around mid-May and towards the end of May to early June, they migrate north on a south wind.

Some of these geese may still only head to northern Wisconsin while others will
go well into Canada and up the coast of Hudson Bay. The young birds are joined by failed adult breeders – those adult birds that have lost their eggs to predators or other means.

 

Underwater Photos

I met Jim Arnold last summer at the Trout Lake Limnology Center open house where he was an artist in residence, and there he showed me some of his wonderful underwater photography. If you are interested in what’s going on under the surface of your lake, check out Jim’s blog: https://www.jimsgibberish.com

 

30 Years!

            This column marks the 30-year anniversary of when I was first given the chance to share my observations of Northwoods life as well as many of your sightings. Thank you for continuing to read these words over the years, and for all the kind sharing of your observations!

 

Celestial Events

            July 4 marks when the Earth has reached aphelion, its farthest point from the sun at 94.5 million miles. That’s 3.1 million miles more distant than during perhelion when the Earth is closest to the sun. Full moon tonight, 7/4, rising at 8:50.

            On 7/5, look after dusk for Jupiter about 2 degrees north of the moon. On 7/6, look after dusk for Saturn in about the same spot, 2 degrees north of the moon.

            

Thought for the Week

“It seems that the more places I see and experience, the bigger I realize the world to be. The more I become aware of, the more I realize how relatively little I know of it, how many places I have still to go, how much more there is to learn. Maybe that’s enlightenment enough: to know that there is no final resting place of the mind; no moment of smug clarity. Perhaps wisdom … is realizing how small I am, and unwise, and how far I have yet to go.” – Anthony Bourdain 

 

Please share your outdoor sightings and thoughts: e-mail 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.