Tracking Stories (combined)

This morning I followed my fox down the hill to the lake. By "followed," I mean I walked next to his footprints, and by "my fox," I only mean the local one who lays dainty beaded necklaces of tracks all over my yard and across my doorstep. In the delicate trails woven through hemlocks, along fallen logs, to and from the compost pile, and zigzagging down the driveway, I hear poet Mary Oliver give my wild neighbors a voice…“Listen, says fox, it is music to run over the hills” (Straight Talk from Fox in Red Bird)

Music…reading…both are wonderful metaphors for animal tracking. The recent snows are an excellent tracking medium, and noticing tracks can make the woods come alive. Last week, behind the garage, I found a mess of the fox’s tracks around a small lump of leaves covered in snow. Two bright yellow dabs of urine indicated that this was a scent mound, used for marking his territory. Male members of the dog family, Canidae, will use raised leg urination (RLU) to let others in the area know that this territory is taken and defended.

You may think I'm crazy, but I got down on my hands and knees and sniffed the urine. Red fox and gray fox urine each have their own unique scents. Both are slightly skunky, but the red fox smells much sharper and stronger, while the gray fox's scent is mellower. The smell test confirmed that I've been tracking a gray fox. This scent marking is also why I've been referring to my neighbor as "he." By the end of last winter I had noticed enough side-by-side fox trails to be confident that my yard housed a pair of foxes. I don't have enough evidence yet to be sure that the female is still around, but this is the beginning of mating season, so I may know soon.

Back at the lake I found a gray fox highway. Perforating the snow were at least eight different sets of tracks going in many directions along the edge of the ice and up onto shore. One of the trails was very different, definitely not a fox.

Large (as long as my entire pointer finger) and with five toes arranged asymmetrically, these tracks bounded along the bank in the 2x pattern. This is a common track pattern in the Mustelidae or weasel family, and we can find half-inch tracks from the least weasel all the way up to four-inch tracks from the river otter and fisher arranged two-by-two down trails in this area. Each set of tracks is the result of the back feet landing exactly in the prints left by the front feet.

Being so close to the lake, I expected the animal to suddenly break into a slide at any moment. River otters will often belly-sled over leaves, mud, ice, or snow, leaving long, foot-wide troughs between short groups of tracks. I walked faster as we followed the trail over logs, down near alders on the shore, and under balsam fir branches. Not once did they break from the 2x pattern. So, in my notebook, I would record these large weasel tracks as “likely fisher.” These large, dark brown weasels, with a reputation for being inquisitive and ferocious, are an important predator of porcupines in the region. Hunters often share stories of seeing fishers while sitting quietly.

Tracking is always a “probably” kind of game. Any animal can do any gait, and foot size overlaps among many species. While habitat, behavior, scat, kill sites, and many other clues can help with identification, there is always an element of uncertainty.  The sense of a mystery that might not be solved is what keeps me hooked.

Red-cheeked and warm from the walk, practically dancing with joy at the chance to read new stories, I have to say I agree with the fox: it is music to travel over the hills.

Tracking Stories

With fresh snow on the ground I am eager to get out and read the stories of the forest. The deer are following their same patterns, the squirrels are frantic as usual, and a curious vole has been exploring my waterfront, leaving a trail of miniature walking footprints. The foxes are hunting, and in the dainty trails woven through hemlocks, along fallen logs, to and from the compost pile, and zigzagging down the driveway, I hear poet Mary Oliver give my wild neighbors a voice…“Listen, says fox, it is music to run over the hills” (Straight Talk from Fox in Red Bird)

Music…reading…both are wonderful metaphors for animal tracking. These recent snows are an excellent tracking medium, and noticing tracks can make the woods come alive. On a recent cloudy afternoon (we’ve had so many of them!) I took a friend exploring in the woods on Lake Namakagon. We tromped directly to the shoreline, drawn by water’s universal pull. Others had gone this direction not long before.

A foot-wide swath of heart-shaped hooves confirmed that many deer escaped hunting season with their tenderloins intact. Neatly pressed into the wet snow down the center of the deer trail was a narrow line of square-ish, four-toed prints. Tiny claws had made dimples in the snow. Each track equaled the length of my pointer finger to just above my second knuckle. Rarely remembering a ruler, I often measure tracks with body parts, or my lip balm. Had these tracks been a little longer, reaching to just below my second knuckle, I would have guessed their maker to be a red fox. I often see one at dusk along County Highway D not far from here. Instead, these smaller tracks, with their almost cat-like appeal, probably belong to a gray fox.

Tracking is always a “probably” kind of game. Any animal can do any gait, and foot size overlaps among many species. While habitat, behavior, scat, kill sites, and many other clues can help with identification, there is always an element of uncertainty.  The sense of a mystery that might not be solved is what keeps me hooked.

The next tracks we found reinforced the uncertainty factor. Large (as long as my entire pointer finger) and with five toes arranged asymmetrically, these tracks bounded along the bank in the 2x pattern. This is a common track pattern in the Mustelidae or weasel family, and we can find ½ inch tracks from the least weasel all the way up to 4 inch tracks from the river otter and fisher arranged two-by-two down trails in this area. Each set of tracks is the result of the back feet landing exactly in the prints left by the front feet. Squirrels can also leave tracks in this 2x pattern, especially in deep snow, but their tracks are perpendicular to the direction of travel, while weasel prints are at an angle to the direction of travel.

Being so close to the lake, I expected the animal to suddenly break into a slide at any moment. River otters will often slide over leaves, mud, ice, or snow, leaving long, foot-wide troughs between short groups of tracks. I walked faster as we followed the trail over logs, down near alders on the shore, and under balsam fir branches. Not once did they break from the 2x pattern. So, in my notebook, I would record these large weasel tracks as “likely fisher.” These large, dark brown weasels, with a reputation for being inquisitive and ferocious, are an important predator of porcupines in the region. I see fisher tracks regularly and even spotted one from my bedroom window last winter. Hunters often share stories of seeing fishers while sitting quietly.

As the tracks of the fisher faded in the thin snow under thick hemlocks, we turned our tracking eyes to other things. Frozen jelly fungus, vibrant orange with a little snow cap, practically glowed on a fallen log. Tiny birch seeds dotted the snow’s crust, using the smooth surface to disperse farther from their parent tree. The strobili (reproductive structure) of one little green club moss released a bright cloud of yellow spores onto the white drift.

The stories of nature are not confined to animal trails; every object adds a few notes to the symphony or leads to a new chapter of discovery. Red-cheeked and warm from the walk, practically dancing with joy at the chance to read new stories, I have to say I agree with the fox: it is music to travel over the hills.

For over 44 years, the Museum has served as a guide and mentor to generations of visitors and residents interested in learning to better appreciate and care for the extraordinary natural resources of the region. The Museum invites you to visit its facility in Cable at 13470 County Highway M. The new exhibit, The Joy of Birds: Feathers in Focus opened in May, 2011. Find us on the web at www.cablemuseum.org to learn more about our exhibits and programs. Also discover us on Facebook, or at our blogspot, http://cablemuseumnaturalconnections.blogspot.com/.

Snowy Owl Irruption!

By Katie Connolly, Naturalist at the Cable Natural History Museum

Hello! This is Katie, Naturalist at the Cable Natural History Museum. This week I’m going to take a turn writing Natural Connections, because there is something just way too cool happening right now in the Northwoods! I always get excited about raptors and bird of prey, so you can imagine how much my curiosity was piqued by news of a Snowy Owl irruption this winter.

Snowy Owls spend their summers on the Arctic tundra, raising their young and hunting small rodents like lemmings.  Lemmings on the Arctic tundra go through “boom and bust” cycles.  Some years there are more than enough lemmings to feed Arctic predators and in other years there are hardly any. The availability of prey dictates how far south Snowy Owls will travel in the winter to find food. The fewer lemmings there are up north, the farther south these owls will go. From the high number of Snowy Owl sightings being reported across the state of Wisconsin, scientists have deduced that this is an irruption year. Irruption years caused by lemming shortages occur in a somewhat regular cycle of four or five years. The last irruption Wisconsin experienced was in 2006.

Birders should be on the look-out for this large owl. They are most often seen in areas that resemble their native tundra home, such as large open fields or wetlands. As their name suggests, they are white with black, grey, or dark brown spots and bars. They are also diurnal (most active during the day) so your chances of seeing one are better during daylight hours.

A word of caution: If you do see a Snowy Owl, do your best not to disturb them. The reason they are here is because they are hungry and looking for food. Give them space and admire them from a distance, so they can hunt and catch prey without disruption.

Owls in general capture my attention with their solemn, peaceful stance and their commanding gaze. Their large, liquid eyes seem to delve straight into my soul. Snowies are no exception, with their amber gaze peering through the thick piles of alabaster feathers. No human jacket or parka compares to how efficiently an owl can conserve its body heat, with fluffed up down feathers trapping precious degrees of warmth. Even their feet are insulated with thousands of tiny feathers, covering their bare skin down to the very tips of its talons. The guard hairs around its beak give me a chuckle because they remind me of a thick, bushy, white mustache. 

Ornithologists are predicting that these Snowy Owls will be in our area until as late as March. I’ll be keeping my “owl eyes” sharp, in hopes of spotting one of these predators during their winter vacation to Wisconsin!

For over 44 years, the Museum has served as a guide and mentor to generations of visitors and residents interested in learning to better appreciate and care for the extraordinary natural resources of the region. The Museum invites you to visit its facility in Cable at 13470 County Highway M. The new exhibit, The Joy of Birds: Feathers in Focus opened in May, 2011. Find us on the web at www.cablemuseum.org to learn more about our exhibits and programs. Also discover us on Facebook, or at our blogspot, http://cablemuseumnaturalconnections.blogspot.com/.

Nature's Decorations

By Lois Nestel, Original Naturalist at the Cable Natural History Museum

From Wayside Wanderings II

How they brighten the winter days, these small fragments of life.  What human decorations can rival those of nature; dark trees trimmed with seeds and cones and snow and graced by living birds of red and gold. 

The day had been lowering and dark with, now and then, a drift of mist or swirl of snow in the air.  A leaden sky above, pearly snow below and a general gray haze blurring the outlines between, made the day as neutral and uninspiring as swamp water.  But as most dark days have their bright spots, so did this one, in the form of birds.

The box elders were decked with ornamental evening grosbeaks, antique gold and black males and the softer, muted tones of the females and immature birds.  The heavy greenish beaks methodically stripped the meaty seeds, letting ravaged wings drift to the sterile snow. An occasional loud voiced group would whirr off to a neighborhood feeder to freeload on expensive sunflower seed and, as freeloaders do, squack loudly for more.

Quieter and more subtly attired, rosy plumaged pine grosbeaks brightened the shadowy spruce and pines as the gleaned seeds from the remaining cones.  Their sweet whispering voices kept a constant murmured conversation through the forest as the flocks moved steadily along, foot by foot, tree by tree.  Where, in autumn, honeysuckle bushes had hung heavy with red fruit, the branches now drooped with the weight of plump, rosy birds feeding on the blackened, shriveled berries.

In apple trees where wizened, frozen fruit still clung, white-winged crossbills gathered in the rusty clusters, swirled to the ground on white-barred, dusky wings and rose to the trees again to dine on the winery remnants; then into the spruces where their strangely twisted, scissor-like beaks easily pry seeds from cones.  These pinkish crossbills are less frequently seen than the red crossbills that are often seen in the pines and on roads where they appear to be picking at the gravel and salt of which they are especially fond.  Red crossbills may be distinguished by the absence of white wing bars and by the dull orange to brick coloring.

How they brighten the winter days, these small fragments of life.  What human decorations can rival those of nature; dark trees trimmed with seeds and cones and snow and graced by living birds of red and gold.  Enjoy them today; tomorrow then may be gone.

Crossbills and Irruptions

Winter often brings interesting things down from the North.  Snow, for one, floats in on cold arctic air that sweeps down from Canada. Earlier in the fall we saw many migrating birds on their way south for the winter.  They often stop in our wetlands and forests to eat and rest. We may also notice retired “snowbirds” migrating on the same routes, zooming along in motor homes and refueling at the nearest Holiday station.  Many birds, and snowbirds, migrate along the same routes every year, and their timing is so precise that phenologists can predict the arrival of the first and the departure of the last of each species to within a few days.

 

Other species are not so orderly, and seem to migrate helter-skelter in regards to date and location. Snowy owls, redpolls, and crossbills are a few examples of these “irruptive species.” To irrupt means to enter an area suddenly, in contrast to the lava erupting out of the volcano suddenly. We don’t see these irruptive species every winter, at least not in any quantity.  Most migrations are driven by food availability, and these are no different.  Have you ever noticed that our fair-weather bird friends are the ones who eat a lot of insects, especially flying insects?  Think of all those warblers, flycatchers, and robins! They skedaddle about the time I put away my insect repellant.

Our year-round residents tend to eat seeds or meat, which are easier to find in the winter than mosquitoes. Goldfinches and house finches are seed-eaters that we can enjoy all winter long. Chickadees must eat the energy-equivalent of about 250 sunflower seeds per day in winter! They don’t just eat seeds, though.  You may have seen them at your suet feeder or pecking at the fat on road killed deer.

 

Crossbills are finches that can survive almost anywhere and nest in any season, as long as they have plenty of spruce or tamarack seeds.  They are a classic irruptive species, which is why Katie Connolly, the Museum Naturalist (and my house mate), was so excited to see a white-winged crossbill in our yard this last weekend!  A quick check on the Wisconsin Birding List (http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/WISC.html), where lots of birders post their sightings, revealed that a hundred or more of these red birds with black and white wings were seen on the Bayfield Peninsula around the same time. 

Crossbills are fascinating creatures that I love to show visitors in the Museum’s Collections Room. In the cabinet of drawers that says “Please Open,” where we keep our study skins (dried bird skins stuffed with cotton), there lie two red birds with funny bills.  Just as their name suggests, their bills are crossed. The lower mandible curves under the upper mandible. They can be either “right-beaked” or “left-beaked,” but just as in humans, right-beaked birds are more common.

To eat, the crossbill slips its beak under the tightly shingled scales of spruce cones and then twists its head, using the curved tip to provide leverage. The scale is lifted just enough for the crossbill to grab the seed.  Crossbills often twist a cone off the tree and take it to a perch.  They extract seeds while holding the cone in one foot and rotating it like an ear of corn. A single crossbill can eat up to 3,000 seeds a day!

During this time of year it is common for flocks of humans to irrupt as well, often congregating in large and gregarious flocks where there is plenty of food. As winter closes in, we are reminded about what it means to share the bounty of this beautiful Earth, and to give thanks for all we have. Happy Thanksgiving!

For over 44 years, the Museum has served as a guide and mentor to generations of visitors and residents interested in learning to better appreciate and care for the extraordinary natural resources of the region. The Museum invites you to visit its facility in Cable at 13470 County Highway M. The new exhibit, The Joy of Birds: Feathers in Focus opened in May, 2011. Find us on the web at www.cablemuseum.org to learn more about our exhibits and programs. Also discover us on Facebook, or at our blogspot, http://cablemuseumnaturalconnections.blogspot.com/.

Flashes of Red

Now that the trees are stark and bare, the leaves nowhere except, as poet Mary Oliver writes, “underfoot, moldering in that black subterranean castle of unobservable mysteries…” things hidden from us all summer become visible again.  The angles of twigs are drawn precisely against the gray sky, with hornet nests, vireo nests and gouty oak galls as their only adornment.  Withered ferns settle down to reveal the subtle shapes of the forest floor.  Steel gray glimmers of open water weave their way through the trunks and remind me of places I have yet to explore. 

The beauty of “stick season” as I learned to call it in Vermont, is subtle to say the least. After leaf-off and before snow the landscape seems more melancholy.  It’s easy to develop tunnel vision and stop noticing the woods. If we let them, these days of gray skies and brown ground can make us appreciate the bursts of color even more.  Have you seen the winterberry holly in the swamps!?  Bright red berries adorn every inch of every twig on female Ilex verticillata shrubs.  The male flowers occur on separate plants, and can’t produce fruit themselves. Botanists and Greeks call this characteristic “dioecious,” meaning “two houses.”  Being low in fat, the berries last until late winter for two reasons: they don’t go rancid quickly, and they aren’t eaten until other more energy-dense fruits are scarce.  Forty-nine species of birds eat the berries, from bluebirds and catbirds to our old friends the cedar waxwings. 

I’ve seen other flashes of red lately, too -- on my chilly cheeks, in holiday decorations, and on the crests of pileated woodpeckers.  It’s always thrilling to hear their wild laughing call, and see the brilliant flash of their white wing linings as they swoop through forest clearings. My ornithology professor called them “monkeys of the Northwoods” because of their raucous call. Twice last week, (when I was still braving twenty-degree dawns to bike to work,) I saw a pair darting across Highway M, and another pair on Garmisch Road. 

Pileated woodpeckers mate for life, and hold their territory year-round.  The female that startled me out of reading yesterday morning by swooping in for lunch at the base of an oak tree is the same one I eagerly photographed from a second-story window last spring.  You’ve probably noticed their large, rectangular holes in both softwood and hardwood trees.  They’ll drill anywhere they can find carpenter ants, which they extract with their sticky foot-long tongue.  Sometimes the hole is so large and the tree is so small that the trunk snaps right off! 

 

It’s no surprise that scientists and wildlife managers consider them “ecosystem engineers.”  Especially beneficial is their aversion to using the same nest cavity twice.  Every spring the pair will hollow out a new tree, often with two entrance holes, and the abandoned cavities are quickly re-purposed by ducks, squirrels, owls, bats, other woodpeckers, and wasps.  Pileated woodpeckers are the main source of large tree cavities in the forest!  It’s as if one family in the housing development built a new house every year and gave their old one away.

During the period of heavy logging near the turn of the last century, the populations of these crow-sized woodpeckers declined   As forests have recovered, so have the birds.  Though their numbers are slowly increasing, they still face hazards.  In younger forests, pileateds tend to use the oldest, largest trees for their roosts.  These taller trees are lightening rods, and can be dangerous to the young families.

Once snow falls it will be easy to track the woodpeckers’ eating habits.  Fresh woodchips around the base of a tree, or in the ski tracks, are a good reminder to look up.  Not only might you see a striking bird or their fresh excavations, you will jolt yourself out of tunnel vision and be ready to notice the next burst of beauty.

For over 44 years, the Museum has served as a guide and mentor to generations of visitors and residents interested in learning to better appreciate and care for the extraordinary natural resources of the region. The Museum invites you to visit its facility in Cable at 13470 County Highway M. The new exhibit, The Joy of Birds: Feathers in Focus opened in May, 2011. Find us on the web at www.cablemuseum.org to learn more about our exhibits and programs. Also discover us on Facebook, or at our blogspot, http://cablemuseumnaturalconnections.blogspot.com/.

Treasures of the Secret Bog

As a young girl I loved the story of the Secret Garden.  I wished for a secret place all my own, where I could watch things grow and change.  At that time, roses and other cultivated flowers seemed romantic.  These days I still love to find out-of-the-way places where I can watch the seasons come and go, but I much prefer native wild plants to roses.  Instead of a Secret Garden, I visit a secret bog!  Tucked away down a 100+ year old logging road, to get to this bog you must push through thickets of balsam fir and climb through tangles of birch and aspen deadfalls.  You must brave ticks, wipe spider webs off your face, and get your feet wet.  The treasures I find are worth every stick in my eye. 

Last weekend was my first visit to the bog in a couple months.  Gone were the spring peepers and wood frogs, gone were the slender green leaves of fen sedge, gone were the mosquitoes and black flies!  Present were the tamaracks with their golden glow, the fluffy Truffula Tree-like seeds of cotton grass, and the gracefully-twisted dried seed pods of blue flag iris.

Bogs are unique natural communities.  In Wisconsin, they have been forming for 10,000 years in sandy bowls left by the glaciers.  The bowls were formed when huge chunks of ice broke off of the main glacier ice and were buried in sand and gravel by the many streams draining the melting ice mass.  The sediment insulated the ice for a while, but it still melted slowly, eventually leaving a low area where the ice had been.  Geologists call these glacial kettles.  The high mounds of sand and gravel around them are known as kames.  It’s this process that helped create the rolling topography we love on the ski and mountain bike trails all around the Cable area!

Their unique formation has a big impact on the hydrology of bogs, or the way that water flows in an out.  Basically, it doesn’t.  True bogs don’t have inlets or outlets, and are perched high above groundwater influence, too.  All their water comes from rain and snow.  Rain and snow are both slightly acidic, and as dead leaves soak in the water, more acids are released.  The process is very similar to your morning cup of tea.  (In fact, several bog plants make delicious tea!) Without flowing water, there is little oxygen.  Organic matter decays slowly or not at all, forming black soil called peat.  Sphagnum moss, leatherleaf and many other plants build up a thick mat of vegetation until the bog is almost dry.  Sometimes the mat quivers like a waterbed and hides open water underneath. 

Some nutrients and oxygen do reach the margins of the bog through rainwater runoff.  This causes a narrow band with higher decomposition rates, allowing open water in a ring around the bog.  Last May the moat was deep and squishy, and a class of seventh graders almost didn’t make it across (due to squeamishness, not danger).  Now the moat is mostly solid and grassy.

As I step out into the golden-brown heath, my mission is to find treasure.  Not silver or diamonds, they don’t taste very good.  Today, I’m seeking cranberries!  Displayed attractively on emerald mosses, the ruby-red fruits do look like jewels.  And a hunt it is for this treasure!  I scour each hummock for fruit, sometimes finding none, sometimes one, sometimes a dozen.  With bent back I nose on to the next mound of moss and twigs.  The high places around small tamarack trees seem to be productive.  I find one patch of berries tangled in the dried thatch of grass.  Some of the little globes have fermented, and burst between my fingers.  Others, buried so deep in moss they haven’t been frosted, are still only pale cream with red speckles. 

The picking goes slowly.  This is partly because the cranberries are few and hidden.  It is mostly because I get distracted easily by the other treasures I find!  In one flat mossy patch there are about a dozen dried flower spikes, each about eight inches high.  Dry weed ID is a fun challenge, so I poke around their bases looking for clues.  I find a tiny cluster of mini leaves.  Curled tightly like fern fiddleheads they can only be the hibernaculum of a sundew.  Sundew are carnivorous plants, well-adapted to the nutrient-poor habitat in bogs.  In summer, tiny drops of “dew” glisten on the tips of hairs that cover small spoon-shaped leaves.  The sticky mucilage “dew” traps insects and then digests them.  Essential nutrients (especially nitrogen) are absorbed through the leaves.  Just like trees have prepared for next year by forming leaf buds that will weather the winter, these sundew are ready and waiting for next spring.

Pitcher plants, the other carnivorous plant in our bog, have also shut down for winter.  I split open one bright-red leaf (they change colors for fall, too!) and find a bug-cicle inside!  The insects caught in the sweet-smelling digestive juices of the pitcher-shaped leaf will have to wait until next spring to be digested.  Ice fills every leaf in the cluster of plants. 

After about two hours of searching, I have one quart of cranberries, and two cold feet.  Back at home, I warm up quickly as a cake bakes and the cranberries simmer with honey and cinnamon.  That was the stated goal of my expedition: chocolate cake with cranberry sauce.  I could have just gone to the grocery store, but I found so much more than fruit in my secret bog.

Wild Tea

This is not the season for most wild edibles -- the salad greens of spring are long gone, even the berries are either consumed or dried up.  There are still many wild teas you can gather from the winter woods.  Here is a list of my favorites that are still available this time of year:

white cedar leaves
balsam fir needles
Labrador tea leaves
wintergreen leaves and berries
Sweet gale leaves and twigs
Sweet fern leaves and twigs
Rosehips
yellow birch twigs

My favorite way to prepare them is to stick whole sprig in a cup, pour boiling water over it, and wait until it's cool enough to drink.  Then I fish out the leaves and enjoy the tea!  Cedar and rosehips both have lots of vitamin C, so they are excellent choices to help ward off the winter sniffles.

Rainbows

The vibrant colors of the rainbow were perfectly outlined against the slate gray sky. Trees across the lake looked orange and purple through the vertical leg of the rainbow that ended precisely at our boat landing. It’s so rare to actually get to see the end of a rainbow, and even more rare for it to end precisely in your own yard! Watching the liquid silver surface of the lake as it reflected leaden clouds and skeleton trees, I decided that it had been too long since I’d paddled. 

As I dug out long underwear and put on thick wool socks, I noticed a change in the sound. Looking out I could see thick raindrops falling heavy and straight. After a second they became bigger and white, and bounced when they hit the ground! I paused a moment in my dressing to check the weather radar – the storm was no bigger than Lake Namakagon itself, a tiny green blip on the screen. By the time I had my dry top, spray skirt and life jacket on, the small white chunks of graupel were melting in the grass.

Graupel is one of my favorite early winter phenomena. It must have been cold enough to form snowflakes in the upper atmosphere, and as the flakes fell they encountered supercooled water droplets. Special atmospheric conditions (don’t ask me which ones!) allow the drops to remain liquid even below the normal freezing point of 32 degrees. When the droplets contact the snowflakes, they stick on. This process is known as accretion. Although graupel looks like small hail, it is much softer and more irregularly shaped. The first snows of the year are often graupel, and it looks like millions of tiny snowballs are falling from the sky!

The maple leaves on the path were just wet, and the precipitation dwindled to a light mist as I hauled my kayak down to the shore. I bought it precisely for times like this – when I want to go out on the water NOW, without having to convince someone to help paddle my favorite canoe. Even the cold and wet aren’t a problem with a waterproof top and an insulating life jacket. The spray skirt holds in my heat and keeps out the rain. Do you have a similar scheme for independence? 

I paddled slowly out into the lake, admiring the wispy pink and purple clouds of sunset. Delicate birch twigs and feathery white pine branches reached up to tickle the underbelly of sky. The water surface was still thick with green algae. This late-season algae bloom may be caused by the lake’s “fall turnover.” During the summer, sun-warmed surface waters don’t mix much with the cold, dense bottom water. As the season cools and winds increase, the two layers start to mix again – the “turning over.” Nutrient-rich bottom waters are brought to the surface, stimulating algae to grow in the sunlight. A melon-colored birch leaf floats among the bright green film. Life and death are never-ending cycles.

Across the channel on Burgundy Point I glide into a little boggy bay. The dried leaves of Sparganium (a group of plants commonly called bur-reeds because of their spiky seed heads) stand guard at the entrance, and the ragged leaves of dying water lilies cling to the surface. The bow of my kayak slips in among the wiry stems of alder, leatherleaf, and sweet gale with its tiny cone-like buds all ready for next spring. Just beyond stands a clump of Carex lacustris, or lake sedge. Its long spikes of seeds bend gracefully among half-green leaves. Further in I can see the small spires of black spruce and golden tamaracks.  

With the nose of my kayak stuck in the weeds, my own nose is enjoying immensely the fresh, sweet, damp, cool smells of fall. “It begins/to rain, /it begins/to smell like the bodies/of flowers” (From Rain by Mary Oliver).

Despite the cold, and the wet, and the melancholy of death and dormancy, autumn is a lovely time of year. Although I barely paddled half a mile, I found plenty of treasure at the end of my rainbow. We’ve had lots of rainbows lately, what treasures have you found?

Cedar Waxwings...Continued

Last week I wrote about a dead cedar waxwing that was killed in a collision with our window. As I wrote, the rest of the flock chattered and whistled their high-pitched calls in the chokecherry trees (Prunus virginiana) above me. This week the trees are silent and bare. Did our windows kill them all? No, thank goodness, it’s natural for cedar waxwings to be an exciting presence one day, and gone the next. These large, gregarious flocks are facultative migrants – they move around as their food supply requires. One day you may have several dozen descend on your bushes, the next day they may be gone. These songbirds dine heavily on many kinds of berries, and also the tiny cones of Eastern redcedar trees, hence their name. 

As a kid in Iowa, I remember late winter days when colorful flocks of waxwings gathered in the highbush cranberry hedge (Viburnum trilobum) outside our kitchen window. The tart berries with a high acid content last well through the winter, and provide a much-needed food source when less-hardy berries have dried out or spoiled. How fun it was to watch them pass berries bird-to-bird down a row if the cluster of fruit could only be reached by one at a time! The birds’ lemony-yellow feathers, rakish black mask, and bright red wax spots captured my mom’s heart, too, and helped guide our Christmas shopping for her.

Since cedar waxwings prefer edge habitat like fields and riverbanks, they have adapted well to human-altered landscapes like my yard and the Museum’s Outdoor Classroom. Their population is stable or even increasing despite the heightened dangers of windows and cats in suburban settings. Brown-headed cowbirds share some habitat preferences with waxwings, and are also doing well in fragmented, edgy habitats. The problem is that cowbirds are nest parasites who lay their eggs in the nests of other species, and force other birds to raise their young. The cowbird chicks grow fast, and usually smother or push the host nestlings out of the nest. Cedar waxwings have a simple solution: they eat so few insects that brown-headed cowbirds in waxwing nests die from a lack of protein. [Although waxwings can go through stretches of strict vegetarianism, they are also excellent flycatchers. While paddling various rivers, I’ve admired their aerial acrobatics as they feasted on summer’s abundance of insects.]

Eating berries has other benefits and consequences, too. Overripe fruit may ferment, causing waxwings to become intoxicated, or even die when they eat too many. Perhaps the birds who crashed into our windows last week were a bit tipsy. A more benign outcome is the waxwing’s tail tip, which is usually yellow, may become orange if it eats the berries of Morrow’s honeysuckle, an introduced species, while the feathers are growing. The pigment rhodoxanthin (a red carotenoid pigment) is responsible for the color change.

As the birds fluttered between clusters of chokecherries last week, I caught glimpses of their bright red waxwings. Used to attract mates, the red is actually flattened extensions of feather shafts colored with a carotenoid pigments – similar to the pigments in carrots and autumn maple leaves. The waxwings obtain the color by modifying pigments acquired from their diet of red and orange berries, and the color increases with age. These birds maximize their nesting success by mating with other birds of similar age and experience levels – information gathered at least partially by comparing the number of red wax tips. Yet another reason why color is not just pretty!  

Where is that gregarious flock now? Are they eating YOUR chokecherries? Have they started in on the mountain ash berries and crabapples already? Watch for these year-round residents to visit a yard (and hopefully not a window) near you!

Cedar Waxwings

The feathers are glossy brown and streaked with white.  The tip of the tail looks like it was dipped in paint made from golden aspen leaves.  A jet-black mask outlined by white extends from eyes forward to the nostrils.  The warm body is limp and still.  This beautiful young cedar waxwing died in my hands just now. 

As I pulled up to the back of the Museum on my bike, exhilarated from the delicious air and golden morning sunlight, a loud thunk sounded from the window above my head.  At my feet dropped this lovely creature.  I observed it for a second to see if it would rouse on its own.  It lay still, beak open, so I stooped to pick it up.  As I held it the beak opened and closed one last time.  The lower eyelid slid up to cover one shiny black eye, and the body slowly cooled. 

While saddened by this death, I am thankful for an opportunity to examine such a beautiful bird up close.  I often admire the adult cedar waxwings in our Collections Room, and show visitors their lovely yellow tail-tips, rakish black mask, silky lemon breast, and brilliant-red wax droplets on the wing feathers, but this one in my hand is different.  Many birds change their plumage for the breeding season and then again for winter.  Goldfinches are one of the most common and distinctive examples of this.  Cedar waxwings, on the other hand, look the same all year round, and even males and females look virtually identical.  Only immature cedar waxwings during their very first summer and fall look any different.

 

One of the purposes of museum collections is to represent and preserve the diversity of nature.  Larger museums may have dozens of specimens of the same species representing various ages, sexes, seasons, and habitats.  These can be used for research and study.  While our tiny Museum doesn’t have the space to collect quite so extensively, we use our wide variety of specimens to help visitors with identification, and to illustrate concepts. 

So, although we already have two adult cedar waxwings preserved in our collection, this immature bird will be labeled with the date and location of its death, and stored in our salvage freezer.  This winter, Katie Connolly, the Museum Naturalist in charge of Collections, will mount it or preserve it as a study skin.  Watch our Calendar of Events for taxidermy observation days.

While we have the capacity (and the state and federal permits) to salvage dead animals for educational purposes, we still feel saddened and shamed that our windows cause so many deaths.  Millions of birds each year die in collisions with windows.  Some are just stunned, and if you hold them for a minute they may soon fly away.  Others, like my cedar waxwing, suffer brain trauma or break their neck.  The main issue is that windows reflect the trees, and birds try to fly right through them. 

There are several things you can try to keep birds from hitting your windows.  Window clings and silhouettes are somewhat effective, although you may need to attach them to the outside of the glass.  Dangling things in front of windows can also help.  We have pretty feather-shaped windsocks on our lower windows, but the not upper ones.  Shiny ribbon, mirrors, glass beads, old compact disks, and other pretty trinkets can be hung in front of windows.  Fine mesh netting can be stretched outside windows. This both reduces reflection and softens the impact.  Today I will spend time hanging more ribbons on our windows.

If a bird dies in a collision with your window and it is fresh and in good shape, you can call and ask us if we need it for our collection.  Then stick it in a plastic baggie in your freezer until you can bring it to the Museum. As long as you contact us, you will be covered under our permits until we make the transfer.  While the death of something wild and beautiful is always sad, knowing that it can be used to teach hundreds of people about nature and conservation makes it just a little less tragic.

Color: It's more than just pretty

Biking along Highway M on my way to work, I am dazzled by the gorgeous rainbow of color.  It started with the red maples in the swamps.  They turned scarlet several weeks ago, brightening up the landscape like nothing else can do.  The interrupted ferns and bracken ferns in the ditches turned yellow, and then a rapid cascade of other plants changed into their fall wardrobes.  Now the forest is mostly orange and gold – from the thick litter of leaves on the ground, all the way up to the crowns of the trees.  In gloomier falls I often quip that this is the season when the sun shines from the ground up.  Recently we’ve been completely surrounded by sunshine, with not a cloud in the sky.

While the colors this fall have been stunning, I like to think about how useful the colors are, too.  Green plants, for example, get their color from chlorophyll, the powerhouse of photosynthesis.  Chlorophyll captures the energy of the sun, uses it to make sugar out of water and carbon dioxide, and supports the entire food chain.  Including us.  We have all known this since grade school science class, but it never ceases to amaze me. 

The yellows and oranges finally revealed during the past couple weeks were always there.  They were just masked by the greater amount of chlorophyll.  When the plant stops producing new chlorophyll, the old is broken down into a colorless chemical, and the other colors shine through.  Yellow and orange aren’t just useless underdogs -- they have important jobs to do, too.

Yellow colored xanthophylls are found in most plants, and they help keep the machinery of photosynthesis from being damaged by absorbing too much light.  Animals get xanthophylls from their food, and we can see them in the color of egg yolks, butter, fat, skin, and even the macula lutea – a yellow spot in our retina where the pigment helps protect our eye by absorbing UV light.

Orange carotenoids (as in carrots) also absorb extra UV light.  In addition, they are antioxidants that capture renegade oxygen molecules.  They are important to human health in the form of vitamin A.

Red anthocyanins aren’t revealed in the same way that yellow and orange are.  They are created from the breakdown of sugars once phosphate has been sucked from the leaf down into the twigs.  Sunlight is necessary to create anthocyanins (and more anthocyanins are needed in sunny weather), which is why sunnier autumns have more brilliant colors.  We see the red color again in the new leaves of spring.  During both seasons, the pigment protects against damaging light at low temperatures. 

Anthocyanins protect humans, too, and have been shown to help stave off cancer, inflammation, diabetes and bacterial infections.  One study even showed that anthocyanins cause cancer cells to die faster!  We don’t eat red maple leaves for our health, of course, but we do eat blackberries, blueberries, cranberries, and many other fruits with plenty of red in their skin and juice.

Speaking of red skin, kayaking on Lake Namakagon for three hours in the sun reminded me about the importance of melanin.  This brown pigment not only protects us, bacteria, and fungus from UV light (it creates our summer suntan), it is also important in the immune systems of invertebrates.

While I think the biochemistry of color is fascinating, there are many other ways that colors provide protection.  As a gray-brown deer materializes from the shadows at dawn, camouflage comes to mind.  The short-tailed weasel (aka ermine) skins in our Collections Room also show this quite well: the summer fur is light brown, and the winter fur is bright white.  In contrast, a bright-orange monarch butterfly fluttering by my paddle vividly warns birds that it would be a bitter mouthful, simply through its colors.

The pale, smooth trunk of a paper birch also has protective coloration – this time from heat.  In winter, trees freeze very carefully to make sure their cells are not damaged by ice.  Darker trees may thaw and then freeze again too quickly, while birches stay cool and safe.

Paddling close to a loon, I am struck by the vibrancy of its glowing red eye.  Even that has a specific purpose.  Since we perceive color based on the wavelengths of light that are reflected off a surface, the loon’s eye is reflecting red light and absorbing all others. Under the water, red is the first light to be filtered out, allowing the loon to still gather as much light as possible with its eyes.

My brown eyes are taking in as much as possible.  Despite my love of science and explanations, I think one of the most wonderful uses of color is the rejuvenation of our hearts and souls in the presence of natural beauty.

Living the Life...of an Apple Maggot

                                                                        
By: Lacy Sellent, Writing Fellow at the Cable Natural History Museum

A classic sign of the end of summer and the beginning of fall is apples ripening on the trees in our yards, along back roads, and in orchards.  Throughout the state, thousands of apples are ready to pick, and some are already in a bowl on my table!  Fallen and rotting apples can sure make a mess (that deer and wasps love!), but if you want non-wormy apples for eating, then you might want to keep the area around your favorite trees clean.  Leaving fallen apples beneath a tree may cause an insect infestation.  One of the biggest pests to apple trees is the apple maggot (Rhagoletis pomonella). 

The annual life cycle of the apple maggot begins in July, usually after a good rain.  This is when the adults emerge from their winter pupal form and make their way up out of the ground.  Although named for its larval stage, adult apple maggots are actually flies.  Each five millimeter long fly has black and white colored wings and a distinctive white dot on its back.  With a little imagination, black markings on the wings resemble the letter “F.”  The apple maggot adult’s coloration resembles the forelegs and pedipalps (grabbing and sensing mouthparts) of one type of jumping spider.  This method of defense, where a harmless species mimics one that is better protected, is called Batesian mimicry.  Viceroy and monarch butterflies are a classic example of this.

After being above ground for close to a week, female flies will begin the search for a place to lay their eggs.  Although adults can fly up to a mile, they don’t usually travel far from the trees that they were burrowed under.  Apple maggot flies originally deposited their eggs in thornapples (hawthorn), but have gained notoriety  by also laying their eggs in domestic apples.  It is not a very healthy experience for the apple.  Wherever the apple maggot fly lays her eggs, that area of the apple will stop growing.  This causes the apple to look all lumpy.  Then, newly-hatched maggots munch and burrow their way out.  Wherever the small white maggots tunnel, the apple begins to rot.  Brownish trails appear throughout the apple’s flesh.  It is this tenacious tunneling that earned apple maggots the nickname “railroad worm.”

After the maggot-infested apple falls to the ground, it is time for the next stage. Maggots exit the apple and enter the soil.  Once safely burrowed several inches below the surface, the maggots form a brown, quarter-inch long, oblong case called a puparium.  This pupal form allows them to go into a type of hibernation over the winter.  They don’t eat until the next spring, when they emerge from the ground as apple maggot flies—bringing the cycle full circle.

The apple maggot is native to North America, but its original range was confined to the eastern United States.  It fed mostly on the fruit of hawthorn trees, sometimes know as “thornapples,” which look like tiny apples.  About 150 years ago, some of the hawthorn-eating flies began to eat domestic apples planted by settlers and our old friend, Johnny Appleseed.  What fascinates scientists (and me!) is that the apple maggots eating domestic apples are adapting to their new host plant, and not reproducing with the apple maggots still feeding on hawthorns.  They are suspected to be in the early stages of diverging into two separate species.  This process, known as speciation, is usually thought to happen because of a physical barrier – like a mountain range or an ocean – dividing a population.  There is no physical barrier in this case, so it is an example of “sympatric speciation.” This is a unique opportunity for scientists to study the genes of these critters as they are in the process of changing!

Unfortunately for us and our many orchards, apples provide more protection from predators for the apple maggots than hawthorns do.  Two species of wasps parasitize the maggots by depositing their own eggs inside the maggot, giving the wasp larvae a protein-rich meal when they hatch.  In hawthorn fruits, apple maggots feed close to the surface, partly because several species of caterpillars prefer to eat the core, and partly because the smaller fruit just doesn’t have as much area away from the skin.  In domestic apples, the maggots can feed farther in, out of range of the wasp’s ovipositor.  This means that there are fewer natural predators for the apple-eating population of Rhagoletis pomonella.  Removing dimpled apples from your orchard before the maggots exit into the soil can help reduce their population.

As the old joke goes, the only thing worse than finding a worm in your apple is finding half a worm.  Next time you see a small white apple maggot tunneling through your fruit, I hope you’ll take a moment to appreciate the interesting life history of this tiny pest!

For over 44 years, the Museum has served as a guide and mentor to generations of visitors and residents interested in learning to better appreciate and care for the extraordinary natural resources of the region. The Museum invites you to visit its facility in Cable at 13470 County Highway M. The new exhibit, The Joy of Birds: Feathers in Focus opened in May, 2011. Find us on the web at www.cablemuseum.org to learn more about our exhibits and programs. Also discover us on Facebook, or at our blogspot, http://cablemuseumnaturalconnections.blogspot.com/.

The Rosy Apple

By: Lacy Sellent, Writing Fellow at the Cable Natural History Museum

          

An apple tree grew along my childhood driveway.  I passed by this tree each morning on my way to the bus stop.  Sometimes I would race past it without much thought -- besides that I was going to beat my brother to the bus.  Other days I would walk slower down the gravel and think of how few people got to appreciate the world at six-thirty in the morning.  Taking my time, I would make my way over to the apple tree and grab a few rosy-red apples.  Then I’d give a little whistle and walk over to the horse pasture. 

It wouldn’t take long for the horses to spot me and they’d come trotting across the dewy grass to see if I had any goodies for them.  I’d stretch my arm out across the fence; keeping my hand flat as they approached.  With a little sniff or a slight stomp, one would come up to take the first bite.  My hand would be full of horse slobber but I didn’t care.  It was worth it to hear the satisfied crunches as the horses bit into their apples.  What a lovely thing to have an apple tree so conveniently located!

Apple didn’t always grow here.  The apple tree (Malus domestica) is a species that originated in Asia.  We’ve loved it and changed it for so long, that there are over 7,500 known cultivars of apples in the world today!  Their fruits can range in size from smaller than a golf ball to larger than a tennis ball.  

Apple trees probably arrived in America in the 1600s.  When colonists moved here, many brought seeds to plant in the New World—including apple seeds.  After several years of hard work, the colonists managed to set up the country’s first apple orchard near Boston in the 1620s.  When people began to move westward they often took small sacks of seeds with them.  One pioneer, John Chapman, became famous for doing just that. You may know him as Johnny Appleseed. 

Born in Massachusetts, John Chapman made his way from the east to the west.  In a kindly gesture, he would journey ahead of other pioneers and plant apple trees along the routes he assumed they would take.  In 1797, when Johnny was only twenty-three, he planted his first nursery along Broken Straw Creek, in Pennsylvania.  That was only the beginning.  He went on to plant seeds in Ohio and Indiana as well.

With apple trees already growing in Indiana during the early 1800s, it was only a matter of time before the trees spread from there, across Illinois and into Wisconsin.  Whether through the dispersion of seeds by animals or the planting of seeds by pioneers, the apple tree made its way to Wisconsin.  By 1850, Wisconsin was home to several apple orchards.

Many of those first orchards didn’t produce tasty apples that you would want to munch on.  Apple trees that grow from seeds are often wildly different than their parent trees.  Most uncultivated apples are far too tart for eating plain, but are just right for making cider.  That is exactly what many of Johnny Appleseed’s first orchards were used for.  In order to grow the consistently sweet apples we enjoy today, clones of the parent trees must be made by grafting twigs, called scions, onto other rootstocks. 

Although apples aren’t native to North America, many of their relatives are.  Apples are in the Rosaceae (Rose) family, which contains about 2,830 species worldwide.  In Wisconsin, members of Rosaceae include: wild plums, chokecherries, black cherries, strawberries, raspberries, thimbleberries, serviceberries, cinquefoils, mountain ash, and hawthorn.    Many of them, like apples, are edible and beautiful.  Understanding their history can help us appreciate the amazing variety of apples we will find in farmer’s markets, produce isles, and along driveways next to horse pastures this fall! 

For over 44 years, the Museum has served as a guide and mentor to generations of visitors and residents interested in learning to better appreciate and care for the extraordinary natural resources of the region. The Museum invites you to visit its facility in Cable at 13470 County Highway M. The new exhibit, The Joy of Birds: Feathers in Focus opened in May, 2011. Find us on the web at www.cablemuseum.org to learn more about our exhibits and programs. Also discover us on Facebook, or at our blogspot, http://cablemuseumnaturalconnections.blogspot.com/.

The Grand Old Badger

By: Lacy Sellent, Writing Fellow at the Cable Natural History Museum

It was early in the morning.  The dew still clung to the grass as I ran down our deserted country road.    I was concentrating on my breathing, and just putting one foot in front of the other, when I came upon it.  I don’t know how long it had been sitting there, but by the time I saw it, it was less than ten feet away.  I jumped sideways as I saw it looking at me with intimidating eyes.  It growled.  I froze.  I wasn’t sure what to do but I decided I needed to do something.  I flung my arms into the air and began yelling and flailing like some kind of crazy person.  It worked.  The badger seemed to stare me down for a few seconds; then he turned and ran.  Like with any wild animal, it needed space.  It was a rare and exciting chance encounter, but I would rather have seen him from a safer distance.

Although badgers are known as aggressive fighters, they are more likely to flee if given the opportunity.  If a badger is confronted near a hole, the badger will quickly burrow into it—all the while flinging dirt at its foe.  It may also release a strong musty smell in hopes of stinking out the assailant.  If a badger does happen to be grabbed by a predator (such as a coyote), its fur is so thick and its skin is so loose that the badger is able to turn on its attacker and fight back.  Claws that aid the badger in burrowing can also be turned into powerful weapons.  When cornered, the badger earns its fierce reputation.

For the most part, badgers don’t have to worry about predators.  An eagle may grab a small one, but not many animals are willing to take on this thirty-pound fighter.  Badgers are part of the weasel family and therefore are related to another aggressive fighter—the wolverine.  Unlike the wolverine, badgers typically prey on smaller animals and are more likely to dig up a burrowed animal than to chase one down.   Sometimes, after the badger digs up its burrowed prey, it decides to inhabit the old burrow.  Now that’s efficient!

The American badger (Taxidea taxus) is a mammal that uses burrows for just about everything.  Burrows are good for protection, shelter, food storage, and raising young.  A burrow can be over twenty feet in length but may have an entrance that’s not even one foot wide.  The burrow has a mound of dirt outside, and if threatened, the badger may use it to plug up the entrance.

Wisconsin has been unofficially nicknamed the “Badger State” since the 1800s, when lead miners found shelter in old mine shafts, just like a badger taking over other animals’ old burrows.  In 1957 a small group of schoolchildren suggested that, because of this history, the badger should be the official state animal. So, while the white-tailed deer is Wisconsin’s state wildlife animal, the dairy cow is the state domesticated animal, it is the badger that is the overall state animal of Wisconsin.  In the words of the state song, this is the “grand old badger state!”  I’m so glad to have met one in person on that dewy morning.

For over 44 years, the Museum has served as a guide and mentor to generations of visitors and residents interested in learning to better appreciate and care for the extraordinary natural resources of the region. The Museum invites you to visit its facility in Cable at 13470 County Highway M. The new exhibit, The Joy of Birds: Feathers in Focus opened in May, 2011. Find us on the web at www.cablemuseum.org to learn more about our exhibits and programs. Also discover us on Facebook, or at our blogspot, http://cablemuseumnaturalconnections.blogspot.com/.