Preventing Oak Wilt: A Team Effort

Earlier this winter, I chose a bluebird day to swoop joyfully around the 16k loop at the Rock Lake Ski Trails. Fox tracks trotted over the recent grooming, making perfect imprints in the light dusting of giant flakes that had fallen in the pre-dawn hours. The surface of every drift sparkled among stately trees.

Fox tracks trot along the ski trail. Oaks are important wildlife trees. Their acorns feed mice. Mice feed foxes. The loss of our oaks will impact more than humans. Photo by Emily Stone.

These ski trails are known for their rollercoaster hills. In many places, your exhilarating downhill momentum will carry you all the way up to the crest of the next rise. As I was doing just that—coasting up the other side of a hill out on the farthest part of the loops—flash of pink caught my eye. Several trees in a cluster were ringed with neon flagging tape. My heart sank. Not here, too!

Foresters and land managers all over northern Wisconsin are working hard to identify oak wilt infections and get them contained before they spread. These trees were marked and girdled as part of that effort. Photo by Emily Stone.

Sidestepping over to the closest one, I scanned the trunk until I found it—right at snow level was a saw mark in the bark, completely encircling the tree. The cut had done its job of preventing the flow of water and nutrients from roots to crown. The result was death. This oak had been girdled purposely.

While the dead trees made me sad, I wasn’t mad at the person who had cut into them. Some responsible forester was just doing their best to prevent the spread of oak wilt.

Oak wilt is a fungal pathogen that kills trees in a single season. While it’s already widespread in southern Wisconsin, it has only just arrived here in the north in 2018.

Sap beetles in the family Nitidulidae are one of the main vectors for oak wilt. When an oak tree is injured—by a bulldozer, trail groomer, wind storm, etc.—sweet juices begin oozing from its wounds, and that scent lures in hungry beetles. If those beetles have already been eating from a tree infected by the oak wilt fungus, they will transport spores and inoculate a new infection.

The fungus works quickly to invade the tree’s water conducting system. While white oaks seem to be able to mount a defense and exhibit a degree of resistance to the disease, the red oaks that are dominant up here don’t stand a chance. The oak’s leaves wilt from the crown down, in the middle of summer, and within a month the tree is dead.

Beetles aren’t the only way that oak wilt spreads, though. The fungus can travel through the tree’s roots, pass through root grafts with nearby oaks, and kill them, too. I’ve written about the incredible connectedness of trees and fungi in the “wood wide web,” and how those networks facilitate communication, cooperation, and forest health. But sometimes—as we humans are discovering—an interconnected world is a more dangerous one when a new disease shows up on the scene.

One of these oaks probably died naturally from the fungus. The other, potentially connected trees, were girdled and painted with herbicide. While it sounds drastic, this is the most reliable method to make sure that there aren’t infected root grafts that will spread the fungus below ground. You might even call it a type of tree quarantine, or social distancing.

This oak tree has been girdled in order to contain an oak wilt infection. The two cuts sever conductive tissue and prevent water and nutrients from flowing, thereby killing the tree. Photo by Emily Stone.

By using these precautions, hopefully just a few trees will die, rather than every oak in the forest. They are still salvageable as lumber, and even the fungus-killed trees can be used for firewood if you quarantine the logs under plastic for a year so that beetles can’t access them and spread their fungal spores.

Paul Cigan, a forest health specialist with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, can’t say it enough: the only thing that will prevent oak wilt from becoming a widespread problem in our forests up here is responsible landowners and preventative care. There were 50 new oak wilt infections in 2019. That includes 5 in Sawyer County, 12 in Bayfield County, and 32 in Washburn County. Four of those are in locations—and on ski trails—that are dear to my heart. This disease feels personal.

Luckily, there are many things we can do to prevent oak wilt. The beetle that spreads oak wilt can’t chew its own holes. We can be careful not to make holes for them. During the fungus’s active time, from April through July, how you treat your oak trees can mean the difference between life and death for them. Any sort of wound, whether it’s a scrape from a bulldozer, a pruning cut, a logged stump, or even a broken twig can be the entry point for oak wilt into your forest, and your neighbor’s forest, too.

Using wound-sealer to cover injuries immediately can help. (Beetles can find a new wound in 15 minutes or less!) Paying close attention to your forest is also important. Keep an eye out for oaks with wilting leaves. When caught early by observant landowners and reported to your local Department of Natural Resources office, infections can be contained.

Private landowners are not alone in this fight. Foresters from the counties, the Wisconsin DNR, and the United States Forest Service are working together on their large-scale oak wilt detection and mitigation operations. Aerial surveys with planes and drones, and satellite imagery with computer analysis that can spot sick trees are at the forefront.

Oaks are a major component in our forests, and they are important ecologically, economically, and aesthetically. Preventing oak wilt will be a team effort.

Emily’s second book, Natural Connections: Dreaming of an Elfin Skimmer, is now available to purchase at www.cablemuseum.org/books and at your local independent bookstore, too.

For more than 50 years, the Cable Natural History Museum has served to connect you to the Northwoods. Our Pollinator Power exhibit ends after February 29, but our Curiosity Center remains open, and Mysteries of the Night will open on May 1, 2020. Call us at 715-798-3890 or email emily@cablemuseum.org.

A Walk on the Forest Lodge Nature Trail

Have you ever visited the Forest Lodge Nature Trail? This hiking trail loops its way through beautiful fields, forests, swamps, and bogs near the south shore of Lake Namakagon, about 10 miles east of Cable, WI, on Garmisch Road. The Cable Natural History Museum established a four-mile-long network of trails in 1968, under the direction of our founder, Mary Griggs Burke. In 1999, Mrs. Burke transferred the property that the trail is on over to the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest. The Museum and the Forest Service now share the goals of education, research, and interpretive opportunities for the public, and work together to preserve and manage the Forest Lodge Nature Trail.

The main, 1.5-mile loop trail is dotted with numbered posts that correspond to an interpretive booklet that visitors can pick up at the Museum or the trailhead. For almost a year, Museum naturalists, Forest Service technicians, and Wisconsin Master Naturalist Volunteers have been working to update the decades-old booklet. During the next few weeks, I’m going to give my readers a preview of the booklet, and a chance to catch typos or improve the information. I’d love to hear from you!

The trail begins at the edge of a grassy parking area, tunnels through some dense white pines, and then emerges into a small meadow filled with milkweed and edged with blackberry brambles and white pines. The first numbered post is on the far edge of the meadow.

Senses

Every living thing depends on their senses to help them survive. Humans use sight, smell, touch, hearing, and taste to interpret our surroundings. Non-humans can even sense things like the Earth’s magnetic fields, polarized light, and electric charges in flowers.

Try standing very still and quiet; what do you hear? Cup your hands behind your ears and face the direction of an interesting sound. Can you hear the hum of a nearby bee, or a conversation among crows?

Take some deep breaths. What do you smell? Try rubbing a drop of water under your nose. Can you smell more now? A plant called sweetfern grows nearby. It’s not really a fern, but the lacy leaves of this woody shrub smell spicy when crushed between your fingers.

Sweetfern

Blackberries also grow nearby. Their plump fruits ripen from green, to red, to black in late summer. Touching their sharp thorns is no fun, but you may carefully pick and eat the sweet, ripe fruits.

Blackberry in bloom, with green fruits developing.

While you hike, remember that all of these beautiful flowers and natural objects you see, hear, feel, smell, and taste are part of someone’s home.  

Old Field Succession

Nature is always changing. The area where you now stand used to be a forest. Loggers cleared the forest, and farmers turned the land into pasture. After this area became a nature preserve, the old field started growing back to forest and changing in predictable ways. This is called ecological succession, and it occurs after logging, fires, floods, windstorms, and other disturbances.

White pines are often the first trees to grow in old fields. These evergreen trees have needles that are bundled in groups of 5. To help you remember, think of the fact that W-H-I-T-E has 5 letters.

Because of the bright sunshine in the field, these young white pines grew branches all the way down to the ground. How do you think they will look when they get older?

Young pine trees are taking over a sunny field, and chickadees enjoy the new habitat at the Forest Lodge Nature Trail. Photo by Emily Stone. 

Just ahead, you will enter an older forest. These, too, are white pine trees, but they all grew up together without much space between them. Deep shade has caused their lower branches to die and fall off. Not all of the trees lack lower branches, though. Why might one old tree have grown big lower branches?

Old Growth White Pines

Some of the biggest white pines grew 200 feet tall and 6 feet in diameter. During the intense logging era of 1850-1920, lumberjacks logged this entire area for white pine and hemlock. These trees produced billions of board feet of lumber that was used for construction, furniture and paper production. 

Not all uses of white pine require that you cut it down. White pine needles are rich in vitamin C, and can be used to make a tea.

As you walk the rest of the trail, look for decaying stumps throughout the forest. These are the remnants of white pines that stood here 100 or more years ago. 

Please join me again next week to explore more of this beautiful trail!

Emily’s second book, Natural Connections: Dreaming of an Elfin Skimmer, is now available to purchase at www.cablemuseum.org/books and at your local independent bookstore, too. 

For more than 50 years, the Cable Natural History Museum has served to connect you to the Northwoods. Our Pollinator Power exhibit ends after February 29, but our Curiosity Center remains open, and Mysteries of the Night will open on May 1, 2020. Call us at 715-798-3890 or email emily@cablemuseum.org. 

Winter Adaptations of 3rd Graders

"Awooooo!” My best impression of a wolf howl rose over the crunching of snowshoes and little voices. Gesturing to the group of third graders from the Hayward Intermediate School, I invited them to howl back. The choir that responded sounded nothing like wolves, but it was music to my ears nonetheless. So was the expectant silence that followed, since these kids were wise to the fact that I’d howled to get their attention.

“We’re going to hike like a pack of wolves today,” I declared. “Do you know how wolves walk when they’re in deep snow?” I led this same snowshoe hike four times over the course of two days, and in each group there was one outdoorsy kid who knew. Wolves walk in a single file line and step precisely in the footprints of the wolf in front of them. The kids understood the benefits of the wolves’ behavior intuitively. Who hasn’t made their own life easier by following in someone else’s footsteps through deep snow?  

With one last admonition to walk in a single file line, I howled again, and they howled back as we started up the trail. 

The Mammal Tour on the Ridge Trail is a wonderful community resource. The 1.1-kilometer loop trail is the easiest of several snowshoe trails at the North End Trailhead just south of Cable, Wisconsin, and the Museum and our partners have created a self-guided interpretive trail along its length. There are life-sized silhouettes of local mammals cut out of metal. (The original wooden ones were destroyed by a porcupine.) Trail guides available at the trailhead contain a map of the trail, plus images, information, and tracks for all the mammals. 

Out in the woods, my plan was to teach about how animals confront the cold and snow head-on. Back in the Museum’s education room, Haley Appleman, the Museum’s naturalist, was teaching the other half of the group about animals that migrate and hibernate.

Our first interpretive stop is at the wolf and deer silhouettes. Wanting to wow them with the thickness of a wolf’s fur, I walked over to one of my helpers—a third grader carrying a heavy orange backpack. When I unzipped the pack and started pulling out a huge wolf pelt, a wave of surprised comments rippled outward. The helper was the most surprised of all. “You mean I was carrying that on my back!?”

Photo by Alison Menk

We also compared wolf tracks to deer tracks. Wolves’ relatively large feet act like snowshoes and help them run on top of crusty spring snow. Deer hooves punch through more easily. One dad with long legs and without snowshoes offered to demonstrate the difference. A few steps off the hard-packed trail and he was sinking in up over his knees. “Is that pretty easy?” I called up to him. “Nooo,” was his breathless reply. We all laughed. 

Our next stop was below the form of a flying squirrel. Unlike wolves, they don’t have thick enough fur to sleep out in the open. For warmth, flying squirrels huddle together with their friends in a hollow tree. Handing out durable thermometers to small groups of kids, I challenged them to see how much heat they could generate by huddling together with their friends. Most groups brought the temperature up to 40 or 50 degrees, but one group of girls used their breath and registered over 70 degrees!

At a set of weasel tracks bounding two-by-two from tree base to fallen log, I paused and pulled out two small furs. One was almost pure white; the other was brown on top and white on the belly. Both tails were tipped with black. Short-tailed weasels, also called ermine, turn white for the winter. The black tip stays as a decoy. Hungry red-tailed hawks will aim for the conspicuous tail spot…and miss the vital organs. In my opinion, these are the softest furs at the Museum, and every kid who removed their mittens in order to feel them was suitably impressed. 

Weasels don’t need large snowshoe feet because they spend most of the winter tunneling under the snow. Snowshoe hares, on the other hand, combine all of the best winter adaptations. They turn white, they have giant hind feet, and they have warm fur. Out of a second volunteer-carried backpack, I pulled track molds of both snowshoe hare and cottontail rabbit hind feet. The relative sizes were pretty similar to the kids’ feet with snowshoes and without. By this point, many of the snowshoes had fallen off and were being carried, but the kids still appreciated the comparison. 

“Awoooo!” I called again, and “Awoooo-oo-oo!” my wolf pack replied as we began the last stretch of their hike back to the bus. With the end in sight, tired legs were forgotten and the group’s chatter turned to comments like “that was so fun,” “we hiked so far,” and “I wish we could go farther.” This, of course, was music to my ears. 

Author’s Note: Portions of this article appeared in 2018. I say almost the same things on this field trip every year!

Emily’s second book, Natural Connections: Dreaming of an Elfin Skimmer, is now available to purchase at www.cablemuseum.org/books and at your local independent bookstore, too. 

For more than 50 years, the Cable Natural History Museum has served to connect you to the Northwoods. Our Pollinator Power exhibit ends after February 29, but our Curiosity Center remains open, and Mysteries of the Night will open on May 1, 2020. Call us at 715-798-3890 or email emily@cablemuseum.org. 

Dying Tamaracks and a Woodpecker Who Loves Them

Impressive pillars of reddish brown seemed to glow under gray skies as our small group of causal birders walked carefully along the narrow path of packed snow through Winterberry Bog. This 25-30 acre black spruce-tamarack swamp is nestled into the larger Sax-Zim Bog birding area about 50 miles northwest of Duluth, Minnesota.

Although the tamarack trees lacked the green needles that clothed their neighboring spruces, that was to be expected. Tamaracks, also known as the eastern larch, or Larix laricina, are a deciduous conifer. In an unusual combination, these trees have needle-like leaves and bear their seeds in cones like spruces and pines, but they lose their leaves in the fall like maples and grow them back each spring.

Following both the trail and these bare, ruddy beacons deeper and deeper into the forest, we kept our eyes open for signs of life. 

Signs of death were all around.

While the lack of needles wasn’t alarming, the beautiful warm brown color of the tamaracks’ trunks is actually their inner bark now revealed by their demise. Eastern larch beetles are the cause. In their hunger for the sweet products of photosynthesis, beetles’ larvae destroy the tree’s phloem. Those vascular tissues in the inner bark are supposed to carry sugars from high in the needles down to the trunk and roots. Once a tree’s vascular system is disrupted, the flow of water and nutrients ceases, and the tree dies.

Eastern larch beetle damage on a tamarack tree. Photo by Emily Stone.

Signs of life did eventually appear, though, revealed by motion among the tree trunks. About a dozen people dressed in bulky winter gear and peering through a spectrum of optical equipment from giant camera lenses to modest binoculars balanced on the network of packed-snow trails. All eyes were focused about 30 feet up on a tree trunk, where a small, black and white woodpecker clung and pecked. 

How many birders can you spot in the woods?

I zoomed in and snapped a few photos, and then zoomed in some more on the camera’s screen. Where the sides of a downy or a hairy woodpecker’s belly would have been pure white, this woodpecker sported fine black barring. Down the center of its black back ran a section of messy white barring. And on other photos, taken at just the right angles, I spotted a small, yellow cap and counted three toes. (Most woodpeckers have 4 toes.)

Three-toed woodpecker.

The three toes of a three-toed woodpecker.

For comparison, the 4 toes of a hairy woodpecker.

This three-toed woodpecker is a rarity in the Northwoods. Its normal range goes farther north into the boreal spruce forests than any other woodpecker besides its Eurasian cousin. Like many birds, though, these woodpeckers take advantage of food bonanzas wherever they can. During the height of the Dutch elm disease outbreak in the 1950s through the 1970s, these opportunistic feeders showed up even farther south. 

Three-toed woodpecker male, with a little cap of yellow just visible on the top of his head.

As we watched, flakes of bark rained down gently and scattered on the snow beneath the woodpecker’s perch in a dying tamarack. As I watched, the bird craned its neck to the side and wedged its beak under a loose piece of bark. A quick chipping motion soon freed the flake. This distinctive foraging style is characteristic of three-toed woodpeckers, as well as their cousins, the black-backed woodpeckers. They rarely excavate deep holes. When your lunch wiggles just under loose bark, there’s no need. 

Some side-angle flaking action.

Although three-toed woodpeckers often find food just beneath the bark of trees in burned areas, blowdowns, flood-damaged forests, and other disturbances where insects have moved in, the Eastern larch beetle has provided them with a giant and long-lasting buffet. 

Eastern larch beetles are native to the United States, and have always produced small and short-lived outbreaks. Since 2000, though, Minnesota has seen 20 consecutive years of outbreaks, with more than 440,000 acres infested, and no end in sight. Climate change is implicated in the beetles’ surge. 

Adult beetles emerge in spring, find a new tree to infest, burrow into the bark, mate, and lay eggs. The mother beetles go on to deposit one or two more clutches of eggs. In the past, these “sister broods” didn’t have time to fully develop before winter. Longer growing seasons now allow more beetles to reach maturity each year, and warmer weather results in less mortality for the overwintering larvae. It’s a perfect storm, and forest pathologists have not found a cure. 

While three-toed woodpeckers are taking advantage of the situation, birders can capitalize, too. Sax-Zim Bog is a southern outpost for many species typically found farther north. Protected areas like Winterberry Bog, and a visitor center run by the Friends of Sax-Zim Bog, have facilitated easy access to unusual species for a whole community of people interested in observing the interplay of life and death in nature.

Emily’s second book, Natural Connections: Dreaming of an Elfin Skimmer, is now available to purchase at www.cablemuseum.org/books and at your local independent bookstore, too. 

For more than 50 years, the Cable Natural History Museum has served to connect you to the Northwoods. Our Pollinator Power exhibit ends after February 29, but our Curiosity Center remains open, and Mysteries of the Night will open on May 1, 2020. Call us at 715-798-3890 or email emily@cablemuseum.org. 

The Birkie--Saving Skiing and Saving the World

Can cross-country skiing save the world?

Ben Popp, Executive Director of the American Birkebeiner Ski Foundation (ABSF), has enough energy and ideas to make that hyperbole feel possible. 

Popp has a more manageable mission, too: ensuring the future of cross-country skiing in the Midwest. But these goals are not unrelated. Skiers united behind the sustainability of their sport may find themselves inspired toward ever healthier and greener lifestyles. 

Every February, Popp and his team orchestrate North America’s largest cross-country ski marathon and its accompanying events. Skiing the 55 kilometer Birkie race is a big deal, but so is entering any of the shorter races, participating in the Barkie Birkie Skijor race, the kids’ races, or being one of the 2,845 volunteers or 40,000 spectators. The entire community benefits economically from the influx of visitors during race week and throughout the year. 

Skiers united behind ensuring the future of their sport have found themselves inspired toward ever healthier and greener lifestyles—with the Birkie Green campaign leading the way. ©2020 American Birkebeiner Ski Foundation.

  

The continued success of this world-class ski event is not a certainty. Back in 2017, after days of rain, the race was canceled for only the second time in the Birke’s 46-year history. It was disappointing, but not overly surprising. Hayward’s average winter temperature has risen 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit since 1950. The Birkie is featured right alongside maple syruping and ice fishing on the ClimateWisconsin.org website as Northwoods traditions that are threatened by a changing climate. Just a little farther south, ski conditions become very sporadic.

Soon after the cancelled race, the Birkie purchased their first ever snowmaking equipment using donations from the ski community. The ability to make snow gives the Birkie trail crew more options for dealing with thin spots, bad weather, and whatever the future climate might throw our way.

In another move toward the future, the American Birkebeiner Ski Foundation has leased the former Telemark Resort property with an option to buy the 713-acres when the lease expires in July 2021. 

Why is acquiring that land significant? “Wisconsin doesn’t have another venue that has snowmaking and hosts a big event,” explained Popp. The Telemark property—once a premier cross country ski destination with an alpine ski area, too—has been vacant for years. Nevertheless, its 30 kilometers of ski trails are still legendary and still used for several of the Birkie’s events. 

Those trails are important to many locals and visitors, and Popp wants to restore full public access. When the Telemark property moved into private ownership after a final bankruptcy in 2013, access was restricted. “We feel like the trails and the nature experiences available there are integral to our community, and we want to be part of ensuring that the whole community can use it,” Popp told me.

So, with snowmaking capabilities, over a hundred kilometers of trails, and a growing community of skiers, the future of the Birkie—and cross-country skiing in the Midwest is stable, right?

Not really. Snowmaking is energy intensive. “If you make 5 kilometers of snow and use fossil fuels to do it, is that really the right thing to do, especially long term?” Popp questioned. “To make snow responsibly takes some real conscious thought and intent.” Popp is exploring ways that their snowmaking could be fueled by solar power. 

The new Birkie Green initiative embodies that same conscious thought and intent toward reducing carbon emissions and environmental impacts from the ski community. It began with the Birkie Green Gear Bag, which is a durable backpack with ski-friendly features that racers use instead of plastic bags to have warm clothes transported to the finish line. If you don’t want to make the investment, you can still buy a plastic bag, but Birkie skiers have been showing off their packs getting used on adventures all over the world, under the hashtag #BirkieBagAdventure. 

Last summer, the Birkie Trail Run switched to reusable silicone cups that racers carry with them to aid stations. The Birkie Tour ski event used stainless steel cups with carabiner handles for the first time in January. Post-race food is now eaten from compostable containers, and beer is served in cans to facilitate recycling. By putting in plenty of forethought, and getting their partners involved, the Trail Run ended up with just a single bag of garbage. 

Ben Popp, Executive Director of the American Birkebeiner Ski Foundation (ABSF) shows off two initial offerings from the Birkie Green initiative—a durable gear bag and a reusable silicone cup. The Birkie continues to explore ways to reduce waste and save energy. Photo by Emily Stone.

Popp wants to see the Birkie use its leverage to get vendors and contractors committed to going green, too. Best practices can be be highlighted at the Birkie Expo, so that skiers can make educated decisions about the companies they support. 

For thousands of folks, Birkie Fever—“a craving for excitement, camaraderie and challenge”—is a real thing. But it’s not just about skiing fast or helping out with a single week of activities; it’s about the energy that comes from being part of something bigger than yourself. And that’s where Popp’s power lies. What if the Foundation’s new Birkie Green initiatives could get the ski community to think about sustainability in every aspect of their lives? What if skiers become advocates and ambassadors for green practices? What if Ben Popp really could use skiing to help save the world?

Editor’s note: A longer version of this article originally appeared in Northern Wilds magazine, and is reprinted with permission. 

Emily’s second book, Natural Connections: Dreaming of an Elfin Skimmer, is now available to purchase at www.cablemuseum.org/books and at your local independent bookstore, too. 

For more than 50 years, the Cable Natural History Museum has served to connect you to the Northwoods. Come visit us in Cable, WI! Our new Curiosity Center kids’ exhibit and Pollinator Power annual exhibit are now open! Call us at 715-798-3890 or email emily@cablemuseum.org. 

The Next Generation of Nature Writers

“It was cloudy with the color of sun between the cracks of the clouds. The snow under the snowshoes sounded like firecrackers walking underneath us.” So wrote a fifth grader from Lake Superior Elementary in Superior, Wisconsin, after I visited their school for a winter hike and writing workshop. 

Mrs. Correll and Mrs. Norton invited me to visit their classes after reading one of my articles in the newspaper. Mrs. Correll explained in an email that, “I am in no way an expert in any area of the outdoors, but I do believe students need to experience as much time outside in our beautiful Northland as possible and I love to give them the opportunity to learn about the history of our area and form an appreciation for it and why it's important to protect and conserve all of our natural resources.”

How could I argue with that?

The playground snow was indeed crunchy and loud as one class of fifth graders bypassed the slides and swings to meet me by a shrub at the head of a trail leading into the woods. I was thrilled when a girl looked up into the tips of the willow twigs and asked “what are those pine cones doing there?” 

Photo by Sue Correll

Willow pine cone galls are always a fun observation. The midge larva that burrowed into the stem last spring prevented the willow twig from extending. Instead, leaves once destined to flutter along a twig now layered together in the cone-like structures that caught our attention. At the center of all those layers could be the cocoon of the midge, or any of 31 other species that sometimes wiggle into the galls’ layers for shelter.  

willow pine cone galls

The students were both attentive to my teaching, and scanning their environment for more. Before I’d finished talking about pine cone galls, I had a different willow gall thrust into my hand. This small, football-shaped gall was a swelling of the stem material instead of a cluster of leaves. I carefully opened a multi-tool and pried open the prize. 

A photo from another day, of the same bright orange larva found in a willow stem gall. 

“On some trees I can see galls,” recounted a student. “They are little bumps on trees and you have to use a special tool to open it. On the inside there might be a little orange larva. It makes me want to learn more about the larvae and how galls form.” 

With the teachers, I’d talked about focusing in on the sensory experiences of being outdoors. So, naturally, I suggested to the kids that they all find a nice, tender willow twig at eye level and chew on it for a second. Their puckered faces and exclamations of “ew, gross!” were exactly what I’d expected. Willow tastes like uncoated aspirin tablets because it contains chemicals that are the basis for aspirin. John Pastor, an ecologist from Duluth, later told me that he thinks deer and moose might seek out willow twigs as winter forage specifically for the painkiller properties. 

Madeline, in her hot pink coat, was game for everything! Photo by Emily Stone.

The willows were great, but the wide path into the open aspen forest looked inviting, too. We crunched on into the woods. “As I walk on the trail, I see some beautiful trees. If I listen closely, I can hear the crunch under my feet and the wind blowing. I can also hear my heavy breathing,” wrote a student. 

Deer tracks perforated the wide path. When the lead students gave a shout, I wasn’t surprised to see that they’d found two deer beds in the middle of the trail. The packed ovals were sprinkled with pebbles of brown scat and stained with yellow snow. Of their own accord, the kids took turns kneeling down and sniffing the deer pee. Turns out, they’d read a chapter in my Natural Connections book about smelling fox urine, and most (but not all) were excited to try it themselves.

One student wrote, “As I walked around the bend I saw people circling a hole like a herd of animals eating deer. I had no clue what was going on, so I stopped to see a hole with poop and pee. I heard Emily Stone say, ‘smell the pee or poop if you want to.’ I was scared to do it, but I smelt the pee. It smelt like raw milk and smelly fart.” 

Love these kids. 

As we wound among the aspen trunks, I was happy to see a rainbow of green and orange lichens at eye level. Mrs. Correll and Mrs. Norton had already introduced lichens as a symbiotic relationship between a fungus and an alga, but I couldn’t resist telling my favorite story. “Alice Alga and Freddy Fungus took a ‘lichen’ to each other. They moved to the sticks, and their marriage has been on the rocks ever since!” To my right, a girl gave a theatrical groan. I reveled in the moment. Not only was she experienced at groaning at “dad jokes,” she’d grasped the concept and the humor fast enough to react.

Overall, I was impressed by the learning community that Mrs. Correll and Mrs. Norton are creating. Back in the classroom, I shared a few tips on writing, and over the next week or so the teachers guided the students in putting their outdoor experiences into words. They did a great job, so I’ll leave you with a few more of their thoughts.

“Now that you know what I saw you should pay more attention to what's out in the woods because there may be something cool that you could ask an expert or Google it to learn more.”

For example, Madeline found this crazy, spiky gall. I asked an expert, and he told me a long scientific name, and thought it probably came from a willow as well. 

“Sometimes it's good to go outside and see what’s out there.”

“In conclusion, hopefully you learn about nature every day!”

Emily’s second book, Natural Connections: Dreaming of an Elfin Skimmer, is now available to purchase at www.cablemuseum.org/books and at your local independent bookstore, too. 

For more than 50 years, the Cable Natural History Museum has served to connect you to the Northwoods. Come visit us in Cable, WI! Our new Curiosity Center kids’ exhibit and Pollinator Power annual exhibit are now open! Call us at 715-798-3890 or email emily@cablemuseum.org. 

Naturalist Games

Cindy pulled a slip of paper out of the silver mixing bowl. As she read the words that had been scribbled there with a dried-up pen, her face fell and she gave her head a little shake of disbelief. Then she pushed her chair back from the dining room table, moved it aside, and lay down on the ground. We all sat in stunned silence for a second, and then her team started shouting.

The words were a jumble at first, and then “Coarse woody debris!”

Cindy’s face lit up with a big “Yes!” She popped up and grabbed another folded paper from the bowl as the game continued. Soon, a biologist was hopping like a snowshoe hare, a landscaper was buzzing like a rusty-patched bumble bee, and a retired administrator was erupting like a volcano. The room erupted in laughs, too. 

This is what naturalists do for fun after a long day in the field. 

The Museum’s recent Wild About Winter Ecology workshop included plenty of serious learning—the lesson on mammal skulls that I wrote about last week, a lecture on wolves in Wisconsin, and 1.5 days in the field with wildlife biologists showing us their preferred habitat. We also spent one evening playing Salad Bowl. This popular party game is deceptively simple and fun for at least ages 10 and up. 

As the Master Naturalists gathered around the dining room table in the Gatehouse at Forest Lodge, we divided into two teams, and decided that the topic would be “nature.” Then everyone wrote down four words or phrases on separate slips of paper, and tossed them into the “salad bowl.” Naturally, many of the words referred to nature we’d encountered during our day in the field. 

Teams alternate designating a player to pull papers from the bowl. They have one minute to get their co-conspirators to guess as many words as possible. For the first round, you can say anything except the words on the paper. It’s reminiscent of the game “Taboo.” After the bowl is empty, the papers are returned to the bowl, and—using the same words—the teams now play charades. Finally, the words are returned to the bowl for a third round. This time, a player can only say one word for each slip of paper. 

While it may seem daunting to guess the items with only a one word clue, this is often the easiest round. Now the teams have heard all the words twice, and inside jokes often develop from previous attempts at guessing. It’s also good practice for the science-minded to think about communicating ideas as simply as possible. 

Cindy’s performance of “coarse woody debris” was one of the highlights of the night. Learning about it was a highlight of the day, too. “The original CWD,” joked Jon Gilbert, Director of the Biological Services Division of the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission (GLIFWC), when he first mentioned it during a presentation in the Clam Lake Community Center. These days, CWD tends to mean the chronic wasting disease that’s impacting deer. 

Fallen logs provide shelter for little critters, as well as doorway into the magical “subnivean zone” beneath the snow. Photo by Emily Stone. 

The Forest Service defines the original CWD as “Dead pieces of wood including downed, dead tree and shrub boles, large limbs, and other woody pieces that are severed from their original source of growth or are leaning more than 45 degrees from vertical.” Jon Gilbert defines them as essential to marten habitat. He’s been studying martens for most of his 35 year career. These small members of the weasel family need the structure of CWD to provide entrances into the snowpack, warmth, protection, and a breeding ground for voles and other small mammals who are their favorite food. Martens need messy old forests—with evergreens for canopy cover—in order to thrive. 

“Hemlock!” “Yellow birch!” “Complex structural diversity!” “Vole!” “Subnivean zone!” These were all words in the game that came directly from our time in marten habitat with Jon. In fact, there were three versions of “subnivean zone,” and we all converged on the same charade: One arm held flat in front of your chest, while the other hand dove down under like a mouse tunneling into this magical world beneath the snow. Active learning? Addressing diverse learning styles, and multiple intelligences? Check, check, check. 

The habitat of martens can be described using words like “coarse woody debris” and “complex structural diversity.” Martens tend to prefer older, messy forests with conifers. Photo by Emily Stone. 

“Gusto!” was another word in the game. Gusto is a scent lure that trappers use as a “long-distance call.” We got a good whiff while Jon’s colleague, biologist Tanya Aldred, explained a new style of camera trap to us. A marten will be attracted by the scent, then stand up on a platform to reach some meat. A trail camera is perfectly positioned to capture the uniquely shaped patch of orange fur on the marten’s chest, and biologists can identify individual martens from the photos. It’s a brilliant plan, but we thought it smelled a little funky. 

Tanya Aldred describes to Winter Ecology students the function of a camera trap set to capture martens and fishers. Photo by Emily Stone. 

“Bugle,” came up, too, this time in reference to the elk we’d learned about as well. Wisconsin DNR Wildlife Biologist Josh Spiegel took us to recently thinned aspen groves near wide-open fields to share his research subjects’ favorite habitat. Martens and elk are both residents of the Clam Lake area, but they need very different forest types. 

Elk prefer very different habitat from martens. Young aspen thickets and grassy meadows are key. Photo by Emily Stone.

A little bit of contrast can be good, though, as our group illustrates. We were stoic and learned professionals during the day—goofy and competitive teammates by night.

What a great group! Maybe you should join us next year ;-) 

Emily’s second book, Natural Connections: Dreaming of an Elfin Skimmer, is now available to purchase at www.cablemuseum.org/books and at your local independent bookstore, too. 

For more than 50 years, the Cable Natural History Museum has served to connect you to the Northwoods. Come visit us in Cable, WI! Our new Curiosity Center kids’ exhibit and Pollinator Power annual exhibit are now open! Call us at 715-798-3890 or email emily@cablemuseum.org.