Weirdos in the Kaleidoscope

Late summer days are a kaleidoscope of vibrant flowers in all colors of the rainbow. Some of the blossoms have their perfect petals neatly arranged while their leaves form regular patterns up their stems. They are a testament to the precision that can be written into genetic instructions for growth.

Royal catchfly is part of the rainbow of our August pollinator gardens! Photo by Emily Stone. 

I find myself drawn to the weirdos, though, like the pearly everlasting flowers woven into a new shape by black-spiked caterpillars, or the milkweed leaves whose tattered appearance hints at a feeding frenzy. (See last week’s article about my front yard safari!) These weirdos are great examples of how our relationships with other beings can be both messy and emergent.

Near the milkweeds is a thick patch of goldenrod. They weren’t quite blooming last week on my safari, but many of the stems were topped by arching plumes of little green buds, just about to burst into soft yellow flowers. Several of these stems, though, were topped by tufts of leaves, as if the stems had been pulled through pinched fingers and all the little green triangles collected in a bunch. They looked a bit like doll-size cabbages. Weirdos indeed!

Goldenrod cabbage gall. Photo by Emily Stone. 

Goldenrod galls like these were my first introduction to insect galls back in college. I remember walking through a field on a nature hike at the very beginning of Fall Block—a requirement for my Outdoor Education major—and finding both the round ball galls I’ve written about before and these leafy cabbage galls on the goldenrods.

Goldenrod ball gall. Photo by Emily Stone. 

I’d never heard of galls before, even though there are likely over 100,000 species of insects who lay their eggs on a plant, have their larvae chew their way in, then induce the plant to grow some form of house around the larvae. The larvae then drink the plant juices and enjoy the gall’s protection. Eventually each insect metamorphoses and emerges as an adult, ready to lay eggs and start again. Gall-forming insects include species of midges, flies, wasps, and mites. Each insect parasite has their own preferred host plant.

Knowing this, I thought a quick search for “goldenrod cabbage gall” would give me all the information I needed. Instead, according to an article about galls on the iNaturalist website, there are at least a dozen insects who create similar leaf bunch galls on goldenrod!

Picking my way through the descriptions of the top two galls, I realized that if I knew what species of goldenrod they were on, that would help with insect identification. But looking at a list of characteristics that separate Canada goldenrod from giant goldenrod, I still wasn’t sure. Some species, like the delicate zig-zag goldenrod of forests, or seaside goldenrod of shorelines are pretty distinctive, but these big plumy types can be tricky.

So, I texted Sarah Boles, a native landscaper and long-time Museum volunteer who planted these gardens and asked what species of goldenrod she’d put in. “None!” was her reply. All the goldenrods in our pollinator gardens blew in of their own accord, on tiny seeds carried by fluffy parachutes built for pioneering.

Finally, I decided to crack open a gall to see what I could find. Breaking the leaf cluster off the top of the plant, I split it open from top to bottom down the center. I’d expected a central chamber with a single larva, not all that different from the ball galls we dissect with sixth graders during our MuseumMobile programs. Instead, the gall looked empty. Then something moved. A tiny yellow larva wiggled out of a tiny chamber formed by the curled base of a miniaturized leaf.

A tiny yellow midge larva hides at the base of a leaf inside the cabbage gall. 

Photo by Emily Stone. 

Ah ha! Using that search image, I could now see that almost every leaf base held either a larger yellow or a smaller white larva. Some of the yellow larvae had a stomach full of green visible through their translucent sides. Now it was clear, these galls were formed by the gall midge Rhopalomyia capitata, whose galls are dormitories with 6-20 roommates. Knowing that, I could also assume that the flower was giant goldenrod—Solidago gigantea. The insects had done the plant identification for me!

Older (yellow) and younger (white) midge larvae in a cabbage gall. Photo by Emily Stone. 

Looking again at the plants, I could now see that all the goldenrod with cabbage galls had smooth stems among the flowers, while the others had hairy stems. It had been hard to be confident about these subtle characteristics without the insect’s help.

Sharing my story of discovery with Sarah, we got to chatting about how goldenrod was taking over the gardens and needed to be cut back to allow the milkweed, spiderwort, figwort, and other plants to survive. Gazing out over the garden, I realized that the plants with galls on them were shorter, with many fewer flowers, some wouldn’t have any flowers at all. They wouldn’t be able to contribute as much to goldenrod’s spread. Perhaps these little midges are Nature’s way of keeping goldenrod in balance. The weirdos have their place in the vibrant kaleidoscope of the world!

Emily’s third book, Natural Connections3: A Web Endlessly Woven, is 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 Summer Calendar is open for registration! The Museum’s new exhibit, The Wetland Way is now open! Discover how life thrives at the intersection of soil and water, and why we must care for these special places as they care for us. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and cablemuseum.org to see what we are up to.

Front Yard Safari

The flower head looked odd. Pearly everlasting—with their beautiful flat-topped cluster of white flowers with yellow centers—had finally bloomed. And now the petals would dry out and hold their shape for many months. Except, as I walked past the small patch of native plants between the Museum and the Forest Lodge Library, I noticed that one of the flower clusters was a shapeless blob of petals. Dark balls, like peppercorns, clung to the bottom. And did one of those petals move?

Poking the blob, I found that it gave easily under my finger, as if were made of soft cloth. Peeling open a corner, I spotted yellow stripes, red dots, and multi-tipped black spikes. Yikes! That’s what this American painted lady caterpillar wanted me to think…and then to leave them alone.

An American painted lady caterpillar hides inside the house of flower petals they wove together. Photo by Emily Stone.

A few weeks ago I found a younger version of both the plant and the caterpillar on the Superior Hiking Trail. With no flowers blooming yet, the smaller caterpillar had tied together the fuzzy, gray-green leaves into a little home. I’d never seen this older version with the gorgeous, woven-petal shroud.

Scanning the garden, I soon discovered a few more caterpillar homes in the pearly everlasting, all with dark bales of frass (caterpillar poop) spilling out. Some gardeners might be frustrated to lose a few flowers, but hosting native insects is exactly why we plant native species in our gardens, instead of importing species from all over the world who don’t play a positive role in our local ecosystem.

As I poked around, I noticed something else dark and spikey hiding under the canopy of petals on a caterpillar-less flower. Was that an ant? With extra legs? And then I found a better window into the action: a brown spider clasped a black ant in a death grip. The larger front legs probably indicated they are a crab spider—a group who often sits on flowers to ambush their prey.

A crab spider feasts on an ant in the dining room created by a pearly everlasting flower.
Photo by Emily Stone. 

Inspired, I began a slow walk around the Museum’s pollinator gardens. Goldenrod buds looked ready to burst. Most of the bergamot had already erupted into purple pompoms of petals. A tattered male monarch butterfly rested on a stem. And then a tuft of yellow, black and white on a milkweed leaf caught my eye.

Milkweed tussock moth caterpillars feed only on milkweed and dogbane leaves, and concentrate toxins from the plants into their bodies to protect them from predators. The brightly colored hairs offer some protection, too! Photo by Emily Stone.

Just like the American painted lady, these caterpillars are very selective about their baby food. Milkweed tussock moth caterpillars only munch on the leaves of milkweeds or their cousins the dogbanes. Just like monarch caterpillars, their bright colors are a warning to birds and would-be predators that they have concentrated the cardiac glycosides from the plant and have become both toxic and distasteful. Once the aptly nicknamed “milkweed tigers” metamorphose into drab brown moths, they warn bats about their bad taste by making ultrasonic clicks.

Although monarch and moth caterpillars would seem to compete for the same food source, it’s reported that monarchs prefer tender young milkweed leaves, and the moth larvae focus on leaves too old and tough for monarchs.

Walking slowly, I scanned the flowers for anything out of place, any disruption to the normal patterns. On the dark center of a black-eyed Susan, I found a small green anomaly. Crouching down, I found myself face-to-face with the fierce scowl, long horns, and serrated edges of a jagged ambush bug. They lie motionless on a flower until an unsuspecting pollinator comes looking for a sugary treat. Wham! With front legs so strong and scary that scientists call them “raptorial,” the ambush bug ambushes the hungry visitor; jabs them with that vicious beak; injects paralyzing, digesting poison; and drinks their fill. Using this technique, they can catch and eat prey more than twice their size. If you try to squash an ambush bug, they will bite you. While painful, their poison is not dangerous to humans.

Jagged assassin bugs lie motionless on a flower until an unsuspecting pollinator comes looking for a sugary treat. Then they attack! Photo by Emily Stone.

Looking up, I found the green stem of an aster absolutely covered with bright red aphids. While aphids have piercing/sucking mouthparts just like the ambush bugs and other relatives in the group known as “true bugs,” they suck plant juices instead. This stem must have gotten too crowded with the clones of one female, because a few of the aphids had sprouted clear wings, readying themselves to escape the crowds and expand to a new frontier.

Aphids, including a few with wings, crowd onto the stem of a flat-topped white aster.
Photo by Emily Stone. 

My loop around the yard complete, I headed back into the air-conditioned Museum to look at my photos. Some people fly halfway around the world to witness the dramas of nature play out on the African savannah. I found plenty of action walking halfway around the yard.

Emily’s third book, Natural Connections3: A Web Endlessly Woven, is 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 Summer Calendar is open for registration! The Museum’s new exhibit, The Wetland Way is now open! Discover how life thrives at the intersection of soil and water, and why we must care for these special places as they care for us. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and cablemuseum.org to see what we are up to.

House Finches Get a New Coat of Paint

By Katherine Woolley

Summer Naturalist Intern at the Cable Natural History Museum

Katherine Woolley is about to start her senior year as an environmental education major at Western Colorado University. When Katherine arrived for her second round as a Summer Naturalist Intern at the Museum, she announced that she hit a certain age and suddenly became a birder!

“Peep peep peep peeeep PEEP PEEEEEP peep peep” I rolled over in my bed and groaned. Spring had come early to Colorado’s Gunnison Valley where I attend university. A flash of yellow on my window bird feeder caught my attention. There perched a male house finch sporting banana-colored belly feathers where the red normally is.

Male House Finch with yellow feathers on a window feeder in Gunnison, CO.
Photo by Katherine Woolley.

When ornithologists see a house finch with this color variation, their first thought is often that the individual has xanthochromism. This genetic condition manifests as an unusually large amount of yellow pigment, frequently replacing red pigment. Going in the other direction, axanthism occurs when there is an unusually small amount of yellow pigment or none at all.

In the case of house finches like the one who was acting as my alarm clock, their diet at the time of molting causes their color abnormality. Molting is when a bird loses their old feathers and replaces them with new ones. Molting can take place at different times throughout the year, but because of the energy required to molt, most birds will make sure it doesn't overlap with migration or breeding. Some birds will molt just their head and body feathers in early spring, leaving their flight feathers for later. Since this neon yellow was a drastic change from the peachy bellies I had been observing on finches since winter, it seemed like he had molted practically overnight.

All male house finches have the capacity to be red, orange, or yellow because of pigments called carotenoids. The carotenoids that affect house finch coloration are generally split into three groups with different colors that appear when an animal ingests too much or too little of certain carotenoids. Beta-carotene creates the yellow I was seeing out my window while isocryptoxanthin makes an orange that I saw another finch sporting later in the season. The final carotenoid is called echinenon and causes the bright red that is characteristic of male house finches.

Male House Finch with red feathers at Katherine’s family home in Minneapolis, MN.
Photo by Katherine Woolley.

Most naturally occurring carotenoids are found in leaves and fruit. These carotenoid-bearing Beings are the bulk of the house finch's plant-based diet. Here in the Northwoods, finches seek out the seeds of thistles, dandelions, and sunflowers. A particular treat for house finches are the countless species of berries that grow wild in the Northwoods. The fruit of ornamental trees in our yards like crab apples, or store-bought bird food like peanuts, also contribute to the house finch diet. The occasional insects or other invertebrates they add to their meals do not impact their coloration.

While seeing a house finch in something other than his red suit is exciting and not directly harmful to the bird's health, it does get in the way of other aspects of their life. My bright yellow bird alarm clock in the Rockies never seemed to have any success with the ladies. Female house finches all over the country tend to go for males with the most saturated red in their feathers because it shows that they are competent foragers and good potential mates.

Male House Finch with orange feathers on a window feeder in Gunnison, CO.
Photo by Katherine Woolley.

I yawned, stretched, and got out of bed with the chorus of finches calling in the background. After snapping a few photos of my yellow friend, I grabbed my phone. I grinned to myself as I texted the staff at the Cable Natural History Museum telling them all about my find. I bounced on my heels as I hit send, already planning where I would go to look for yellow and orange house finches in the Northwoods when I moved back to Cable for my second year as a Summer Naturalist Intern at the Cable Natural History Museum.

For more than 50 years, the Cable Natural History Museum has served to connect you to the Northwoods. Our Summer Calendar is open for registration! The Museum’s new exhibit, The Wetland Way is now open! Discover how life thrives at the intersection of soil and water, and why we must care for these special places as they care for us. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and cablemuseum.org to see what we are up to.

Who's Hiding in the Tapestry?

From a distance, the forests of July look like a lush tapestry of green. But when you step into the loosely woven strands and take a closer look, the leaves are etched with feeding trails, dissected by holes of all shapes and sizes, and covered with the debris of life. It’s a principle of ecology, of course, that every Being is food for someone else.

Cattails, for example, are food for me! Before their flower spikes explode with pollen and become those brown sausage-shaped seed heads, the dense cylinders of their male flowers are a tasty green vegetable. Simply husk them like sweet corn, boil for 10 minutes, and eat with butter and salt. Just like a corncob, there’s a central stem you must nibble around. In Northern Wisconsin, this part of the plant becomes edible in late June.

Harvesting the male flower spike on a cattail. 

A few weeks ago while I was tromping through a cattail stand to harvest dinner, I noticed that some of the cattail leaves were folded over at the tip into a triangular origami box. I set down my bag of flower spikes and used both hands to unfold the leaf. White silk in the seams stretched and tore. The inside was lined with sheets of silk as well, and hidden below this gossamer blanket was a cluster of beige eggs. In a flurry of legs, someone small and brown escaped from the back corner of the box and dropped to the ground. Who had I disturbed?

The next origami leaf I opened much more slowly, and was rewarded with the sight of a pretty little spider covered in silky brown hairs. She stared at me with her ebony face from beyond her pile of eggs.

Riparian sac spiders fold a cattail leaf into a little origami home in which to guard their eggs. Photo by Emily Stone.

All spiders can make silk, but riparian sac spiders like this one don’t build webs. To hunt, they wander through the night, hoping to stumble on an insect or arthropod the right size for their next meal. When a female is ready to lay eggs, though, she finds the leaf of a monocot—plants like grasses or lilies with parallel venation—and bends it around herself in a clockwise direction. She uses silk to hold everything tight and to line the enclosure, then lays her pile of eggs. The leaf isn’t crimped; it remains green and living.

This tidy structure has been described as both a nursery and a coffin. The mother spider will never leave the structure again (except if disturbed by a curious naturalist). Instead, she guards her eggs against the marauding hunger of other female sac spiders. By some accounts, she dies just before the eggs hatch, and the young consume her body as their first meal. It is the ultimate maternal gift.

Sac spiders as a group are common around the globe, and this particular species has been found in Russia, Mongolia, China, Japan, across the Northwoods, and in Cable, Wis.

In looking up information on the Bug of the Week blog by Kate Redmond, I discovered that sac spiders are classified as “leaf folders,” while other leaf architects are “leaf rollers” or “leaf tiers.” All of these insects and spiders use silk that contracts as it dries to shape leaves into shelters.

S. W. Frost, in the 1942 book Insect Life and Insect Natural History, described that “As the strands dry, they shrink and pull the edges of the leaf inward. New and shorter strands are then spun which in turn shrink and pull the edges of the leaf closer together. This is continued until the edge of the leaf is drawn completely over and is fastened with other strands of silk…”

I set out to find examples of the other two leaf architects. It didn’t take long. While walking a section of the Superior Hiking Trail, I spotted large-leaved aster leaves with one edge curled inward toward the midrib. Brown trails through the tissue indicated that the homeowner was mining the leaf material from inside their hidey-hole. I opened one to discover a sprinkling of black frass (poop) and no resident. I decided not to disturb anymore. Micro-moths in the family Tortricidae are some of the most common leaf-rolling architects, and are my top suspects. This group includes spruce budworm, a pest who had sewed fir needles together nearby.

A leaf rolling insect has used silk that shrinks as it dries to construct a shelter in this large-leaved aster leaf. Photo by Emily Stone.

Spruce budworms are leaf-rolling moth larvae likely related to the architect of the leaf above. They are currently killing quite a few fir and spruce trees in Northern Minnesota. 

Photo by Emily Stone.

In a rocky section of trail, a patch of pearly everlasting leaves caught my eye. On several plants a few of the topmost leaves had been sewn together into a messy vase. Without even opening the structure, I knew that this was the work of a spikey black caterpillar who will metamorphose into an American painted lady butterfly. They scrape pale fuzz off the leaves’ surfaces to line their nest, and also munch on the inner walls of their home.

American painted lady butterfly larvae sew pearly everlasting leaves into a vase-shaped hideaway. Photo by Emily Stone.

The hiding caterpillars above will metamorphose into this beautiful American painted lady butterfly. Photo by Emily Stone. 

Everywhere I looked, the signs of leaf-eaters abounded. And then, in a flash of feathers, a bird dove into a bush. Behind the screen of twigs, a male chestnut-sided warbler hopped nervously with two different colors of caterpillars dangling from his beak. When he sensed my focus had strayed, he dove away to his nest. Those larvae were almost certainly leaf-eaters, and they were about to become birds! The abundance of summer is a great time to witness ecology in action.

Can you spot the male chestnut-sided warbler with two caterpillars in his mouth?
Photo by Emily Stone. 

Emily’s third book, Natural Connections3: A Web Endlessly Woven, is 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 Summer Calendar is open for registration! The Museum’s new exhibit, The Wetland Way is now open! Discover how life thrives at the intersection of soil and water, and why we must care for these special places as they care for us. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and cablemuseum.org to see what we are up to.

Stalking Wonder

On a warm day at the end of June, the whole world buzzed with life. Painted turtles slid off sunning logs as we paddled up the channel into Big Bay Lagoon on Madeline Island. Song sparrows whistled and trilled their complex songs from the tops of scrubby black spruce trees. Through their trunks I spotted a veritable garden of pitcher plants blooming on a lawn of Sphagnum moss. As we stepped carefully onto the warm wet sponge of the bog mat, a bumblebee hummed inside the nearest burgundy bloom.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many pitcher plants blooming in one place! 

Photo by Emily Stone.

Although it’s hard to walk fast on soggy Sphagnum moss while not crushing the pitcher plants, I did my best to dart from one treasure to the next. Kevin followed behind at a more meditative pace, searching out the singers with his binoculars.

I barely caught the flash of brown out of the corner of my eye, but Kevin had a clear view. He followed the flight path of the bird until they landed on the far side of a small channel lined with arching sedges. Despite the bird’s pinstriped camouflage blending seamlessly with the tall grass, and having never before seen one in the wild, his identification came instantly: American bittern!

Can you spot them?

These birds of mucky marshlands are hard to spot. It’s not just because of their cryptic coloration, but also because we’d sink into the mud of their damp, reedy habitats. During my graduate school project monitoring wetlands in Maine, we spooked bitterns into flight many times while bushwhacking to our remote field sites. The kok-kok-kok call they made in agitation harmonized with the squishing of our boots.

Now a bittern was stalking along barely 20 feet away, and we could easily see the huge, bony yellow toes that kept them from sinking in. As the heron clung to an insubstantial hummock of dried grass, their mottled brown rear wiggled in anticipation as their striped neck stretched forward. Then legs, feet, and neck all uncoiled at once, launching the bittern’s spear-like beak into the water’s edge. Their white throat patch pulsed to gulp down their prey. Frog? Tadpole? Fish? Bug? We couldn’t see, and their diet is diverse.

Watch the bittern hunt!

As the bittern stalked a few steps forward to seek their next target, we stalked them, too, creeping along our shore to keep them in view. And although they peered intently into the water with their yellow eyes shaded by a prominent brow ridge, they didn’t seem to notice (or care about) us. They just continued their strategy: several quick steps forward to a new hummock. Freeze. Stare intently into the water. Strike. Gulp. Repeat. From the movement of their throat, we figured they had nearly perfect hunting success. Although they are known to snatch dragonflies from flight, they ignored the shimmering-winged insects darting above the grass. Perhaps they prefer easier and juicier prey. Like owls, they can regurgitate the indigestible bits.

Strike!

For several minutes we watched in awe as the bittern worked their way down the shore. Then the walking on our side of the channel became too treacherous to navigate without long yellow toes and we turned back to explore the rest of the lagoon. For the next several days we exclaimed about our good luck at having a front-row seat for such a rare show.

Pink Panther ;-)

Bitterns hunt alone, mostly at dawn and dusk, and are said to be easier to hear than to see. Their deep booming, gulping calls travel far across marshes, but the male “thunder-pumpers” are vocal only during their spring mating season, and so it’s not even that easy to hear them. Add to that bitterns’ decline in parallel with the decline of their wetland homes, and we’d resigned ourselves to admiring their mystery instead of enjoying an encounter.

American bitterns stand quietly while the get ready to strike at prey like fish or frogs.
Photo by Emily Stone.

Perhaps we were too pessimistic. Over the past several years I’ve spotted bitterns a few times. One summer two juveniles watched me bike by from the mowed roadside, the remnants of downy baby feathers sticking out from their new brown coats. So ingrained is their instinct to hide by standing with the striped neck vertical and their beak in the air, sometimes swaying gently like grass in the wind, that they will do this even when out in the open. A couple years prior, I’d watched a juvenile with the same telltale halo of down stalk insects in a short-cropped field on my way to pick blueberries.

Protected wetlands like Big Bay Lagoon are essential to American bitterns’ continued existence, as are similar habitats on their wintering grounds farther south. Protected wetlands are great for paddlers, too. After we left the bittern, we stalked feasts of wonder in the form of hot pink orchids, a giant snapping turtle, darting fish, a family of loons, and a world buzzing with life.

Protected wetlands like the Big Bay Lagoon on Madeline Island are essential habitat for bitterns and much more. Photo by Emily Stone.

Dragon's Mouth Orchids were a neat find!

This giant snapper just rested on the bottom while we paddled past...

When life is buzzing, Kevin wears his full bug armor!

Emily’s third book, Natural Connections3: A Web Endlessly Woven, is 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 Summer Calendar is open for registration! The Museum’s new exhibit, The Wetland Way is now open! Discover how life thrives at the intersection of soil and water, and why we must care for these special places as they care for us. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and cablemuseum.org to see what we are up to.

Heartbeats and Birds

The bird that Jim placed in my hand barely felt like anything against my skin. The black-and-white-striped feathers were soft, their temperature similar to my own. We’d just recorded the weight of this little beauty at 10 grams, or about as much as two teaspoons of sugar. I marveled at their racing heartbeat—more like a vibration than a pulse I could count.

With the black-and-white warbler’s fragile neck cradled between the first two fingers of my left hand, I tipped him down in a pose that most birds find hypnotic. His legs’ wiry strength pressed into the soft pads of my thumb and forefinger. The metal band with a unique number that Jim had just applied to the bird’s left leg glinted in the morning sun.

Master Bird Bander Jim Bryce holds a black-and-white warbler captured in a mist net in the Moquah Barrens. Photo by Emily Stone.

I felt gratitude for this bird’s brief connection to my life and their permanent contribution to research. Then I loosened my grip. Tiny toes pricked my finger as he clung upside down for a second before darting into the brush. I chuckled at the way, even while captive, this black-and-white warbler lived up to their reputation as a nuthatch mimic who is usually seen creeping nimbly along branches on the hunt for insects in the bark.

I’ve been watching Jim Bryce, a Master Bird Bander with a lifetime of experience, band birds on this hilltop in the Moquah Barrens in northern Bayfield County, Wis. for 13 years. Each year I revel in Jim’s steady stream of quiet words explaining the banding process and sharing his vast experience with bird banding over several decades and several government agencies. Usually, I lead a group of 20 Wisconsin Master Naturalist students on a hike up the overgrown footpath from the sandy forest road. We burst into a small clearing to find Jim already set up with his ancient folding table, folding chair, and banding supplies ready to begin teaching the moment anyone is close enough to listen.

Jim at his banding table during the 2016 Wisconsin Master Naturalist volunteer training. You can see the fringe of red pines in the distance. The site has been burned just that spring. Photo by Emily Stone.

This year was different. Rain kept us from banding with the students earlier in the week. But Jim still needed to conduct the banding as part a long-term research project studying how bird diversity changes in response to prescribed burning in this pine savannah. (Read about what we found in 2020.)

Catching the black-and-white warbler was a bit of a surprise. They are lovers of forests, but the lone pine tree on this hill died in the last prescribed burn—seven years ago. Now only a fringe of red pine trees looms in the distance as breezes rustle leaves in an aspen grove across the road. Bad luck with fire weather has prevented burning on the planned three-to-five-year schedule, and not-so-scrubby oaks whacked our faces and waved above our heads as Jim and I visited each of the three mist nets we set up in order to gently entangle the local songbirds.

The 12-meter mist net is visible down the center of the group as Jim extracts a bird in 2016.
Photo by Emily Stone.

Our first net check of the morning had yielded this black-and-white warbler, a beautiful male chestnut-sided warbler, a feisty female rose-breasted grosbeak, and a veery. Veeries are small, brown thrushes also described as forest birds, but their flute-like, downward spiraling song has been a consistent part of our Barrens soundtrack anyway. Jim let me weigh each of the first three birds inside their mesh collection bags and then observe his banding technique. By the time we got to the veery, he insisted it was my turn.

Veeries are small, brown thrushes whose flute-like, downward spiraling song is often heard in damp forests of the Northwoods. Photo by Emily Stone.

My heart raced as I reached my hand into the bag. What if I broke them? What if I let them escape? Then my fingers found a familiar grip, and before I knew it, I was holding this bird just like I had the warbler. Now that I was the bander and not just the releaser, the vibration of their heart felt different. Their safety was in my hands. My own heart slowed, and I took a steadying breath.

We’d already recorded the band number, date, time, location, numerical species code, and weight of the bird-plus-the-bag in Jim’s well-worn notebook. As I held the veery in my left hand, I used my right hand to spread open the tiny, officially issued aluminum band using the split peg on Jim’s banding pliers. Maneuvering the veery so that I could grip their right leg in my left thumb and forefinger, I slipped the open band over their leg. I wielded the power of the pliers as gently as I could to squeeze the band closed, the edges meeting smoothly and the whole thing sliding freely between their foot and “knee.” Now even if the bird escaped, they were ready to contribute to science!

I was too focused on banding the veery to take photos, but later we caught this white-throated sparrow and I was able to band him, too. The banding notebook and supplies can be seen in the background. Photo by Emily Stone.

Male and female veeries look very similar, so to determine the bird’s sex, I blew on their stomach to part the feathers. In female birds, this reveals a featherless area called a brood patch where bare skin conducts heat directly to her eggs. Instead, I found a small knob known as a cloacal protuberance. This organ swells during breeding season and assists a male with fertilizing the female during a brief act called a “cloacal kiss.”

Jim blows on the belly of a male chestnut-sided warbler revealing the cloacal protuberance. Photo by Emily Stone.

Up higher, my breath revealed red skin around their bird’s wishbone, indicating a complete lack of subcutaneous fat. Breeding birds have no time to gain weight! Their body size is more stable, though, so I also measured from the tip of the longest feather to the bend in the wing. All of these data are useful in tracking changes in bird populations over time, but the holy grails of bird banding are returns. Re-catching a previously banded bird is rare in the banding world, but returns provide a wealth of information. (Read about the return we have in 2015!)

From these recaptured birds, scientists have learned about the incredible 24,000 mile round-trip migration that Arctic terns complete each year; the wintering habitat of Bicknell’s thrushes; and the maximum known age for a wild bald eagle (at least 38 years). However, only about 1% of small birds are ever caught again. If someone recaptures this veery, the USGS will notify Jim, and he will tell me.

“This bird will be forever connected to you,” Jim reminded me after we’d sent the veery flying back into the brush. My heart fluttered happily.

The veery and me--my first ever banded bird! 

Preserving the Legacy of Black Ash

Dappled light, mosquitoes, and the roar of a chainsaw filled the humid air on a morning in early June. Guided by skilled hands, the blade sliced through pale wood. Lacey green leaves trembled against the blue sky before tipping toward a gap in the canopy, brushing past the twigs of neighbors, and easing quietly onto the earth exactly where the feller intended. If a black ash tree falls in the forest, must it land with a crash?

Jamie Holly of Cable, Wis. cuts a black ash tree he just felled into logs suitable for pounding into basket making material. Photo by April Stone.

Deep in the woods east of Lake Namakagon, I’d gathered a small team of volunteers on an urgent mission. Last summer, the Museum hosted April Ogimaakwe Stone, member of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and black ash basketmaker, for a series of workshops. She taught us about harvesting black ash trees, preparing basket-making splints, and weaving with this sacred material.

Pounding the black ash strips can be a social activity, and while we worked, we talked. I learned that the emerald ash borer, a non-local being who kills ash trees, had already been found in the swamps of the Bad River Reservation. April, and basketmakers all over the country, are worried that their traditional craft will be lost as the trees succumb to an insect introduced from China to Michigan in 2002, via the wood from shipping crates.

While EAB, as the shiny green interlopers are known, have been detected in every county in Wisconsin, I had yet to see any signs of them around the Cable area. All winter I spread word through the Museum’s networks that we were looking for black ash trees within easy distance of access roads. That brought us to some well-loved family land belonging to Museum members. Their rolling hills dimpled with vernal pools are cradled on three sides by Lake Namakagon and shaded by a northern hardwood forest.

From hundreds of options, we chose to harvest four black ash trees, including one found on Museum land nearby. They were between ten and fourteen inches in diameter with symmetrical trunks, no branch scars, healthy canopies, and wet feet. April’s carrying straps, made from wide webbing, allowed four people to share the load as we hauled each of the heavy six-to-eight-foot logs out of the woods.

Volunteers team up to haul ash logs out of the woods. Photo by April Stone. 

Back at the Museum, April set two of the eight logs on her pounding stands. Once the bark was sliced lengthwise, ample moisture in the xylem cells below helped it peel off in one large piece (that’s why we wanted the trees to have wet feet!). Then the pounding began. April’s preferred tools are cylindrical wooden mallets with a sheath of steel on one end. She coached volunteers in pounding hard—but not too hard—and staying in sync with their neighbor so they could have a moment of silence between each blow.

Ash log ready to start!

Anne Clauser, Gus Smith, and Hannah Burch peel the bark off a black ash log.
Photo by Emily Stone.

Because black ash grows in wet areas, their new cells expand especially fast in the spring. Growth slows down in the summer. This creates the rings you’d count to learn their age. Pounding the log compresses and destroys the spring wood and separates it from the denser summer wood, which can then be peeled off the log in long strips about three inches wide.

Black ash growth rings tend to be wide. Photo by Emily Stone. 

There’s more fine-tuning before these splints are ready to weave, but it’s not nearly as loud or as tiring as the pounding. That’s why we invited volunteers to take turns and help April put up a supply of materials. The pile of cream-colored splints plus the six untouched logs she took home will allow her to continue teaching and keeping this tradition alive for at least a while longer. (Learn more about the process, and about April, on the Cable Natural History Museum’s YouTube channel.)

Museum staff members Heaven Walker, Elora Repman and Mollie Kreb stand next to an ash log, with basket splints pounded by volunteers in the background. Photo by April Stone.

Just halfway through our second day of work, I tore myself away from the fun and drove south toward a family funeral. Somewhere along the I-35 corridor I started noticing the skeletons of trees poking out of forests and fencerows. Even driving 70 mph, I could see that the twigs were stout and oppositely arranged—the signature pattern of ash. My sadness multiplied. This was more ash death than I’d ever noticed before.

At a rest area near Clear Lake, Iowa, I pulled in for a closer look. The lone picnic table—once shaded by a grove of giants—was surrounded by skeletal green ash trees. The bark of one tree peeled off in huge sheets, revealing a bare trunk entirely patterned with the squiggly galleries left by EAB larvae as they fed on the nutritious inner layer. On another tree with bark still holding firm, I spotted the tiny, D-shaped holes where the larvae had metamorphosed and exited as adults—ready to mate and lay more eggs.

Dead ash trees in Iowa. Photo by Emily Stone.

EAB larval galleries

EAB D-shaped exit hole of an adult beetle.

A single ash tree may not crash if we harvest them carefully, but all species of ash trees (Fraxinus spp.) on our entire continent are expected to crash and crash hard. Scientists predict that even a healthy forest will lose 98% of its ash trees within six years of an EAB infestation. Death has a way of making us think about legacy, and my hope is that the work our volunteers did this June will help extend the legacy of ash.

Emily’s third book, Natural Connections3: A Web Endlessly Woven, is 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 Summer Calendar is open for registration! The Museum’s new exhibit, The Wetland Way is now open! Discover how life thrives at the intersection of soil and water, and why we must care for these special places as they care for us. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and cablemuseum.org to see what we are up to.