Willow Pine Cone Galls

Snow crunched under my tires and bare trees whizzed by as I coasted down the hill on my fatbike. Cold air stung my cheeks, but my hands were warm in brand-new, homemade pogies that wrapped around my hands and bike handlebars like old-fashioned muffs. At the bottom of the hill, we passed through a wetland with dried grasses and shrubs frozen into the ice.

In the slightly drier ground next to the graveled forest road grew sparsely elegant clumps of willows. This was an unusual willow, though, that looked like it had hybridized with a pine tree. At the tip of most of the twigs perched a compact little “pine cone,” about the size and shape of a young, tightly-closed cone from a red pine tree.

These cones don’t hold any tree seeds, however. Instead, they harbor the “seeds” of a gall-midge called Rhabdophaga strobiloides. These are willow pine cone galls.

Like most galls, these began in early spring during the active-growth period for the plant and the egg-laying season for the midge. The adult midge laid an egg on the tip of the twig, right where a single, dunce-cap-like bud scale protected baby leaves. The larva hatched in early May and started burrowing into the willow stem. Some combination of the chewing action and saliva of the newly hatched larva triggered an increase in plant growth hormones. Cells grew bigger and more plentiful, but the stem did not extend. Instead, leaves once destined to flutter along a twig now layered together in the cone-like structures that caught my eye.

What’s fascinating is just how much the larva can control the plant. One study found that the twigs hosting a gall were larger in diameter than twigs with no gall—even if the twig did not have leaves. Bigger stems were correlated with bigger galls, and bigger galls were correlated with bigger larvae. This confirms the hypothesis that the larva somehow draws in the products of photosynthesis from other (probably un-galled) twigs in order to spur the growth of the gall, the hosting twig, and the larva itself.

This type of control may seem creepy, but it is frighteningly common in the world of parasites. Parasitic cordyceps fungi force ants to climb a plant and attach there before they die, providing a breezy platform for dispersal of the fungal spores. A brain parasite causes rats to be attracted to cats so that the parasite can complete its life cycle in a feline host. Horsehair worms drive zombie crickets to a watery death. In comparison, a tiny larva causing a plant to grow some extra tissue is pretty tame.

It is still amazing. All summer, the larva—eating stolen nutrients from the plant—grew within the protective walls of the gall. Late last May, the larva would have expanded enough that it needed to shed its skin, thus entering its second instar developmental stage. By late July, the growing larva shed its skin once more. Its next task before winter was to construct a cocoon and leave it open at the top.

So, there we are. Inside each of these cone-like galls by the side of the road is a little larva in a cocoon sleeping bag, steeling itself against the cold. The loosely packed structure of the gall may provide some insulation, but it isn’t nearly as good as my homemade pogies. The dormant larva doesn’t have the benefit of my fiery metabolism fueled by regular eating to keep it warm. In these situations, some creatures allow themselves to freeze. Wood frogs are one incredible example.

These larvae take a more daring route. By concentrating glycerol (once used in cars as antifreeze) in their bodies, the larvae can supercool their liquids down below the freezing point of water without them becoming solid. In extreme examples, larvae have safely supercooled to negative 76 degrees Fahrenheit. This requires a delicate balance. A disturbance in the system could cause the larvae to freeze and die instantly.

If a larva survives the winter, it will pupate inside the pre-formed cocoon early next April, and the adult gall-midge will squeeze out between the layers of the cone and fly away. 

Or not. Thirty-one other creatures might be illicit squatters in the loosely packed scales of the pine cone gall. These gall apartments are in such demand that during one study the scientist found 564 individual insects in just 23 galls. Most of the beetles, caterpillars, sawflies, and eggs of meadow grasshoppers are relatively harmless. The wasps, however, beat the gall-midges at their parasitic game by raising their wasp larva on the tender flesh of midge larva.

Who would have thought that the scales on those strange “pine cones” could be hiding such drama?

Photo by Dana at abundantnature.com

The Elegant Simplicity of Moss

Slushy snow gave way to bare, squishy gravel as I crested the hill. The Yaktrax grippers on my running shoes instantly became annoying instead of essential with the surface change. Peering wistfully through the damp, brown woods, I could just make out the wide clearing of the Birkie ski trail. But my skis are still in the basement, waiting for real snow.

Brown, brown, brown. The forest appeared drab and dead. But as I looked up from the effort of the hill climb, vibrant greens glowed into view. A scattering of small boulders, probably dumped here by the glaciers, and later excavated when the road was built, hosted emerald carpets of life. Then, squish. One moment of distraction and my foot found a puddle.

It seems like distractions have plagued the climate talks in Paris, too. The negotiations seem hopeful, though, or at least better than nothing. Of course, even though this is the warmest fall on record across the globe, we can’t directly blame our warm weather on climate change. Climate is what you expect. Weather is what you get. They don’t very often match up perfectly in our day-to-day lives.

That’s why we have to be ready for anything. Moss is. It’s thriving today in the cold mist. Just like the balsam fir, the persistent, evergreen leaves of mosses are able to take advantage of favorable growing conditions in any season. Even when drought withdraws the water they need for growth, mosses are preparing for life in the future. Essential functions shut down and prepare for dormancy. Cell membranes shrink like a vacuum-sealed freezer bag. And, with amazing “forethought,” the mosses synthesize and store away the enzymes of cell repair that will manage the damage of desiccation. Like the Red Cross or FEMA, mosses like to have a stash of medical supplies ready to go. All of this groundwork pays off. In just 20 minutes, bone-dry moss can return to full vigor. This resilience of mosses is mostly due to their amazing ability to live thriftily and within their means.

Robin Wall Kimmerer, a botanist who recently won the Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Award for her book Braiding Sweetgrass, wrote an earlier book called Gathering Moss. In this ballad of love to the mosses, she writes, “They are the most simple of plants, and in their simplicity, elegant.”

Elegant indeed. Resourceful, one-cell-thick leaves allow water to soak in directly to where it’s required, without the need for constructing expensive distribution systems. Moss doesn’t even have roots. They don’t need to suck resources out of the ground. Their tiny rhizoids only serve to anchor them to the substrate. Never mind interior water, moss needs a film of rain, or melting snow, to cover the outside of the leaf, too, and act as a conduit for carbon dioxide to enter the leaf from the air.

“Like a jealous lover,” writes Robin, “the moss has ways to heighten the attachments of water to itself and invites it to linger, just a little longer.” Living in tightly packed clumps improves moss’s water-holding efficiency. So does arranging their branches and leaves so that each space is the perfect size to trap a water droplet using capillary action. Leaf surfaces are textured or pleated or sculpted into hills and valleys to grab water. “This elegant design is a paragon of minimalism, enlisting the fundamental forces of nature, rather than trying to overcome them,” Robin observes.

Part of the moss’s minimalism is in their size. By staying small, mosses take advantage of the microclimate inside the boundary layer; which, “like a floating greenhouse hovering just above the rock surface,” traps water vapor, heat, and carbon dioxide. On a sunny, winter day, when the air is appropriately below freezing, the boundary layer often provides moss with liquid water. Waste gasses emitted from bacteria and fungi on rotting logs can increase the carbon dioxide in the boundary layer to 10 times the amount in the ambient atmosphere. Thus, moss ensures that it has access to a steady supply of raw materials for photosynthesis. 

Mosses are confined to this boundary layer. They thrive within it and cannot survive beyond it. In similar fashion, humans are restricted to a thin zone of habitable conditions that surrounds our Earth. We aren’t as good as the mosses at living within our means, though.

Robin, with her Potawatomi heritage, talks about stories from the oldest days, “when all beings shared a common language.” Not anymore. That language is forgotten. Instead, she says, “We must learn each other’s stories by looking, by watching each other’s way of living. [Mosses] have messages of consequence that need to be heard.” The big question is, both in Paris and in my mind, when will we listen?

For over 45 years, the Cable Natural History Museum has served to connect you to the Northwoods. Come visit us in Cable, WI! Our new exhibit: “Lake Alive!” opened May 1, 2015, and will remain open until March 2016.

Find us on the web at www.cablemuseum.org to learn more about our exhibits and programs. Discover us on Facebook, or at our blogspot, http://cablemuseumnaturalconnections.blogspot.com.

Mosses have engineered elegant, water-holding characteristics into every aspect of their lives. They thrive within their means. We could learn much from them.
Photo by Emily Stone.

Calling All Artists! Announcing Natural Connections Cover Art and Illustration Contests with the Cable Natural History Museum!

Blogger Emily Stone is publishing a book of her Natural Connections articles as a fundraiser for youth programming at the Cable Natural History Museum. Since kids and artists in the community are often the inspiration for her articles, the Museum is conducting TWO art contests!

The first art contest is for kids to illustrate each of the 52+ chapters with a black-and-white line drawing based on an animal. 

The second is an contest for adults to illustrate the cover of the book. More details, and entry forms, can be found at: cablemuseum.org/programs-and-events/.

Balsam fir

The quietness of the woods wrapped around me as I paused for a moment to listen. Under the combination of sunshine and fresh snow, the world gleamed. As my sphere of awareness widened, I realized that the woods weren’t as quiet as I’d first thought. My local flock of chickadees chattered and scolded in a birch tree. A woodpecker drummed nearby. And behind it all was the soft patter of twigs releasing their snow load and the plopping of the damp clumps onto the ground.

A clinging, wet snow had blanketed everything. While the snow-lined twigs of deciduous trees made artful black-and-white designs against the sky, it was a grove of small balsam firs—their pliable boughs drooping gracefully under the icy frosting—that perfected the winter scene.

Most of the year, balsam firs aren’t highly sought-after. Their wood is soft and brittle. It doesn’t hold nails. Pulpwood or light frame construction is about all they are good for.

It’s this time of year—with snow clinging to everything and holiday carols on the radio—that balsams prove their worth. Their conical shape, dark green color, and long-lasting needles make balsams ideal Christmas trees—whether or not they ever make it to your living room. Those characteristics also make them ideally adapted to winter. The graceful droop of their boughs is no accident; that’s an adaptation to living in areas with lots of snow. Better to bend than to break. The beautiful green of their needles means that they can extend their growing season to the max by being ready to photosynthesize whenever conditions are favorable.

A slight breeze through the treetops initiated a cascade of snow plops onto the trail—and down my neck. That got me hiking again. As I pushed aside a drooping branch, the movement released some of the fir’s wonderful perfume. I inhaled deeply and closed my eyes. The smell conjured up memories of a warm cup of tea on a cool morning in the Boundary Waters. Balsam fir tea is a lovely beverage, with several potential medicinal uses. I distinctly recall my ethnobotany professor, Ojibwe Elder Joe Rose, mentioning balsam fir as a laxative. If I remember right, he told us that when horses in the old logging camps would get constipated, they’d get a dose of balsam fir. And then, “Don’t stand behind them!” Joe warned. Luckily, it doesn’t seem to affect humans quite that abruptly.

One of balsam’s gentler benefits is its high levels of vitamin C. In fact, there’s a possibility that balsam was used to prevent and cure scurvy, instead of or in addition to northern white cedar, the tree we usually think of as Arbor Vitae.

After that fragrance- and memory-filled moment, my eyes opened just inches away from the twig. Two layers of needles spread out on either side. Each tiny sprig of green was flattened in cross-section. I knew from experience that if I picked off a single needle, I couldn’t make it roll between my fingers. Spruce needles, in contrast, are square in cross section, and spinning them between your thumb and forefinger is a nice way to fidget.

“Firs are flat and friendly,” was one of the first mnemonics I learned in botany class. As we gained confidence with technical terms, the professor added “and they have racing stripes like a fir-rari!” It’s true that if you turn a fir needle over, there are two light-colored stripes spanning its length. These are the stomata, which are the pores that allow carbon dioxide in, and oxygen and water vapor out.

I stepped back to admire the tree again. Just taller than me, it would be the perfect size to decorate for a home. To achieve this height might have taken it nine or ten years. But it could live 200 more, if all goes well. The tiny seed it grew from must have found plenty of water in the soil, and just enough light to grow. Balsams are one of the most shade-tolerant trees in the whole forest, and a seedling only needs 10 percent of full sunlight to get started and 50 percent of full sunlight to thrive.

While firs are synonymous with the holidays, they do lack one important decorative item: cones. That’s because the seed that produced this fir grew in a cone with deciduous scales, a cone that fell apart. If you are lucky enough to visit a fir grove in early fall, the mature trees will have clusters of beautiful, upright, purple cones perched near their crown.

Chickadees, nuthatches, squirrels, and porcupines eat the seeds. Moose, deer, and grouse eat the needles. Hungry red squirrels nip buds off the tips of twigs and throw the rest onto my early spring ski tracks. Balsam firs are important wildlife trees all year round.

The trail brought me home, red-cheeked and happy. On the front table sat my Charlie Brown Christmas tree—a scraggly little balsam fir that I felt no guilt about cutting. But when I closed my eyes and inhaled, it too became the “perfect” tree.

Sometimes it's nice to look at a familiar plant from a different perspective. Photo by Emily Stone.

Needle Ice

Warm sunshine peeked under the brim of my hat, hovering low and to the south on its way to the winter solstice. The wind was brisk, though, stealing hard-earned heat through my thin running clothes. Just an hour ago, the breeze had whisked tiny snowflakes into a frenzy. In this transitional season, it feels like the thermometer is bouncing up and down like a toddler at Christmas. More than once, lately, I’ve stepped outside and been surprised.

The gravel road ended at a gate, but I followed mountain bike trail signs around it to the two-track beyond. Clubmosses trailed among the pine needles, and chickadees scolded overhead. Here, out of the wind, I had to take off my hat and gloves.

Then: Crunch! Crunch! Crunch! Here was another surprise, this time under my feet. The old roadbed was filled with fragile clusters of ice, pushing up through the soil. My clumsy feet had pulverized some, but in several places the ice remained beautifully sculpted into ribboned clusters a few inches high. Squatting down for a better look, I noticed soil particles, moss fragments, and grass blades frozen into the ice.

“Needle ice” seems to be the most scientific term for this phenomenon, but I’ve also heard it called frost pillars, frost castles, and ice filaments. The Swedes, Germans, and Japanese have their own words for this circumboreal art form, too.

While not confined to one region or habitat, needle ice does require a certain set of conditions in order to form. First, the soil must not yet be frozen, at least beyond the first thin crust. In contrast, the air temperature needs to be below freezing. Finally, the soil needs to have plenty of moisture, and just the right sized pores between the grains so that water can flow toward the growing ice.

What draws the liquid water toward the ice is a process known as ice segregation. Supercooled water – held in a liquid state below 32 degrees F – moves toward ice and adds on to it. When the two meet, ice grows away from the ice/water interface.

As the ice crystals expand upward, growing perpendicular to the surface, they may also push soil up or away, lift small pebbles into the air, and incorporate whatever debris is nearby. This fragile structure of ice and dirt is what crumbled under my running shoes. I’m not the only source of destruction, though. Once these frosted soils melt, they are loose and susceptible to erosion. If the needle ice forms on a slope, even just the action of lifting soil particles up and letting them down again will cause them to descend in the process of soil creep.

Only certain soils are frost-susceptible, though. Very dense, clay soils do not promote water flow, and clean sand is too well-drained. The ratio between pore size (the space between the grains) and particle surface area must be within a range that promotes capillary action. This is the ability of the water to flow through narrow spaces without the help of gravity, and often against it. When the nurse pricks your finger and captures your blood in the tiny tube, it is capillary action that causes the flow. Silty and loamy soils–with particle sizes in between clay and sand–tend to be the most frost-susceptible.

Knowing if a soil will promote ice needles is important if you’re going to build a road on top of it. As the freezing front descends deeper into the soil, the ice growth spreads horizontally into a lens shape, and can lift the soil above it up a foot or more in a frost heave. If just one place in the road is pushed up, the surface cracks, and a pothole forms.

While we may curse that deep and destructive side of frost, the aerial side is more enchanting. Similar processes of additive crystal formation can create beautiful ribbons of “ice flowers” on the stems of plants, or flowing “hair ice” growing on soggy wood. When ice attracts moisture out of thin air, we wake up in a magical, white world covered in hoar frost.

These interesting phenomena are most common in the transitional seasons, in weather that can surprise you from moment to moment. The surprise I’m waiting for now is waking up to a foot of skiable snow!

photo by Jared Stanley

Camp Robbers and Broken Refrigerators

The thick carpet of pine needles felt springy and dry under the trees. Patches of sunlight kindled warm fragrances to tickle our noses. On the wooden wildlife observation deck, though, an inch or so of soggy snow—not fit for November—dripped steadily through the planks. Skims of ice only clung to the shallowest pools in the marsh, and in one bay, a column of mist rose from the dark water. Although it was just past noon, the low angle of the sun illuminated the swirling cloud in soft light as it danced in partnership with the breeze.

Abruptly, a raucous “kreh kreh kreh” erupted from the edge of the pines. My first thought was a merlin – a small falcon with a big voice. But merlins head south in September, and the peak of their migration is long past. I peered into the pine boughs where the sound originated, and caught a glimpse of a gray-colored bird a little bigger than a robin. As soon as I spotted it, the bird flew. Our visitor didn’t high-tail it into the bushes, though, it made an unhurried swoop toward us on downward angled wings, and perched in a nearby birch. There was no mistaking that flight pattern; the alarmist was a gray jay.

The habitat range of these non-migratory birds--once called Canada jays—encompasses most of Canada up to tree line, and scoots just under the nose of Lake Superior like a mustache. Here at the southern edge of their range they aren’t very common. Usually I have my annual encounter with a “camp robber” in the Boundary Waters or Sax-Zim Bog north of Duluth.

Why do they live so far north? Gray jays seem to be dependent on two things: a strong presence of certain tree species (black and white spruce and jack pine in our area), and cold temperatures. Both requirements relate to their food storage method.

In order to survive the long, bitterly cold winters in their range, gray jays must put up food all summer and fall. They accomplish this by coating mouthfuls of food in sticky saliva, then gluing the boluses in tree crevices, under lichens, in evergreen needles, and behind the flaky bark of their preferred tree species. A gray jay may hide 1,000 separate caches of food in a single, 17-hour day. “Scatter-hoarding” is the technical term for this technique. “Gray jays have a memory like a Vegas card counter,” writes Joe Rankin in Northern Woodlands magazine, referring to the fact that the jays seem to be able to retrieve 80 percent of their food-filled saliva balls. 

At least a portion of the lost 20 percent is due to spoilage. Some boreal tree species may contribute antibacterial compounds that help the food stored under their bark stay fresh. But that’s not enough. Cold temperatures in the gray jay’s preferred habitats are necessary to prevent cached food, even chunks of meat, from spoiling.

On this lovely, sunny, warm day in November, the vulnerability of these southernmost gray jays was driven home. Their refrigerator is broken. This is the warmest fall on record, and that doesn’t bode well for the longevity of cached meat and other food. Their reproductive rates may suffer, since gray jays nest in late winter, and feed nestlings from their caches. A study by the University of Guelph in Ontario confirmed that gray jays are food-limited during the breeding season. The researchers connected this with warmer fall temperatures allowing food to spoil and a 50% decline in numbers of gray jays in Algonquin Provincial Park over the past three decades.

It’s not because they’re picky eaters, either. Gray jays are opportunistic omnivores, and they consume everything from small mammals, nestling birds, carrion, and arthropods to fungi, fruits, and seeds. They have been observed picking engorged winter ticks off the backs of moose. Anyone who has camped within their range knows that these “camp robbers” are not shy about snatching up a crust of bread off the picnic table, or nabbing a marshmallow before it can become a s’more.

Our lack of food made us boring to the “camp robber” who came to investigate. He scrutinized us for only a minute before flying off. Since gray jays mate for life and stick together year-round, I would guess that this solo guy is a bachelor, and probably a young of the year. Even without the broken refrigerator, his is a tough lot.

In early June, the two-month-old chicks begin an intense sibling rivalry. Only one dominant juvenile gets to stay with its parents, after driving the rest of the young away. These “stayers” gets access to their parents’ food caches and mentorship, in exchange for helping to raise little brothers and sisters the next summer. Even with the help, they still face a 52 percent mortality rate. The “leavers” that get kicked out may be able to volunteer their nanny services to an unrelated pair currently without chicks of their own. Or they may simply perish during the hungry winter. Leavers experience an astounding 85 percent mortality rate, while stayers only die about half the time.

As we gazed over the wetlands and pine forests, the midday sun warmed my face and the unseasonable weather made me sigh. That lonely jay had every right to scold us for breaking his refrigerator.

[Columnist Emily Stone is publishing a book of her Natural Connections articles as a fundraiser for youth programming at the Cable Natural History Museum. Since kids are often the inspiration for her articles, the Museum is conducting an art contest for local students to illustrate each of the 52+ chapters. The hope is that students will read some chapters, learn something about the plants and animals in those chapters, do a little more research on their own, and then create a black-and-white line drawing based on their research. The best and most relevant illustration for each chapter will be included in the book. Please share this opportunity with any kids in your life! Entry forms can be found at:cablemuseum.org/programs-and-events/.]

Gray jays are charismatic camp robbers that live close to their southern limits in Northern Wisconsin. Photo by Skip Perkins.

I Like Lycopodium

The gleaming white magic of a winter wonderland enticed me outside after breakfast. With our first snow on the ground, the air tasted fresher, the brisk cold nipped my cheeks awake, and the world felt new.

Above me stretched a lacework of light and shadow against the widening blue. All around me, the thin layer of sticky snow created lush patterns on the forest floor. Pebbles in the driveway, twigs on the ground, and ferns leaning over became works of modern art under their crust of white. Christmas tree-sized balsam firs hugged their snow-laden branches close.  In the understory, mini trees did the same.

Only those mini trees aren’t really trees, at least not anymore. You might know them as ground pine, princess pine, or club moss. If you’re botanical, you might even know them by their genus Lycopodium (Greek for little wolf foot). None of those names are entirely accurate, though. These definitely aren’t pines, or mosses (or wolves!), and new DNA studies have made the scientific classification more complicated, too.

Lycopodiums are beautiful and amazing, though, and harken back to the Devonian and Carboniferous Periods more than 300 million years ago. At that time, North America was part of the supercontinent Pangea, and the eastern United States was positioned near the equator. Beautiful plants, gigantic insects, and strange forests covered the land. Increased precipitation, carbon dioxide, and oxygen created a very different world than we know today.

The tropical climate produced extensive swamps dominated by tree-like or “arborescent” lycopsids that diverged from a common ancestor of our present-day clubmosses. These were some of the first plants to grow secondary tissue (wood), which was needed to support their impressive heights of 50 meters (164 feet). That is taller than the tallest white pines currently growing in Minnesota or Wisconsin.

What’s crazy is that they couldn’t increase their girth along with their height. Each tree had to begin its life by growing its trunk as wide as it would ever be. The thick stump grew upward into a pole of the same diameter. Leaves – also known as microphylls because they only have a single vein down the center – grew along the trunk. With only the single vein, though, they had no way to transport the sugars produced by photosynthesis. As the tree gained height, the lower leaves fell off (creating a distinctive pattern on the trunk, and earning them the nickname “scale trees”), and the lower trunk essentially became dead tissue. At some predetermined height, the tree branched a certain number of times, reproduced, and died.

With such a “quick and cheap” lifestyle, the arborescent lycopsids both grew and died rapidly. This allowed them to dominate habitats following short-term disturbances (like frequent fires), and leave behind a tremendous amount of woody debris in those tropical swamps. If you tried to imagine such a swamp today, you’d probably envision a mucky forest full of rotting logs. Back then, however, fungi hadn’t yet developed a good way to decompose wood – especially the tough, brown lignin in wood, and charcoal – so tree trunks would have lain around for years.

Charcoal? In a soggy swamp? There is evidence that the high oxygen levels in the Carboniferous Period atmosphere allowed large-scale firestorms to sweep across the globe. The charcoal and other organic matter left in the swamps was eventually buried and turned into coal.

The unique conditions present during the Carboniferous Period may never be repeated on Earth. As carbon in the air became locked up in coal deposits, in the explosion of land plants, and in limestone beds under the ocean, the conditions no longer supported giant lycopsids. They shrank into diminutive quillworts, while their cousins became the clubmoss we know today. Complex plants with seeds, extensive vascular systems, and trunks that could grow out as well as up succeeded instead.

The branches of this new forest closed in over my head as I appreciated the beauty of our current non-tropical weather. Tiny, snow-capped lycopods dotted the understory landscape—their diminutive size hiding an immense history and adding to the magic of the forest. Nature is surprisingly old and always new. 

Lycopodiums (also known as club moss), dominated tropical forests 300 million years ago. Today, they are tiny, understory plants beneath a new era of trees. Photo by Emily Stone.

The Leopold Shack

Happy to exit the car after a long drive, I inhaled a sweet lungful of damp leaf perfume. A giant oak towered above the trailhead as we sauntered into the forest – eagerly, but also thoughtfully. We continued through a tall, damp meadow full of weed seeds and a mist so fine it swirled rather then fell. The brown, wooden shack with a white painted door stood in a small clearing. Although quite humble in appearance, there was a certain dignity about it, as well as an aura of wisdom.

“Every farm woodland, in addition to yielding lumber, fuel, and posts, should provide its owner a liberal education. This crop of wisdom never fails, but it is not always harvested.”

This shack was the weekend escape for a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor named Aldo Leopold and his family. On a worn-out, abandoned farm in the “sand counties,” Leopold set out to see if he could return health to the abused land. He also harvested--many times over--its crop of wisdom.

The liberal education provided by Leopold’s farm resulted in his writing of “A Sand County Almanac,” and the idea of a “land ethic.”  I still remember the first time I read and underlined one of his most powerful quotes: “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.”

I love that Leopold includes beauty as a value of nature. As we stood in front of the Shack, chatting with an educator from the Leopold Foundation, she waved her hand toward the elegant silhouettes of mature pines. “The Leopold family planted thousands of pines every spring,” she said. This forest is their legacy, their work of art.

“To plant a pine, for example, one need be neither god nor poet; one need only own a shovel. By virtue of this curious loophole in the rules, any clodhopper may say: Let there be a tree-and there will be one. If his back be strong and his shovel sharp, there may eventually be ten thousand.”

While Leopold may understate his role as an artist, the loveliness of his land boasts for him.

  

“Some paintings become famous because, being durable, they are viewed by successive generations, in each of which are likely to be found a few appreciative eyes.” By the popularity and success of the Leopold Foundation’s program and message, it is clear that this shack, its farm, and their message is finding many appreciative eyes in successive generations.

On this damp, fall afternoon, two generations of conservationists explored Leopold’s legacy together. My parents were born just before “A Sand County Almanac” was published in 1949. In the 1990s, my dad traveled with a box of those books; always ready to give one away with the recommendation “I think you should read this.”

Chickadees chattered from the boughs. The leaves of sharp-lobed hepatic glistened in the understory. Lilacs, geese, “red lanterns,” of blackberries, birch, and the winding Wisconsin River – the characters from Leopold’s writing – all surrounded us on our walk through the autumn pines.

“All [pines] write the same thing, in the same tawny yellow ink, which by November turns brown. Then the needles fall, and are filed in the duff to enrich the wisdom of the stand. It is this accumulated wisdom that hushes the footsteps of whoever walks under pines.”

Walking quietly, we reflected on the accumulated wisdom of this special place. Wisdom from the past that is needed for our future.

The Leopold Shack, Photo by Emily Stone

Carolina (Chickadee) On My Mind

Engines roared as the plane prepared for liftoff. The force pressed me into my seat – upright and with tray table stowed – as we separated from the ground. I peered eagerly through the double-paned windows at the bird’s-eye-view. The grid of Duluth and white-capped Lake Superior (surf’s up!) zoomed by. Damp and brown, with rounded edges, the lakes, forests, and swamps of northern Wisconsin appeared next. Ringing each circular bog (each created by a chunk of glacier that was buried and melted) was a border of bright yellow. The tamaracks were in full fall color.

On the other end of my journey, forested riverways squiggled among a crazy quilt of farm fields outside Raleigh, North Carolina, as we prepared for landing. Green trees seemed oblivious to the imminent onslaught of winter. Descending into a week of sunny-and-75 felt like a trip back to August, and was disorienting. While attending a conference gave me some structure, I still had to navigate this unfamiliar city landscape to find food among the highways and stoplights. Thinking back to all the birds I’d recently watched head south over Hawk Ridge in Duluth, I felt a deeper sense of empathy for the challenges they face on migration.

Happily, on my last afternoon, a friend whisked me away to the beautiful Sarah P. Duke Gardens on the Duke University Campus. Somewhere past Azalea Court and the Dawn Redwood, a birdcall stopped me in my tracks. It was just a simple dee-dee-dee from within a small tree, but it sounded so familiar. Peering through the thick foliage, I glimpsed the black-and-white face of a little chickadee. Instantly, I felt more at home. Black-capped chickadees gurgle at each other over seeds outside my window each morning, and some form of chickadee has always accompanied me on my travels. This Carolina chickadee felt like the local welcoming committee. (Never mind that it was scolding me for being in its territory).

I’m not alone. Across the country, migrating warblers in unfamiliar territory seek out flocks of residential chickadees as local guides. The chickadees pass on information about the best food sources, and are tuned to local threats. Chickadees are such helpful hosts that throughout the winter, many species of birds associate with their black-and-white flocks.

The small winter flocks of both types of chickadees consist of a few mated pairs, and the recent offspring of pairs from other flocks. Young chickadees don’t hang out with their parents; this prevents inbreeding. Each flock has a strict dominance hierarchy for each sex. Watch the birds at your feeders closely – subordinate birds quickly put down their seed and leave if a dominant bird gurgles at them. Despite their gregarious daytime personalities, each chickadee sleeps in its own shelter or cavity.

Besides having slightly different calls, black-capped chickadees are also adapted to colder, harsher winters. The division between the two species seems to be the band of average minimum winter temperature of 17 degrees Fahrenheit. This line – and the boundary between the two species – stretches from New York City to Kansas, with a steep dip south along the Appalachian Mountains in West Virginia and Tennessee. In a 20 mile wide band along the divide, the chickadees hybridize.

Several fascinating research projects have given us a glimpse into this band of illicit romance. Turns out, when females of either species don’t know which male is dominant, they sidle up to the black-capped chap. But when the males interact, Carolinas usually dominate, and females of both species dig that. The resulting hybrids are almost impossible to recognize physically, but their songs are a confusing mashup of both species.

Another incredible discovery is that this band of hybridization has been moving steadily north – nearly a mile a year in some areas – and it follows the trend of rising temperatures. This shift has been occurring for at least half a century, and probably since the retreat of the glaciers that formed our tamarack-ringed bogs.

While northern Wisconsin will remain a stronghold of black-capped territory for many years (our current average minimum winter temperature is 10 degrees Fahrenheit), cities like Chicago, Springfield, and Kansas City may soon be dancing to a different tune. Happily, the warblers and I can still count on chickadees to help us feel at home wherever we go.

Carolina Chickadee Photo by Dan Pancamo

Snowbirds

Heavy gray clouds settled in for the afternoon, giving off the aura of November. During my drive home from work, though, a break had opened to the west, and focused beams of gold snuck under the clouds. The last, clinging, yellow leaves of aspen and maple, and the rich red-browns of the oaks, lit up like they were on fire. A stiff breeze whisked their fallen comrades into whirlwinds of color. Leaves stirred up from the ground met leaves just now fleeing the leaden sky.

From that whirling chaos of leaves and light and wind also emerged swirling flocks of small, gray birds, with white belly and tail feathers flashing. Snowbirds, some folks call them, because their plumage imitates the winter color scheme of dark skies above and white snow below. Here, in their overwintering habitat of the lower 48, they also seem to bring the snow with them as they move south each fall.

Dark-eyed juncos breed across Canada, with some subspecies staying year-round in the Appalachian Mountains, the West, and the Northeast. The northern forests of Wisconsin and Minnesota are at the southern edge of their mid-continent breeding habitat, and we sometimes see a few juncos through the summer. You can identify them by the flash of white on their outer tail feathers as they fly away. The real influx comes when the leaves begin to fall, as juncos head south to their winter range.

This year at Hawk Ridge Bird Observatory in Duluth, MN, their migration began on September 10, with a single junco, and peaked in early October with counts of 1593 on October 7, and 1224 on October 13. While I don’t count the dancing flocks that rise from the roadsides and fields, I, too, have noticed the wave of junco migration.

Females tend to migrate the farthest south, and comprise 70% of winter flocks in the southern United States. Males will risk harsher weather farther north in order to get a jump start on spring migration and arrive first at prime breeding territories.

Their impressive and easily observed movements have taught us much about migration in general. Prior to 1924, the best hypotheses about how birds know when to migrate and breed centered on them responding to changes in temperature and barometric pressure.

William Rowan, who founded the Department of Zoology at the University of Alberta, suspected that day length was more important. Without the support of the University president, Rowan conducted an experiment to confirm his theory – in secret. With two outdoor aviaries full of juncos – one with lights and one without – Rowan spent a very cold winter in Alberta simulating the increasing daylight of spring.

After three months of increasing “day length” by five minutes per day, Rowan’s juncos began to sing. It seems obvious now, as I gather eggs by a lamp’s artificial sunlight in the chicken coop, but Rowan’s experimental confirmation of “photoperiodism” was a major advance for science.

Being easily caught, able to thrive in captivity, and adaptable to new habitats, juncos make excellent experimental subjects. Rowan’s was just the first of many junco-based experiments. Currently, scientists are comparing the various subspecies of juncos that live across North America to study evolution and speciation. One population of juncos on the campus of UC-San Diego seems to have evolved new behavioral and physical traits in just 30 years.

Juncos make wonderful winter friends for citizen scientists, too. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Project Feeder Watch notes that “juncos are sighted at more feeding areas across North America than any other bird. Over 80% of those responding report juncos at their feeders.”

This abundance is likely due to the fact that juncos are primarily seed-eaters who forage in flocks. Under the feeders, along roadsides, and in open areas, juncos will forage by hopping, scratching, and pecking at the leaf litter, and flying up to glean food from low twigs and grasses. These sparrow-sized birds will even land on the top of a grass stem and use their 25 gram bodyweight  (the equivalent of 25 paperclips) to “ride” it to the ground. From there, they can stand on the seed head and feed more easily.

According to Don and Lillian Stokes of the Stokes Field Guide to Birds, watching the social hierarchy at work in a junco flock can be quite entertaining. The same birds tend to return each year, and the earlier arrivals tend to rank higher in the flock. When asserting dominance, a junco will face the offending subordinate bird and fan his tail to reveal the white outer tail feathers. Sometimes a chase, dance or, pecking fight will ensue.

Juncos were already scratching under my feeder when I stepped outside the next morning. The gray skies had lifted, but in their place was a light dusting of white flakes on the car. The snowbirds are back.

How to Make a Beaver Sparkle

Cool water swirled around my rubber boots as I waded out into the dark, star-studded lake. A sense of peace began seeping in with the chill. Then, SPLASH! From out of the darkness came the unmistakable sound of a beaver slapping its tail in alarm. Of course I looked up, and my light caught his swimming form in the beam.

I chuckled at my own surprise. Then immediately I began thinking of how I would tell this story to the kindergarteners during my MuseumMobile program the next morning as we passed around the dried beaver tail.

Beavers are not my favorite animal. Their drab, oily fur, plodding manner, and lumpy design don’t inspire the same feelings of wonder in my heart as a cheery little chickadee, rangy wolf, or glittering dragonfly. But over the years, I’ve come to enjoy teaching about them nonetheless.

During an internship at Acadia National Park, we included beavers in a fourth grade field trip called “Animals of Acadia.” The big, yellow buses started at The Precipice – the nesting habitat of peregrine falcons. On a good day, we could see their elegant forms darting gracefully in front of a craggy cliff. It took me a while to understand how peregrines and beavers fit into the same program – the only time beavers look elegant is after they’ve been skinned and felted into hat – but I came to appreciate their parallel histories of exploitation and steep decline, as well as protection and recovery.

One of the goals of the Acadia field trip was to teach the students about animal adaptations. While you can hardly find two animals that are more different, beavers and peregrines also share the reputation of being extremely well adapted to their particular lifestyles.

As the beam from my headlamp followed the beaver on his journey, his eye sparkled back at me just above the surface of the silver lake. I paused to admire the effectiveness of his oddly-shaped head. Just that morning I had pulled a skull out of the education tub to show some second graders how the beaver’s eyes, ears, and nose are all crowded toward the top of his head. This allows the beaver to hear danger, see where he’s going, and breathe continuously, even while having most of his head and body stealthily submerged.

I also enjoyed watching the kids react to the news that beavers have a third, translucent, eyelid that closes sideways and acts like swim goggles. They were jealous! I could see their little minds churn as they imagined what they could do in their favorite lake with built-in goggles. I wouldn’t mind having the beaver’s ear, nose, and throat flaps to keep water out, too.

The beaver’s rust-colored teeth also caught the students’ attention and spurred questions – which is one reason I love having access to dead animal parts for teaching. The orange surface isn’t due to poor dental hygiene. (Although, maybe saying that would encourage kids to brush their teeth more.) The orange color comes from iron in the enamel which strengthens the surface and buffers the teeth against acid that could cause tooth decay. The iron works even better than fluoride!

Behind the orange surface, the beaver’s front teeth are made of softer, white dentin. As the beaver gnaws down trees, the dentin wears away at an angle behind the enamel, resulting in self-sharpening points – an innovation that would be welcome in my knife drawer!

When I teach kindergarteners about beavers, we don’t go into those details. We stick to the theme of “exploring nature with our senses,” which means taking turns touching a beaver pelt. They get to experience the soft, dense underfur that provides insulation, and the long, glossy guard hairs that help keep the beaver waterproof. At one of my favorite schools, a little class clown sprawled out on the fur, then grabbed a corner and rolled around like the beaver hide was attacking him. His classmates ignored what must have been a familiar scene, but I had to work hard not to laugh.

The kids also pass around a cloth bag concealing a beaver tail. Flip-flop, shoe, and flyswatter are some of their guesses about the mystery object. About once a year, one outdoorsy kid will recognize the tail right away. Inevitably, the kids are curious, and want to touch the tail again. When I ask them how the beaver uses its tail, inevitably I have to clarify that only cartoon beavers use their tails to pat mud on their lodge. Real beavers use their tails to swim, store fat for the winter, as a kick-stand while cutting trees, and of course, for slapping the water in alarm.

Before I even finished the story of my nocturnal beaver encounter, six little hands shot in the air, eager to share their beaver encounters, too. The kids’ enthusiasm was a bit like my flashlight – adding a bit of a sparkle to an otherwise dowdy creature.