Birds and Bees

Powerful sunshine is making short work of snowdrifts and lake ice. Birds are returning. Green shoots are rising. Buds are expanding. Whatever else is going on, spring is not cancelled! As I continue to share with you pages from the Forest Lodge Nature Trail’s new interpretive booklet, this week’s selection takes us through the seasons, from winter birds, to summer birds, to late summer flowers and pollinators. 

Please remember that this trail and many others are closed to the public, in alignment with current federal, state, and local guidance for social distancing. Happily nature is everywhere, and you can still make observations as you hike close to home. 

Birds in the Winter

Pause for a moment and listen. Can you hear the “chickadee-dee-dee” call, of a black-capped chickadee? The nasal yank-yank-yank of a red-breasted nuthatch? The sharp pik note of a downy woodpecker? These are some of the intrepid birds who spend all winter in our woods. How can they survive the bitter cold while other birds fly south? It’s all about food and shelter. These hardy neighbors are able to find seeds and insect larvae all year round. Eating helps them stay warm, as does taking shelter in a tree cavity or dense evergreen trees at night.

As you continue down the trail, look for holes in trees and woodchips on the ground. These may be places where a woodpecker has been feeding.

This chickadee has also grown its own down jacket. How clever!

Summer Birds

Summer is an exciting time on the Forest Lodge Nature Trail. Not only are plants growing and insects buzzing, but hundreds of species of birds migrate north to these woods in order to raise their young. Why would they undertake such a difficult and dangerous journey? The long days of summer, paired with abundant food (e.g. caterpillars and mosquitoes), and good places to build nests, allow birds to produce more young. In order to attract mates and defend territories, many birds sing loudly, especially at dusk and dawn. Can you hear them?

Red-bellied Sapsucker: These black-and-white birds with red caps and red throats are one of the few woodpeckers who migrate. Their call sounds like a surprised squeaky toy, and their drumming is uneven, like someone tapping out Morse code. 

Red-eyed Vireo: These small, olive-green songbirds are hard to spot way up in the trees. That’s ok, because we can still hear them. Their short phases: “Here I am. In a tree. Look at me. Vir-e-o” are sung loudly, and sung all day, even when other birds have gone quiet. 

Blackburnian Warbler: The black back and orange throat of this small bird are worth trying to spot. They spend most of their time in the tops of pine and hemlock trees, but their very high-pitched song can help you figure out where to look. 

Prairie Flowers and Pollinators

Under the blazing sun of late summer, colorful blossoms fill this opening. The flowers and grasses were planted in 1968, to create a prairie habitat. Prairies require regular fires to prevent trees and shrubs from taking over. Without fire, this little patch is shrinking. Still, you can find the fuchsia flowers of rough blazing star, and the drooping petals of yellow coneflower. 

Rough blazing star and yellow coneflower.

Look closely at a flower. Can you see the dusty yellow specks? Pollination occurs when pollen from the anthers of one flower is deposited on its own stigma (female part) or the stigma of another flower of the same species. Next, seeds develop. Flowers can’t move to go find a mate, so they enlist the help of wind, water, birds, and insects to move their pollen around. Do you see any bees? Bees seek out pollen to feed their young, so they are naturally the most effective pollinators for many flowering plants. They use fuzzy hairs on their bodies and pollen baskets on their legs to carry the protein-rich resource, but some drops off at each flower. The colors, shapes, and scents of flowers are intended to attract bees and other pollinators. Happily, we can enjoy them, too.  

Orange-belted bumble bees often visit the flowers of rough blazing star flowers in late summer.

Thanks to Wisconsin Master Naturalist Volunteers Thom Gerst and Kay Meyer for their help in drafting this booklet! Emily’s second book, Natural Connections: Dreaming of an Elfin Skimmer, is now available to purchase at www.cablemuseum.org/books. Or order it from our friends at redberybooks.com to receive free shipping!

For more than 50 years, the Cable Natural History Museum has served to connect you to the Northwoods. The Museum is currently closed due to COVID-19, but we're still building our new exhibit and bringing you educational content. Connect with us on Facebook and Instagram to see what we are up to.

Forests Have Layers

With snow still clinging to north-facing slopes, and tree buds waiting for warmer days to open, the trees in a forest can look like they are doing their own form of social distancing. I like to focus on the positive, and call this “see-through season.” As I’m walking familiar roads and trails, I can see through the forest to notice rock outcrops, pools, big trees, and even houses that I’ve never noticed before. By June, many of our forests will be dense walls of green, especially along the edges. Right now is a great time to observe their structure, and the shape of the landscape beneath them. 

As I continue to share with you pages from Forest Lodge Nature Trail’s new interpretive booklet, I’d also like to remind you that the USDA Forest Service recently announced that this trail and many others are closed to the public, in alignment with current federal, state, and local guidance for social distancing. Happily nature is everywhere, and you can still make observations as you hike close to home. 

A leatherwood shrub blooms among the (mostly) socially distanced trees in early spring.

Forests Have Layers

Forests are composed of trees, of course, but that’s not all. There are five main layers to a forest. The canopy is where the crowns of tall trees meet and intercept most of the sunlight. Shorter trees form the understory as they grow toward the sun. 

In some places, enough light filters through that the shrub layer is well-developed. This layer extends from about knee-high to a few feet above your head. These bushes, shrubs, and young trees provide food and shelter for wildlife. Deer browse on twigs that are easy to reach. Many songbirds hide their nests in the dense foliage. Insects take advantage of shelter from the wind and sun, and become food for birds and other animals. Pollinators buzz around flowers, and many critters eat the resulting fruits. 

Nearby you’ll see the rounded shape and warm tan bark of a leatherwood shrub. Its twigs are extremely flexible, and its small, yellow flowers brighten up the forest in early spring. Maple-leaf viburnum grows here, too. Its twigs, leaves, and buds are oppositely arranged, which means they are paired along the stem. White flowers become dark purple berries that birds love. Beaked hazelnut also thrives in the shrub layer. Tiny, sausage-shaped catkins (a type of flower cluster) dangle off the twigs all winter long. Its nuts provide food to insects, squirrels, bears, and more. 

Leatherwood is a distinctive member of the shrub layer in eastern North America. Its yellow flowers brighten up the early spring woods. Photo by Emily Stone. 

Maple-leaf viburnum dark berries can be found in the shrub layer. 

Beaked hazelnut catkins can be seen on its twigs all winter long, but the tiny scarlet flowers only emerge in early spring.

Under the shrub layer, we find a carpet—or maybe just a few sprigs—of herbaceous plants in the herb layer. Sometimes, barely anything can survive under the deep shade of the trees. With soft stems, these ferns, grasses, and wildflowers stay close to the ground and provide habitat for ground-nesting birds, mice, and more. They must survive with very little light in the shade of the other layers. Some woody plants are here, too. The seedlings of maple trees can survive for decades while growing only a few inches tall as they wait for a gap in the canopy. The shiny, dark-green leaves of wintergreen are common in northern forests. It has bell-shaped white flowers that develop into fragrant red berries. They are food for ruffed grouse, deer, bears, chipmunks, and mice. 

Wintergreen, Gaultheria procumbens

Below the herb layer is the forest floor. This is where dead stuff gets recycled back into soil by a team of decomposers like fungi, invertebrates, and bacteria. If you see a forest where the herb layer looks like a grassy lawn, then it probably has an earthworm invasion. Worms are not native to the north, because glaciers froze the soil. Plants here have adapted to growing through thick layers of dead leaves. Now when the worms decompose those leaves quickly, it changes the habitat and a lawn of Pennsylvania sedge takes over. (Be sure to put your extra fishing worms in the garbage!)

Pennsylvania sedge is pretty and native, but it also takes over the forest floor with the help of invasive earthworms.

Bat Habitat

If you look off to the side of the trail, you’ll see a small depression. Depending on the season, it might be filled with snow, or water, or just mud and leaves. The wet ground prevents many trees from growing, so herbs and shrubs become more common. Small pools like this provide important habitat for insects. The airspace above them also becomes important habitat for bats. Bats use the open space to dart about and catch insects. They may also get a drink by skimming over the open water. 

Some bats are in trouble, though. A fungal disease called white-nose syndrome is killing bats in North America. This cold-loving fungus infects bats while they are hibernating in caves. You can help by putting up a bat box in your yard, and by protecting important bat habitats like this forest opening.

Leatherwood is pretty in early spring! 

Thanks to Wisconsin Master Naturalist Volunteers Thom Gerst and Kay Meyer for their help in drafting this booklet! Emily’s second book, Natural Connections: Dreaming of an Elfin Skimmer, is now available to purchase at www.cablemuseum.org/books. Or order it from our friends at redberybooks.com to receive free shipping!

For more than 50 years, the Cable Natural History Museum has served to connect you to the Northwoods. The Museum is currently closed due to COVID-19, but we're still building our new exhibit and bringing you educational content. Connect with us on Facebook and Instagram to see what we are up to.

The Importance of Decomposition along the Forest Lodge Nature Trail

Well, April is an interesting month in the Northwoods, and spring seems to be coming in fits and starts. Many trails are muddy right now, and hikers should be careful about the impact their boots make in the wet soil. For now, I’ll content myself with walking on roads and writing about the Forest Lodge Nature Trail. 

This week, the sections I’m sharing from the trail’s new interpretive booklet include one of my favorite topics. I love bogs, I love bog plants. The pages in this booklet are short, and I left out many of my favorite facts. If you’d like to learn more, you can explore my blog more through the search box.  As always, please contact me with corrections or ideas—the booklet is still in draft form!

The Forest Lodge Nature Trail has a lovely bog boardwalk to give you easier access to this fragile ecosystem. Some trails in Wisconsin have been closed recently, so it’s important to check before you go, stay close to home, use proper hygiene (including dealing with waste properly) and be extra cautious so you don’t stress our emergency response system. 

Forest Lodge Nature Trail bog boardwalk

Whether you visit the trail in person or in your imagination, happy hiking!

Bogs and Fens Continued…

With cold, acidic, low-oxygen water, decomposition proceeds slowly in bogs and fens. Without decomposition to return nutrients to the system, they are challenging places to live. You can see this in the stunted, yellow needles of the white pines. The plants that thrive have unique adaptations.

Sphagnum moss plays a big role in bog and fen formation. Sphagnum’s primitive leaves are like tiny sponges, and can absorb as much as 26 times their own weight in water. Because of this trait, it has been used for diapers and bandages. To deal with the lack of available minerals, sphagnum shoots hydrogen ions into its environment—dislodging scarce nutrients for its own use. This acidifies the bog or fen, which further limits which plants can grow there.

There is more living carbon in Sphagnum moss that in any other single genus on the planet. 

Leatherleaf is a hardy shrub with leathery, oval leaves that hang on through the winter. Its rigid stem and wiry branches are the scaffolding that support sphagnum moss as the vegetation mat grows inward from the edges of the basin. In the middle of the bog, leatherleaf forms the base of mounds called hummocks. Leatherleaf obtains nutrients through a partnership with fungi on its roots.

Leatherleaf is a bog plant with tough, evergreen leaves and pretty white flowers. 

Leatherleaf forms a living scaffolding around the edges of bogs, and sphagnum moss uses it to extend the bog mat. Photo by Emily Stone.

Pitcher plant is a carnivorous plant with leaves that hold water. Their dark red flowers bloom in June, and their seed heads poke above the bog like periscopes for most of the year. In order to get enough nitrogen and phosphorus, pitcher plants lure insects to the trap of their water-filled leaves. Then fly larvae, mosquito larvae, and midge larvae who are living in the pitcher help the plant digest and absorb the nutrients it needs. These mosquitos eat so well that they don’t need to drink blood!

Pitcher plant flowers have beautiful and ephemeral petals, but their main structure can be seen in the bog throughout most of the year. Photo by Emily Stone. 

The uniquely shaped leaves of pitcher plants act as insect traps. These carnivorous plants rely on insects to acquire enough nutrients to survive in the challenging habitat of bogs and fens. Photo by Emily Stone.

Logs into Soil

How many rotting logs can you see from where you stand? Those trees once grew using carbon from the air and nutrients from the soil. Now they are decomposing and the forest is recycling their resources. Much like the snag and the nurse stump, these logs are filled with life. Moss and lichens keep them moist. Fungi soften the wood. Beetles, ants, and other invertebrates chew tunnels. Spiders, crickets, firefly larvae, salamanders, and mice find cozy homes. As the logs decay, they replenish the soil’s nutrients and help the soil retain moisture so that new trees can grow. They are an important part of the cycle of life. 

Fungi like these puffball mushrooms play a big part in breaking down fallen logs. 

Local Logging History

The lumber industry in Wisconsin faced many obstacles as it began in the 1830s. Bogs, wetlands, and dense forests prevented easy travel. The railroad reached Cable in 1880, and the lumberjacks came with it. 

Teams of draft horses hauled huge loads of pine and hemlock along this logging road. Once the lumbermen reached camp on nearby Lake Namakagon, the logs were rolled into the lake and floated to sawmills on the Namakagon River. There they were cut into lumber and transported by train. The railroad reached Cable in 1880.

https://www.wpr.org/farming-logging-shaped-wisconsins-identity 

Look for large, rotting stumps leftover from the logging era. As new life takes them over, they represent both the past and the future of this forest.  

Thanks to Wisconsin Master Naturalist Volunteers Thom Gerst and Kay Meyer for their help in drafting this booklet! 

Emily’s second book, Natural Connections: Dreaming of an Elfin Skimmer, is now available to purchase at www.cablemuseum.org/books. Or order it from our friends at redberybooks.com to receive free shipping!

For more than 50 years, the Cable Natural History Museum has served to connect you to the Northwoods. The Museum is currently closed due to COVID-19, but we're still building our new exhibit and bringing you educational content. Connect with us on Facebook and Instagram to see what we are up to.

Kettles and Bogs of the Forest Lodge Nature Trail

Recent rains and warm days have caused a rapid retreat of our snowpack. The resulting landscape of brown duff and soggy mud isn’t very attractive, but little green shoots are popping up, and soon our landscape will again be festooned with flowers. This annual transformation is a little reminder of how the extended winter of glaciation shaped our region—including the Forest Lodge Nature Trail. Here are two sections from the trail’s new interpretive booklet to summarize that history. 

Geology

The hill you just climbed pales in comparison to the mountains that towered over northern Wisconsin more than a billion years ago. All those years of erosion wore the Alps-like Penokee Range, located just to the northeast, into big rolling hills. 

Right here, the landscape was shaped by glaciers. Glaciers are made of many layers of snow from thousands of winters that were compacted into ice under their own weight. The Wisconsin Glaciation began about 100,000 years ago when ice advanced south out of Canada, and the last glacier melted out of Wisconsin by about 13,000 years ago.

This map from The Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey shows the extent of Wisconsin’s last glacier. Find out more, and watch an animation of glacial advances, on their website . 

As glaciers flowed slowly across the land, they broke apart bedrock, carried the pieces away within the ice mass, and then laid down thick sedimentary deposits in new places. Like giant conveyor belts, glaciers transported tons of boulders, gravel, sand, and clay. When the climate began to warm again, the ice melted faster here at its toe than new snow in Canada could replenish it. 

Huge chunks of ice broke off from the main ice mass and were left behind at the edges of the melting glacier. Rivers of meltwater from the glaciers carried sediment that buried those ice chunks. Now well-insulated, the ice lay hidden under a flat surface of sand, gravel and cobbles for many years. When the ice chunks finally melted, basins of all shapes and sizes were left behind where the ice had been. Sometimes these basins, called kettles, filled with water and became lakes (like Lake Namakagon); others are perched above the water table and stay dry. The hills between the kettles are called kames. Glaciers shaped the land you stand on. 

Kettle lakes form in the depression left behind when buried ice melts. 
Try this! Bury a balloon in sand, and then pop the balloon. A “kettle” will form.

As you continue hiking, notice the shapes of hills and basins. Can you image the size of the ice chunks that were once buried here?

Bogs and Fens
Wetlands are important habitats in the Northwoods. They filter water, reduce flooding, and provide food and shelter for many living things. Wetlands have saturated soil during the growing season. There are four main types of wetlands. 

• Marshes are dominated by soft-stemmed, herbaceous plants.

• Swamps are dominated by trees and shrubs.

• Fens have mostly herbaceous plants and peat soil containing poorly decomposed plants. They are influenced by groundwater and by runoff from the surrounding slopes. Some fens receive nutrients like calcium from their water source. Other fens are nutrient-poor and acidic.

• Bogs have sphagnum moss; small shrubs, and peat soil made of poorly decomposed plants. They only receive water from precipitation, not from groundwater or runoff. Bogs are nutrient-poor and acidic. 

The main wetland on the Forest Lodge Nature Trail sits in a glacial kettle. It formed when an ice chunk left behind by the melting glacier was buried by sediment and then melted slowly over time. 

The bog boardwalk is a favorite destination on the Forest Lodge Nature Trail. This wetland—technically a fen—formed in a glacial kettle. Photo by Emily Stone. 

Water filled the basin. Plants began to grow around its edges, and sphagnum moss grew on those plants like scaffolding. Dead plants sank to the bottom, but did not decompose in the cold, acidic water. Eventually, the mat of vegetation crept in from the edges, and organic matter accumulated on the bottom. Over time, the lake filled in with peat, which is made of poorly decomposed dead plants. Although this process has been going on for thousands of years, as recently as 1986 there was open water in the middle of the wetland. 

Is this wetland a bog or a fen? Although many of the plants in this wetland are commonly found in bogs, and it has sphagnum moss, you can see that this basin is connected to water flowing across the landscape (and under the bridge you crossed earlier). That makes it a fen. But the groundwater here is not nutrient rich, so it is a “poor fen,” that has many characteristics in common with bogs. 

Mud season is a great time to observe how water travels—and puddles--across our glacially carved landscape. Remember that if you go for a hike on the Forest Lodge Nature Trail, and be sure to wear appropriate shoes! It is better for the trail if you walk through the center of a puddle instead of walking around and accidentally widening the impact. 

Emily’s second book, Natural Connections: Dreaming of an Elfin Skimmer, is now available to purchase at www.cablemuseum.org/books. Or order it from our friends at redberybooks.com to receive free shipping!

For more than 50 years, the Cable Natural History Museum has served to connect you to the Northwoods. The Museum is currently closed due to COVID-19, but we're still building our new exhibit and bringing you educational content. Connect with us on Facebook and Instagram to see what we are up to.

Trees of the Forest Lodge Nature Trail

I don’t know about you, but this warm weather makes me wish for wildflowers! I hiked on the Forest Lodge Nature Trail yesterday, and sunshine had uncovered just a few patches of pine needles among the slushy snowdrifts. One patch contained the evergreen, oval leaves of trailing arbutus—with its flowers still over a month away. While we wait for the flowers, the trees are still here for our enjoyment. This week, I bring you information on several of our most common trees from the new interpretive booklet for the Forest Lodge Nature Trail. 

Popple for Wildlife 

Some folks lump all trees in the genus Populus into one category that they call “popple.”  This group includes bigtooth aspen, quaking aspen, balsam poplar, and cottonwood. Popple trees can be hard to tell apart, and they all have seeds that float through the air on fluffy “cotton.” 

Look up! The tall trees behind the marker are bigtooth aspen. Their spade-shaped leaves have large "teeth" on the margins. The leaves of quaking aspens are smaller, with finer teeth. Their long, flat stems tremble in the slightest breeze. As you walk the trail, watch for them quaking or shimmering in the wind. Both bigtooth and quaking aspen have pale bark on their twigs, upper branches, and young trunks. Old aspen trees will have brown, furrowed bark on their lower trunks. In contrast, birch trees have pale bark on their branches and trunks, and they have dark brown or purple twigs. 

Aspen trees have pale white, gray, or greenish bark on their twigs and upper branches. Photo by Emily Stone.

Beavers eat the inner bark, twigs, and leaves of aspen trees. Deer, moose, and elk browse on the leaves and twigs. Ruffed grouse feed on the buds and the flower catkins. Many summer songbirds feed on insects found in the tree's canopy.

How many more aspen trees can you spot along the trail? They are especially visible surrounding the parking lot at the trailhead. 

Common Conifers

At this stop you’ll find three common evergreen trees: balsam fir, eastern hemlock, and black spruce. They all produce seeds in cones, which is why they’re called conifers. Each of these trees has short needles that attach individually along the twigs. They look very similar, until you know the tricks to identification. 

First, the polite thing to do when meeting a new species is to shake their hand. Seriously! If you grasp a twig of spruce needles, they will poke your palm. If you grasp fir or hemlock, their needles feel softer. Just make sure you don't shake the same twig as someone else, in order to prevent the spread of COVID-19. 

Next, pick off an individual needle. Can you roll it between your fingers? Spruce needles are square in cross section, so they will roll. Fir and hemlock are flat, and they resist rolling. 

Finally, turn over the needles. Firs and hemlocks both have pale stripes on the underside of their needles. Hemlock needles are shorter than fir needles, and also have a tiny stem at one end. 

You can also look at the bark. Spruce trees have scaly bark for their whole lives. Hemlock trees have flaky bark that turns to thick ridges as they age. Fir trees of all ages have relatively smooth bark interrupted by resin blisters. 

Here are two sayings to help you remember:

“Spruce are spinny and spiney.”

“Firs are flat and friendly, with racing stripes like a fir-rari!”

Balsam fir needs are “flat and friendly.” They feel relatively soft if you grab a twig. Photo by Emily Stone. 

Hemlock needles are short, with a tiny stem, and two prominent white stripes on the underside. Photo by Emily Stone. 

Black spruce needles are square in cross section, with a sharp tip. Photo by Emily Stone. 

Northern Red Oak

Towering above you is a northern red oak. It is the most common type of oak in the Northwoods. This tree is known for its acorns and shiny leaves with pointed lobes. White oak and bur oak leaves have rounded lobes. Red oak bark has flat, parallel ridges that kind of look like ski tracks. 

Red oak leaves have sharply pointed lobes. One way to remember that is that they look sharp enough to prick your finger and draw red blood. Photo by Emily Stone.

Acorns are an important food source for chipmunks, squirrels, mice, deer, black bears, ruffed grouse, turkeys, and blue jays. Native Americans soak acorns in several changes of cold water to remove the bitter tasting tannin, and then grind them into flour. Oaks don’t produce a good crop of acorns every year, though. 

As mast trees, oaks save up their energy for three to five years before producing thousands of acorns all at once. All the trees in an area will mast in the same year, and with so many acorns available at once, the critters cannot possibly eat them all. Some, at least, will survive to grow a new tree.

How do the trees know when to mast? Some scientists theorize that the networks of mycorrhizal fungi that connect a forest by the roots may help the trees share resources and information so that they can all produce acorns in the same year. All flourishing is mutual.

I hope you can get outside soon and enjoy some of the trees in your own backyard. 

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. The Museum is currently closed due to COVID-19, but we're still building our new exhibit and bringing you educational content. Connect with us on Facebook and Instagram to see what we are up to.