March 29 Turkeys on Display

I was at the Arboretum again today leading an early migrant bird walk with a few folks who embraced the wind and rain. Many birds were still active, including all of our winter residents like woodpeckers and some new arrivals, including four turkey vultures that tipped back and forth on the wind, maybe sniffing around to smell dead meat. At teal pond we slowly watched as more than a dozen wood ducks debated whether to stay and finally took off in groups, circling around in hopes that we would vacate their quiet waters. Out in the gardens we also noticed a development in the wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) world. Several males were displaying their feathers, or strutting, as its called. Their heads and necks are now bright colors and they stretch out all feathers, with tail sticking up like a fan, to attract females and tell other males that they are bigger and brighter. Tom turkeys are looking to mate with as many hens as they can, and will gobble, drum, boom, and spit upon other males to win the hens over. Little turkey poults will be around in a few months.

March 28 The Show Has Begun

Spring flowers are making more of an appearance all of a sudden and we are accelerating towards the tipping point of the big green up. The Arboretum's Longenecker gardens have shrubs and trees with flower schedules that span from now until June. The latest to open up are these witch hazels (Hamamelis family), sending forth orange bursts from a greyish pods that look red when opened up. Virginiana, the species native to Wisconsin's forests is one of the latest blooming plants, usually flowering in late September-October, but the cultivars found in the Arboretum are winter bloomers. Hundreds of crabapples and lilacs are getting ready to start the main act of spring flowers, while ephemeral flowers in the woods are likely to pop through the leaf litter soon now that the soil is a little moister. 

March 27 Alien From The Deep

Today at Aldo Leopold Nature Center a group of cold hardy kindergarteners braved the wind to see spring happenings in the pond and prairie. We made our way to the pond and took a few dips to see if any creatures are awake yet. A dozen small backswimmers jumped around in our net, as well as a minnow or two. Then we found this: the first dragonfly nymph of the season! A dragonfly's life cycle has three stages: egg, nymph, and adult. An adult will deposit eggs in the water or on a plant. The nymphs, as you can see, do not have wings and live entirely underwater, for up to 4 years as they grow to adult size! This one was fairly large, which makes me think it overwintered as a nymph and is a least one year old. When ready, this nymph will crawl out onto the stem of a plant and shed its skin, completing a transformation to a winged adult. Imagine walking around at the bottom of a pond until the age of 22 and then growing wings and flying everywhere you go. Watch for adult dragonflies to start returning from their migrations as soon as insects around up and flying again.

March 26 One Less Muskrat

Today I learned I'm not the only one to notice all of the muskrat activity, at least on Lake Monona. Biking up the Capital City trail I noticed a furry body on my right. I walked back and saw the skinny tail connected to a hide, but there was no head. The meat was clearly gone and I can be pretty sure that this muskrat's eater was also its predator. Pedaling on i found the head. I took a long look at the two orange red front teeth -  same shape and color as any animal in the rodent family. These incisors are for gnawing veggies and keep growing as long as the muskrat is alive. The red front is hard enamel but the back side of the teeth is soft so that by chewing the back wears down to a point as it meets the front. I'm glad my sisters don't have muskrat teeth, or I'd have lost an arm years ago. I wonder if it was a ground or an air attack that this animal was not prepared for. I have been seeing eagles over Monona more this week.

March 25 Life in the Water

The first day I spotted painted turtles getting some sun was on Sunday afternoon, March 22. But today was the first day I saw one up close, from 4 feet away on the bridge at Aldo Leopold Nature Center. Chrysemys picta is the most common turtle in North America and hardy enough to live in small urban ponds. Did you know? That for winter many turtles just bury themselves in the mud at the bottom of the pond! There they go into torpor, slowing their body systems to use as little energy as possible. From October to March, they keep a body temperature of 43 degrees F and somehow stay healthy despite no muscle movement or eating. They will mate once in March and possibly again in June. Like other turtles, the females will lay eggs in a depression in sandy soil, bury them, and move on. This one let my whole class of 4th graders watch it float for ten seconds before it swam a few feet to get under a fallen cattail. I'd be moving slow too if just waking from a four month nap.

March 24 Muskrats Munchin'

For the past two weeks I've seen a steady increase in muskrat activity along the melting shorelines of lakes Wingra, Waubesa, Mendota, and especially Monona. The large rodents with the long skinny tails (Odantra zibethicus) have taken kindly to chowing on aquatic vegetation on the edge of the melting ice. Today I stopped off to watch this and a friend eat, and when one finished it dove under the ice, collected a few more plants, and returned to the same spot to eat more. It is now mating season for these critters, who have been active all winter, but spending most of it in burrows. The females may have 2-3 litters each year of 6-8 young each. Many of these baby muskrats will provide important calories for eagles, hawks, fox, and coyotes. While not as industrious as their beaver cousins, muskrats have an important niche in wetland and pond food chains in keeping aquatic plant populations in balance.

March 23 Snow Business

There was sheer beauty this morning with three inches of fresh wet snow blanketing the Nature Center. I feel like two pictures are in order to capture the morning's quiet peace. The scene around the open pond was especially nice with reflections of snow covered trees in the slate water. Lately, large flocks of robins have been eating on the burned prairie, but this morning only a few lingered on perches, observing the falling snow with a keen, if not impatient, eye. Surprisingly, the snow kept coming, and only a little melting started before sunset. Many voiced their disapproval at this turn of events, but to me it felt like winter's parting gift.

March 22 Hazel Flowers Appear

So how bad is winter in Madison? Well two years ago I spent the year in Finland, Minnesota, teaching at a residential environmental education school and we had over thirty inches of snow that April. I bring it up because when the tiny red flowers of beaked hazel (Corylus cornuta) trees popped out, it was our first sign that spring may be real after all. That was on May 3. It kept snowing until May 15 and we didn't see leaves until June 2. So although it's supposed to snow a little tonight (which will melt by morning?), I feel pretty good about American hazel trees (Corylus americana) with swollen catkins and emerged flowers on March 21 (I first saw them yesterday). With a good rain scheduled for Tuesday, I think we might be seeing more flowers on trees and from the ground coming out soon. I don't mind a good winter, but a warm spring is luxurious.

March 21 Bluebirds!

I spent much of the day today on a field trip with the Arboretum to tour agricultural sites that impact the Yahara River Watershed (which includes the four lakes). We visited a dairy farm and saw cows of all sizes and ages. I also noticed a massive flock of starlings swarming around an old oak tree, and a few cranes flew overhead as we heard about the complicated process of gathering, transporting, and taking the phosphorous out of 600 cows' worth of manure. Then we stopped at Troy Gardens and toured the community gardens and the CSA farm. This is when I spotted a male eastern bluebird (Sialia sialis) in a patch of tall grasses. Later at the Arboretum I followed a male and female, watching them swoop to the ground, grab what I believe were tiny worms, ants, or other invertebrates, and hurry back to an oak branch. This is the female, and I am impressed by how well her colors blend in with everything else in the photo.

March 20 Prairie Fire Dances

Today was a fine day for a burn. Dry, slight breeze, and warm. Each year, the Aldo Leopold Nature Center lights last year's prairie growth on fire to clear ground for seeds to sprout. Prescribed fires are essential in maintaining plant diversity in restored prairies because it takes care of all of the unwanted plants that are not adapted to fire. Without fire, trees would quickly spread, grow, and begin crowding out sunlight needed by prairie plants. Fire also returns nutrients from dead plants back to the soil, setting up this year's seeds for healthy growing. While wildlife is temporarily displaced, this prairie should begin sending up new shoots in the next few weeks and soon will offer a diverse (over fifty plants species) food menu and shelter for many insects and animals. Come and see the Nature Center prairie soon.

March 19 Nature Center Cranes Back Home

Two sandhill cranes (Grus canadensis) have been making their summer home at Aldo Leopold Nature Center for several years now. While they have not been successful breeding lately, these two are representative of a very monogamous species that returns to the same breeding ground year after year. Sandhills are one of two crane species in North America, and with many thousands of breeding birds they are much more stable than the whooping crane, which only has a few hundred individuals and no breeding pairs in the United States. Sandhills announce their arrival by echoing a primordial sounding bugle call back and forth. They look and feel like dinosaurs and I'm glad they're back in Wisconsin.

March 18 Willow Catkins Exploding

Some of the first trees are now starting to swell their catkins and grow flowers as they come out of dormancy. These pussy willow male catkins and furry and fuzzy, getting progressively larger until the yellow stamens, which house the pollen, emerge through the fuzz. Look in the coming weeks for this beautiful yellow color to come through. Pussy willows rely on insects to move the pollen to the female flowers, which should also be popping out in the next few weeks.  This tree is in the Arboretum, and many more are starting to show along the road and near the lakes. The first day I was aware that willows were active was March 12.

March 17 Redwing Invasion

I saw one of these on Friday, but today was the first day I saw and heard the red-winged blackbird invasion in full. Ageliaus phoeniceus males return to Madison by the thousands and immediately begin work to set up a mating territory. These birds are identified by their constant screeches and screams, their puffed up gestures that show bright red epaulets (shoulder patches), and activity in general. The females, set to arrive a little later, look more like sparrows with broken brown bars against a white body. I was exploring University Bay this evening and watched as a hundred redwings and common grackles zoomed around, shrieking at each other and elbowing for space on the lakefront and in the cattail marshes. Later, at dusk I saw large flocks make their way west over the Eagle Heights gardens, looking for safe high places to roost for the night. Expect these birds to make plenty of noise over the next month as they herald the coming of more and more migrant birds to town and continue to put on a show for the lady redwings.

March 16 Maple Syrup Season

With many above freezing days in a row, all trees begin sending sap (stored underground in the roots all winter) up to their branches to prepare for the growing season. Sap is liquid sugar and flows up and down through the xylem and phloem, much like our own blood moves back and forth from the heart through veins and arteries. At the Aldo Leopold Nature Center, we tap several sugar maple trees, which have a sugar content of 4% in their sap. That means to get to pure maple syrup, at 66% sugar, we have to boil 40 parts sap down to 1 part maple syrup. The sap is therefore extremely diluted, but you can still taste the sugar in it. It's likely that the first people to discover maple sap's sweetness either saw squirrels and yellow-bellied sapsuckers lapping it up, or they taste-tested tree sap themselves. Maple trees are native to North America so Canada and the United States make just about all of the world's supply. Quebec trees account for 75% of it while Vermont is the biggest U.S. producer, at 5% of world maple syrup. In 2013, Wisconsin made 265,000 gallons of maple syrup, a record year. The entire season lasts just 3-4 weeks, and will hang on while we have below freezing nights. Eventually, the sap sugars will change as the trees begin to bud and you will know by taste that the season is up.

March 15 Lemon Gold

A few weeks ago I started hearing reports that goldfinches (Spinus tristus) were turning from their drab olive plumage back into bright mating yellow. This was confirmed today as I spotted a few males pulling thistle seed out of the sock on our crabapple. Goldfinches were quiet for a long time, but over the past four days I have been hearing them on almost every street in town, making their twittering robotic calls that I like to call R2D2 noises. Za-zoo-zoo-ZEE! Zoo-ZEEOO! They are a strictly vegetarian species, and because of this wait to mate and nest until mid-summer when their favorite plants have plenty of seeds and fibers to feed the whole family. Their new colors add some flavor to the day.

March 14 Green Stuff, Front Yard

I maybe need a field guide to perennial house flowers, because after looking at many online photos I'm still unsure what these little greenies are. Today was the first day I noticed two dozen flowers starting up outside my front door. There are definitely two tulips among the bunch, but most are these tri-leaved kind with faint stripes. My mom suggests that they are daffodils, an old world perennial brought over by the Europeans because they reminded them of home or because their seeds stowed away on ships or both. I will go with that for now and keep watching in case that's wrong. This is extremely exciting either way.

March 13 Fishing Season Open?

What a day for phenology. On an extended ride through the wetlands of Capital Springs Recreation Area and Lake Waubesa, I saw my first sandhill crane, red-winged blackbird, muskrats, and coyote of the spring. This morning, I also heard robin and blue jay songs for the first time. On a boardwalk to a sewage treatment holding pond I saw spiders scurrying to and fro. Most were jet black and hid under the boards, but this one stuck around long enough for a closeup. Commonly called fishing spiders, the family Pisauridae has 15 representatives in North America. These long-legged critters can actually walk over water to hunt aquatic insects and small enough minnows. They usually sit still on vegetation, though, and dive into the water at the precise moment. According to Weber's Spiders of the North Woods, this most closely resembles the Six-Spotted Fishing Spider (Dolomedes triton), but the spots are very faint on this one. Just after this, I saw my first insect, a fluorescent yellow caterpillar! These are good signs for bird migration to pick up. 

March 12 Skunk Cabbage Growing Fast

A few weeks ago I reported on the growth of skunk cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus) on one the springs in the Arboretum's Wingra Woods. I later realized that I had photographed the wrong plant, and have since corrected that mistake. I decided to go check on the cabbage patch this afternoon and found that dozens of new plants had sprouted up that I had not noticed just a week ago! Now there are skunk cabbage covering this little wetland, and they are shaded in all colors of red, purple, green, and gray. It's a whimsical, beautiful scene and a sign of the speed with which our new season has arrived. Plants and animals are ready to move and grow and reproduce as soon as they get the cue from shortening nights and above-freezing temperatures. This streak of amazing weather has been more much more than a cue. However, trees and wildflowers are not breaking buds or popping out of the leaf litter just yet. Over generations, they (the ones that die) learn that a freak ice storm or a foot of snow can still happen until about the end of March. Thus, despite the warmth, many plants will wait for a specific ratio of daylight to darkness for their signal to start growing. Some, though, will likely take the risk to get a jump start on growth if temperatures stay up. So start looking to see which individuals and/or species are brave enough to risk getting started.

March 11 A New Trail

For the last six weeks, the trails at the Lakeshore Preserve were uniformly white with flattened snow. This morning we were walking over a new trail, one with snowmelt that froze overnight and revealed a mosaic of last year's oak leaves. The woods are also mostly clear and all of the short plants and fungi and variable forest detritus are open once again for exploration. I turned over a log and saw a tiny spider dart away. There is still a bit of ice in the soil but I can also smell those earthy smells that have been away for so long. I am especially pleased to once again smell the white pines in the warm wind. Finally, we heard a group of sandhill cranes flying over Lake Mendota and just caught sight of them over the treetops. To many in southern Wisconsin, the sound of the cranes returning is one of our most emotional connections to spring. As a newcomer to this place, I am just beginning to develop my own relationships with nature's celebrities.

March 10 Drip Drip Drip

This is one of my favorite sights and sounds of early spring. I rode my bike all around west Madison today and although it started with a damp chill, the sun eventually broke through the fog and I saw the roads and sidewalks flood with snowmelt. This major pool is beneath the old Hoyt School building which is an MSCR office now. It was 10x20 feet and probably 5 inches deep. It's exciting to think about how much water a city's worth of snow produces when it melts under a 55 degree F sun. And we started this melt with very little snow, about 6 inches or so in most places. Our winter snow total was 30.2 inches and here is the breakdown by month: November 8.3, December 0.1, January 10.2, February 10.7, and March 0.8. A dry winter indeed, but still fun to see it all melt away. Yes it may still snow again, but now that the ground is totally thawed I'm not too worried about it.

March 9 Birds Come to Life

It was a glorious morning at the Lakeshore Preserve as all of our resident winter birds were flying around everywhere, singing their songs. Today was the first day that I heard dark-eyed junco, mourning dove, and song sparrow songs, and chickadees, nuthatches, and blue jays were extremely active. The warm weather has our birds juiced up and working quickly to establish territory for mating. Also, the snow in the woods has melted quickly, exposing the leaf litter from the fall and letting decomposers get started on recycling them. All of those birds were moving a little faster than I could photograph them, but once again I found a barred owl, this time perched on a limb near a paved trail, which makes me think it was still hunting at 9:30 AM in bright light. It flew over my head and gave me a soft hoot as I kept moving through this new spring world.

March 8 Sunset, 7:00 PM

Everyone and their boyfriend, dog, mom, and roomies were out today walking, running, and cycling down the street. Snowmelt poured into the sewers and half of my front yard is grass again. And even though sunrise will be after 7:00 AM for a few weeks, I think it's worth the tradeoff to start the time of year I like to call "Light After Dinner." This means a whole new time of day, the evening, is back in our lives, beckoning us to go for a stroll or a ride post eating. This is the view from Hoyt Park at 7:00 PM, just after the sun had cleared the horizon. It looks like the great meltdown will continue through the week. I don't expect any snow will be left by this time next Sunday. 

March 7 Madison Reads Leopold

Today was Madison Reads Leopold, an event at the Arboretum where a large variety of people read essays from A Sand County Almanac for a live audience. I have some nice images of people reading, but during a lunch break we went out for a walk on the trails and watched snow melting before our eyes. Out in Wingra Woods I found another scene where a robin was eaten. This pile of feathers was much more complete and I like that evidence of melting snow shows up in the photo. Leopold knew that people's hearts would be won over with a story, which is why the almanac part of the book (first 100 pages) is still so loved and being read out loud on an annual basis. This story is still unfolding every month of the year - we only have to spend some time outside to keep reading it.

March 6 Raccoon in a Tree

Rambling through the Lakeshore Preserve, Anne and I saw a huge shape scrambling down the trunk of a tree and through binoculars we found out what is was: a raccoon. Procyon lotor is not a true hibernator, like a frog or a woodchuck, but more of a "winter rest" taker, meaning they sleep a lot and lower their heart rate, but their body temperatures stay up so that they may quickly snap back into hunting for food on occasion if they need a winter snack. This raccoon was 50 feet up and looked to hanging on for dear life in the strong southern winds. I couldn't see any holes large enough in this tree that it may have woken up in and staggered out to wake up from a long nap, but that is one hypothesis. Or it may have been looking for buds to eat and then decided to rest awhile. We moved along in case it felt threatened, but it was exciting to see a mammal other than a squirrel up above.

March 5 Last Winter Moon

I was along for a night hike at the Arboretum and it was beautifully cold as moonlight placed shadows from trees on the snow in rows and curves. We mostly heard icy snow crunching under boots along with a few solitary hoots from an owl over the big spring. This is a picture of the moon just after it rose in the eastern sky. Every 29 days, the full moon rises about the same time - about 6:00 PM. Near the time of the equinoxes the full moon rises very close to sunset, so with a view from high ground you may be able to see the sun dropping below one horizon and the moon rising from the other at the same time. This is true of sunrise and moonset in the morning as well. Tomorrow, moonrise will be about 50 minutes later so it will be plenty dark to see an "almost full" moon come up in the east.

March 4 Who Cooks for You?

I went for a long adventure this morning to the Lakeshore Preserve, hoping to see some new bird species or more life in general. There was a punishing northwest wind which kept most of the peninsula quiet, but I did see some bird action near the Biocore Prairie. I had seen 8 species of birds and was feeling frozen when I decided to start heading home. Just when I left the trail for the road, I heard two calls that sound like "Who Cooks For You?" This is the hooting of barred owls (Strix varia) who typically communicate at dusk, but right now are sending out a few calls during the day, maybe because they are working hard to find a mate and a place to soon incubate eggs. Or possibly, this owl was hooting in its sleep. When I crept up for a picture it was clearly just napping in the sun, hunkered next to this sheltered tree to get out of the wind. If you want to hear owls in the woods, now is a good time to go and listen.

March 3 Picnic Point From the Square

I was mostly inside today, watching the small amount of snow and ice fall only to melt off the streets and sidewalks in a hurry. Above freezing temperatures felt nice - a little teaser for the upcoming weekend of thaw. A few hours before I took this picture, the lake was completely shrouded in fog and I could not see Picnic Point from this view. The moisture in the air has me longing for a slow rain that brings out all of the world's colors. If the forecasted warmup is as warm as it looks now (40 degrees F next week), we are in for serious water soon. 

March 2 Robin Feathers

On a twilight run tonight to the Lakeshore Preserve I took some time to watch robins and mourning doves busily searching for food in the open creek near the trail entrance on University Bay. When I walked through the snow to get a closer view, I found many small piles of feathers, including this one, which shows that half of a robin's chest feathers are gray and they are much longer than they appear on a live bird. These are just an inch long, but there were also long, dark flight feathers lying around that are 3-5 inches long. I didn't find any bones and believe this could be the work of a raptor (owl, hawk, falcon) or a stealthy fox or weasel.

March 1 Spring Arrives!

We always fall into temptation and believe that March signals the start of spring. Bad, bad February is behind us, we're done with snow, and the beach will soon be open. Well, I tend to agree. We had 11 hours and 12 minutes of daylight today, that's how close we've come to Equinox already. The sun's light is of a totally different quality now than it was a month ago. It fills my window in the morning, blinds me at lunch, and lingers well past sunset until 6:15 PM. I know it hasn't been 40 degrees since January 18, but hey this is Wisconsin. March might be mostly cold and snowy, but the today the sun declares victory. New birds will be arriving soon, green things will start popping out of the ground, and water will become a liquid again soon. The big transition to life will start shortly - get out there and see it.

February 28 Plenty of Good Ice

I think this is a fine way to end what turned out to be the coldest Febraury in Madison since 1904, and 5th coldest ever. We averaged 10.9 degrees F for the month, and it was colder than average on all but 3 days. The 30 year average for February is 22.6 degrees F. That 8 inches of snow fell just in time to provide much-needed insulation for trees and plants, which otherwise would probably be suffering more now from root damage. The snow in town is maybe 6 inches at its deepest and gone in some spots already. If we don't get much more, it will only take a few thaw days to get spring rolling. What was the coldest February ever, you wonder? In February 1875, it was 3.1 degrees F on average. Data methods then may have been less precise, but that is a scary number.

February 27 Ski Surfing on Mendota

When the wind won't stop blowing it makes perfect sense to use it to our advantage. This human has found a way to embrace all that winter on Lake Mendota has to offer. I'm not sure if this sport is called ski surfing or ski sailing or wind skiing, but I think I want to do it. In other news, ice fishing is going strong, it's very cold, and the lakes are windblown enough to walk across, no problem.

February 26 Birch Polypore

The slow creep of late winter has me looking upward away from the snow's glare and seeing more fungi in trees. Piptoporus betulinus is another shelf or bracket fungus and the three fruiting bodies mean that there is decomposition happening inside this white birch tree. Birch polypore is saprobic, meaning it enters a dead or dying tree through wounds and begins eating the wood from the inside out. The other branches of this birch still have leaf buds and appear quite healthy. However with this main branch undergoing serious rot, the tree is under serious stress and will have a difficult time staying healthy. That's OK: plenty of other fungi lay in wait to finish the rest of the decomposing and send this tree back to the soil.

February 25 Turkey Tail Fungus

There are so many families and species of fungus that we can feel good about identifying the general shape, color, and eating habits of the one we encounter. But I'm going to go out on a log here and say that these are the Trametes versicolor or turkey tail mushrooms, one of the most common in North America. They grow in large groups and spread out like a fan with bands of closely contrasting color. In many pictures I see the bands are browns and reds, which makes me wonder if this green color is just a winter phase. I have only seen greens of these in the places I've looked at mushrooms. The turkey tails are in the Polypore group, meaning literally that they have tubes underneath the cap from which the reproductive spores fall. Also they are abundant, woody, and generally inedible.

February 24 Paper Wasp's Nest

 I've been seeing these all over this winter and thought I would finally take the time to discuss the creatures behind the works of art. There are twenty-two species of wasps in North America that create paper nests with this spherical layered look. There other wasps from other families and subfamilies that also make paper nests and all are usually lumped into the group "paper wasps." Now, not to confuse, but bald-faced hornets and yellow jackets are two of the wasps that take wood fibers and mix them with saliva to form the thin strip of paper to make the inner cells and the exterior of this nest. Not all wasps are hornets or yellow jackets, but all hornets and yellow jackets are wasps. Bees are entirely different from all and have no place here. What I wonder about the dozens of nests like this around town is if they will be recolonized by wasp queens in the coming weeks. This one looks like a few roof repairs and a new door are all it needs.

February 23 Please Stay Out of the Wind

Again today wind chills today were well below zero. A bright sun helped a little, but my face hurt an awful lot biking into the west winds. I stopped near the south Lake Monona shoreline to look for sings of life, and this little guy kept popping its head up and down to shoot me curious looks. Is it just me, or is doing things outside getting harder? Seems clear now that spring won't be arriving earlier than usual, considering February has been 11 degrees colder than average up until now.