February 12 My New Favorite Bird

I was riding my bike home from the Nature Center when, hark, an owl up in a spruce tree! It was so still at first that I thought it might be an illusion, but a better look revealed the eyes, ears, and definite, real feathers. This is an eastern screech owl (Megascops asio), and from what I read it is a red morph, most commonly seen in the Midwest (there are also gray and brown morphs). A little owl at only 8-10 inches tall, the eastern screech needs trees to perch on, hunt from, and nest in, and that is the extent of its habitat needs. Like most owls they are night hunters, but I this must have been hunting (or at least napping in the sun while hunting) when I saw it at noon under bright blue skies. I thanked it repeatedly for being there for me to see.

February 11 Alpenglow on the Capitol

If you visit mountains with open rock tops (think granite cliffs of Yosemite) you can see what they call "Alpenglow" during sunset. As the sun lowers, its light appears more red when it reflects off of the rock - or this afternoon, off of the State Capitol. Also in the picture is one of the piles of snow on the square that I'm beginning to think is left by the city on purpose to make traffic in intersections safer. Sort of like a natural roundabout that can softly absorb any wayward vehicles.

February 10 Graupel in the Light

This is a look at graupel,which fell for just a few minutes this afternoon before dark. The same stuff fell at the beginning of the big storm last Saturday. Tonight, it only lasted minutes, but was enough to fill boot and dog prints with these little snowballs. Graupel happens when snowflakes get covered in ice crystals as they fall through the sky. They are less dense than your standard hail.

February 9 House Sparrows Getting Ready

Madison has a very healthy population of house sparrows (Passer domesticus), which you can identify by the large dark spot below their neck. They have been chirping a bunch and flying in flocks all winter, but this morning was the first time I noticed one of them doing breeding activities. This individual was clearing claiming and possibly readying this crack in the eaves on a front porch. These bulkier sparrows came over from Europe to Brooklyn in 1851 and have successfully spread across North America. Most North American sparrows are smaller and leaner than this non-native cousin. I will look for House Sparrow chicks at this residence in 6-8 weeks.

February 8 Winter Birding

Today I joined in on the Arboretum's afternoon Winter Birding Hike. Facing a strong northwest wind, the majority of birds were hunkered down, but larger birds seemed to not mind. We saw a perched red-tailed hawk, a flock of playful crows, and plenty of Arboretum turkeys walking about. Towards the very end of the hike we came across a pile of fur and this cottontail rabbit head. Our guide mentioned that great-horned owls are known to leave the head of larger prey behind, which allows them to carry the rest in their talons. There was also talk that red-tailed hawks will actually gut larger prey and cut off appendages to make them easier to move to a safe eating spot. Since great-horned owls and red-tailed hawks both weigh about 3 pounds on average, they can only carry so much in their talons while flying. But for this cottontail, I notice that the fur has grey and white tinges, probably for winter camouflage. Or is their fur this color year round? It will be interesting to see the fur on a rabbit's head in August and compare. 

February 7 Sirius and the Dog

Canis Major, known by the Greeks as one of Orion's hunting dogs, includes Sirius, the brightest star in the entire night sky. It appears brighter than all other stars because it's so close to earth, only 8.6 light years away. Sirius is the dog's neck, and the stars of its head are difficult to see against average town light pollution. But tonight was an excellent night for star viewing - clear skies, calm air, and the moon didn't rise until after 7:30 PM. It won't be long before our winter constellations are only visible in the middle of the night, so pick a clear, warmer night to go to the edge of town and see them rise in the eastern sky.

February 6 Birch Catkins

It is common for White Birches (Betula papyrifera) to drop their mature flowers over the course of the winter, as opposed to all at once in the fall. They have adapted to drop these catkins onto the deeper snows of the northwoods, which gives them a chance of being windswept to more open areas where they can get the sunlight they need. If you hike through a forest in the next few weeks, look for little piles of these underneath the white trees with the peeling bark.

February 5 Juncos are Way Cool

This incredibly common bird deserves some kudos for living in 49 United States, coast to coast in Canada, and the northern half of Mexico. According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, there are 630 million Dark-Eyed Juncos in North America. They are with us here in Madison through the winter, and then head to the northern forests or west to the mountains for breeding season. In winter, they will use almost any habitat type to forage on the ground for seeds, the way this female did today on a sidewalk at the Arboretum. She is slightly lighter than the male, which is a dark slate. You can identify both by the white flash of their tail as they fly off, looking for more seeds.

February 4 Icicle Season

Snow on roofs and a stronger sun result in daytime melting on clear days. Icicles then form overnight as the dripping water slowly freezes. Leaving work at the Capitol Square today, I saw a spectacular display of icicles in a back alley. They were all the way up the first fire escape staircase and dripping impressively, creating the beginnings of stalagmites on the parking lot below. Freeze thaw, freeze thaw, but eventually we will have thaw, thaw, thaw, thaw.

February 3 Domestic or Wild Geese?

It's a well-known but perhaps little discussed fact among birders that some birds come in as many color morphs as humans. From Broadway Street I saw 5 different color combinations of geese in the Yaraha River during my ride home. I was at first thrilled to have seen Greater White-Fronted and Snow Geese! Rarities in Wisconsin! (It is also common for amateur birders, like myself, to jump to conclusions on species ID) Further reading, however, leads me to think that these are varieties of domestic geese that are now living life on this open stretch of the Yahara River. Still exciting to see such waterfowl variety in winter.

February 2 Art of the Wind

Nature has its own means of expression: light, line, wind, water, color. The intensity of a winter storm can give way hours later to scenes like this, wind carved lines in the snow on Lake Monona. Already the sun is giving us different light quality than it was a few weeks ago. I've noticed new shades of blue in the sky and sharper shapes and shadows. The science of phenology is important but seeing the beauty of it is the first step to reconnecting with what we call nature.

February 1 Snow Moon

All day I was measuring snow depth excitedly, getting up to 10 inches on the windswept side of our yard. What a thrilling start to the last month of the season! I happened to go out at 10:30 for one more look at the snow when the moon reminded me that it's full and extra bright when there is solid snowcover for reflection. I also noticed this "Moon Dog," a ring around a bright moon that appears when there are an abundance of ice crystals in the atmosphere. The same thing will happen to the sun just after a snow or on extremely cold mornings. Tonight is a good one to look for another moon dog - maybe while cross country skiing with friends??

January 31 Winter Begins

I went along on a full moon hike at the Arboretum tonight and the snow started falling. For the first hour of the hike, we heard the lovely sounds of graupel - these fluffy ice pellets that start as snowflakes but add on ice droplets as they fall - as it dropped onto leaves on the mostly bare ground. It felt like the start of a new era of winter as we walked away from the warm and unfrozen days of January into earlier mornings, longer days, and hopefully a white landscape to explore. This is a view from West Spring in Wingra Woods looking out towards some old pines.

January 30 Bittersweet in the Lost City

On this gorgeous afternoon in the Arboretum, we decided to hike through the Lost City Forest in search of some of the original foundations of buildings from the 1920s. As we got closer to a coniferous section in the southern corner, a series of crashing noises called our attention. Turkeys were flying to and from skinny jack pine branches, scraping their wings on tree trunks, and looking hilariously awkward while eating these oriental bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculatus) berries. The red berries are released in fall from the wings of the pod and like buckthorn and mountain ash are gobbled up in late winter by songbirds, squirrels, and ambitious turkeys. While the red berries are a nice accent to the browns and dark greens of winter, the plant itself can be destructive: in this section the bittersweet vines have grown up and around dozens of trees, strangling them to the point of falling over. It's among the ranks of invasive plants the land care staff fight back each year.