John Latimer was on vacation with his family on Turtle Lake near Marcell over the last week, wistfully watching nature’s progression without taking copious notes on it. Can you imagine?!?
He made up for this terrible dereliction of duty with a 2.5-hour-long walk on Monday, taking careful notes of what had changed in his absence. He has a 1.5-mile route he patrols once or twice a week (more in the spring and summer), monitoring the plants and animals for changes. The trail wanders out his yard, through a swamp, to the lake’s edge and through a forest, allowing him to examine a few different habitats.
Please note as schools let out for the summer, we become more and more hungry for reports for our Phenology Talkbacks segment. Please don’t hesitate to reach out with your observations, nature tales and insights! Get in touch with me (smitchell@kaxe.org), John Latimer (jlatimer@kaxe.org), or text "phenology" to 218-326-1234.
A Veery fun bird sighting
In the swamp, he went up to check out a leather leaf plant (a bog-dwelling plant that only has leaves and fruits this time of year). As he approached, a bird burst from the branches, startling him. He took a closer look and found a Veery nest with three eggs in it! Veeries are songbirds whose drab plumage belies their beautiful song. They have a grayish-brown back, and white belly: their song catches your ear more than their looks catch your eye.
Veeries lay one to five eggs per clutch and may produce two clutches per year. John suspects this Veery was not finished, and another egg was likely laid later that day or the next morning. The mother will not start brooding (or incubating) the eggs until all are laid: this helps them all hatch around the same time. Raising a group of similarly aged chicks is much less energy-intensive than trying to manage a variety of ages at once and ensures the biggest chick doesn’t completely outcompete its siblings.
Veery nests are commonly found on spruces or on mounds in swamps. This one was found on the edge of a leatherleaf plant and tucked into the sphagnum moss. It is the second Veery nest John has found.
More birds
John also saw Northern Harriers patrolling hay fields during harvest. The abrupt loss of plant cover left voles, mice and other small critters exposed: a feast for the harriers! Northern Harriers have a distinctive low, slow flight pattern that follows the contours of the land. They rarely perch at any height, often landing on the ground or on low fenceposts.
In another field along John’s drive to the Twin Cities, John spotted four adult female turkeys. Between the hens were little poults (young turkeys) in a tidy line. They were all shrouded in mist: it was quite a sight.
Yet another field held a family of Sandhill Cranes. Oddly, this family has only one adult and one colt: John isn’t sure what happened to the other parent.
While on his vacation at Turtle Lake, John was able to watch a family of loons as they dove and caught minnows for their chicks. The babies were learning to dive as well but would pop to the surface to get fed by their parents.
Back at home, John and his dog Mila flushed a whole flock of grouse out of a patch of raspberries. There were at least 10 — John had quite a task trying to count them all! The grouse were feasting on the fresh berries. John knows they feed on raspberries because he’s observed them in the past. They walk up to the canes, select a berry, then make a short jump (occasionally accompanied by a flap) to pluck the chosen fruit.
It’s a good time to emulate the grouse — get out there and harvest some yourself, if you get the chance! John enjoyed some raspberries on his ice cream this weekend, and Heidi Holtan was out picking raspberries recently as well.
A bevy of butterflies
John spotted a pair of monarchs that appeared to be fighting. They flew at each other and appeared to engage in some mid-air wrestling before one of them flew off. The other returned to the original area: John assumes that individual was the victor.
John’s friend Dallas in Akeley has seen mourning cloak butterflies, though John hasn’t spotted one in quite a while. He has seen a Comptons tortoiseshell and quite a few Northern pearly-eye butterflies.
“It’s a good time of year to get out and check out the insects,” John remarked. “Butterflies and dragonflies are plentiful and remarkable in their beauty.”
Sights in the summer swamp
While walking along wetlands, keep an eye out for swamp loosestrife (also known as swamp candles). These are 12- to 15-inch tall plants topped in a cluster of small yellow flowers. They are often found alongside meadowsweet plants, which have fuzzy-looking cone-shaped clusters of small, white, five-petaled flowers.
Marsh skullcap is another wetland flower blooming right now. It has a blue, tubular-looking flower that doesn’t stand on its own but leans and climbs on grasses or sedges. On the water’s edge, the three-petaled white flowers of common arrowheads are blooming. The flowers are only an inch across, but the leaves are quite large (and, as the name suggests, arrowhead-shaped).
Plant progression
Ripe fruits
- Forbs: Raspberry, blueberry.
- Shrubs: Juneberry.
Unripe fruits
- Shrubs: Nannyberry, beaked hazel, American hazel, Northern gooseberry, chokecherry, jewelweed
- Trees: Oaks.
Peak flowering
- Forbs: Harebell, timothy grass, evening primrose, sawtooth sunflower
Begun flowering
- Forbs: Pearly everlasting, goldenrod, wood nettle, jewelweed
Not yet flowering
- Forbs: Tansy, Canada goldenrod, smooth aster, flat-topped goldenrod, boneset, tall blue lettuce
Spotted touch-me-not (aka jewelweed)
An observant reader might notice that the jewelweed occurs both in the “begun flowering” and “unripe fruits” sections. This, on the surface, seems impossible: flowering has to be completed before fruits can form! The jewelweed is a bit crafty in this way. It produces two types of flowers: ones meant to accomplish cross-pollination (distribute genetic material between plants) and those that are self-fertilizing.
Cleistogamous flowers produce seeds without ever exchanging pollen with another flower. In fact, these flowers never even open, ensuring pollen will meet the pistil and the plant will self-fertilize. The resulting seeds are quite cheap to produce — the flowers are miniscule and don’t require nectar production — but the offspring are not as hardy as those of the more “expensive” cross-pollinated flowers.
You can look for the cleistogamous flowers at the base of the leaves, but you’ll have to look hard: they’re only a millimeter or so long!
The more noticeable flowers on this plant are chasmogamous (cross-pollinating). These are orange flowers which look like a trumpet attached to a fishing hook. The flower starts as a pollen-producing male flower. The “fishing hook” contains nectar, which is prized by hummingbirds. When a hummingbird flies up, inserts its beak, and bends its tongue to get the nectar, it changes the shape of the flower and dabs pollen onto the forehead of the hummingbird.
As the flower develops, it becomes an ovary-producing female flower. Then, when a hummingbird comes along to drink nectar, the process is reversed: pollen is deposited on the flower, and voila! Pollination has occurred!
Jewelweed is also called “spotted touch-me-not" due to its exploding seed pods. As you examine the plant, you might notice small green banana-shaped seed pods. If you touch or brush past a ripe one, it will explode and shower seeds everywhere.
Anishinaabe communities have long used jewelweed to relieve pain and itching from poison ivy, hives, stinging nettle and other skin irritations. In addition, the sap has antifungal properties useful for treating athlete’s foot. Handy!
Plant spotlight
Other plants of interest include the sawtooth sunflower, known for its abundance, large blooms and size. To distinguish it from the similarly sized giant sunflower, take a peek at the stem: the sawtooth sunflower has a smooth stem, while the giant sunflower’s stem is hairy. The woodland sunflower is also in the mix!
The oak trees and hazel brush are behaving a bit oddly this year. They were extremely productive last year, producing a huge quantity of acorns and hazelnuts. Typically, they take a year off of intense reproductive activity after a mast year (as these hyper-productive years are called), instead using the growing season to replenish their stores of energy.
However, the oak trees and hazel shrubs haven’t slowed down this year, and are again going into reproductive overdrive. John is curious to see if his observations of the unripe nuts match the production of ripe ones: last year, there was over a week where hazelnuts could be found. Normally, the squirrels and other critters strip them of nuts after a mere day or two!
That does it for this week! For more phenology, subscribe to our Season Watch Newsletter or visit the Season Watch Facebook page.
Funding for this project was provided by the Minnesota Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund as recommended by the Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources (LCCMR).
