After a fun sidebar about Sam Guida and his love of galls (and his past as a student phenologist), Heidi and John have four lovely reports for us this week. Enjoy!
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.
Newstok family cabin near Grand Rapids
Axel, Pearl, Eva and Nara report from the Newstok family cabin near Grand Rapids.
“Hi, this is Axel and Pearl Newstok plus Nara and Eva Sample. We’re friends visiting from Minneapolis. At home our raspberries are very ripe, but here they’re just starting. We picked a bucketful this afternoon.
“I saw a monarch chrysalis in the Newstok garden. Some were light green, some were getting dark: maybe we will see one emerge tomorrow.
“I watched the spotted sandpiper along our lakeshore last week. It was bobbing its tail the entire time as it hopped and flew from rock to rock. It was very cute.
“The eagle is still in the nest, and the loons are feeding their baby. Mama and Papa saw the baby loon dive underwater already!
“This will be our last report of the season, since we will be at camp next week and then heading back to Memphis. Our parents might send a report.
“Heidi Holtan, we sure hope to show you our lake! John Latimer, before you go, we hope to swim with you at the mine. Bye!”
The Newstoks are in luck: Heidi planned to visit them Wednesday, and John is hoping to go for a swim with them soon! (Their previous plans were rained out but as John notes, a little rain doesn’t matter if you’re going to go swimming anyway.)
Like the Newstoks, I also had a wonderful time watching sandpipers this week: I heard the solitary sandpiper piping away at dusk in Ontario, then returned to the St. Croix River near Stillwater to find an entire family of sandpipers bobbing up and down a sandbar! I didn’t get to see a baby loon, though- hopefully sometime this week I’ll get to spot one.
Long Lake Conservation Center near Palisade
“Hello, we are Sawyer, Dawson, Cameron, Marla and Simone reporting for Long Lake Conservation Center from the Aitkin County Fair. This is the report for July 3-7.
“We are enjoying our butterfly house. Many of the monarch caterpillars collected earlier this summer are in the hanging “J” and chrysalis stages. A few have molted into adult butterflies. We’ve observed hundreds of monarchs and other butterflies flitting from flower to flower on campus.
“Long Lake’s loons are still paired together, feeding. No loonlets in sight. We think they either had a failed nesting, or they didn’t nest at all.
“A Ruffed Grouse stopped while crossing the road, allowing its chick to catch up. To our surprise the tiny chick FLEW to safety. We didn’t think a chick that small would be able to take flight. Did you know that grouse chicks are also known as poults, squealers and cheepers?
“A woodchuck was spotted roaming campus eating grass and wildflowers. It was about half the size of the adult we normally see, making us think it’s a pup. Woodchuck young are known as pups, kits or Beth’s favorite: chucklings. She also thinks they should be called ‘whistle pigs’ more often. We agree!
“We are all enjoying the beginning of the wild raspberry season. There are plenty of plump, sweet berries to enjoy. There are reports of a bumper crop of wild blueberries nearby, and the birds have dropped evidence that suggest that this is true, but so far we haven’t found any. We’ll keep looking.
“The woods are ripe with food for all to eat. No creature, big or small, should be struggling to find food this time of year. The campus deer — despite this abundance — decided to eat Beth’s grape clusters. She thinks that’s rude. ‘They weren’t even ripe,’ she was heard muttering.
“A resident of the next-door neighbor lake to Long Lake had two dead adult Canada Geese on her shore. She is thinking a snapping turtle got them, but we are not sure if a snapping turtle could or would kill a large Canada Goose. What do you think?
“Though not related to nature, our favorite fair food is deep fried cookie dough, dipped in chocolate and coated in bacon. Hardly any calories at all. It was a great week and we want to remind everyone to …Unplug, get outside, and LIVE CONNECTED!”
John suspects he might keel over on the spot if he tried the deep-fried-cookie-dough-dipped-in-chocolate-and-coated-in-bacon concoction.
He’d need to look at the goose carcass to determine if a snapping turtle was responsible for its demise. He’s skeptical, however: Snapping turtles rarely eat waterfowl. Even ducklings and goslings are a small portion of their diet: a study found waterfowl represented only 2% of the stomach contents of snapping turtles.
Snapping turtles rarely hunt prey on the surface. In general, they are ambush predators that skulk on the bottom, waiting for unwitting prey to swim by so they can “snap” them up. They’ll also happily scavenge on dead fish and other carrion.
There is no need for humans to fear the ambush of a snapping turtle, however. Their prey are much, much smaller than we are, so it’s extremely unlikely that they would attempt to take a bite out of a human, even if you stepped on one underwater.
Instead, the turtle is likely to just swim away from you as quickly as it can. Above water, however, snapping turtles feel quite insecure and are far more likely to strike out defensively. Take care in the air, but you’re not fodder in the water!
Roots and Wings Forest School in New York Mills
“This is Wyatt, West, Russell, Hannah, Harlow and Isaac reporting from Roots and Wings Forest School in New York Mills for July 10.
“This past week, ten of our monarchs emerged from the chrysalis. We have two left. These monarchs are second generation. We also found two monarch eggs and saw two more butterflies in our field.
“We also saw two squirrels fighting in a tree and lots of grasshoppers and crickets. We saw tons of flowers blooming and bees on milk thistles.
“Thanks for listening! Stay wild!”
John is happy to hear from the New York Mills students! I’m glad that their monarchs are doing so well and appear to be so abundant.
Season Watch Facebook Feature
Anne Kari Kletten posted to our Season Watch Facebook page:
"For years we had only two loons on this little 49-acre lake except for occasional reunions with previous offspring. I never saw any loon babies this year from our two loons. The last few days I have noticed several loons in a group on the lake. What is going on?"
John explains that loons without chicks gather together in social groups, sometimes numbering in the double digits. These unmated (or reproductively unsuccessful) adults will associate together throughout the summer.
Loons that have successfully hatched chicks are much less sociable, associating only with their mate as they focus on raising their young. In September or October, the adult loons will migrate to Lake Michigan or the Gulf of Mexico, leaving the young behind to gain the muscle mass they need to complete the long journey.
As always, we hope to hear from you, dear reader. Let us know what you find out there.
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).
