Red Wing Nature Notes

A copy of Harvey Dunn’s famous painting, “The Prairie is My Garden” was on the wall ?in the house ?where I grew up. ?A Pioneer woman walks with a bouquet of prairie flowers as the South Dakota wind blows her hair and dress. Two children are with her and a very modest, weathered house is in the background. She is surrounded by the plants of the prairie.

It occurs to me that the pioneer woman in the painting ? was just as likely to be planting a garden as cutting wild flowers. Some place near that weathered gray homestead, out of our sight, is a garden ?– it is just the beginning of introductions still taking place.

In an earlier post I mentioned that most of the grassess in the apparantly wild fields around our home are non-native, originally introduced as forage for cattle.

I am no expert on this subject, but it’s a little hard not to notice fields full of wild parsnip and Queen Ann’s Lace(wild carrots) evidetntally escaped from gardens long ago. I understand dandelions were imported by the pioneers as well. Day Lilies sprout in profusion along roads and in unplowed fields around here.

Maybe its time for an updated painting called “The Priarie ?From Our Gardens”.

We spent the weekend at a cabin “up north” (Brainerd area). ? For years there have been warnings posted by the DNR of invasive plant species such as eurasian milfoil. We are told not to transport firewood for fear of spreading forest pests. I never heard anyone talk about aquarium snails though. They just showed up, about the diameter of ? a quarter or larger. The photo is of snails collected on one side of our dock in shallow water over about five minutes.

We would like absolute control, as if nature was our own private garden, but that is something we can not have. In nature there is a constant battle for food, light and water. There are too many things going on for us to possibly understand the impact of our actions. The organisms themselves change. I’ve read the roots of the wild carrot no longer resemble the ones in our garden.

The weekend was good for us. I saw a bald eagle do a long dive with out-stretched talons and brush the surface of the lake. An osprey patroled above us. ? Loons with larger sized young were evident around the lake apparantly undisturbed by the weekend boat traffic. Their calls echoed across the water. On Saturday an endless parade of fishermen came by our corner of the bay casting in the lily pads with little luck. Twice I saw fishermen snag lures on our dock. To the fisherman passing by, its a quiet little corner of the lake. From our view its an irresistable lure to fishermen with expensive bassboats who come in, cast their lures and leave. If any fish still exists in that ideal looking spot ?it has ?seen everything.

We trolled with lures away from the traffic, ? a few hundred yards from the popular spot and one of my sons landed a very nice walleye.

There are two kinds of water lilly in bloom just off the end of our dock, yellow and white. I’ve included photos though I don’t know what they are called or much about them. Several years ago there were no frogs on our lake. Now they are everywhere. I also noticed a red/pink ?flower in bloom on the shore that reminds me of a milkweed blossom. But I havent identified it yet.

Most Saturday mornings this summer I have had the good fortune of leading an interpretive hike at Frontenac State Park. It is a great opportunity to share with park visitors some of the many natural wonders that this beautifully diverse state park has to offer.
I would like to share with Red Wing Nature Notes readers just a few of the phenological changes that have taken place in the past seven days. These observations were made on my drive along highway 61 to the park and on the ensuing hike.

Wild Parsnip (Pastinaca sativa) In recent days, the road ditches along highway 61 have been full of the yellow blossoms of this alien plant. It is just now starting to produce seeds and turn brown. This plant is very aggressive and because of global climate change has become very well established along local roadsides and disturbed places. Skin contact with this plant causes such areas to be extremely sensitive to sunlight and can result in serious burns. BEWARE! ?

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Purple Loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria) In wet swampy areas along the ponds adjacent to highway 61 and county road 2, the magenta flowers of this alien plant are just beginning to become noticeable. The flowers of loosestrife attract and are pollinated by bees. Because this plant is so aggressive, in some areas it is considered a noxious weed or invasive species causing a reduction in biological diversity in natural habitats. The use of beetles as a biological control has significantly reduced the areas along highway 61 that contained loosestrife.

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Wild Bergamot ( Monarda fistulosa) ? Sizeable numbers of this native plant are now blooming in the park. Native Americans frequently used this plant medicinally. The leaves are very fragrant and can be used for making tea or ? flavoring meat.

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Smooth Sumac ( Rhus glabra) ? I have noticed that within the past couple days the red fruit heads of this shrub are beginning to secrete a sticky lemon flavored sap. This sap creates a great opportunity for an outdoor treat on a camping or hiking adventure. Simply collect 8 to 10 clusters of seed heads and put them in 2 quarts of hot or cold water for 30 minutes. Strain through a cloth and add sugar to taste. You will be surprised on how wonderfully ? refreshing that results. It is best to harvest the fruits after a few days of dry weather. Try it sometime.

Nature most often appears calm. ? Pick almost any sunrise or sunset. ? Listen to the drumming of a ruffed grouse on the far hillside. ? Watch a fawn ?running in ?the alfalfa. ? Despite this prevailing mood, there is also a constant battle underway between predator and prey, a fight that shows no favoritism for the innocent or newly arrived.

Last week a red-tailed hawk killed an immature ruffed grouse near a township road. ? A passing motorist saw the hawk attempt to fly off with the grouse, but fail. ? I found the grouse near an explosion of feathers. ? It was a young bird, whose wing and tail feathers were not yet developed. ? Its skinny legs seemed disproportionately long. ? ?I found the grouse headless that afternoon. ? No other part had been consumed. ? I returned to the site each day, hoping at first the hawk might return for its meal. ? But over the course of five days, the carcass was slowly consumed by ants and bugs and flies and things I did not see. ? Within a week, what remained was a dark patch in the dirt, and a broken nest of feathers and bones.

After my last visit to the grouse at dusk one evening, I returned through a grove of black walnut trees. ? The stand is 30 years old and the canopy thick. ? As I moved through the darkness, I looked around to see hundreds of pale, slow-blinking lights. ? Each lightning bug created a small splash of light in the humid air. ? The place was serene.

If one is to be open to nature, one must find a way to accommodate incongruity, and to accept the close proximity of that broken ?grouse and the bioluminescence of fireflies.

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A shift has occurred. It is hard to say when it happened. In Spring, buds and blossoms could be counted, each bird song and insect noise noted.
The smell of moist ?dirt has given way to the heavy perfumed air ?of summer. When I walk there are different smells as I progress down the road. Most go unidentified and are ?forgotten soon after I pass that place. The air is full of insect and bird song day and night. Young crows squawk and demand to be fed even though they are as big as adults.
If I had to pick a day to signify the change it, of course, would be the summer solistice. There is more to this change than a mark on the calander or the whim of a retailer’s marketing campaign. The sun has peaked.
Plant growth has slowed and energy is going into something else. Blossoms are falling, seeds and fruits are ripening in a progression providing a plentiful and changing diet for wildlife.
A summer storm, ?stronger than average, rushed through the area a little more than a week ago now. Fast growing soft maples and boxelders broke and fell all around the area. Of the trees that fell many had unseen flaws. My saw cut through voids stuffed with dry field grass or rotten areas filled with ants. A large cherry tree in the margin between field and forest snapped off four feet above the ground. By the time I got to it I was tired. I walked the length of the trunk cutting off limbs and called it a day before I was able to finish.
On my return a few days later the air was still and humid and a sweet fruity ?smell rose from the leaves and wood of the downed tree. It was not for me. ?The smell ?would have been there had I not returned to the spot. Yet if I live to be ninety, it may enter my mind when someone mentions summer humidity, storms and downed trees. It is now stored in memory ?under “summer” next to ?sweet clover and lilacs.
Saturday was the first hatch of Mayflies(that I have noticed) on the river for the summer. It came to my attention because the unlucky owner of a gas station failed to notice the first few flies of the hatch and left the lights of his station on all night. Owners of any business near the river know to go dark at the first sign of a hatch.

Normally filling my tank is a solitary chore, but on Saturday morning I had the company of Mr. Wilson as he swept up piles of may flies who live little more than a day. Lacey wings, no mouth, they appear on the surface of the river and ?take to the air to ?mate or be distracted by an electric light.

As kids we called them “skoplotches”(a google search yields”did you mean splotch?” and one other entry.) I had the impression it was a native american word-I suppose it is possible that is right.
The red elderberries are gone now and the ?common elderberry ?is in bloom. Wild grape vines have green fruit about the size of a pea. The sumac has its red berries now.

As an update to last week’s entry, I am still picking a fair number of black raspberries. They have been numerous and very juicy compared to some years. Because of the frequent rains that we have been experiencing, I think the coming week should still provide plenty of berries for my time and effort.

This past week we have noticed a considerable amount of fresh raccoon scat in our backyard. The scat has been full of seeds from ripe mulberries falling from a couple of trees in the yard. We have also noticed considerable bird feeding activity in the trees. Red mulberry (Morus rubra) have lush edible berries that are a dark purple color when fully ripe. In addition to delicious berries, mulberry trees have provided wood for fencepost, furniture and agricultural implements. In Red Wing, we are on the northern edge of its range.

On the early morning of Friday July 18th, a friend and I paddled a six mile route with my canoe through the Mississippi river backwaters. The trip started at the Izaak Walton league and proceeded through 2nd cut, “hole in the wall”, Dead slough lake and ended at Presbyterian point at the head of Lake Pepin. With the river level dropping to the 2.6 feet mark, it was my intention to see if any white pelicans had returned to feed in the shallow backwaters.

Over the course of the six mile outing, no pelicans were observed. However numerous great blue herons and immature bald eagles were sighted. It is quite remarkable how the resident eagle population has expanded in the last ten years.

Along the way on exposed sandy beaches. we observed the common wild flower “bouncing bet” (Saponaria officinalis) in full bloom. This plant is also known as soapwort. When I would take ELC groups on local kayak outings, I would introduce the participants to the fact that they could produce a nice soapy lather by rigorously rubbing the leaves with a little water.Try it sometime. It is a wonderful cleaning agent if you forget your soap on a camping trip.