Red Wing Nature Notes

Recent phenological observations:

March 25- The maple syrup season ended for me today.  I tap silver maples located on south-facing terrain.  Because of a string of warm days last week, my trees started to flower causing the sap to become discolored and unfit for syrup.  In visiting with Jug Johnson, their trees located in the Cannon Bottoms are still yielding nice clear sap as of March 31.

March 28- I spent the day outside cleaning up my maple syrup equipment.  Throughout the day from 8am. to 5pm., hardly ten minutes went by that I didn’t hear or see flocks of tundra swans overhead flying in a northwest direction to their nesting grounds in the arctic.

March 29- This afternoon I observed a flock of at least two dozen northern shoveler ducks on Frontenac Pond.

 It is interesting how different events signal the coming of spring for different people.  For my mother, the first sign of spring was having the tulips on the south side of the house reveal their green leaves above ground.  She also knew spring was just around the corner when we could go out and cut some pussy willows for the dining room table.  On Tuesday March 24th, I spotted my first sign of pussy willows in the wetlands of the Perch Valley Wildlife Management Area along highway 61 just east of Wacouta.

This might seem somewhat strange, but growing up in the small rural community of Harmony, Minnesota, the most exciting sign of spring for me was observing the first fresh pocket gopher mounds.  Until the age of 16, earning spending money was limited to having a paper route or lawn mowing jobs in the neighborhood.

During the spring and summer months, I found an alternative way to earn a large percentage of my disposable income- pocket gopher trapping.  Local farmers were eager to have the gophers trapped for a couple of reasons.  Pocket gopher mounds in hayfields created a nightmare when trying to stand on a wagon while loading hay bales during summer haying season.  Another concern was that out of control gopher populations attracted badgers to come and dig huge holes in the fields as they searched for prey.  These large holes could injure cattle feeding in the pastures.

Trapping gophers became profitable because the farmers would pay .15 per gopher to be matched by a bounty paid by the township.  These bounties were paid once a month at the Harmony town board meetings.  To meet the challenge of keeping as many as 100 dead gophers from smelling for a month, trappers were required to turn in only the front feet tacked onto a board.  Front feet are easily recognized from back feet because of the long claws useful in digging.

Living at the edge of town, I was able to walk to adjoining fields belonging to two different farmers.  My trapping outings took place starting at daylight before school and later in the day after classes were dismissed.

I have several fond and a few not so fond memories of hiking through the peaceful fields as the sun would rise in the east.  One morning in particular, as I was checking an underground trap only to discover just a little too late that it held a spotted skunk (known in those days as a civet cat) instead of a gopher.  Before I realized what was happening, I was blasted in the face by a most devastating force.  The next thing I remembered, I was depositing my breakfast on the ground in front of me.  Fortunately this happened on a Saturday morning so that I didn’t face to face my classmates at school.

More pleasant early morning memories included listening to a variety of spring bird calls featuring the eastern meadowlark, bobolink and red-headed woodpecker all of which are seldom heard or seen in southeastern Minnesota anymore.  I have recently observed a fair number of meadowlarks in the restored prairie area on the east end of Frontenac State Park.

No doubt one of my most vivid memories took place early one morning as the sun was breaking the horizon.  A beautiful red fox trotted right up to me as I was kneeling on the ground tending one of my traps.  As I reflect back on these early adventures in my life, I feel very fortunate to have had these earth bonding experiences instead of simply being connected to the next electrical gadget.

The sap has been slow this spring.  By last weekend, we had collected just enough to complete our first boil.  We boiled the majority of it down outside, then finished boiling it on the Coleman stove.  Unfortunately, the wind shut down the sap on Sunday.  Hopefully things will start moving again soon.

Several Minnesota State Parks have maple syruping programs through April 11.  For more information visit www.mnstateparks.info.

On Thursday, March 26th, I saw a snipe or woodcock on a township road near a marshy area.  It was sitting on the road near dusk and didn’t fly off when I drove past.  I backed up for a better look and a photo, but it flew.  My first impression was that it was a woodcock, but I haven’t seen one around here in the spring.  Hopefully I’ll get the chance to see it again.

New spring arrivals that I have observed since my last post include:
March 17th- turkey vultures, red-winged blackbirds and common grackles

March 20th- wood ducks

March 21st- several flocks of migrating tundra swans heading north

March 23rd- eastern meadowlarks

For the past five years as  a part of the Red Wing Eagle Watch, I have managed to procure a couple road killed deer to take out and deposit directly across from the viewing area for the bald eagles to feed upon.

This activity has provided for some interesting viewing and conversations among the many eagle watchers.  More than once, people have been heard to say “I can’t believe the coincidence of having a deer drop dead in front of the viewing area.”

In years past, it would take a week or more for the eagles to completely remove all the meat from the carcass.  This prolonged period of feeding activity has provided for some outstanding photography opportunities.

On March 12th, my friend Don Brooks and I transported the deer out to the selected feeding area.  Because a deer has hollow hairs, it will float when placed in the water.  By attaching one end of a rope to the deer and the other end to the back of my canoe, moving the deer is not a big undertaking.  What does capture people’s attention is driving down the highway in mid-winter trailoring my canoe carrying a dead deer.

The morning we had selected for this project dawned with temperatures hovering below zero.  Our biggest challenge was breaking one inch of ice which covered over half of the bay.  The main reason we had selected this Thursday to take out the deer was that hopefully there would be feeding activity throughout the weekend.  Unfortunately, we miscalculated how hungry the eagles were in this area.

The next morning I was visiting with a photographer from Green Bay, WI and he informed me that eagles had come onto the deer within 15 minutes of our departure.  He went on to say that as many as ten eagles had the carcass cleaned to skin and bones within two hours.  Needless to say, there wasn’t anything left to eat for the weekend.

However, as I mentioned in my last post, eagles were on the nest incubating eggs as of March 14th.  This past weekend March 21 and 22 Eagle Watch visitors were able to witness the nesting pair take turns going out to feed and catch fish.  Several times the returning eagle would have a fish in its talons.

Looking ahead to future activity at the nest if all goes well,by April 19th one should be able to observe the parent eagles bringing in food for the newly hatched eaglets.

It’s Sunday morning and the dogs deserve a walk in the fields. The sun rose a little while ago, orange at first as it rose into a mostly blue sky. There’s a noticable southeast wind and the sun is a little weak. Maybe it has something to do with the rain forecast for tomorrow. As we leave the house walking into the fields I hear turkeys gobbling in the wooded ravine behind me for the first time this year. We walk west on the treeline  where I heard a pheasant squaking earlier this week. The fields are brown and hard in some places, mushy in others. The trees are without leaves. As I walk I can hear the wind in bare branches on one side of me and the fuller sound the wind in the grass on the other.

As we walk I am collecting bird sounds. First it was the turkeys, then a Blue jay and the chirping of some blackbirds. I hear cardinals and chicadees and then the sound of something I can’t identify. As I get closer I look high in a dead tree. I think it’s a fly catcher or King  bird. We have lots of these around our place, but these are the first I’ve seen this year.

Last Spring I learned something that I should have known already. Maybe I knew it and forgot. I can identify a few different kinds of ducks in flight and, of course, Canada Geese are easy. In the spring when I would hear sounds , look to the sky and see big birds on their migration north it was geese that I saw. I would see them without really looking and hear them without really listening.

Then Bruce posted that the swans were migrating. The next time I looked up at a flock of geese I noticed they were white and the calls were different than honking of geese. Now I see these flocks of big, white birds and I say with conviction, “swans”. How would I know for sure? I’ve never seen them circle, set their wings and drop from the sky. They are certainly not landing in our fields. They are coming from some unknown place and going north to another place unknown to me. If there’s another bird they could be someone needs to tell me.

This morning I saw three flocks of twenty to thirty “swans” going north. In one flock there were 24 swans and three darker birds flying together on one leg of the “V” at the end. I assume they were geese tagging along.

I decided I wanted a photo of the swans so I took the dogs home and went back out with the camera. After walking for another hour I had only heard one flock of swans in the sky and they were out of range of my camera. I did get a view of HayCreek Valley in the morning sun. The trees are all bare but the branches of different species are varied in color. Quite striking in person, not so much in photos.

As I sit writing this two bluebirds are outside my window hunting bugs.
Also – My son was out in the woods yesterday and reported his first wood tick of the season.

Melting snow and warmer temperatures means that it’s maple sryup time.  Last week I put in 10 taps on this north-facing hillside.  The maples here typically start later, but run longer.  This weekend yielded about six gallons.

Glad to read in Bruce’s post that Marc Vogel spotted a bluebird on March 11.  I saw one near the base of Barn Bluff March 13.