Storm Damage closes several state trails, rangers occupied at Capitol

Brigit Brown, State Trails Coordinator at the DNR, sent out the following info about sections of some state trails being closed due to storm damage from Wednesday.

Our staff is working on getting all the debris from the storms cleared, but we've got a fair amount of storm damage around here and just a handful of staff to deal with a pretty large area. We're pulling in folks from all around, but we've got a number of our rangers who have to work security at the capitol, and damage at other properties that has to be dealt with. Anyway, we're working as hard as we can to get everything cleared, but as of yesterday, parts of the Badger, Sugar River, and Military Ridge are closed. We put the word out (press release) yesterday through our "official" channels, but that's not to say that the news has reached everyone (or even many).

There are two crews right now working to get Military Ridge open. They'll continue to work through the weekend (if needed) to get it done.

Please know that there are several wash outs on the Military Ridge that we won't be able to fix right away but as we're clearing debris, we're marking the washouts with cones (some are holes, some not so obvious soft areas).

-Brigit

Note that, although people are desperately needed to clean up after a major storm, some of the DNR folks are up at the Capitol, occupied as palace guards.

I can't blame the DNR for this. They are being called out to work where their bosses - the Governor and the Legislature, or maybe the DNR Secretary - tell them to go. It just illustrates that how screwed up the situation at the Capitol is, once again.

Snowshoe walk to Arboretum springs

One of my favorite places to go on a short walk in winter is down to the springs along Lake Wingra. Although you can ski to the springs, it is more direct to go by snowshoe, or just hike with sturdy boots. If you start in the parking lot on the north side of Arboretum Drive, just east of the Visitors Center, you can walk down the hill through the woods. If you want to ski, you have to go around the long way, because the Arb doesn't want people skiing down the slope. Besides, it's pretty steep and twisty for XC skis!

I am always amazed how well-worn the paths are in the middle of winter. Even though we got over 18 inches of snow just a few days ago, the path can easily be walked in boots. It is cut about 9 inches into the surrounding area, with the base well packed down.

The Big Spring is a large area of open water all winter that is filled with water birds in even the harshest conditions. If there are still berries on the trees, or during late fall and early spring migrations, you can also see and hear small birds flitting through the brush along the Big Spring.

Father down the path, you come to a stream flowing out of the hillside and towards the lake. Amid the white, black, grey, and spots of brown that are the winter palette, the springs show a bright green in the snow. Although it looks sort of like pond scum, this is actually watercress.

This is why I love this walk. The green in the middle of the winter reminds me that life continues, even in the deep snow.  There is copious water coming from these springs, and no matter how harsh the weather, the streams flow and support the plants. Here are some notes from a walk by an Arboretum naturalist that had some similar thoughts in December.

In the summer, the walk to this area is along a boardwalk through a wetland. As explained in this set of notes from another naturalist led walk back in 2007, this is a fen, a wetland that has a more basic water and soil than many of the bogs of northern Wisconsin.

Not being a morning person, my walks often start in the afternoon, and by the time I am ready to head back home, the light is often low. I always think that my photos are going to be too dark, and Saturday I even forgot my camera and had to use my cell phone. But the cameras on cell phones have gotten much better, and I was actually quite pleased with how some photos of the spring came out in the low light.

The image to the right is a bit farther into the wetland. I don't think you wouldn't be able to access this area during the summer, although the boardwalk may continue this far. After this, I tried to follow a small trail worn into the snow, but I think it might have been made by some of the UW researchers that work in the Arb, because it got very tangled up in the brush after a few hundred yards. I turned back, realizing that I'd probably end up out on Nakoma or Monroe St, if I kept going - if I got that far.

In the fresh snow, red blood stains where an animal ate a squirrel stood out. At first I thought it would have been an owl, but after seeing a couple locations, all deep in the underbrush, I decided it was more likely another mammal that finished off these squirrels. Maybe a fox? The pictures didn't really come out well, so I didn't include them.

As I climbed back up the hill, away from the lake and into the woods, the patterns created by the drifting snow caught my eye. There were circular depressions where the snow had drifted around the trees, and little mounds, like goosebumps, where bits of brush and twigs had accumulated more snow.

Even though the deeply worn trails multiple tracks show that many others have come before me, I always feel that this walk is a little secret of mine. While the prairie woods near the visitors center are popular place to ski or hike, you sort of have to know that the springs are down the steep hill. Most people don't go looking for open water and green plants in the depths of winter, especially after the amount of snow that came our way last week. But the Arboretum always shows its gems to those that are willing to explore.

SnowM-G: Notes from the Great Blizzard of 2011

Random thoughts from Snowmaggedon 2011:

A winter Sunday in the Arboretum

One of the great joys about living in Madison is the opportunity to get outside and enjoy nature, year round, even if you live in the heart of the city. One way to do that is to visit the UW Arboretum. Every Sunday there are two nature walks, one for adults, and one for families (that is, kid-friendly.) They may take off a Sunday around Thanksgiving or Christmas, but other than that, they run them in all weather and seasons.*

The last walk I went on was a couple two Sundays ago, and it was sunny with calm winds, so despite the temperature in the 20s, it was quite enjoyable to be outside. These walks give me a reason to get my butt out of the house on a wintery Sunday, when it is far too easy to hang around indoors all day. If there is snow, I'm eager to XC ski or snowshoe, but when there's no fresh snow, it's nice to have someone willing to lead a walk.

The topics of these walks vary quite a bit. Some that I have attended were focused on glacial features, prairie plants, spring ephemerals, Indian mounds, fungi and mushrooms, fall prairie plants, and wetland environments. Some of the naturalists are experts on birds, others on plants, and others on insects, but all have a wide variety of interests and knowledge, and they try to answer questions as best they can. The people going along on the hikes often can answer the questions as well, since these hikes tend to attract people generally interested in the natural environment.

The most recent hike was much less focused on a particular topic, and we went only a short distance to Longnecker Gardens to generally check out winter conditions. We looked at some animal tracks, talked about the birds and animals that can be seen in winter, and kept an eye out for anything else that happened or came by. Winter is a great time to get to know trees by their shape, since most are bare of leaves and it is very easy to see the branch structure. Unless you are used to looking at trees, you tend to think of evergreens as conical, and other trees as having a straight, thick trunk branches splitting off and getting smaller as you go up. We sort of think of a tree as being a stick with a fluffy crown of leaves. That's how kids draw trees, right?

But from across an open area like Longnecker Woods, and without the leaves, you can see the structure of the trees, and see how some are tall and skinny, others a more chaotic jumble of branch sizes, and still others having multiple trunks coming from the ground.

You can also see the birds and animals in the trees much more easily. Red tail hawks are very common in the Arb, and they love to hunt the snowy areas with only scattered trees. Twice we say a hawk swoop down from a tall tree along the edge of the gardens, but we didn't see wither one catch anything. It also seems to be easier to hear the bird calls, since there is less ambient noise in winter, and the sound isn't muffled by the leaves. While our guide was talking, I kept hearing a bird calling over the ridge, but of course, it stopped as soon as I asked if anyone could identify it.

But we did get a great treat a few minutes later, when a call came ringing over the snow from the edge of the forest. It was almost like a laughing sound, and as a matter of fact, some humans laughed on the other side of the gardens just after the bird had finished calling. They sounded like they were echoing the bird's call. I had heard the call before, but couldn't quite place it. From the volume and distance, we figured it was a pretty good sized bird, not a chickadee or nuthatch-sized. “I think that might be a woodpecker of some sort.”, I suggested. Finally, one of our group spotted something up in one of the tallest trees on the forest edge. With the small binoculars our guide had in his pouch, we took a look. Red head, definitely woodpecker-shaped. It was a pileated woodpecker!

So despite the winter, I recommend the Arboretum walks, whether you go on the longer adult walks or the shorter family walks. I have never failed to learn something, and it's just nice to be outside in the woods with a few like-minded souls.

* Our guide said that the two weather conditions that will cancel the walks are lightening, and temperatures significantly below zero plus wind. He said that earlier this year he took a walk with two brave souls when the temperature was around 40 degrees, and there was horizontal, pouring rain. He said they had a great time just watching things blowing around out on Curtis Prairie.

Raising monarchs

Another post to mull the natural world and enjoy urban nature.

I'm raising monarch butterflies again. There is quite a bit of common milkweed in my front yard, and some swamp milkweed in the backyard. I think the common variety just showed up uninvited, but I'm thrilled to have it because I love to have monarchs flitting through the yard, and milkweed is the only plant where the female will lay eggs, and they only plant the caterpillars will eat. The swamp milkweed works too, but the common milkweed is larger, sturdier, and I can pick the leaves and stems without significantly reducing the overall plant population. And the caterpillars eat a lot when they get big.

Wild visitors to the Walnut St greenhouses

Among of the wonderful things about bicycling are the things you see at slow speed and the ability to stop and enjoy them. It is difficult to stop on a busy street to greet a friend when you are driving,  but it's pretty easy on a bike. You can see the funny, sad, beautiful, and weird things that exist in your community, but are often missed as we rush about encased in our metal boxes.

Biking home along the campus Lakeshore Path I have had many of these special experiences, although they usually involve wildlife of view of the lake instead of other humans. I have seen migrating tundra swans, otters (or some large, weasel-shaped animal that ran in front of me), and nesting great-horned owls. I've been dive-bombed by angry redwing blackbirds, heard those owls calling to their young in the dark, watched the willows sway and bend as a storm rolls in, and laughed at the gulls lined up in rows on the deck of a boat moored in University Bay. The color of the lake and sky just after sunset as I bike west is an entrancing mix of blue, pink, purple, and indigo that paint could never capture. That color draws me in every time, and seems impossibly rich.

But last night my joyous moment happened a bit away from the lake. As I headed south on Walnut, past the greenhouses, I noticed a couple of visitors headed east on Observatory. They strolled along the grass and then peered into the greenhouse windows, walking between the low brick wall and the glass building. One stayed on the grass, and was harassed by a pair of redwing blackbirds that were likely nesting nearby. They seemed much more bothered by the other birds than by me, as I followed them on my bike at a discreet distance.

Aldo Leopold, while a professor here in Madison, on seeing a sandhill crane flying overhead once told a graduate student, "Take a good look at that crane, because you may never see one again." He wrote about the dwindling crane population in Marshland Elegy: 

Someday, perhaps in the very process of our benefactions, perhaps in the fullness of geologic time, the last crane will trumpet his farewell and spiral skyward from the great marsh. High out of the clouds will fall the sound of hunting horns, the bang of the phantom pack, the tinkle of little bells, and then a silence never to be broken - unless perchance in some far pasture of the Milky Way. 

Fortunately, we stopped many of the practices that were dooming the cranes, and now they are so common that they wander our urban parks and even mowed lawns on the UW campus. We stopped draining the wetlands and marshes, became more careful about the chemicals we put into the environment, and stopped hunting threatened species. But we are still harming the natural world in ways that will doom more species. 

Finally, the visitors left the greenhouses and paused on the grass near the parking lot for a bit. The light was fading, and they seemed perfectly at home wandering the campus, so I went on my way with another memory of the little moments made possible by quiet, clean, healthy, human-powered transportation.

Bird feeder observations

Nothing profound today, just some musings on what I see at my bird feeder while I work on the porch.nice

Working at home and setting my own schedule definitely has some advantages, although it has some drawbacks as well. I draw energy and ideas from talking to people face-to-face, and get some of my best inspiration from random encounters while I'm out in the world.  Being able to wake up and open my laptop doesn't force me to get out and interact with people. But watching birds, butterflies, kids on bikes, and neighbors walk from the front porch is as well.

I have two bird feeders hanging from the gutters of my porch. This allows me to watch the birds while I'm working, and also keeps the squirrels at bay. (Although the squirrels have tried jumping from the railing of the porch and crawling across the screens to reach the feeders, they can't make the transition.)

One of the feeders is filled with sunflower seeds, which is usually touted as the standard "everyone loves it" option. The other is filled with a "woodpecker mix," which has lots of peanuts, corn, dried fruit, as well as shelled sunflower seeds and a few other bits and pieces. The woodpecker feeder is a course mesh so that the larger pieces can be extracted.

So which feeder and mix do the birds prefer? The woodpecker mix/peanuts. They are eating that stuff like nobody's business and more of less ignoring the sunflower seed feeder right next to it.

Here's what has visited my feeder this year:

• Lots and lots of sparrows. 
• House finches
• Chickadees. I love these cute, friendly, social birds.
• Nuthatches. I think I've had a pair nesting in the tree out front for a couple years now. What is great about nuthatches is the way they hang upside down while feeding. That's a nuthatch in the photo at top.
• Cardinals.
• Goldfinches, although I feel bad that I don't have their favorite thistle feeder up and full. 
• Red wing blackbirds. This seems strange, as they usually are next to water. This is the first year I've had this bird visit my feeder, and he's come a few times. Maybe he's confused.
• And yes, I also have had a couple of woodpeckers. I think they are downy woodpeckers, although I'm never sure, because hairy woodpeckers look very much like them.

Also visiting in the past were many grackles and starlings. They are bullies and eat too much. I'd rather they didn't visit the feeder, but I can't stop them.

I have lots of other birds in my yard that don't visit the feeders:

• House wrens. This tiny bird nests in a horizontal pole in my backyard, and you wouldn't believe how loud and persistent he is in singing to find a mate. Unfortunately, he's singing at dawn and right outside my bedroom window. And I'm not a morning person, so his search for a mate feels like the middle of the night to me.
• Robins. Of course.
• Cat birds. They really do sound like a little kitten mewing.
• Baltimore orioles. I think.
• Cedar waxwings. They come through in big bunches and all hang out in the same tree, then move to another. They usually show up when a tree or bush is in fruit.
• Crows. Another early morning noisemaker, but far less sweet and friendly as the wren. I have actually closed my window a few times when they get worked up over something. I think they are hanging out in the pine trees a few doors down.
• And some sort of hawk lives across the street. It's not a red-tail, but either a Cooper's or sharp-shinned hawk, which are found in forests, instead of fields, like a red-tail. These hawks can make sharp 90 degree turns and fly in dense woods. They've picked off a few birds from my neighbors' feeders across the street.

I'm sure I've forgotten a few birds, and don't know what else is calling in the trees and brush in my back yard. I didn't even try to figure out what comes through during migration. I have lots of different habitat in my tiny urban yard. Open grass, vegetable garden, fruiting trees and shrubs (mulberries, wild grapes, rasberries, and currants), perennial beds that seed, and a whole lot of trees and shrubs that I don't trim in the back. Lots of places to hide, nest, feed, and hang out.

If you would like to look up any birds, or figure out what call you are hearing in the morning, I suggest a great web page by the Cornell Lab or Ornithology.  It's got as much information as you could possibly want, plus sound files of the various calls, songs, an other noises birds make.

The Chickadee's song says spring is coming!

The last few days, it has been clear that spring is on the way. The snow is melting quickly on the sidewalk, even when there is still a sharp wind. The sun is obviously stronger, and the days longer.

For someone like me, who loves to be outdoors, including in winter, who skis and snowshoes and hikes happily in the snow, but suffers what used to be called "cabin fever," and is now called Seasonal Affective Disorder, the long day and stronger sun is a welcome sign of spring. Despite my joy at a fresh snowfall and bright, cold days, so I can enjoy the snow, February is not my best month.

But today's springtime joy was hearing the chickadees in my neighborhood calling out to each other and searching out mates. I love chickadees, and don't mind the fact that they eat most of the seed in my feeders. They just seem like such sweet birds, not like the quarrelsome and seemingly sort of dumb sparrows. The chickadees will take one seed at a time and fly off to eat it on a branch, leaving room for another bird.

Most of the year the call of the chickadee is its name: chicka-dee-dee-dee. It is a little scratchy, though not unpleasant, and associated with the woods in my mind, a sound that I hear walking under pine trees, especially up north. But when they are looking for mates, the males have a song instead of a call. Fee-bee... fee-bee. Slow, the first note higher than the second. A bit lonely, but also hopeful.

And a clear sign that spring is coming.

Visit Unseen Madison web site. I need competition!

A friend and neighbor, Gordon Heingartner, created the Unseen Madison web site with Jeff Durbin. It's a great place to learn a little about the natural world that you pass by every day. Sometimes they have short interviews with local naturalists, historians, professors, or local activists like Dave Thompson. These are fun, bite-sized podcasts or written pieces that give you insight into why Madison looks the way it does.

But they've also been running quizzes, and they haven't been getting many entries. As a matter of fact, I've won the last two just because there weren't enough people responding! I put it on my RSS feed so I would know when they had new updates.

This is a great web site, and the answers are not too hard to find, if you do just a little research. Even if you don't want to enter the quizzes, drop by to find out about Unseen Madison.

And I'd like to see someone else win some of the cool stuff they are giving away.