December bricolage

A female hairy woodpecker visits my suet feeder regularly, and I’d bet any money that she is the same one that came all summer long, as a juvenile, in the company of a male, presumably her father. She learned well from her dad, and she still comes.

One day in mid-December, I spotted her wrapped around the suet feeder, her tail curved around one end as she pecked away at the other end. A sudden fluttering caught my interest, as another woodpecker landed briefly, to snatch a quick bite. The new arrival stayed just long enough that I could see her small bill and also see that she was much smaller than the hairy woodpecker. So there was no doubt about it; it was a downy woodpecker. I’m told that they seldom nest in our area but we sometimes see them in the off-season.

On a gray and foggy day, I turned on to the road by the Pioneers’ Home, where the line of young cottonwood trees is often used for perches by eagles scrounging from the nearby dump. On this day, half a dozen eagles were hanging out on the cottonwood branches. In the fog, the eagles were black, the graceful branches were black, the whole array artistically displayed like silhouettes on a silvery backdrop. Splendid!

A few days later, I wandered down the east shore of Mendenhall Lake, then cutting over to the Moraine Ecology Trail. Some post-holing, some bush-whacking, a wet foot from finding a soft spot in the ice—but the quietness was pleasing. The sound of Nugget Falls and scattered raindrops tapping on my cap—that was it. Aaah—maybe a red squirrel chattering over in the woods. I found a thriving, bright green patch of stiff clubmoss, poking perkily up out of the snow, still bearing immature cones. Surprisingly, there were no hare tracks, but beavers had been busy in a couple of places, packing down a trail between ponds, dragging a few branches over the snow, and starting new cuts on some big cottonwoods. An ermine had bounded from one clump of brush to another. The only observable activity was provided by two small, flying insects, maybe midges.

Seeing those little fliers reminded me of other ‘bugs’ that come out on the snow, at least on days of mild weather (although some caddisflies spend the whole winter as winged adults). Several kinds of arthropods, from many different taxonomic groups, can be active in winter; here are some of them: a variety of tiny flies known as midges are active in winter; most fly about but others are flightless.  Males of a moth called Bruce’s spanworm fly in late fall and early winter, mating with wingless females that lay their overwintering eggs in protected sites such as bark crevices. There are winter-active craneflies that dance in swarms, mostly in fall and spring but also in winter, and stoneflies that emerge in late winter, crawling onto land to mate. A fungus gnat can tolerate very low temperatures because it has an antifreeze protein in head and thorax (but not the abdomen, which can freeze and apparently thus reduce evaporative water loss). The famous iceworm (it’s really a worm, somewhat related to earthworms) lives on glaciers, crawling down into cracks and crevices where the temperatures are said to stay about thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit; so they don’t freeze and can go on feeding on microscopic algae and detritus.

Springtail. Photo by Bob Armstrong

And then there are the springtails, non-insect arthropods, most of which can hop about using a forked appendage on the abdomen. Several kinds can be found hopping or crawling over the snow, looking for microscopic bits of food or dispersing to new places. Their predators are out too, including spiders, beetle larvae and danceflies (see photos). A study of one kind of dancefly found that males swarmed near selected landmarks on sunny, windless days in winter, at temperatures as low as eight degrees centigrade. The males carried captured insects to lure females to the swarm, presumably eventually using the prey as a courtship gift.

A dance fly with a springtail. Photo by Bob Armstrong

Thanks to Bob Armstrong and John Hudson for guidance about winter arthropods.

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Fun at Home

I love to walk our trails, just to see what I can see. But sometimes there’s a lot to see in my front yard and pond. Then I wear a path from window to window (with side trips to the fridge and tea kettle). This spring has provided some home-based fun.

The shenanigans of the mallards are an annual happening. The ducks start to visit the pond soon after ice-out. Pairs sort themselves out and by late May mama ducks start to bring their tiny ducklings for an occasional visit. This year there were several brood of eight or nine and one brood of just one duckling.

The littlest ones have a hard time jumping up to join mama on the bank for a rest. They zip back and forth in front of her and make lots of futile little leaps. The female often tries several spots before finding one they can all master. Sometimes only part of a brood makes the jump and the rest have to find access at some distance and make a small overland trek. When ducklings are small, the mother broods them, making herself as broad as possible to cover them all, although even then a few heads and tails poke out from under her.

The unpaired males that have already fathered these broods are hanging about, all revved up and looking for more action. They harass any late-forming pairs and even mothers with babies, causing lots of fuss and flapping. The female with one offspring was persistently pursued, driving her to protest continually and even leave the pond several times. If I opened the windows, I could hear the little one peeping in apparent distress.

A flotilla of visiting ducklings is probably what brought an eagle down to march along the bank, eyeing one brood with malevolent intent. (Yes, I know, eagles have to eat too.) A swoop or two over the water failed, as the brood scooted for cover, and the eagle left, still hungry.

Juvenile juncos had been chip-chipping in the woods along various trails since mid-May. Here at home, there were well-fledged juveniles, of two separate families, by the first week of June, quite able to pick up seeds for themselves but often waiting for dad to deliver. It was the male juncos that stuffed the juveniles with peanut butter and seeds, leading me to suspect that the females were back on eggs again, for second broods. (They can do three or four a year.) The juveniles tried the peanut butter feeder occasionally but looked like they needed some practice, and they preferred to wait for dad.

A male hairy woodpecker made occasional visits to peanut butter and suet, but by mid-June his visits were quite frequent. He hacked out big chunks of suet and carried them off, leaving crumbs for the little birds to pick up. He would swallow several bits of peanut butter but carry away one last load in his bill. So I knew he had a family. And finally, a big, well-feathered fledgling joined his father on the deck railing and begged for peanut butter. I wondered if the mother was tending another young one somewhere.

The chickadees were feeding big kids too. And a great treat was seeing the whole family of nuthatches crowding together on a small block of suet. Two sleek fledglings chipped off bits of suet for themselves, but were also happy to have chunks delivered by the parents.

A bear came to eat horsetail in my front yard. They do this every year. Often they lie down flat and just scoop in the green stuff. This guy got up and wandered up toward the house, sniffing and sniffing, then stood under the edge of the deck to sniff some more. No doubt the aroma of peanut butter was in the air. Before I could say oh-oh, the bear shot up a nearby tree like lightning, just a black blur. It went up above the roof level, out of sight. Now, I’m not too enthusiastic about a bear on my roof (or deck). I raced outside to check the roof, but by then it was already down and gone. The tree was just a bit too far away from roof and deck. But just in case, I have moved the alluring feeder to the other end of the deck; the birds are getting used to the new arrangement.

One more bear story: A medium-size cinnamon bear came and foraged on horsetail. That gave me time to see that she looked like she’d worn a collar for a long time because her fur was very worn in a circle around the neck, but she had no visible ear tags. Eventually, she started to wander out of sight. Immediately, an alder tree across the pond gave a violent shudder, and a massive glossy-black bear suddenly appeared in the yard. He chomped a couple of horsetails but was much more interested in her, and he followed her off into the neighbors’ yard. It’s that time of year for bears!