Cable Natural History Museum

The shiny resin on balsam poplar buds turns to airborne molecules during spring leaf-out. Those molecules contain a myriad of chemicals that are useful to the tree -- and beneficial to us! Thriving in the far north -- farther than any other broadleaf tree in North America -- balsam poplar is poised to make drastic changes to the tundra as summer temperatures warm.

The post 427 – Balsam Poplar: Tree of the Far North first appeared on Cable Natural History Museum.

A lump of gray fur in the middle of the trail pulled us up short. The small mammal was about the size of a gray squirrel, but with cute, round ears tucked below their silhouette. I’d never seen a Franklin’s ground squirrel before! On various websites I read that these are a species of tallgrass prairies, although they’ve declined as the prairies have declined. In the southeastern part of their range the squirrels are barely hanging on in grassy roadsides and railroad right-of-ways—the same places where a few native plants have escaped the plow. Several sources suggested that they belong only in the southern and western portions of Minnesota.

The post 426 – A Prairie-Dweller Moves North first appeared on Cable Natural History Museum.

My companion gasped in the middle of a sentence as a pine warbler darted over my head and landed on rough spruce bark a few feet way. Then he swooped to a rock wall and paused mid-hop to belt out a trill. We watched his stout beak open and his white wing bars vibrate with the effort. Pine warblers are aptly named, as they are rarely spotted anywhere but in pine trees.

The post 425 – The Trill of a Pine Warbler first appeared on Cable Natural History Museum.

First, we squinted, then we peered through binoculars, and finally I zoomed in with my camera to make sense of the dark shapes. The ducks had a funny conehead and a gracefully swooped patch of gray on their side. The pale ring around their dark beak was the most distinctive character. I’m not good at waterfowl, so I wracked my brain for a likely ID…were they ring-billed ducks? That would be logical. But no, a quick peek through the Merlin app’s helpful photos confirmed that these were ring-necked ducks. Huh?

The post 424 – A Torrent of Mis-Named Birds first appeared on Cable Natural History Museum.

Just having returned from a week of birdwatching on the Atlantic coast, the plump-bodied, long-billed silhouette of this “hokumpoke” reminded us of the sanderlings, dunlins, and willets we’d watched scurry ahead of the waves. It’s a strange fact that despite their preference for damp thickets instead of beaches, woodcocks are the most numerous sandpiper in North America.

The post 423 – A Shorebird in the Forest first appeared on Cable Natural History Museum.

The fish appeared to be a striped mullet, a common species of coastal waters. At first, the mullet appeared to be winning. They flopped and slipped father through the herons bill, surely about to escape the final grip on their head. Then the heron’s plan became apparent. All the movement was maneuvering the fish’s head to aim aerodynamically into the heron’s beak. With one last toss of their head, the fish disappeared.

The post 422 – The Heron’s Plan first appeared on Cable Natural History Museum.

It was well before sunrise as we drove into the Namekagon Barrens Wildlife Area and parked the truck. Moving as silently as possible, we grabbed our chairs, a much needed thermos of coffee, and started the walk to the viewing blind, its white silhouette barely visible in the distance. Once to the blind, we crawled inside, set up our chairs, and unclipped the blinds windows. I stared out into the dark of the early morning, feelings of excitement and anticipation buzzing through me. Afterall, it’s not everyday that I get the chance to watch sharp-tailed grouse dance on their lekking ground.

The post 421 – Sunrise Dancers first appeared on Cable Natural History Museum.

On the inside, turkey vultures’ intense stomach acids can kill the microbes that cause botulism, anthrax, cholera, tuberculosis, salmonella, and rabies. How appropriate that the birds’ scientific name—Cathartes aura—means “purifying breeze.” Their digestive system is so powerful that it even destroys the DNA of their food. As of March 27, I still haven’t seen a turkey vulture in the Northwoods, but soon they’ll be showing up on the wind and helping us out with a little spring cleaning!

The post 420 – Spring Cleaning with Turkey Vultures first appeared on Cable Natural History Museum.

From the top of a leafless oak tree commenced a steady stream of whistles and warbles that sounded as if an entire flock of flickers, vireos, titmice, cardinals, and wood thrushes were all taking turns. Just one robin-sized bird perched there, though. Brown thrashers are “mimics” who increase their repertoire of songs and show off their skills to the ladies by copying from other birds. Across the Southeast are brown thrashers who will soon be migrating north, just a little bit behind the loons. Their concert tour continues! Plan to attend one of their performances at dawn in your local shrubbery.

The post 419 – Thrasher Concert first appeared on Cable Natural History Museum.

Scientists used to think that almost all our Common Loons spend the winter on salt water. From across the northern lakes, loons migrate to both coasts and the gulf each fall to avoid ice-up. Now we know that more than 100 loons spend each winter on a large freshwater lake in South Carolina. In this relatively small area, it becomes easier to carry out research on loon behavior.

The post 418 – The Loons of Lake Jocassee first appeared on Cable Natural History Museum.