Natural Connections

Birds can collide with windows in any season, but I've always noticed an increasing number of those sickening thuds in spring. As waves of migrating birds head north, we see both a huge increase in the number of individuals, and an increase in birds who are new to the neighborhood and more likely to be hoodwinked by windows.

Now that warm days are turning even window washing and yardwork into attractive tasks because they give us excuses to get outside, it's a good time to think about making your windows better for birds.

Re-published from 2021

As a naturalist, I get the strangest emails. I try not to check them at home, but when my phone buzzed and the subject said "June bug on steroids?" it was worth interrupting my evening chores. "The past couple nights I've heard something hit our window at night when we have lights on and each time I've thought 'that sounded like a June bug… but BIGGER.'" wrote a Museum member.

Chuckling, I wrote her back, "Looks like a predaceous diving beetle! That's their normal size!"

"To name and describe you must first see, and science polishes the gift of seeing," wrote Robin Wall Kimmerer in Braiding Sweetgrass. In this week's Natural Connections, we'll explore some of the vocabulary of winter tree identification, and the beautiful ecology it helps us to see.

One consequence of this weird winter is that plants like mosses, ferns, and wintergreen who are usually protected by a blanket of snow are now exposed to drying winds. This can result in what is essentially freezer burn in nature.

"Who's eating my trees?" asked a participant on a hike last week. I'd been wondering the same thing! A few weeks ago I noticed creamy colored exposed wood on several small maple trees along my driveway.

"Why do animals even eat bark?" someone else asked. Good question.

As our world changes, I'm grieving my old friends cross-country skiing (on natural snow) and the subnivean zone, while still making a point to appreciate new delights. I can't even count how many times I've looked at the frozen surface of a North Shore river and wanted to walk the whimsical ice formations up through bedrock canyons. But on past visits the snow was too deep, the wind chill too brutally cold, or the skiing too good to choose that adventure.

This past weekend, conditions were finally perfect!

I've been hearing a lot of complaints from people who are feeling lonely this winter. For once, they aren't feeling cooped up by icy roads and constant blizzards. Instead, we miss our feathered friends! A suite of factors, including the nice weather, means that birds are not as abundant as usual at our backyard feeders.

One exception, at least at my feeders, are pine siskins.

What a weird winter! In a region where people love to talk about the weather, the chatter has been constant. Skiers and snowmobilers (and the business they support) are particularly grumpy, but many people are trying to make the best of pleasant temperatures, despite the lack of snow. Humans are lucky. We have temperature-controlled homes and clothing that can be changed at the drop of a hat.

But what about non-human beings? How are they faring as temperatures fluctuate from 50 degrees to the teens with barely a skim of snow on the ground? This week, I combed back through my many articles about animals in winter to try and understand what some of the impacts may be.

"Snowflakes are amazing!" I gushed to the students in a recent "Words for Winter Wonder" writing workshop hosted by the Lake Superior Writers in Duluth, Minn.

Water vapor crystalizes around a piece of dust, or dirt, or even a unique bacterium. Then, as puffs and gales of wind toss the nascent snow crystal inside a cloud, they experience varied combinations of temperature and humidity. The crystal grows differently in each new habitat.

"Now, we get to try to imitate that beauty that comes with variety," I said as I passed out a different color of paper to each of the six students. How fitting, I thought, to have six students to imitate the six-sided snow crystals.

Wings, wind, and humans are three of the most common ways that life has arrived on Hawaii since the volcanoes rose above the ocean. But besides the obvious humpback on a whale watch, I hadn't noticed many who had arrived on the waves. As I descended the trail back to the black sand beach, a tiny white flower caught my eye. Recognizing it as Beach Naupaka, or Naupaka kahakai from my nature guide Wind, Wings, and Waves by Rick Sohren, I stopped to take photos.