Natural Connections

For over 30 years, students and professors from UWSP have conducted research on the seasonal movements, habitat selection, and reproduction of Wisconsin’s black bear population. During that period, bear numbers have risen from 9,000 to 24,000. The researchers’ hard work has contributed significantly to the body of knowledge about black bears in Wisconsin, and informs bear management, too.

On this late January morning, a small group of Wisconsin Master Naturalist volunteers were lucky enough to join a reconnaissance mission.

Tiny forests of mosses poked up between pale sand grains. Carpets of bluish lichens protected little hills, and pixie cup lichens raised their chalices as if waiting for the right vintage of raindrop. Here, miles from the desert, was another community of cryptobiotic crust holding together sand as the stone falls apart. The sandstone on the South Shore is five times older and gets twice as much rain, but otherwise is not so different from some of the rocks of the Colorado Plateau.

Looking up from Lilliput, I saw the patterns of diversity and connection in that small patch repeat themselves in the forest, across the landscape, and throughout the world.

White-breasted nuthatches weigh more than twice their little cousins, the red-breasted nuthatches. More handsome than cute, their black head grading into a gray back and mostly white belly is quite natty.

Beyond size and color, these two cousins have some interesting similarities and differences. They both eat mostly insects in the summer, and feed insects to their chicks as well. Both find those bugs by clinging to tree bark with their super strong feet and long claws, and moving headfirst down the trunk. Their short tail stays out of the way.

This behavior is thought to give nuthatches a different perspective than the woodpeckers and brown creepers who they often feed near.

“So who do you think made this scat?” I asked, while holding the handful of rubber bear scat aloft. Several hands shot into the air. Omnivore. That was an easy one. Next, I pulled out a replica of scraggly fox scat, and a pile of rubber deer scat. No problem. Most kids were confident that they could categorize any scat they might find in the woods. Most kids were delightfully grossed out by the thought. Now it was time for the next step.

As odd as it may seem, being able to identify animal scat significantly enhances my time outdoors. By observing scat, I get to be a detective, a scientist, and a more informed neighbor. Once the kids stop exclaiming about how gross it is, I hope they become all of those things, too.

I enjoyed making weed soup as a child. Here’s the recipe: fill a plastic pail with water, add cut grass, dandelion leaves, a generous handful of weed seeds, mix well, and show Mom. Since then, I’ve taken classes, accumulated books, and joined walks with experts on edible wild plants. I’ve progressed to wild plum and apple chutney, capered milkweed buds, and maple-glazed black walnuts.

Throughout my life I’ve dreamed about a more natural lifestyle, growing and gathering my food. Can foraging really contribute to my food self-sufficiency?  

During the Museum group’s visit to El Rosario Monarch Butterfly Preserve, our guide Daniel called me over to an educational display he’d laid out on a stump. Each of the three butterflies had been eaten by a different predator, and their bodies bore tell-tale clues.

Each of these predators—the mice, the grosbeaks, and the orioles—have something in common with the monarchs themselves: they can ingest milkweed toxins and survive. 

Monarch butterflies as I recently experienced them in Mexico—gathering by the millions in their winter sanctuaries—are intimately tied to fir trees. Abies religiosa, the oyamel fir, also known as the sacred fir due to the way their oppositely arranged twigs make the shape of a cross, are essential to monarchs’ winter survival.

Every pair of gravity-defying wings, each metamorphosed body and magnetic navigational system is worthy of awe. But it is the collective action of an entire population that brought us here. Butterflies, and monarch butterflies specifically, live all over the globe. But no pollinator garden, no butterfly conservatory even comes close to hosting this many winged wonders. Somewhere in these clusters is every single surviving monarch born on our backyard milkweed. These volcanic mountains hold the most spectacular example of an insect migration we’ve ever encountered.

Volcanoes are essential to our living Earth. Volcanic activity keeps our planet young and fresh by renewing the Earth’s crust and helping create our life-giving atmosphere. It’s no surprise, then, that at many a volcano someone will whisper, “this is a sacred site.”

So, although we didn’t set out on our trip to Mexico with the intention of visiting volcanoes, that seems to have been the result. Volcanoes provide shelter to butterflies, a model for pyramids, and inspiration to many cultures. And finally, their pull in the Lake Superior basin draws me home.

As usual, my toes were cold. So, I hopped off my fat bike and began jogging down the trail beside it instead, trying to wiggle warmth back into my feet. Crunch, crunch, crunch, I ground icy snow under my boots with every step. The day before had been well above freezing, and the briefly slushy snow was now even more solid.

I was keeping an eye on the edge of the trail when my foot landed next to the track of a larger foot. This wasn’t just some deer hunter’s big snow boot. This wide track showed five toes. And claws.

Black bear!