Fire!

The call came about 4:3M last Sunday – we are going to do the burn tonight at 6:00.  I quickly fed the animals, walked the dog, and drove to the Dahlem Center.  Our first prescribed burn of the year was about to happen and I wanted to be there.

As it turned out, we didn’t get started until after 7:00. It was a beautiful evening, although there was a bit of a strong breeze.  We had reporters, volunteers, and observers galore on hand to experience what for some of them was a first-time experience:  an intentionally set fire on the landscape.

David Borneman and his crew arrived over at the Ecology Farm and were soon suited up and ready to roll.  While staff could’ve joined them, we opted to serve as photographers and crowd control instead.

No time was wasted getting started.  The sun would be setting in under an hour and we had about sixteen acres to fire.  The first section set alight was along the western edge of the glacial pond.  The peepers and other frogs were calling in full voice – no fire was going to keep their amorous activities in check!

There wasn’t much fuel along the pond’s edge – plenty of water, though, thanks to recent rains.  Soon the crew turned their attention to the grassland proper.  A backburn was set along the trail, into the wind.  The trail acted as a fire break, and the wind kept the fire from heading out across the open grassland.

Small burns were lit around the bluebird nest boxes.  This would keep them from being engulfed when the big blaze came across the field later.  Carefully aimed streams of water also kept the posts safe from catching fire.

Twice we had cranes fly overhead, calling.

And a small plane circled overhead, too.  The fire must’ve looked amazing from up in the sky!

As the sun set, the oranges and yellows of the flames stood out beautifully against the dark backdrop.

Soon, however, we were nearly done!  Some areas burned quickly…

while other areas resisted the heat and flames.  These areas are stands of spotted knapweed, an aggressive invasive that I am convinced is made of asbestos!

No matter how many times they tried to fire the knapweed, most of it simply refused to burn.  We will be hitting it later with herbicides to remove it from the landscape.

We are planning a second burn later in the year, tackling the wet meadow and fen south of the grasslands.  These burns are excellent opportunities for people to learn how fire can be used as a tool to manage the landscape. If you are interested in learning more about controlled burns, give us a call.

Happy Spring

I could hardly believe my eyes yesterday when I saw this trout lily getting ready to blossom!

It’s one thing to find skunk cabbages in bloom in mid-March – heck, they’ll bloom when there’s snow on the ground, generating their own heat to melt it – but trout lilies are not quite such early bloomers.

Things are so advanced that not only are the skunk cabbages flowering, but they are already sending up leaf shoots!

These warm days it can be tempting to leave windows and doors open, but one must beware the entry of varmints if one isn’t vigilant!

Spring is here.  Happy Vernal Equinox, All!

Seventy-seven Degrees and Counting

Can you believe this weather!  I had nearly 80 according to my car yesterday.  Last I checked today, it was 77.  And it’s only the Ides of March!  Unbelievable.  But, the up side is that people are OUT.  Driving uptown yesterday afternoon every sidewalk was loaded with people walking:  alone, with friends, with dogs.  Cascades Park – every parking lot was full!  Maybe they had some sort of event going on, but I suspect it was just the glorious weather.

And it’s not just people emerging.  The chorus frogs have been singing for about a week, and yesterday I heard my first peepers.  Last night I think I also heard wood frogs.

Today, we found this itty bitty iris in bloom in the Children’s Garden here at Dahlem.

But the thing that got me out of the office to photograph was Gary coming in and saying, “Do you want to see some commas nectaring?”

Well, who could resist?

The Cut-n-Dab Society was out clearing brush and removing logs from the Norway maples they’d previous cut down.  With this warm weather, cutting and dabbing is now over because the rising sap in plants would push out any herbicide applied to stumps.  So, the group with be tackling other tasks until next fall.

What they noticed, however, on one of the maple stumps, was the rising sap had coated the exposed wood and it was drawing in insects like, well, a bee to honey.  All sorts of flies were mopping up the sweet sap, and some commas came in as well.

There you go!  A comma.  Commas are butterflies, one of the earliest butterflies you will see in the spring (or late winter apparently).  Members of the brushfoot family, commas are one of the so-called “punctuation” butterflies, which include commas and question marks.  These names come from the little white “punctuation marks” that appear on the underside of the hind wings.  See that little white comma below?  Also note how the underside of the wings are the perfect camouflage for hiding in leaves and against tree bark.

There are four species of commas in Michigan:  satyr, green, grey and eastern.  Which one did we have out here today?  I can tell you for sure they weren’t satyrs or easterns – wrong markings and coloration.

Green commas are considered reclusive and live in boreal forests.  Now, even if it wasn’t 77 degrees, we are definitely not boreal around here.

Therefore, by process of elimination, these are grey commas, Polygonia progne.

Commas overwinter as adults, which explains why some of them were looking pretty ragged.  The careful naturalist might find them in log piles or hollow trees.  But once the weather warms up, they head out in search of food:  dung, carrion and tree sap.

These woodland butterflies are considered to be quite skittish, and both Gary and I can confirm that as we had a heck of a time trying to get close enough to photograph these guys.  My first batch of photos were a complete bust.  I went back out after lunch and look my chances with a smaller lens.  I had to get right up to the beasts, but soon they were so fixated on the sap that I was able to get a few good images.

The warm weather also brought out our first toad of the season!

American toads are pretty common.  And they are wonderful animals, eating all sorts of critters that gardeners would prefer not to have in their gardens.  Hence, the toad is the gardener’s friend.

And warts?  Yes, toads have them, but their warts are actually not the same as the warts people get.  Our warts are caused by a virus.  Their warts are just lumps and bumps on their skin.  And the two biggest bumps, the ones right behind the eyes, are actually poison glands known as paratoid glands.  These glands contain a neurotoxin known as bufotoxin, which helps toads escape predators.  One mouthful of toad and the predator gets a dose of this alkaloid, making it spit out the toad.  Toad hops away…if it is lucky.

Looking for Something to Do?

Come join us Tuesday Mornings for a naturalist-led walk.

(Call ahead to be sure we are meeting here – sometimes we go off-site.)

Redpolls et al

It seems like forever since I joined the Tuesday Morning Group for a walk, so this morning I decided to tag along.  We had a couple newcomers along today – we hope they come again.

The first thing on the list was looking for redpolls.  Redpolls are little tundra birds that head south for the winter.  Some winters “south” may be just across the Canadian border, while other years “south” can be quite a bit further along the lines of latitude than southern Michigan.  These small somewhat striped birds with the little red caps showed up at Dahlem’s feeders last month, and it’s been a joy to see them.  This morning they became part of the life list of several of our Tuesday regulars.

While the group was stopped to discuss yellow-bellied sapsuckers, this rather loose nest caught my eye.  I wasn’t sure if it was a genuine nest or just where a bunch of pine needles had been caught in a forked branch.  So, I reached up and lifted it down, only to find…

…the interior was full of seeds.  Some little bird was using this nest as a larder!

This last weekend the news was full of reports of tornadoes to the south of us, and blizzards to the north.  Here we had some pretty strong winds, but the worst damage was no more than a few trees down.  Of course, this tree also took out a section of railing along our Special Needs Trail.

Redwing blackbirds are back in droves now, and the white-throated sparrows have also arrived.  Spring must be just around the corner.  Even the skunk cabbage is starting to poke up through last year’s decaying leaf litter.

As we walked along, I glanced up and saw these two round mushrooms on a stick – they almost look like UFOs!

Backing up on the bank on the other side of the trail, I was able to juuuust see the tops of these shelf fungi.  I’m not sure what species they are, but I thought they looked rather nifty.

Man-made objects stand out like sore thumbs along our trails.  At first we took this for a collection of garbage, but upon closer inspection we saw that it was the remains of a geocache container.  Geocaching was an activity that came about shortly after GPS units were developed for the average person – it gave them something to do with their new toys!  Containers are hidden on the landscape and their coordinates are placed on-line at the geocache website(s).  Then, searchers go on-line, look for caches that they want to find, get the coordinates, and go searching.  Apparently, there are several caches on the Dahlem property.  There’s now one less.  I brought the contents inside and will be trying to find the owner, in case they want to replace the cache.

Out on the grassland/prairie at this time of year it is soooo easy to see where native and non-native vegetation lives.  Here we have the now-flattened patch of big bluestem grasses bordered by the little bluestem.

The little bluestem then fades into more open areas where some invasives are still present.

But across the trail, where no restoration work has been done (yet), not a stem of native grasses is visible.  In fact, this area is full of solid patches of spotted knapweed.  Note how barren it looks!   The good news is that a burn is scheduled for later this spring along this section of the grassland, and we will also be hitting the patches of knapweed with a species-specific herbicide.

Out along the glacial pond we checked out the native shrubs that were planted last fall.  They are looking good.  Once they are well-established the cages will be removed – then they will be on their own to withstand the pressures of the deer.

Invasive species removal is well underway along the Special Needs Trail.  This trail is slated for renovation this summer – it will receive an entire facelift and will become our new Nature For All Trail, specially designed for people with limited mobility and other disabilities.  Stay tuned for more information.

As you walk along the trail this spring, you will see lots of activity, mostly that of our Cut-n-Dab Society removing invasives, like the large Norway maples below.  We are very excited about this project – it will open up this portion of our property to a) more wildlife, b) more native plant species, and c) people who feel that they cannot get out and enjoy nature.

 

Medium-sized Weasel

Driving in this morning, I saw a dark brown animal permanently napping in the road.  “MINK!”  I turned around and collected it, bringing it in to work to hopefully add to our collection (it is currently in the freezer).

In the meantime, for those who have never seen a mink up close, here are photos of this medium-sized member of the weasel family.

First up, we have an overall view of the animal.  Note the lovely dark, chocolate brown fur – “rich” is really the best word to describe the color.

The chin of a mink is always white.  I usually hate to use words like “always” and “never” because you know that someone will point out the exception, but as far as I know, all minks have white chins.  This is one of the diagnostic things to look for to ID this mammal.

There are five toes on the front feet – note the slight bit of webbing in between.

And there are five toes on each of the back feet – and also webbing.  Otters have fully webbed feet because they are really aquatic, but minks are only partially aquatic, so their feet are only partially webbed.

Like most weasels (all weasels?) minks have small ears.  The further north one travels in the world, the smaller ears become on animals – this is a heat/energy-saving trait, and it also helps prevent things like frostbite.

The teeth of the mink are typical of those of any predator:  pointy.  Minks are carnivores that actively hunt both aquatic and terrestrial prey.  Major players in the mink’s diet are crayfish, frogs, fish and small mammals, but it will also eat snakes, eggs, birds and insects.

For those who like to know factoids, here are a few to file away for cocktail conversation:

1. A mink can travel on land at speeds of up to eight miles per hour.
2. While not normally arboreal, minks can climb trees.
3. A mink can swim for about 50 feet underwater before having to come back up for air.
4. Minks dig burrows or use burrows dug by other animals, such as muskrats.
5. Minks live near water.
6. A mink den/burrow has several entrances/exits.
7. Minks depend on their strong sense of smell to locate prey.

Members of the weasel family (Mustelidae) have scent glands that are used in all sorts of communications.  The mink I found this morning was gently aromatic – having no doubt a) released a squirt of chemicals just before the car hit it (a fear reaction) and then b) the glands releasing additional liquid as the body relaxed upon death.  Although not as strong as the scent of a skunk, the aroma is very similar.  No doubt this is why skunks were classified weasels until fairly recently.  Today, skunks are classified in their own family (Mephitidae).

So, yes, Virginia, there are minks here in southern Michigan.  Look for long, dark animals near water.  Streams are great places to watch for minks.  When it doubt, check stream banks for mink tracks – in snow or mud.  Five toes front and back, and the feet often leaving a 2-by-2 pattern, like a series of colons:    :   :   :   :   :

The Ultimate Dirt-Timers!

“Dirt Time” is time spent outside doing hands-on stuff, and nothing says Dirt Time quite like our Cut-n-Dab Society.  These dedicated volunteers are out here once a week attacking the invasive plant species that are marching across the property.

Yesterday I went out with the group to get some of their actions “on film.”

Upon arrival at the site of the current mission, Gary, our stewardship coordinator, shows Bill the day’s target plants:  trees and shrubs.

The tools are readied.

One of the most important tools of the day is the chainsaw, but handsaws are equally important, especially when the chainsaw decides to be temperamental.

Loppers are just as important, especially for getting those tiny branches that  grow up in dense clusters.

All twigs, limbs and trunks are piled up in large brush piles, which will eventually be torched, completely removing them from the landscape.  In the meantime, the brush piles make great shelters for small birds and mammals.

The last step the Society takes is the dabbing.  Within the cup Pat is holding is the secret ingredient – a highly effective herbicide.  Note the sponge in her other hand.

The herbicide is applied (dabbed) directly onto the living portion of the cut plant – targeted application.  This keeps the poison in a specific location rather than spreading it willy-nilly across the landscape.

As you can see, only the outer ring is dabbed – this is the living tissue of the tree (or shrub).

A morning spent Cutting and Dabbing soon turns an invasive-riddled field from a gnarly collection of unwanted plants…

…into an open field with islands of native species!  The bluebirds were out singing their praise for the Society’s efforts.

All of us here at Dahlem thank them as well.  This is a monumental task, one that will no doubt take years to complete, but they have made terrific inroads on this project, and you can see the fruits of their labors as you walk the trails.

If you’d like to join the Cut-n-Dab Society, give us a call.  New hands are always welcome!