A walk through Mission Creek Woodland Park (01 April 2017)

On Saturday (01 April) I spent a little time tromping around the wetlands at Mission Creek Woodland Park.   I had no particular objective in mind.  I just wanted to be out in the nice weather.  Here is some of what I saw.

Birch wood tends to decay quite rapidly.  Birch bark on the other hand is extremely resistant to rot.  It is not uncommon to find birch logs lying on the ground in which the bark is still intact, but the wood inside has rotted away to mush.  The waterproof bark hold moisture in the log, creating a perfect environment for fungi and bacteria to work on the wood.  Here's a little tip: if you want to use birch as a firewood, it has to be split to allow the moisture to escape.

More tussocks!

I do love the Skunk Cabbage.

No matter how many times I see them, I just can't get enough.

Perhaps its just the craving for something blooming,

But this time of year I am drawn again and again back into the swamp to see the Skunk Cabbage.

I didn't spend all of my time looking down at the ground.  I did manage to see a flock of Wild Turkeys sneaking through the woods ahead of me.  There were at least six birds in the flock and probably more that I couldn't see because of the trees.

After the turkeys passed through, I managed to find some "evidence" of their passing.  Yes, that is a pile of turkey scat.

Maybe I do spend a lot of time looking at the ground.  FYI this is not the first photo of animal scat to appear on this blog.  A quick search for "scat" in the search box to the right will reveal at least six other photos.

But life is not all Skunk Cabbage and turkey scat...

It is also full of Downy Woodpeckers.

And mosses...

Life is especially full of mosses.

On a side note, I am currently reading the book Gathering Moss by Robin Wall Kimmerer.  It is a thoroughly enjoyable book about science written for the average reader.  I highly recommend it to anyone interested in learning more about natural history.  I also heartily recommend her more recent book Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants.

Sedges are habitat forming...

In the lowland area at Mission Creek Woodland Park there is an area of northern hardwood swamp with a canopy of mostly Red Maple (Acer rubrum) trees.  The floor of this swamp is dominated in part by tussocks of sedge (Carex spp.).

I love photographing these tussocks- they are just so photogenic.

Besides their obvious photographic value, they do serve other functions.  Once these tussocks are established, they serve as a habitat for other plants.  If you look in the picture below, you should notice stalks projecting from many of the tussocks.  Most of these stalks belong to Rough-leaved Goldenrod plants.  The goldenrod plants would probably drown if they tried to grow directly in the water of the swamp, but the sedges have provided little micro-habitats that elevate the goldenrod above the water and allow them to grow.

Many of the Red Maple trees in this swamp also started their life on the tussocks.  Seeds that were lucky enough to land on a tussock found conditions just right for growth - rich soil, just enough moisture, and warmth (the green tussocks warm up in the sunlight and are warmer than the surrounding soil and water).  Eventually some of these trees may grow to adulthood.

Bogs...

Yesterday, during a presentation about wetlands, I was trying to explain what a bog is and how they form.  A student asked if I have any pictures of bogs - I didn't have any in my presentation.  I do however have a few pictures that I have taken of bogs.

The first photograph was taken at the Alma College Biological Station near Vestaburg, MI.  This bog shows the typical features of a bog that formed in a kettle lake.  A floating mat of living and dead sphagnum moss rings the bog.  Other plants, including trees, have taken root in the floating moss layer.   

This photo shows a view across the bog early in late April 2010.  In the foreground can be seen plants growing atop the floating mat of sphagnum moss.  The evergreen trees (mostly spruce) in the background are also growing atop the moss.  The leafless deciduous trees beyond the spruce trees are growing in the uplands that surround the bog.

Vestaburg Bog - Evergreen trees on the far side of the bog are growing on the floating mat of sphagnum moss.

The next two photographs come from the Chippewa Watershed Conservancy's Schaftenaar Preserve at the Hall's Lake Natural Area.  This bog also formed from a small kettle lake.  Unlike the Vestaburg Bog, this bog has filled in almost completely and there is no central area of open water. 

The first photo shows volunteers and staff from the Chippewa Watershed Conservancy crossing an area of this forested bog during a wetland plant survey in 2014.

Hall's Lake Natural Area - traversing a forested bog

This photograph shows a mushroom growing up in the carpet of sphagnum moss.  Sphagnum moss is the characteristic plant of bog.

Sphagnum moss

So how do bogs like these form?

When the glaciers that covered Michigan during the last Ice Age began to retreat northward they did not melt evenly.  In many places large blocks of ice were left behind when the rest of the nearby glacier melted.  These blocks of ice would be surrounded by a thick layer of glacial till.  Glacial till is the name for all of the sediments such as rock, gravel and sand that were transported under and within the glacier as it advanced southward.  When the glaciers retreated, the till was left lying over the landscape.

When the block of ice melted, they left a depression surrounded by hills formed from glacial till.  These depressions are known as kettle lakes.  Many kettle lakes are deep and steep sided.  Most kettle lakes lack input or output from streams.  They drain slowly through the soil surrounding them and are recharged by rainwater.  Because the lakes lack input from streams, they often lack many of the minerals that plants need to thrive.

While the surrounding upland areas are colonized by a wide variety of plants, the mineral-poor water of the kettle lakes restricts the number of species that can grow within them.   One species that does well in this habitat is sphagnum moss.  The moss will begin growing from the shoreline and extend out over the surface of the water as a floating mat.  At this point we can begin to refer to the kettle as a bog.

Over time this floating mat will thicken to the point that other plants will begin to take root within the moss, including trees.  At the same time, organic matter will slowly begin to accumulate on the bottom of the bog.

Over time the mat will continue to thicken and grow toward the center of the bog.  Organic matter will also continue to fill the bottom of the bog.

Eventually the kettle will fill in completely with live and dead moss and other organic matter.  The organic matter will continue to hold large amounts of moisture and may continue to support species that cannot be found in the nearby uplands.

Holiday field guide gift guide - 16 guides for 2016 (Part 1)

It's no secret that I have a "problem" with field guides.  My problem is that I feel the need to have them all.  This means that they occupy a lot of shelf space (and table space and sometimes floor space) at my home.  It also means that I have a bit of experience using different field guides.  When I do programs for adults, I frequently get asked about the field guides that I would recommend for use or purchase.

With Christmas coming soon, now is the perfect time to think about purchasing field guides as gifts or about which guides you want to add to your list.  Here are a few of my recommendations.

Field Guides to Plants

1.  Wildflowers in the Field and Forest:  A Field Guide to the Northeastern United States by Steven Clements and Carol Gracie (ISBN: 9780195150056).

Published by the Oxford University Press in 2006, this book is not cheap (new copies currently cost $55), but I believe it is totally worth the price.  This is my go-to book for wildflowers.  It is simply the most comprehensive book of wildflowers to the Northeast and Great Lakes.  While I have found flowers that were not listed in this book, I can count them on one hand.  I like this book so much that I own two copies - one is my everyday user and the second copy is for when I wear out the first copy.

In addition to the fact that this book is so comprehensive, I like how his book is laid out.  Flowers are divided first by color, then by leaf arrangement, and finally by flower arrangement/number of petals.  There are good descriptions of each species as well as clear photographs of the flowers and often close-up images of details that help with identification.  There are also range maps for the region.  I wish every wildflower book was laid out this sensibly.  The book is quite large 5 inches by 8 inches and somewhat heavy, but the weight is worth carrying around in a backpack or shoulder bag if you are going to be identifying wildflowers all day.

2.  Michigan Trees: A Field Guide to the Trees of the Great Lakes Region by Burton V. Barnes and Warren Wagner, Jr. (ISBN 9780472089215). 

Published by the University of Michigan Press, this is the best available reference guide to the trees of Michigan.  It has been published in one form or another since 1913.  The current (revised and updated edition) was published in 2004.  The softcover edition of this book sells for under $20 - a great value for such a comprehensive well-organized guide.

 
Each species in this guide has its own two page spread with a detailed description and illustrations.  At the back of the book there is a smaller section that details some common shrubs found in the state.  Again this is not a pocket-sized book, but if you are spending the day looking at trees this is the book you want to carry along.

3.  Wetland Plants of Michigan: A Complete Guide to the Wetland and Aquatic Plants of the Great Lakes State by Steve W. Chadde (ISBN 9781481194945)

This author-published book is on its second edition (2012).  The book retails online and in stores for under $30.  This book is not as easy to use by a beginner as the previous two books.  It is divided by family - if you don't know the family it is best to use a different book.  However, it is still a useful guide, especially for those interested in identification of wetland plant species.  Each section of the book includes a dichotomous key that is useful for distinguishing between similar species.  Each species entry includes a good description of the plant, the plant's wetland classification, and a map showing which Michigan counties the species has been found in.  This useful feature was not included in the first edition and is a welcome addition to the book.  The book includes both line drawing and photographs (black-and-white only) of the species.

This book is not intended to be the first guide that someone owns.If you already own a few books about wildflower and trees and want to delve deeper, then I would recommend this book.    This book has more than 680 pages and is not pocket friendly, but is a valuable addition to the bookshelf.

4.  A Field Guide to the Natural Communities of Michigan by Joshua G. Cohen, Michael A. Kost, Bradford S. Slaughter, and Dennis A. Albert (ISBN 9781611861341).

Published by the Michigan State University Press in 2015, this book retails for $34.95.  This book is not a guide to individual plants, but rather is a guide to plant communities or habitat types.  Developed by scientists at the Michigan Natural Features Inventory, this book highlights more than seventy distinct natural community types found in Michigan.   The book gives a description of each community which includes a map showing where the community can be found in the state, a list of characteristic plants, and a list of locations of specific sites.  The book also includes a key that can be used to identify the class of an observed habitat.

This a great book to consult before going out into the field or after coming back from a trip.  It is less useful as a "field" guide.  That being said, this is a valuable addition to the library of anyone wanting to learn how larger plant communities work and interact.

That's it for field guides to plants.  Look for Part 2 (Insect field guides!) tomorrow.

Why my garden is a mess...

Here is a picture of my home garden from yesterday afternoon.

You probably notice that it looks messy.  Many gardeners could not stand to leave a garden looking like this through the winter.  I am not one of them.  For years I cleaned my garden beds each fall and removed all of the dead material.  I stopped doing this about the time I started planting mostly native plants in the garden.

Why do I leave the garden looking like this?

To sum it up in one word - habitat.

Monarch Waystation #6591

I want the garden to be a year round habitat for native species.  The garden is certified as a Monarch Waystation, but it also provides habitat to dozens of other invertebrate species including native bees.

Bee hotel at almost full capacity - all the capped holes are full of larval bees

Many of the bees inhabit the native bee nesting blocks.  Others will spend the winter hidden in the hollow stems of dead plants - a great reason to leave plants standing over the winter.  Other insect species spend the winter hidden in the carpet of dead leaves and other debris that I leave in the garden.

Look at all the potential hibernation locations!

Seeds are another major reason that I leaves the garden alone in the fall.  I want as little open space in the garden as possible - open spaces allow weeds to pop up, full spaces have no room for weeds.  I want the garden to be full of native plants, but fully grown plants can be expensive to purchase.  If I leave all the old flower stalks in place through the winter, the garden replants itself.

Showy Goldenrod seeds ready to deploy into the garden

Some of the seeds also end up becoming food for songbirds.  Every year American Goldfinches eat most of the seeds from the various coneflower species, Cup Plant, Rosinweed, and sunflowers.  Other birds take advantage of the hibernating insects to fill their stomachs during the late fall and winter.

Cup Plant seeds are on the menu for many birds

While I don't pretend that my garden is a complete habitat, it does help.  That's all that I can ask it do do in the limited amount of space that I have available.  By treating the garden as habitat I see more species of animals (especially insects) than I would if I treated the garden as an outdoor extension of the home that needs to be kept neat and clean.  In the long run, I think the garden is healthier than it would be if I constantly felt the need to tame it.

The garden gives back with a series of delights throughout the year.

American Highbush Cranberry fruit

It also provides surprises.

A Wild Strawberry bloom in late November!  I found several of them.

In the spring, before the plants begin to grow, I can remove all of the old stems and add them to the top of my compost pile. (Don't worry any bee larvae will have the opportunity to emerge from the stems.)  The leaves and other debris will decompose naturally on the ground, acting as a natural mulch and helping to rebuild the soil.  New plants will pop up from the seeds that spread throughout the garden.  Some will be allowed to grow in place; others will be transplanted within the garden or planted in other gardens. 

I like my messy fall garden.  I think I'll keep it.

Woodworking for bees

Over the weekend I built a pair of nesting blocks for native bees.  Many species of  native bees (such as leafcutter bees, mason bees, and small carpenter bees) are solitary cavity nesters.  Individual female bees will seek out abandoned beetle tunnels in wood, hollow plant stems, and other cavities in which to deposit their eggs.  It is easy to help these species by providing nesting sites in the garden.  Our home garden has a nest site that has been used for several years and I have recently begun placing nesting sites in school gardens.

Nesting blocks for bees can be incredibly simple.  The ones that I constructed over the weekend consist of a block of untreated lumber with holes drilled in it, a backboard for attacking to a post or other structure, and an overhanging roof.  The blocks of wood that I used are more than six inchhes deep - many species of bees will not nest in short tunnels.

I'm not sure where these nest blocks will go as of yet, but I plan to build several more before spring.  With luck, next winter the drilled holes will be filled with overwintering bee larvae and pupae.  The picture below shows several leafcutter bee larvae in a bamboo stem that I recently pulled from from the nest site in our garden.

Next up on my woodworking projects list is nesting box for bumble bees.

Jump Around! Jump Around!

One last photo to share from my recent trip to the Chippewa Watershed Conservancy's Quigley Creek Natural Area in Mecosta County. 

At one point, while walking along the boundary between a wooded upland area and the swamp that can be found along Quigley Creek, I saw something jump away from me.  My first instinct was to think that it was a Wood Frog (Lithobates sylvaticus).  I was expecting to see Wood Frogs in this habitat.

After the animal's second jump, I could see it peeking out from under a fallen branch.  It was definitely not a Wood Frog.  This animal had fur!
 

Woodland Jumping Mouse - note dark strip down back, orange sides, and long tail

I believe this to be a Woodland Jumping Mouse (Napaeozapus insignis).  It is hard to distinguish between this species and the similar Meadow Jumping Mouse without counting its teeth.  I based my identification on its habitat (woods/swamp) and its tri-colored appearance with a dark strip down its back, orangish flanks, and pale belly.  It lacks the white-tip on its tail that is (supposedly) characteristic of the species, but based on my readings this is not a reliable field mark.  Most range maps show Mecosta County well out of its range, but the Michigan DNR has a map showing range this far south in the state. 

I was only able to get two pictures of this mouse before it scurried under a log.  Still it was an exciting find for me.  This is the first time I have found any species of jumping mouse.

Quigley Creek Porcupines

Last year during a plant survey at the Quigley Creek Natural Area I found the remains of a dead North American Porcupine (Erethizon dorsatum).

North American Porcupine skeleton

A couple of weeks ago (20 MAY 2015), during a return trip to Quigley Creek, we found a porcupine den tree.  This hollow tree has probably been occupied by a porcupine for months.  The ground beneath the tree was covered by a thick layer of scat.

Porcupine den tree

Native Pollinator Gardens Update - 08 April 2014

During the past year, I have posted numerous photos of four native pollinator gardens that I have helped install at local sites.

Yesterday I went around to three of those sites to do a little bit of Spring cleaning.  I think it is important to leave any dead stems and leaves in the garden during winter.  This allows birds to feed on seed heads, lets some of those seeds disperse naturally in the garden, provides hiding places for over-wintering insects and other invertebrates, and allows some of the plant matter to decay and go back into the soil.  For these reasons, I like to wait until the weather has warmed up in the Spring, stimulating new growth, before I remove any residue from the previous growing season.

If you think about it, this makes perfect sense when you are working with native plants.  In their natural habitats no one is going around tidying things up at the end of the growing season.  Even though these are "gardens" they have to be given some freedom to act as natural habitats.

So what do these sites look like as of right now?

Good deer, bad deer - A Cartoon from 1960

Last week I shared a cartoon by Oscar "Ozz" Warbach from the January - February 1961 issue of Michigan Conservation.

I thought I would share another Ozz Warbach cartoon from Michigan Conservation (March-April 1960).

One of the biggest complaints that we hear in our office is about wildlife damaging crops and other plants.  At the same time, many of the programs that we work on in our office are designed to help wildlife by improving habitat.  As illustrated by Mr. Warbach, the issue was much the same 50 years ago.

Mid-Michigan Habitats - Emergent Marsh

An Emergent Marsh is a type of wetland found in shallow water along the shores of ponds, lakes, and rivers.  Emergent Marsh is one of the most common habitat types found in Mid-Michigan (and around the entire state).  This type of wetland is characterized by narrow and broad leaved herbacious plants and grasses that float on the surface or emerge above the surface of the water (including water lilies, water plantains, arrowheads, grasses, sedges and cattails).  Surface water may dry out seasonally, but groundwater is never far below the surface.  While trees and shrubs are sometimes found in Emergent Marshes, the saturated soil prevent most woody species from becoming established.  Emergent marshes are usually named aftert their dominant plant type (e.g. a cattail marsh).  Emergent marshes are among the most biologically diverse forms of habitats and can be home to thousands of species of plants and animals.  Among the species of animals that we associate with emergent marshes are the Muskrat (Ondatra zibethicus) and the Red-winged Blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus).

Selected Plants of the Emergent Marsh

Northern Blue Flag Iris (Iris versicolor)

Blue Vervain (Verbena hastata)

 

Bur Marigold (Bidens cernua)

Bur Reed (Sparganium eurycarpum)

Cardinal Flower (Lobelia cardinalis)

Common Arrowhead (Sagittaria latifolia)

Common Cattail (Typha latifolia)

Great Blue Lobelia (Lobelia siphilitica)

Marsh Vetchling (Lathyrus palustris)

Lizard's Tail (Saururs cernuus)

Mad-dog Skullcap (Scutellaria lateriflora)

Marsh Marigold (Caltha palustris)

Narrow-leafed Cattail (Sagittaria latifolia gracilis)

Narrow-leafed Cattail (Typha angustifolia)

Pickerelweed (Pontederia cordata)

Spotted Joe-pye Weed (Eutrochium maculatum)

Swamp Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata)

Sweet Flag (Acorus calamus)

Turtlehead (Chelone glabra)

Water Hemlock (Cicuta maculata)

Water Plantain (Alisma triviale)

White Water Lily (Nymphaea odorata)

Yellow Water Lily (Nuphar variegatum)