Through the winter marsh

This morning, between school presentations, I stopped for a short time at Mill Pond Park.  I only spent a short time there, almost all of it walking through a frozen marsh.  I was mainly looking for a place to set up a trail camera, but I did take a few photos.  My favorite picture was this low-angle shot of a deer trail through the cattails.

How many more weeks of winter weather could a woodchuck predict, if a woodchuck could predict weeks of winter weather?

Happy Marmota monax Day!

 

You might know it better as Groundhog Day.  On Groundhog Day, communities across North America drag a sleepy Groundhog (Marmota monax) out of hibernation to see if it casts a shadow.  If the groundhog sees its shadow, this means that six more weeks of winter will follow; if it does not see its shadow, spring will supposedly come early.

I wonder, does it have to be a groundhog or could any hibernating ground squirrel be used to predict spring?  Anyone interested in celebrating Thirteen-lined Ground Squirrel Day?

No matter what happens to the Groundhog, I predict that Spring will begin in 6 1/2 weeks, on March 20th, just like it says on the calendar.

Tools for everyday life - the pocket knife

Every day before I leave the house I fill my pockets with the things that I will need during the day: keys, phone, wallet, pen, and pocket knife.  I can get by without some of the items.  I don't always need a pen.  I sometimes forget my phone - and don't miss it when I don't have it.

The one item that I miss if I don't have it on me is the pocket knife.  I believe that every person should carry one - including kids.

My current everyday knife (Victorinox Swiss Army Pioneer)

Giving a kid a pocket knife implies two major things.  It implies that you think they are responsible for their actions - a knife is sharp, being given one shows that the person who gives it to you expects and trusts that you can (and will) use it in a responsible manner.  It also implies that you think they are capable - that they can use a tool and use it properly. Want to teach a kid responsibility?  Give them a knife and tell them it will be taken away if they ever use it irresponsibly and improperly.  That kid will grow up fast.


I don't remember the exact age I was when I got my first knife, but I do know that I was no older than eight and probably younger.  Most kids of that age should be able to handle a knife safely.  If taught proper responsibility, kids that are even younger may be ready for their own knife.

I don't remember exactly what my first knife was, but I do remember that shortly after receiving it I managed to stab myself in the webbing between my thumb and index finger.  I still have a scar.  I also remember that I didn't tell anyone about the accident.  If I was responsible enough to have a knife, I was responsible enough to deal with the consequences.  I was mature enough to know that while the cut was painful, it would heal with no significant damage.  I learned to be more careful with my knife right away.

I don't have that first knife any more, but I do have a knife that I received when I was about the age of twelve.  I have owned and carried many knives since then.  For many years I worked jobs that required more than just a knife so I carried a multitool either in a pocket or in a sheath on my belt.  Over the past five or six years have switched back to a simple pocket knife.

I got this knife in a set when I was old enough to start hunting (around the age of twelve)

I am often around adults that don't carry pocket knives.  When it comes time to do a minor task for which a knife is perfectly suited, they are often at wit's end as to how to proceed.  A pocket knife an indispensible tool necessary for everyday life and exploration.


With my pocket knife I have been able so many simple things:
cut string, cut rope, cut baling twine, cut myself on a few occasions when I have been careless, cut fabric, cut leather, cut paper, cut cardboard, cut tape, cut zip-ties, cut nylon webbing, open packages, open letters, open boxes, open bags of feed, open bags of fertilizer, open bags of seed, sharpen pencils, sharpen sticks, make kindling, split small logs (I don't recommend this with a pocket knife, but it can be done.), butcher rabbits and squirrels, clean fish, prune branches, cut bouquets of flowers, trim plants in a garden, cut down small trees, dig holes, dig splinters out of my hand, slice cheese, slice apples, slice salami, slice bagels, peel oranges, drill holes in wood, drill holes in plastic, trim fingernails, trim pieces of wood, trim pieces of plastic, cut wire, strip wire, tighten loose screws, chip ice, scrape paint, scrape off glue, pry nails loose, trim gaskets, and many more things that I am forgetting.

For many of these tasks, I could have found another tool to use.  But the knife in my pocket means that they are over and done in less time that it would take to search for another tool.  When I worked as a maintenance employee for the local parks and recreation department I had coworkers who did not carry a knife.  They would have to either borrow mine or waste 15 minutes or more by needing to go back to the maintenance shop for a tool.  I shake my head in disdain over people like that.

Guess what everyone in my office received as a Christmas gift in 2016. 

It wasn't a gift card to Starbucks...

First trail camera pictures (update)

When I looked through the trail camera pictures from last week I skimmed through them so fast that I missed something.  Over the weekend, I uploaded them to my computer and found that I had missed a sixth species - a Fox Squirrel.

Fox Squirrel on the trail camera

Sometime this week I plan to get the camera back up in the woods, possibly in a new place.

First trail camera pictures

One of my 2016 Christmas gifts was a trail/game camera.  Over the weekend I put it out for the first time in a secluded area of one of the local parks.  This morning I went to retrieve it.  Here are a few of the images it recorded.  Nothing too exciting, but I have high hopes that I will see more in the future.

Grey Squirrel (center) and Downy Woodpecker (right, on log)

 

Grey Squirrel (black-phase)

Northern Raccoon

Virginia Opossum

White-tailed Deer

Each of the animals in the photos were seen on multiple dates, with the exception of the woodpecker.  The two squirrels appeared every day, but never together.  The raccoon and opossum both showed up on two separate nights.  The pair of deer showed up on three separate days, but only in low light.  A solo deer (not shown in any of the pictures) appeared once during the daytime.

Overall the camera was triggered more than forty times over the five days it was set up and recorded more than one hundred twenty images - the camera was set up to take a three-image burst any time it was triggered.  The five species above were the only ones recorded.

The structure of a feather

One of the programs that I teach is Michigan Birds.  Part of this program focuses on feathers and their functions.  Most students (and adults) have played with a feather at some point.  One of the things that almost everyone has done with a feather is to peel it apart and then "zip" it back together.

Have you ever wondered why and how a feather can do this?

It all has to do with structure.

The larger feathers have a stiff central structure called a rachis. 

One opposite sides of the rachis are flat structures called vanes.  The vane are composed of stiff parallel structures called barbs.  Each barb grows out from the rachis.

Each barb is further divided into smaller parts.  Growing from opposite sides of a bard are small parallel growths called barbules.  The barbules that emerge from one barb grow toward and interlock with the barbules from the next-door barb.

The barbuless are not the smallest part of the feather.  On the sides of each barbule are even smaller structures called barbicels.  These structures act like hooks and interlock with the barbicels on the adjacent barbule.  When you feel the barbs of a feather apart, the barbicles become unlocked; when you "zip" the feather back together again, the barbicels lock back together.

Searching for color in the winter woods

Yesterday morning I drove into Mt. Pleasant to spend a little bit of time wandering through the swamps at Mission Creek Woodland Park.  While I enjoy swamps any time of year, winter is the easiest time to travel through them in mid-Michigan.  Much of the surface water in the swamp is frozen this time of year and if you tread carefully you can walk across places where you would normally be in mud up to your knees.  I will admit to a few ill-advised steps that broke through thin ice and a few more that were made in areas with no ice present.  Mud... it happens.

Any time spent outdoors is good time.

Most of the time a walk through the woods in winter is about seeing the small details.

Leaves and stems melting through ice left by a recent storm

Fog droplets on a young American Beech tree

Color can be hard to find.  Sometimes it is subtle...

Turkey Tail fungus on a stump

Sometimes it is jarring when seen against all the drabs colors of the snow and sky.

Moss on a fallen log

Did you notice spider webs on the moss in the picture above?  There were hundred of webs strewn everywhere throughout the swamp.  A closer look revealed the architects...

The brightest color to be found throughout the swamp was the green of sedge tussocks.  Some of the tussocks were surrounded by open water (and last year's leaves); other tussocks were surrounded by ice and snow.

Sedge tussock and Red Oak leaves

Sedge tussocks surrounded by ice

The recent spate of warm weather has caused much of the snow and ice to melt away.  The trees both slow it down by blocking some of the rays of the sun, and speed it up by warming at the base because of the sun.

Snow melts quickly at the base of trees

Some meltwater is pooling in low areas, filling what will become seasonal ponds later in the year.  Other water is flowing away to lower areas.  As the water flows it cuts down through the ice.

Water flowing over the ice

A channel curves around tussocks and through the ice

Eventually, much of the water will flow either over the ground or through the soil to Mission Creek and from there to the Chippewa River.

Mission Creek

Someday this curve of the creek will cut completely through that bank and create an oxbow

Some of the my favorite finds of the day were the smallest.  Many of the trees in the swamp are covered with various types of lichens.  Some are easy to see from the ground.  Others are found higher in the trees.  When a tree falls, it brings those lichens down to a level where they are easy to see.

My favorite image of the day though was taken as I left the park.  Both sides of Crawford Road (also known as Harris St.) are lined with woods that arch over the roadway.  Even on sunny days this section of road is dark.  Yesterday, the warm temperatures and melting snows caused dense fog throughout the area.  It creates a really cool moody feeling to any woodland scene.

Crawford Road (Harris Street) near Mission Creek Park