Story originally printed in the Onalaska Life or online at www.onalaskalife.com
Published - Monday, May 19, 2008
RIDGERUNNER REPORTS: At long last, it's gotten green out
During the first week of May, the scenery around here changed dramatically. The last vestiges of brown, gray and tan were quickly overwhelmed by rich greens in the fields and a pleasant flush of green in the trees. After several frustrating teasers and setbacks in April, including the late surprise snowfall, it finally seems that spring has sprung for real.
In short order, a walk outdoors would yield pasque flowers, violets, anemones and bloodroots, followed by trout lilies, dandelions, Dutchman’s breeches, May apples, marsh marigolds and bellworts. Finally, by May 5 we could also find bluebells, trilliums and Jack in the pulpit, just to mention part of the fascinating succession of wild plants appearing during a typical Coulee Region spring.
But most happily of all, my son, Peter, and I found our first morels of the season on May 6. They were rather small compared to those that would follow, but they were a welcome sight and tasted delicious.
We found all of them in Vernon County, Wisconsin. Some were popping up around one dead elm tree near Coon Valley, and the rest around another dead elm found near La Farge. The next day we visited a farm on a scenic ridge near Westby and found a few more.
 Photo by Jim Solberg |
I suspect (and sincerely hope) that as you read this, the morels will be growing more abundantly in southern Wisconsin and Minnesota. Along with the morels, we found some very close relatives (Verpa sp.) that had similar spongy looking caps, but they were attached differently than those of the true morels (Morchella escuelenta). The Verpas are edible but not as choice as the morels. We just ate the real thing.
Rattlesnakes
Chris Hamilton, a UW- Steven’s Point graduate student, returned to southwest Wisconsin’s Mississippi River bluffs to continue the second year of his natural resources master’s project on timber rattlesnakes. He has radio-tagged more than 20 of the snakes and is tracking their movements with a hand-held radio antenna to find out, among other things, what impact human development might have on their habitat selections over the year.
I accompanied Chris and his wife, Louise, as they checked to see if the snakes were emerging yet from hibernation over the weekend of May 3-4. He followed the radio signal of some of his snakes and found them all still underground.
This spring, he hopes to capture 20 additional rattlesnakes in which to implant radio transmitters. Hamilton will be tracking the snakes weekly until hibernation time next fall. The data he collects should help show where they go to find food and mates.
Pregnant females tend to stay near the den area and rarely feed until they give birth in late summer while the others, especially the larger males, disperse more widely in their quest to feed and breed.
Females take around six years to reach breeding age and then they only bear young every third year. The species is therefore a slow breeder making it much more susceptible to depredation from hunting (now banned), wanton killing or loss of habitat. The population simply takes a long time to bounce back from heavy losses.
It is hoped studies like those being done by Hamilton and others will shed light on how people can learn to live with rattlesnakes without harm to either us or to the snakes.
Sandhill crane
While Pete and I drove through the Kickapoo Valley Reserve near La Farge in search of the elusive morels, we spotted a spectacular sandhill crane feeding in a field. While many settle in central Wisconsin, some individuals and couples are found here and there throughout southwest Wisconsin.
Adults are basically gray with a red patch on the crown of the head. Juveniles are brown and in spring, the adults might appear brown from mud they put on their feathers for camouflage. The bird we saw last week had the red crown of the adult but appeared to be transitioning from brown to gray on the body.
Joy of frogs
Earlier, I mentioned a benchmark day for me when I heard six different species of frogs and toads in one day. To someone who has run a volunteer frog and toad survey route for the Wisconsin DNR for more than years, that really seemed like a pretty big deal to me.
Though they weren’t all heard on any of my three official survey routes, they were all in the same general area of Wisconsin. Since we have only 12 species in the entire state, that was quite a day, especially since they represented all of the species that call around here during the spring.
I guess I’ve been on an amphibian roll the past couple weeks, since in that time I have also taken photos of two species of frogs that I had never photographed yet. The chorus frog I shot in Vernon County in late April. A couple weeks later on Sidie Hollow Lake near Viroqua, I got my first picture of a pickerel frog along the shore.
That completed the list for me and I now have photos of all the main frog species in Wisconsin. Minnesota has two more species of toads than Wisconsin, so I have a ways to go yet over there.
I was especially pleased with the pickerel frog because it is one of Wisconsin’s species of “special concern” and I have not heard them very often on any of my routes. While found in all but the northeast part of Wisconsin, they are found mostly in the southeastern part of Minnesota. The populations are presently considered to be “stable” but rather low in both states.
Whaditiz
They are the May apple or American mandrake (Podophyllum peltatum).
Contact Jim Solberg at (608) 782-2560 or nitefrogger@charter.net.
All stories copyright 2006 Onalaska Life and other attributed sources.