The Cute Beatle and the Dancing Deer

There are times when the past collides with the present and tonight was one such time. I was bored and boredom usually means hours in front of the television set. I’m not proud to admit that I can be a couch potato but for some reason this evening, I couldn’t pull myself away from the images on the screen. After a run up and down the channels, I settled on axc.tv, a music channel I normally don’t watch. But tonight, they were broadcasting a 2009 Paul McCartney concert. I grew up listening to the Beatles and had the good fortune to see McCartney perform live at the Palace of Auburn Hills. The playlist consisted of a combination of Wings and Beatles songs, from Blackbird to Band on the Run. I knew the words to every song and the melodies flooded my mind with memories of days past.

With Paul singing in the background, I spotted a group of young deer who had congregated in the backyard. Several of them were rooting through the scattered corn and seeds on the ground; the remainder decided that twilight was a good time for a game of tag. Up and down the hill they ran, chasing each other over the brush piles, around the trees, bucking and rising up on their back legs.

I was so captivated by these deer at play while listening to music of my own youth. I was once like those young deer:  so full of energy and fun. Despite the decades that have passed from my life, I retain those memories of that young woman who listened to Beatles records and played outside all summer,  riding bikes with friends, climbing trees, giggling over boys.

Somehow, I have forgotten what it is like to live every day fully present and open to new opportunities.   My life has settled into a routine where consistency and predictability has replaced the spontaneity of youth. Where did the wide-eyed enthusiasm I once had go to? What happened to my curiosity, my fearlessness, my desire to embrace everything that life had to offer?

I’m certain that it is still there, deep down inside, covered over by years of responsibility. I just finished a book that spoke of recapturing the joyfulness of youth that so often is stomped down by a society that expects adults to become so serious. Where does it say that once you reach a certain age, you can no longer dance, sing and giggle? Paul McCartney remains timeless, because he continues to nurture that love of music that grew from his early days with George, John and Ringo. Young deer become adults, but that doesn’t prevent them from prancing around the yard. The last thing I expected as I watched television tonight was an “aha” moment. What I do with that moment is up to me.

Michigan Audubon: Connecting birds and people - June 28, 2013

Featuring: The Hooded Merganser
An extravagantly crested duck of North America

Hooded Merganser Breeding Grounds
This duck has both year-round grounds and breeding grounds in Michigan.  The Hooded Merganser’s year-round grounds include most of lower Michigan; the breeding grounds include the tip of the Northern Lower Peninsula and all of the Upper Peninsula. It also has breeding grounds in Quebec, Ontario and Manitoba.  The year-round range includes most of the states east of the Mississippi­­.

Michigan Audubon Sanctuaries where Hooded Merganser can be found:

• Brockway Mountain (Eagle Harbor, MI)
• Capital City Bird Sanctuary (Lansing, MI, opens Fall 2013)
• Davis Bog (Alpena, MI)
• Lake Bailey Sanctuary (Eagle Harbor, MI)
• Lake Bluff Bird Sanctuary (Manistee, MI)
• Little Lake Sanctuary (Paradise, MI)
• Margaret Shroyer Sanctuary (Paradise, MI)
• Martha Mott Sanctuary (Van Buren County, MI)
• Otis Farm Bird Sanctuary (Hastings, MI)
• Owashtanong Islands Sanctuary (Grand Haven, MI)
• Riverbank Sanctuary (Manistique, MI)
• Warner Sanctuary (Hastings, MI)
• Whitefish Point Bird Observatory(Paradise, MI)

To find out more about each sanctuary visit our Bird Sanctuary page.

Size & Shape
The Hooded Merganser is a small duck with a thin bill and wings and a long, rounded tail. The duck looks like it has an oversized head, although it is just a collapsible crest.

Coloring
Although both males and females display the eye catching crest their coloration differs between the two genders.
Male
He is black above with a white breast and chestnut flanks.  The head and crest is black with a large white patch that changes in size as the crest rises and falls, but is always visible.
Female
She is a gray/brown color all over with cinnamon tones on her head.  She does not have a patch on her crest but like the male’s, her crest changes in size as it rises and falls.

Habitat
Hooded Mergansers breed in forested wetland systems that include pine-hardwoods and cottonwood-elder riparian forests. Newly hatched ducklings and their mothers are often found foraging in shallow water such as marshes, small lakes, ponds, beaver wetlands, swamps and forested rivers.  You may observe this merganser resting on exposed rocks, logs or sandbars.

Food
The Hooded Merganser eats the widest variety of food than any other merganser.  They consume small fish, aquatic insects, crustaceans (especially crayfish), amphibians, vegetation and mollusks. They catch their prey by diving under the water using their feet to propel themselves and their slender bills to snatch prey. Their adaptive underwater sight also helps catch their prey.  This merganser has an extra eyelid call a nictitating membrane which acts similarly to goggles, it is clear and helps protect the eyes during diving and swimming.

Behavior
As stated above they are superb divers.  Their legs are located farther back on their bodies than most ducks which aids in diving but makes them slightly awkward on land.  These ducks are usually found in small groups of 2-40 mergansers.  Hooded Mergansers participate in “brood parasitism” which is similar to the parasitism of Brown-headed Cowbirds except they only lay their eggs in other Hooded Merganser nests.

Sound
The merganser is a rather secretive bird and only make a song or call during breeding season or to call their ducklings.  The male courts the female with a deep, rolling croak sound, similar to a frog. The female responds by giving a hoarse gack call. When calling her duckling she will use a rough croo-croo-crook call, similar to sea ducks. Additionally, the mergansers wings make an interesting, rather loud,whirring sound during flight.

Mating
Hooded Mergansers court in groups of one or more females and several males.  The male raises his crest to display the bright white patch and shakes his head.  In a more elaborate display the male will throw his head back and touch his back with his crest and give off his frog like croak.  If interested, the female will respond by bobbing her head and giving her hoarse gack.  Males abandon their mates once the egg incubation starts.

Nests
Females choose the nest site in a pre-existing cavity in dead or alive trees typically close to water.  The nest cavities are around 10-50 feet above the ground.  They prefer cavities that already have materials in them and she will gradually start adding down from her belly after she lays the eggs. Hooded Mergansers are also prone to using nest boxes as long as they are the appropriate size.  Cornell Lab provides construction plans for nest boxes for these birds.

Conservation Status
Least Concern. The largest population numbers occur in the Great Lakes Region, populations are stable and/or slightly increasing.  The merganser has dealt with major habitat loss in the past but has recovered nicely.

Interesting Facts

• According to Cornell Lab, “Female Hooded Mergansers can lay up to about 13 eggs in a clutch, but nests have been found with up to 44 eggs in them” due to brood parasitism.
• Hooded Merganser ducklings leave their nest within 24 hours of hatching.
• The Hooded Merganser is the second-smallest merganser of the six living species and the only one restricted to North America.

Your Bird Crew,

Michigan Department of Natural Resources - July 16, 2013

Osprey in southern Michigan will wear backpacks this season

Rare primate species needs habitat help to survive

Drill - Lincoln Park Zoo. Photo Credit: Wikimedia

Rare primate species needs habitat help to survive

July 3, 2013 Press Release - Michigan Department of Natural Resources

Showy Lady Slippers

by Doug Reeves, assistant chief, DNR Wildlife Division

As I was motoring down M-28 headed for Marquette one early morning during the first few days of July, I noticed a clump of flowers right at the edge of the woods along a ditch. I could only think of one plant that would look like that during early summer, and I had not noticed them in the area before. I was alone on the road, so I made a U-turn and went back for a closer look. Wow, what beauty! My through-the-windshield identification had been correct. They were showy lady slippers, and in the early morning sun, they seemed almost unreal.

I can almost count on the fingers of one hand the locations that I know about where showy lady slippers occur in Michigan, although literature reports indicate they are more widely distributed than I would have expected. One of the patches I observed for several years has slowly faded away, but it used to contain over 100 flowering heads annually. I believe closure of the canopy in the cedar-spruce-tamarack forest finally shaded them out.

Showy lady slippers are orchids, in this case among the group that is commonly called moccasin flowers. Not to be confused with showy orchis, a plant that typically does not exceed 8 inches in height and that grows in hardwood forests, showy lady slippers bloom on stems that are often around 20 inches tall. The flowers are large for moccasin flowers, pink on the bottom with sepals (frequently referred to as petals) that are usually white. While photographing some of the flowers in one patch many years ago, I discovered the older flowers were chock full of dead skipper butterflies – an interesting observation, and I never understood why that situation might have happened. There is probably a theory to explain it among the literature somewhere, because I am sure I am not the first person to have noticed such an occurrence, but I have never come across a logical argument for it.

Don’t expect to keep your feet dry if you approach blooming showy lady slipper flowers. The places where I have found them are all wet, in fact springy, with the water oozing up from beneath the surface, as it does in fens. Their habitats are good places to get mosquito-bitten most any time of the day when the plants are in bloom. My observations match well with the description of typical habitat that Fred Case, Jr. described in his book, “Orchids of the Western Great Lakes Region,” where he described the showy lady slipper as, “Essentially a moisture loving plant, it chooses the wettest open situations available.”

In reading Mr. Case’s account of the showy lady slipper, I was fascinated to find information that he attributed to a “late professor Warren Waterman,” who reported that showy lady slipper seed germination only takes place at a soil depth of 1-2 inches. The account continues, “Waterman concluded that the deer, milling around in their winter yards, planted the seeds inadvertently.” Now there’s a connection I never would have made! Yet, it certainly seems like a real possibility in the places where I have seen the plants growing. In fact, the plants I observed along M-28 were in a well-known deer yard. I got to know Mr. Case in his later years, and one of the things he told me was that deer eat orchid flowers because they produce a very small amount of vanillin (yes, the same as vanilla flavoring) that deer can smell and that attracts them. Yet, deer have mostly left the swamps and are on “summer range” when showy lady slippers flower, so they would not be in those places (at least not in large numbers) to eat the flowers when the plants are in bloom. That whole system is something to ponder.

By the way, Mr. Case’s account of the showy lady slipper ends with a warning: “the hairy leaves and stems of the showy lady’s slipper are extremely poisonous to some people producing in them a reaction similar to that caused by poison ivy.” I am glad I have never touched one of the plants, because I react unpleasantly to poison ivy. Then again, since it is illegal to pick those flowers on state land and the plants I know about are all in state forests, I have never had reason to touch them. My advice is to observe and enjoy, even photograph if you can do it without harming the plants, but then leave them unmolested.

You just never know what you are going to encounter in the wildlands of Michigan or where your mind will take you after the encounter. One thing is certain though – you’ve got to get outdoors to experience these wonders!

How can you help wildlife and their habitats in Michigan?

There are several easy ways you can help conserve Michigan's wildlife and their habitats:
 

• Buy a wildlife habitat license plate.
• Buy a Living Resources wildlife patch.
• Simply make a tax-deductible donation.
• Learn about creating wildlife habitat on your property

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