Sandra Yu of Detroiters Working for Environmental Justice: Eye to eyespot with an owl butterfly.
Detroit Zoo butterfly house. Sept 30, 2011
  all photos by Jonathan Schechter

Light mist was falling and winds gusting when I attended an environmental workshop at the Detroit Zoo----
"a workshop to begin a comprehensive process of assessing southeast
Michigan's knowledge of the environment and its impact on on it."
When the workshop ended a half dozen of us went out to explore the zoological grounds.
We were kids again. --A few favorite photos follow.
The zoo is great to visit with the big crowds gone, regardless of the weather.
www.detroitzoo.org

A Central American bush dog--a top predator in its limited habitat range.

Science on a Sphere  (new exhibit developed by NOAA)

                          Photo from trail camera in Houghton County   -  Michigan DNR

Allthough myth, mystery and misunderstanding surround cougars (mountain lions), what can no longer be denied is that cougars are part of the Michigan wildlife landscape, a fact confirmed again by a trail camera as another big cat returns to its ancenstral habitat. This time a stealthy ghost cat was confirmed in northern Houghton County, captured on a trail camera (photo above)  on September 24th. The press release from the Michigan DNR follows.  All good info but I always smile to myself when I read part of the standard warning "- try to appear larger than the cougar" If I wrote the warnings I would be tempted to add a slice of humor " - try not to wet yourself if you sight a cougar"   And when I head back to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore for a  night hike in a few weeks I will think of the cougars that have trekked the dune side trails. For the past several years the National Park Service has posted cougar advisory signs on those trails on our side of the big bridge connecting the two slices of wild Michigan.

DNR Confirms Presence of Cougar in Houghton County

 The Department of Natural Resources today confirmed the presence of a cougar in northern Houghton County. The animal was captured on a trail camera on Sept. 24, walking directly toward the front of the camera and clearly showing it has a radio collar.

DNR Wildlife Division staff visited the property Sept. 26 where the trail cam is mounted and verified the location of the camera. The property owner wishes to remain anonymous.

This is almost certainly the same cat as was confirmed in Ontonogan County on Sept. 8.” said Adam Bump, a wildlife biologist with the DNR’s Cougar Team. “What is also interesting is that the Wisconsin DNR earlier verified two trail camera pictures of this cat as it passed through Wisconsin on its way to the UP.”

 The DNR is still in the process of tracking down where the cougar is from and has been checking frequencies from collars of cats from South Dakota. Only western states currently have cougars collared for research projects, so the animal likely traveled a great distance to reach the Upper Peninsula.

The Department will inform the public as soon as more details are known about this cougar.

Cougars, also known as mountain lions, originally were native to Michigan but were thought to have been extirpated around the turn of the last century. The last known wild cougar taken in Michigan was killed near Newberry in 1906. However, sightings are regularly reported and although verification is often difficult, the DNR has verified sets of cougar tracks and confirmed the location of a cougar photo in the eastern Upper Peninsula in 2009 and several sets of cougar tracks in Marquette and Delta counties in 2008.

Established cougar populations are found as close to Michigan as North and South Dakota, and transient cougars dispersing from these areas have been known to travel hundreds of miles in search of new territory. Characteristic evidence of cougars include tracks, which are about three inches long by three and a half inches wide and typically show no claw marks, or suspicious kill sites, such as deer carcasses that are largely intact and have been buried with sticks and debris.

 

Reports of cougar tracks and other evidence should be made to a local DNR office or by calling the department's 24-hour Report All Poaching line at 800-292-7800. If a citizen comes into contact with a cougar, the following behavior is recommended:

- Stop, stand tall, pick up small children and do not run. A cougar's instinct is to chase.

- Do not approach the animal.

- Try to appear larger than the cougar. Never take your eyes off the animal or turn your back. Do not crouch down or try to hide.

- If the animal displays aggressive behavior, shout, wave your arms and throw rocks. The idea is to convince the cougar that you are not prey, but a potential danger.

- If a cougar attacks, fight back aggressively and try to stay on your feet. Do not play dead. Cougars have been driven away by people who have fought back.

Cougars are classified as an endangered species in Michigan. It is unlawful to kill, harass or otherwise harm a cougar except in the immediate defense of human life. For more information about the recent cougar tracks and photo, call your local DNR office to report it or report it on our website. To learn more about cougars and how to identify their tracks, go www.michigan.gov/cougars.

The Michigan Department of Natural Resources is committed to the conservation, protection, management, use and enjoyment of the state's natural and cultural resources for current and future generations. For more information, go to www.michigan.gov/dnr.

Amanita muscaria mushroom (posionous) growing in a poison ivy patch
photo courtesy of Shane McElwee

Wild edibles have been a source of fascination for me for as long as I can remember. I think
my hunter-gatherer thought process kicked in when I was five or six years old; a little explorer running barefoot through meadows and woods and puddles in rural Connecticut.
I sampled many wild treats.
 I have not killed myself yet. But there was that day down by Puget Sound when I was a graduate student at the College of Forest Resources of the University of Washington when a co-conspirator and I gathered an assortment of mussels and clams and seaweeds to make a "survival soup."
That did not go very well.
But we survived and never made that soup again.

If you follow my ramblings or have hiked with me you know I  am always preaching the goodness of what Mother Earth gives.  But now a brief warning for these early days of Autumn. Wild berries are ripe. Nuts are falling. Leaves are changing and  colorful woodland fungi is  fantastically shaped.  Before you forage remember if you are not 100% certain of identification walk away.
 And even if  Mr. Chipmunk eats  something that does not mean you can.

And now--Flying Reindeer!

Just as I was thinking about writing this blog Shane McElwee, sent a photo she took in her Ohio backyard last week. The shiny green plant is poison ivy (soon to turn red with autumn) and the colorful 'shroom is Fly Agaric (Amanita muscaria) a favorite of fairy-tale illustrators and artists, a  mushroom with both sinister and myth rich reputations. 
 Its active poisons are hallucinogenic to man and beast and have been claimed by researchers and historians to be the fungi rooted origin of Father Christmas myths in Lapland and Siberia involving reindeer that fly and strange figures clad in red and white.
Father Christmas crossed the oceans and morphed into Santa Claus.
Watch what you eat when you forage, or a mystical and mysterious figure may emerge----
or you just may die. (Call that my disclaimer of responsibility)
Edibility is not learned overnight.

A pair of dripping wet black walnuts hangs low over my porch after a morning drizzle.
photo by Jonathan Schechter

Today is the first morning of autumn. Daylight and darkness are equal. Not quite. The actual moment of equal day and night in the Northern Hemisphere occurs slightly later north of the equator.  But none of that is really important. What is important are natural signs of seasonal change, not a date on a calender.  And when black walnuts rain down like summer hail it signals me summer is over. 

 This year I will gather some of those nuts and not leave them all for my nut-happy squirrels.

Before reading more know this: 

Black walnuts usually dangle in pairs.

I went to the Internet to check methods of de-husking and stumbled on a fact I learned long ago in New England when I was a bearded, long-haired, tree-hugging,  happy young hippy absorbing everthing I could about nature and wildlife at Goddard College in Plainfield Vermont, a town with more cows than people.

 I will share that fact with you.

17th Century Swedish naturalist Carolus Linneaus was the father of systemtic botany. He developed the two-part naming system using Latin still in use today by botanists.

You knew that!

Enter the Greek God Jupiter, the Great God of the Sky and Thunder.

 One powerful dude with many female admirers. 

 I knew that!

Black walnut was named Juglans nigra, with Juglans short for "Jupiter's glands."

Go back to the picture on top and look at the nuts again:

Now you understand the rest of the nut naming story!

Greek God Jupiter with an unidentified lady friend.

He also liked hawks. Note hawk to his left. 

(photo not by me)

Northern Water Snake
all photos copyrighted by Jonathan Schechter
Crooked Lake - Independence Oaks County Park, Independence Twp, Michigan

On this final day of summer it is time for the reptiles of southern Michigan to soak in rays of
warm sunshine before the days cool, nights chill and daylight shrinks. That is their way.
In a few weeks turtles will be heading for muddy pond bottoms and most snakes will be slithering
 into their hibernaculum.  Our massasauga rattlesnakes will head for moist crayfish burrows and
spend their winter in a state of suspended animation below the frost line. 
It did not take long to find reptiles sunning their day away on my last kayak paddle of summer,
 for without external warmth they can not properly digest their meals.
All the photos are from Crooked Lake with the exception of the rattler. That native pit viper was sunning on the bike path of Indian Springs Metropark (White Lake Twp. Michigan) a month ago.

Northern water snake  Jonathan Schechter photo

Northern water snake - watching, waiting.  Jonathan Schechter photo

A garter snake swimming in crooked lake.  photo by Jonathan Schechter

I encountered a common garter snake swimming across crooked lake during my mid-day paddle.
Only the snake knew the reason; perhaps it was just a wish to get to the more exposed sunnier side.

The snake reached the sunny side and slithered up the first tree with a branch touching water.

And then it was time to streach out and soak in sun on warm tree bark.

A painted turtle found a perfect perch a few feet above the lake to position its shell towards the sun.

Another turtle sunned on a beaver chewed log inches above the water creating a perfect reflection.

Back in August an eastern massasauga rattlesnake soaked up pavement warmth on a bike trail at Indian Springs Metropark in White Lake Township, Michigan about 15 miles from Crooked Lake
photo by Jonathan Schechter

National Park Ranger Ryan Locke demonstrates the newly installed boot scraper at the
 Empire Bluff Trail  of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.
all photos by Jonathan Schechter

National Park Ranger Ryan Locke is on the front lines of a war raging at Sleeping Bear
Dunes National Lakeshore,  a quiet war being waged to combat the spread of invasive species. 
The first "boot brush station" was installed at the popular Empire Bluff Trail last month
 with additional scrapers going in at South and North Manitou Islands and Leland. 
The scrapers are aimed to raise the awarness of backpackers and casual hikers that they are
vectors in invasive species seed dispersal. The simple act of scraping your boot or shoe
against the brush before and after a trail hike removes hitchiking seeds while the well worded
colorful interpretive sign explains the science behind the war plan.

Congratulations to Ranger Locke who thought about a way to educate the public on invasive
species seed dispersal  and provide a way for the public to take immediate action.  Locke called
around to other parks with islands and then pitched the idea of a boot brush station to the National
 Park Service's Invasive Species Coordinator Marcus Key who works at Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore.
Key ran with the plan and saw to it that 55 of these stations were produced to be placed in ten
National Parks around our Great Lakes.

Locke explained the highest priority is to educate the public about the risk of transporting
 invasive species  (such as garlic mustard and spotted knapweed) in the treads of, or on the
laces of their hiking boots or hidden in camping gear to the Manitou Islands.
Do your part on your next Sleeping Bear visit:
Wipe your feet!

all photos by Jonathan Schechter

Holly State Recreation Area  (HSRA) is an 8,000 acre wildland, rich in primitive trails and 
wildlife. The site is a unit of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources located 
 in  Groveland Township east of Holly and west of Ortonville.
These photos are a supplement to the Oakland Outdoors hiking column on a night hike at
HSRA published in the  Sunday, September 18 edition of The Oakland Press 
 www.theoaklandpress.com  

Frogs are king on the lakeshores and in the wetlands of HSRA.

Lily pad is a great perch for a bug-hungry bullfrog---

and  small bugs and a brilliant yellow jacket.

A gentle breeze made for perfect sailing and hot air ballooning.

Don't eat the oddly named "Chicken of the Woods" so named because when cooked the flesh of the mushroom
resembles chicken. Eat it and you are likley to vomit. It is also called Sulpher Shelf. 
Regardless of the name the fungi of September add color to the trails!

Narrow trails are rich with targets for camera toting hikers.

Milkweed pods are draws for the curious--and the monarch butterfly.

a moment of quiet contemplation

Trail side jewelweed (spotted-touch-me-not) is at its peak color and beauty.

Hikers debate the gender of a grasshopper in Natualist Dan  Farmer's right hand!

And I munch on some tart but tasty autumn olive berries as darkness descends.

the moon rises---------

---and adds magic to the woods as a barred owl calls in the distance.

A raccoon splashed away into the night shadows of small creek  before I could click---

--as a trio of trail hikers stumbled over a log and which way to go (Don't tear her in half!).

And then it was time for the grand hot dog feast under a starry late summer night.

All photos by Jonathan Schechter (in my Brandon Twp, Michigan meadow)

Autumn olive is perhaps the most rapidly spreading plant in Michigan and a large
swath of the east and Midwest.  It is no longer just an invasive species looking for a
tentative foothold.

This berry-rich plant has conquered our landscape and late every summer the species
flames out  further  in into the landscape with the speed of a wind-driven wildfire.  
   Autumn olive, also called autumnberry  (that name tastes better in my mind) racks up
 air-miles of spreading  success because the juicy seeds are swallowed by birds and
then expelled out the other end after their travel time as tiny digestive track stowaways. 

  I know why song birds and wild turkeys,  raccoons and opossums love these berries.

They are delicious!

They are also rich in lycopene, an antioxidant compound that is exceedingly  good for you. 

  
I pick them by the handfuls straight from the bush after a morning
rain and love the sweet yet slightly acidic flavor.  The berries can also be used in jams
and pies and to make a juice. But before you head into the fields on foraging mission
based on my descriptions and photos a word of caution: A blog with pictures and
 my anecdotes does not make for 100% certain identification. Without positive
 ID you should not be munching away on berries hoping you have the right one.  

Two clues help with identification.

 1.       The back side of the narrow leaves is silvery.

2.       The berries have tiny silvery/gold specks all over them.

 Autumn olive starts out as a small spindly shrub in a field and easily grows three or
four feet its first season. From there transforms into a rough and tough monster sized bush
that can get 15 feet tall with multiple and gnarly trunks. When the plant is in full sunlight
it because super-loaded with  berries to the point that branches hang low.

 How did autumn olive get here?  Conservation agencies and sportsman organizations
in numerous states urged its planting decades ago as a plant to attract wildlife and
stabilize soil.
  "Mission accomplished"

A refreshing yet tart trail treat for the tounge while hiking trails in the waning days of summer!

Mountain lions, aso known as cougars or pumas are creatures of myth, mystery and misunderstanding.   This beautiful and magestic creature - to some a ghost in the shadows - has been making news recently with increased sightings in the Midwest, New England and New York. And for the past several years  the National  Park Service has posted cougar advisory signs on the trailheads of  our Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, one of my favorite stomping grounds.  Fact of the matter is clear--these big cats are no longer figmnents of an over active imagination. The cougar is back. This short video clip has been confirmed as authentic by the Michigan DNR and the press release has not been changed by me except for putting some sentences in body type.  It's a good read on this secretive cat, a controversial species that is difficult to study and seldom poses for a picture. And it's another nod from the Michigan DNR that past sightings that were brushed off may have well been valid.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Sept. 13, 2011

Michigan DNR Confirms Presence of Cougar in Ontonagon County

The Michigan Department of Natural Resources today confirmed the presence of a cougar in Ontonagon County. The animal was captured on a trail camera on private property on Sept. 8, walking directly toward the front of the camera and clearly showing it has an ear tag and a radio collar.

DNR Wildlife Division staff visited the property Sept. 12 where the trail cam is mounted and verified the location of the camera.

“We are pleased that the individuals that caught this animal on video reported it promptly to the DNR and allowed us to verify the location of the camera,” said Adam Bump, a wildlife biologist with the DNR’s Cougar Team. “It is a very interesting sighting given the fact that the cougar has been radio-collared and ear-tagged.”

The DNR is in the process of tracking down possibly where the cougar is from, and is contacting other states with known cougar populations. Only western states currently have cougars collared for research projects, so it is possible that the animal traveled a great distance to reach the Upper Peninsula. The Department will inform the public as soon as more details are known about this cougar.

Cougars, also known as mountain lions, originally were native to Michigan but were thought to have been extirpated around the turn of the last century. The last known wild cougar taken in Michigan was killed near Newberry in 1906. However, sightings are regularly reported and although verification is often difficult, the DNR has verified two sets of cougar tracks and confirmed the location of a cougar photo in the eastern Upper Peninsula in 2009 and several sets of cougar tracks in Marquette and Delta counties in 2008.

Established cougar populations are found as close to Michigan as North and South Dakota, and transient cougars dispersing from these areas have been known to travel hundreds of miles in search of new territory. Characteristic evidence of cougars include tracks, which are about three inches long by three and a half inches wide and typically show no claw marks, or suspicious kill sites, such as deer carcasses that are largely intact and have been buried with sticks and debris.

Reports of cougar tracks and other evidence should be made to a local DNR office or by calling the department's 24-hour Report All Poaching line at 800-292-7800.

 If a citizen comes into contact with a cougar, the following behavior is recommended:

Stop, stand tall, pick up small children and do not run. A cougar's instinct is to chase.

Do not approach the animal.

Try to appear larger than the cougar. Never take your eyes off the animal or turn your back. Do not crouch down or try to hide.

If the animal displays aggressive behavior, shout, wave your arms and throw rocks. The idea is to convince the cougar that you are not prey, but a potential danger.

If a cougar attacks, fight back aggressively and try to stay on your feet.

Do not play dead.
Cougars have been driven away by people who have fought back.

Cougars are classified as an endangered species in Michigan. It is unlawful to kill, harass or otherwise harm a cougar except in the immediate defense of human life. To learn more about cougars and how to identify their tracks, go www.michigan.gov/cougars.

The Michigan Department of Natural Resources is committed to the conservation, protection, management, use and enjoyment of the state's natural and cultural resources for current and future generations. For more information, go to www.michigan.gov/dnr.

photo by Jonathan Schechter

Today was one of those days I am glad my camera was with me even though my short
rainy morning  walk was on my own property.
  I was just about back to my house when I noticed movement.
Something was on last year's leaf/mulch pile.
 I zoomed the telephoto out -wishing I had a tripod to steady the camera - to see what caught
 my attention. Ears pointed out at me. Ears I know well.
 I was tempted to caption this photo, "Deer sits on her eggs." Maybe I will repost this next
April Fool's Day with that very caption. 
But what is actually happening is just awesome.
Decomposing leaves produce warmth.
And if you are a deer on a chilly moist morning in Michigan what better place for a morning nap!

all photos by Jonathan Schechter

There is a secret world almost within the night shadows of Grand Traverse Resort

Sunset from the window of the Aerie Resuratant and Lounge

The Grand Travese Resort has an intoxicating array of amenities in their spa,

 superb facilities and excellent customer service.

 The cusine in its 16th floor Aerie Resturant is second to none and diners

have a world class view of East Grand Traverse Bay, a left over treat from the last great glacial

 retreat. Bottom line: The 900 acres of this resort provides excellent habitat for humans.

 Those facts are well established and bring thousands of guests every season.

www.grandtraverseresort.com

What is less known is the protected wetlands and areas left unmowed by design provide

 excellent habitat for wildlife species, great and small.

Green frogs on sultry late summer nights find their cusine and dining comforts are

 also second to none if they hop over to the sidewalk.

  In late August I found myself walking on the resort sidewalk soaked by a passing

 thunderstorm that swept in off  Lake Michigan just before sunset. 

 I quickly discovered I was not alone. 

Green frogs emerged from the shadows and settled done on the warm concrete  to wait under

the lights -- and then leap for treats. 

Their entrees?  Small earthworms wiggling over the walk and bugs that flew too low.

And the frog spa? Sun warmed sidewalks and moist night breezes.

Nature always finds a way.

photos by Jonathan Schechter