Tonight’s the night! At 10:42 PM this evening summer officially starts at the summer solstice. The Northern Hemisphere’s tilt toward the sun will be complete and will begin its tilt back away, shortening the daily amount of sunlight received here each day and eventually cooling off the weather. The cooling won’t come for more than a month because the heat coming in currently is more than is lost at night, keeping the Northern Hemisphere warmer for now. Daylight will grow shorter until the Winter Solstice in December, when the days will slowly get longer again.

Spring wildflowers are winding down. The bright yellow explosions atop Clintonia are almost done, soon to transform themselves into the shiny blue fruits that give them their other name, blue bead. Pink ladyslippers, starflower, and wild-lily-of-valley are peaking. With the warmer temperatures wild roses, yellow loosestrife, northern blue irises, and others, especially those close to waterways should start blooming.

Now as the heat of what seems like real summer melts into the plants the flowers will come and go much faster as insects and other cold-blooded pollinators find some of the warmth they need to get energized. Bumblebees have been the most active although mourning cloaks, black and tiger swallowtails have also been active on the sunnier days.

Bird wise, the Upper Peninsula seems to be settling in but still has had a few surprises. Half a dozen trumpeter swans showed up recently on the Dead River in north Marquette above the Tourist Park Lake. This is the largest number together that has been seen on the river in recent memory. There were five on the lower end of the river last fall for quite some time, a pair with three juveniles, but this may not be the same group now joined by another bird. Young wood ducks have also been seen in the same area.

A red-headed woodpecker looks on. (Scot Stewart photo)

In Alger County a large hawk was seen over the Rock River Road, Alger Co. Rd. H-01, this past Wednesday. Believed to be a ferruginous hawk, it is a large western hawk occasionally seen wandering eastward and a very impressive hawk. Large raptors are seen from time to time in the area and they often look they could be any of a number of different species. With light breasts spotted in brown, with dark brown backs, zooming across a small space, they are really difficult to identify without a picture or video to study. This hawk was seen by one of the best birder in the area and with the preferred habitat of open areas like farm land and prairies, the area along H-01 would be a great place to look for it.

Birders hiking along Lake Superior near Wetmore’s Landing were surprised to hear a barred owl calling midday off the trail. Eventually a second was also heard. Pairs should have fledged young by now and they may have been attempting to keep track of youngsters. Unfortunately, that can create some problems during daylight hours as their calls can quickly attract the attention of crows and blue jays, eager to make a valiant show of force to drive the owls off. Usually, a quick call from a crow will quickly quiet an owl, at least until dusk.

Other new youngsters are difficult to miss. Both European starlings and common grackles are unfortunately fledging, and hogging feeders, especially suet feeder in the central U.P. Not only do they monopolize the feeders, but spend a long time there as well, often making it extremely difficult for other species to get in for a bite. Young chickadees have also been seen flittering their wings as they begged for food from their parents.

On her radio program recently, Laura Erickson discussed the ability of birds to detect a variety of different bits of information through their vision of UV light. Northern saw-whet owls have a chemical in their feathers that shows up in the owls’ vision. This chemical fades over time and may indicated the fitness or age of some birds as they choose mates. Chickadees use the process to help them determine the sex of other chickadees while seeking a mate.

Perhaps the most interesting use of this ability may lie with red-headed woodpeckers. They use their expanded UV vision to identify fungi growing on dead and dying trees. These trees may be harboring insects they are interested in. In the past 125 years the country has experienced several huge die-offs of trees. In the early 1900s, American chestnuts all but disappeared due to the chestnut blight. In the mid-1900’s Dutch elm disease, a fungus spread by beetles killed off most of the country’s American elm trees, especially those that lined many streets in the suburban Midwest.

These die-offs with the huge increase of insects for food, and dead trees for nesting, provided huge areas for the expansion of red-headed woodpeckers. Since the 1960s though,

the red-headed woodpecker population in the U.S. has decreased 55% across the country. Red-headed woodpecker sightings have increased slightly across the U.P. in the last few years though. Erickson, who lives in Duluth suggests the rise in their sightings across the area might be due, at least in part, to the tremendous die-offs of ash trees attacked and killed by emerald ash borers. A quick look at the woods in many area wetlands, especially along the Escanaba River east of U.S. 41 reveals depressingly huge stands of dead trees, but maybe a bit of hope for the woodpeckers here.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Scot Stewart is a naturalist at the MooseWood Nature Center, a writer and photographer.