Wild Notes

There’s nothing I look forward to more in May than a sun-drenched walk up the rocky trail of St. Peter’s Dome in Northern Wisconsin. Although this state natural area’s hemlock-northern hardwood forest was logged once, it has regained almost a full complement of species and some characteristics of old growth. I’m rarely able to move fast enough to get my heart rate up, but squatting to give wildflowers a closer look makes my quads burn by the end of the day, and raising my binoculars to the birds makes my shoulders ache. What’s exercised the most is my sense of awe.  

Red-eyed vireos shout from the treetops, even at noon when other birds have stopped singing. If you remembered to take note of the robin’s song with three-note phrases that alternately rise and fall (cheerily!), then you’ll be able to hear the difference now. The red-eyed vireo is less hurried and pauses between each phrase. Here I am. In a tree. Look at me! Vir-e-o! Once you recognize their song, it may become the soundtrack to your summer—at least until they head back to the Amazon in early fall.

Spring beauty petals glow pale pink with bright fuchsia stripes in the partial shade of baby maple leaves. These tiny flowers carpet the forest floor for just a few weeks each year. They are racing to attract bees, set seeds, and make sugar in their tiny leaves before the deep shade of summer descends. Once that happens, they stash all their sugar in tiny tubers nicknamed “fairy potatoes” and let their above-ground parts wither away. They are a true spring ephemeral wildflower.

Black flies hover in the breezeless understory, too. If you squash one gently, take a close look at its humpbacked appearance. It earned them the nickname “buffalo gnats.” Like mosquitoes, males subsist entirely on nectar. It’s the female black fly who will slash a little cut in your skin, inject an anti-coagulant with her saliva, and drink her fill. No matter that her “fill” is approximately 0.00006 ounces, the bite’s ill effects loom much larger. But these tiny tormenters filter water and feed tasty trout as larvae, then feed beautiful birds, dashing dragonflies, and swooping swallows as adults. We end up with bleeding, itchy, welts around wrists, beltlines, necklines, hairlines, and ankles.

Wild leeks beckon me farther into the forest with their clusters of emerald leaves. Also called ramps, the plant attempts to repel wild herbivores with pungent sulfur compounds but ends up attracting some humans. I’ve spent too many hikes breathing fire to enjoy nibbling on the garlicky leaves in situ, so I’ll gently bruise a single leaf and inhale the zest of spring. Then, later, I’ll harvest a few from a secret spot and sauté them up with farm-fresh eggs. 

Yellow-bellied sapsucker males attract a mate and defend their territory by drumming an irregular beat. The sound attracts my ears as well, and then it’s easy to spot the black-and-white body and brilliant red head-markings of the male as he scouts a potential nest hole. They are much quieter and more deliberate when tapping shallow, square sapwells in the bark of trees. First, sapsuckers eat the inner bark, then they’ll lap up the sap and nab the insects who come looking for a treat. As the tree scars over the holes, sapsuckers drill more in an organized grid.

Garter snakes can’t digest a meal if they’re too cold. So the pattern of black and yellow stripes that rustled the leaves and caught the corner of my eye—startling a shout out of me—was just a garter snake begrudgingly moving out of their sunning spot to avoid getting stepped on. All their body processes slow down when they are cold, so a garter snake mother will keep developing eggs inside her own abdomen. This allows her to optimize everyone’s temperature by moving in and out of the sun. Live birth in these non-venomous snakes occurs after 2 to 3 months. 

Queen bumble bees buzz hungrily around the forest floor. I watch as one claim a meal from a tiny flower shaped like short pants hung upside down to dry. Only bumble bees are strong enough to pry open the yellow waistbands of the Dutchman’s breech flowers to access pollen. Only their tongues are long enough to reach the nectar stored deep in the spur. Upon closer inspection, I discover that someone has chewed a hole in each nectar spur—bypassing their pollination responsibilities in favor of a free meal.

Large-flowered bellworts dangle their twisting yellow petals so conspicuously among their vibrant leaves that I don’t even need to break my stride to admire them. With flower parts in multiples of three and the parallel veins in their leaves, they are characteristic of the Lily Family. Their presence also indicates that the soil below is moist and rich.  

Aspen trees in bloom give the view from the top a bit of a fuzzy look. Up close, the pale, hairy flower clusters called catkins make it easy to remember that these trees are related to pussy willows. From the overlook at St. Peter’s Dome, a forest mosaic stretches all the way to Lake Superior. New green growth rings the wetland. Red maple trees look pink while in bloom. And a few of those aspens are already sporting tiny green leaves. 

Once spring gets going, it’s over in the blink of an eye. No matter what the calendar says, in my mind summer begins when all the tree leaves are full size. By then, the spring beauties will have wilted, the mosquitoes will be buzzing, and those red-eyed vireos will still be serenading every distracted step. Hopefully, you’ll at least have exercised your sense of awe.