Northwoods Naturalist

After roughly two years as a naturalist at Wolf Ridge, the one thing engrained in me and the way I process the outdoors are the naturalist practices: slow down, notice your surroundings, gather information, and share with others. A very simple construct, but I think in its simplicity it opens the door to complexity. As I was out exploring today I really got thinking about noticing. The first time I made my way out to the Hefflefinger cliff this past November I thought that I noticed quite a few interesting plants and lichens. On this trip I noticed my first calicioid lichens other than fairy pins (Phaeocalicium polyporaeum) and my first lichenicolous fungi, Abrothallus peyritschii. Right as I was beginning to get interested in lichens, this trip was obviously very formative to my development as a naturalist. Slowing down and zooming in, I was able to notice these extremely small lichens. As I continued to explore the area for other species and went down the rabbit hole in researching t

On Tuesday Joe and I made our way out to Palisade Head. My goal was to find Iceland lichen (Cetraria ericetorum), a rarer species in MN. At this site there is only one known clump of it, to my knowledge. Just a few days before this I had great luck finding spiny heath lichen (Cetraria aculeata) another rare species. So, I figured I'd try my luck with another set of eyes. We searched the top of Palisade for maybe an hour until I was able to find it and call Joe over.  Iceland lichen (Cetraria ericetorum) State Watchlist Species - Geographically Limited Up close The patch easily stands out from the surrounding Cladonia Joe had to leave for a meeting, but I made my way down towards the shore to check if the interesting cinquefoil I found a month or so ago was in flower. Sure enough it was! There was a variety of plants and lichens down there. Hanging fringe lichen (Anaptychia crinalis) State Special Concern Species Costal Cinquefoil (potentilla litoralis) flower Sepals They mostly gre

A month ago I first noticed the eastern orchard mason bees collecting pollen and making their nests in any cavity they could find at the stream study building. I also noticed quite a few cuckoo wasps in the genus Chrysura flying around the nests. This species acts as a kleptoparasite, laying their eggs in the nests of the mason bees. When the wasp larva hatch they will steal and eat the pollen collected by the bee. I've seen the mason bees quite often over the last month continuing to make more and more nests. Today I saw a second parasitic species, a wasp in the genus Monodontomerus. This species is a parasitoid, laying its eggs within the bodies of its prey, when the wasp larva hatch they eat their way out. Many species of wasps and bees have a diverse parasite/parasitoid community, often with hyperparasites (species that act as parasites/parasitoids on other parasitic/parasitoid species). I wonder if this species is a parasitoid of the mason bee, or the cuckoo wasp, or maybe som

Today I made my way to a large north facing cliff and talus slope on the lookout for rare and interesting plants and lichens. Recently I wrote about doing a similar adventure with John and Connor. Today I was at a different area, but saw many of the same species. After about a year of doing somewhat of a deep dive exploring the plants and lichens in this type of ecosystem, I feel like I am really starting to get the hang of identifying and finding some of the rarer species. Although there is still much much much more to learn and see.  My main hope today was finding mountain campion (Silene hitchguirei). This species was first observed in MN by Otto Gockman in 2018. This was an extremely significant find, as this species had only been reported from the Rocky Mountains, the closest (known) population to this one is probably about 1,000 miles away. Which begs the question, how did this species get here? I would assume it is likely an arctic/alpine disjunct like so many other rare species